Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of Salient Beliefs Affecting Mothers’ Intention to Adherence to Dietary Diversity in their Children's Complementary Feeding

Background: Providing a variety of foods has been emphasized as one of the most important features of optimal complementary feeding. This study investigated key beliefs that guide mothers’ intention to adherence to dietary diversity in their 1–2-year-old children's complementary feeding. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study involving 290 mothers (mean age = 27, standard deviation = 5.32) with child 1–2-year-old attending maternal and child health section of health centers in Rasht, Iran. To represent the socioeconomic status of the participants, 6 centers out of 15 were selected from three different socioeconomic areas (low-, middle-, and high-income areas). Mothers completed a questionnaire assessing intention and belief-based items of theory of planned behavior. Correlations and multiple regression analyses were performed. Results: The mean age of mothers was 27 ± 5.33 (27–43 years). Regression analyses revealed that among behavioral beliefs, the perception that adherence to dietary diversity would lead to improve children's growth was the significant predictor of intention (β = 0.13, P = 0.04). Regarding normative beliefs, perceived social pressure from health-care professionals to adherence to dietary diversity significantly predicted intention (β = 0.15, P = 0.01). Among control beliefs, the perception that daily pressures made difficult adherence to dietary diversity was the key determinant (β = 0.19, P = 0.01). Conclusions: Findings of this study represent the important beliefs that can be addressed in development planning aimed at modifying mothers’ child complementary feeding practices.
Tree Approximation and Optimal Encoding

Tree approximation is a new form of nonlinear approximation which appears naturally in some applications such as image processing and adaptive numerical methods. It is somewhat more restrictive than the usual n-term approximation. We show that the restrictions of tree approximation cost little in terms of rates of approximation. We then use that result to design encoders for compression. These encoders are universal (they apply to general functions) and progressive (increasing accuracy is obtained by sending bit stream increments). We show optimality of the encoders in the sense that they provide upper estimates for the Kolmogorov entropy of Besov balls.
Use of niflumic acid to determine the nature of the asymmetry of the human erythrocyte anion exchange system

Niflumic acid is a noncompetitive inhibitor of chloride exchange, which binds to a site different from the transport or modifier sites. When the internal Cl- concentration is raised, at constant extracellular Cl- , the inhibitory potency of niflumic acid increases. This effect cannot be attributed to changes in membrane potential, but rather it suggests that niflumic acid binds to the anion exchange protein band 3 only when the transport site faces outward. When the chloride gradient is reversed, with Clo greater than Cli , the inhibitory potency of niflumic acid decreases greatly, which indicates that the affinity of niflumic acid for band 3 with the transport site facing inward is almost 50 times less than when the transport site faces outward. Experiments in which Cli = Clo show no significant change in the inhibition by niflumic acid when Cl- is lowered from 150 to 10 mM. These data suggest that the intrinsic dissociation constants for Cl- at the two sides of the membrane are nearly equal. Thus, the chloride- loaded transport sites have an asymmetric orientation like that of the unloaded transport sites, with approximately 15 times more sites facing the inside than the outside. The asymmetry reflects an approximately 1.5 kcal/mol free energy difference between the inward-facing and outward-facing chloride-loaded forms of band 3. High concentrations of chloride (with Cli = Clo), which partially saturate the modifier site, have no effect on niflumic acid inhibition, which indicates that chloride binds equally well to the modifier site regardless of the orientation of the transport site.
Depressive Symptoms and Endogenous Physical Activity: An Ordered Probability Approach

Depression is a serious mental disorder which affects more than 350 million people of all ages worldwide in the 2012 and physical activity is generally believed to be effective in combating depressive symptoms. This study investigates the effects of regular physical activity and sociodemographic factors on depressive symptoms for both men and women. Data for this study come from the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and an ordered probability model with binary endogenous physical activity is developed to accommodate the ordinal nature of depression outcomes. Results suggest that physical activity is most beneficial for mild and moderate depressed individuals and the effect of regular physical activity is most notable on mild depressed females. In addition, socio-demographic factors are found to vary significantly between gender, and factors of age, income, race, education, employment status and recent mental health condition play important roles in affecting depressive symptoms.
Performance Evaluation of Temporal Range Registration for Unmanned Vehicle Navigation

Abstract : In this paper, we evaluate the performance of an iterative registration algorithm for position estimation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) operating in unstructured environments. Field data obtained from trials on UGVs traversing undulating outdoor terrain is used to quantify the performance of the algorithm in producing continual position estimates. These estimates are then compared with those provided by ground truth to facilitate the performance evaluation of the algorithm. Additionally, we propose performance measures for assessing the quality of correspondences. These measures, collectively, provide an indication of the quality of the correspondences thus making the registration algorithm more robust to outliers as spurious matches are not used in computing the incremental transformation.
Standardization of the Human Cytomegalovirus Antigenemia Assay by Means of In Vitro-Generated pp65-Positive Peripheral Blood Polymorphonuclear Leukocytes

ABSTRACT We generated in vitro human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) pp65-positive polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMN) resembling those detected in vivo, following cocultivation of PMN from healthy donors and wild-type HCMV-infected endothelial cells or fibroblasts. After purification, PMN are suitable for preparation of cytospots which can be used for the antigenemia assay. Cytospin preparations containing a predetermined number of in vitro-generated pp65-positive PMN were used to test some of the major parameters involved in performing the antigenemia assay. The results showed or confirmed that (i) formalin fixation followed by permeabilization is the best fixation procedure developed to date, (ii) the test performance levels provided by different pools of pp65-specific monoclonal antibodies may be significantly different, and (iii) long-term storage (for an unlimited time) is best achieved by keeping fixed slides at −80°C, whereas short-term storage (for up to 1 month) is best achieved by keeping unfixed slides at room temperature. This finding signifies that slides can be shipped all over the world at room temperature. In conclusion, the newly developed procedure for in vitro generation of pp65-positive PMN will provide the basis for standardization of the HCMV antigenemia assay and development of quality control programs.
On the mechanism of wing size determination in fly development

A fundamental and unresolved problem in animal development is the question of how a growing tissue knows when it has achieved its correct final size. A widely held view suggests that this process is controlled by morphogen gradients, which adapt to tissue size and become flatter as tissue grows, leading eventually to growth arrest. Here, we present evidence that the decapentaplegic (Dpp) morphogen distribution in the developing Drosophila wing imaginal disk does not adapt to disk size. We measure the distribution of a functional Dpp-GFP transgene and the Dpp signal transduced by phospho-Mad and show that the characteristic length scale of the Dpp profile remains approximately constant during growth. This finding suggests an alternative scenario of size determination, where disk size is determined relative to the fixed morphogen distribution by a certain threshold level of morphogen required for growth. We propose that when disk boundary reaches the threshold the arrest of cell proliferation throughout the disk is induced by mechanical stress in the tissue. Mechanical stress is expected to arise from the nonuniformity of morphogen distribution that drives growth. This stress, through a negative feedback on growth, can compensate for the nonuniformity of morphogen, achieving uniform growth with the rate that vanishes when disk boundary reaches the threshold. The mechanism is demonstrated through computer simulations of a tissue growth model that identifies the key assumptions and testable predictions. This analysis provides an alternative hypothesis for the size determination process. Novel experimental approaches will be needed to test this model.
Resilience Builder Program for Children and Adolescents: Enhancing Social Competence and Self-Regulation, a Cognitive-Behavioral Group Approach by Alvord, M. K., Zucker, B., and Grados, J. J.

Resilience Builder is an impressive, inventive, and thoroughly ambitious curriculum for social skills groups. The authors offer a structured group framework with multiple options for responsive-to-the-group, nuanced work. The interventions are well thought out, sequenced, formatted, and concrete enough for beginners. There is plenty of room for a more experienced practitioner to modify, replace, or omit parts per the needs of a member or the group as a whole. The homework and parent involvement expectation is an effective practice, recognizing that the family has the bulk of the investment and work to capitalize on the stimulus the group offers. This social skills curriculum is grounded in and connected throughout by a focus on teaching and building resilience through proactive group intervention. Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) theory and strategies are used to help youngsters to develop the competencies associated with resilience. The approach targets several “protective” factors that promote flexibility to cope with life’s challenges, including the ability to take the initiative, to modulate emotions and behavior, to connect and maintain relationships with peers, adults, and community, and to be engaged in activities that interest them. Based on their research, the authors organized the protective factors into six broad categories, forming the basis of the Resilience Builder Program (RBP): (1) a proactive orientation toward life; (2) the ability to regulate one’s attention, emotions, and behaviors; (3) social connections and attachments; (4) development and acknowledgment of special talents; (5). a strong community; and (6) proactive parenting. The program is designed to use these six areas to guide intervention and is based on the belief that children can learn concrete skills in each of these areas of resilience and therefore navigate life more competently. The manual is divided into two parts and five chapters plus appendixes. Part I explains the RBP in detail and gives a background in literature on resilience as well as practical guidelines for practitioners from basics such as group formation through evaluation. Chapter 1 defines and describes aspects of resilience and shares the rationale for a CBT approach.
Role of MED1 (MBD4) Gene in DNA repair and human cancer

The human protein MED1, also known as MBD4, was isolated in a yeast two‐hybrid screening as an interactor of the mismatch repair protein MLH1. MED1 contains an N‐terminal 5‐methylcytosine binding domain (MBD), which allows binding to methylated DNA, and a C‐terminal catalytic domain with homology to bacterial DNA damage‐specific glycosylases/lyases. This suggests that DNA methylation may play a role in human DNA repair. MED1 acts as a mismatch‐specific DNA N‐glycosylase active on thymine, uracil, 5‐fluorouracil and, weakly, 3,N4‐ethenocytosine paired with guanine. The glycosylase activity of MED1 prefers substrates in which the G:T mismatch is present in the context of methylated or unmethylated CpG sites. Since G:T mismatches can originate via spontaneous deamination of 5‐methylcytosine to thymine, MED1 appears to act as a caretaker of genomic fidelity at CpG sites. Mutagenesis caused by these deamination events is a frequent mechanism of genetic instability in cancer; thus, based on the biochemical activity of its gene product, MED1 is a candidate tumor suppressor gene. Indeed, frameshift mutations of the MED1 gene have been reported in human colorectal, gastric, endometrial, and pancreatic cancer. In the future, efforts should be directed toward investigations of the functional role of the MED1 gene in the pathogenesis, prevention, and treatment of human cancer. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bridging the Evaluation Gap Challenge to Diagnostic Labeling of Pulmonary Nodules

Diagnosis of focal anomalies in medical images can be aided by automatic labeling and rating of visual features representing medically meaningful diagnostic characteristics as observed by trained image clinicians and radiologists. Prediction performance remains unsatisfactory and significant challenges persist in evaluating the system performance due to the uncertainty about sources of poor performance: whether the problems enter in 1) the measurement and selection of image features, 2) the prediction and classification methods, or 3) the ground truth provided by radiologists. Earlier work explored a diversity of features and modeling methods but no studies have evaluated the ground truth as a cause of poor performance, mainly due to lack of measurement techniques. This paper introduces a disagreement index to systematically study the disagreement on nodules, characteristics, and detection levels towards understanding which characteristics are more predictable and measuring radiologists' agreement patterns towards developing strategies for building and training future models for predicting diagnostic characteristics.
Family Member Identification from Photo Collections

Family photo collections often contain richer semantics than arbitrary images of people because families contain a handful of specific individuals who can be associated with certain social roles (e.g. father, mother, or child). As a result, family photo collections have unique challenges and opportunities for face recognition compared to random groups of photos containing people. We address the problem of unsupervised family member discovery: given a collection of family photos, we infer the size of the family, as well as the visual appearance and social role of each family member. As a result, we are able to recognize the same individual across many different photos. We propose an unsupervised EM-style joint inference algorithm with a probabilistic CRF that models identity and role assignments for all detected faces, along with associated pair wise relationships between them. Our experiments illustrate how joint inference of both identity and role (across all photos simultaneously) outperforms independent estimates of each. Joint inference also improves the ability to recognize the same individual across many different photos.
Data quality management in a business intelligence environment: From the lens of metadata

Business Intelligence is becoming more pervasive in many large and medium-sized organisations. Being a long term undertaking Business Intelligence raises many issues that an organisation has to deal with in order to improve its decision making processes. Data quality is one of the main issues exposed by Business Intelligence. Within the organisation data quality can affect attitudes to Business Intelligence itself, especially from the business users group. Comprehensive management of data quality is a crucial part of any Business Intelligence endeavour. It is important to address all types of data quality issues and come up with an all-in-one solution. We believe that extensive metadata infrastructure is the primary technical solution for management of data quality in Business Intelligence. Moreover, metadata has a more broad application for improving the Business Intelligence environment. Upon identifying the sources of data quality issues in Business Intelligence we propose a concept of data quality management by means of metadata framework and discuss the recommended solution.
The Nature and Function of Neologism in the Speech of Three Persian-Speaking Groups

Neologism is found in some psychiatric and neurological patients and some normal children but with different features. To identify the nature and find the function of neologism, this study has examined the nonwords in the speech of 3 Persian speaking groups: 2 schizophrenic individuals with positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions and thought disorder), 2 conduction aphasic patients affected by stroke and 5 normal children, both from a linguistic and psycho-neurolinguistic perspectives. The results along with the issues of previous literature showed there are substantive linguistic, neurological and psychological differences in the neologism of the three mentioned groups. The obtained features of the neologism in the three groups have been classified and briefly defined for the objectives. Classifying the features of neologism in order to identify its nature may help to recognize it, in the case of patients as a symptom of some disorders, and in normal children as a phase of language and cognition development process.
Bartonella bacilliformis: A Systematic Review of the Literature to Guide the Research Agenda for Elimination

Background Carrion's disease affects small Andean communities in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador and is characterized by two distinct disease manifestations: an abrupt acute bacteraemic illness (Oroya fever) and an indolent cutaneous eruptive condition (verruga Peruana). Case fatality rates of untreated acute disease can exceed 80% during outbreaks. Despite being an ancient disease that has affected populations since pre-Inca times, research in this area has been limited and diagnostic and treatment guidelines are based on very low evidence reports. The apparently limited geographical distribution and ecology of Bartonella bacilliformis may present an opportunity for disease elimination if a clear understanding of the epidemiology and optimal case and outbreak management can be gained. Methods All available databases were searched for English and Spanish language articles on Carrion's disease. In addition, experts in the field were consulted for recent un-published work and conference papers. The highest level evidence studies in the fields of diagnostics, treatment, vector control and epidemiology were critically reviewed and allocated a level of evidence, using the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) guidelines. Results A total of 44 studies were considered to be of sufficient quality to be included in the analysis. The majority of these were level 4 or 5 (low quality) evidence and based on small sample sizes. Few studies had been carried out in endemic areas. Conclusions Current approaches to the diagnosis and management of Carrion's disease are based on small retrospective or observational studies and expert opinion. Few studies take a public health perspective or examine vector control and prevention. High quality studies performed in endemic areas are required to define optimal diagnostic and treatment strategies.
Auditory Discrimination After Left-Hemisphere Stroke: A Mismatch Negativity Follow-Up Study

Background and Purpose— We sought to determine the recovery of cortical auditory discrimination in aphasic, left-hemisphere-stroke patients by using an electrophysiological response called mismatch negativity (MMN) and speech-comprehension tests. Methods— MMN in 8 left-hemisphere stroke patients was recorded in response to duration and frequency changes in a repetitive, harmonically rich tone 4 and 10 days and again 3 and 6 months after their first unilateral stroke. Eight age-matched, healthy persons served as control subjects. Results— At 4 days after stroke onset, patients’ sound discrimination was impaired in their left hemisphere, as suggested by attenuated MMNs, especially to right-ear stimuli. At 3 months after stroke, however, MMN to the right-ear duration change had significantly increased and was of normal size. A significant change for the frequency MMN was found for left-ear stimuli between 3 and 6 months after stroke. During the follow-up period, progressive improvement in speech-comprehension tests was also observed. Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between the change in the duration MMN amplitude and the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination speech-comprehension test from 10 days to 3 months after stroke. Conclusions— These results suggest that the MMN can be used as an index of the recovery of auditory discrimination.
Unique Cryptosporidium Population in HIV-Infected Persons, Jamaica

A cryptosporidiosis survey showed the presence of Cryptosporidium hominis, C. parvum, C. canis, and C. felis in 25, 7, 1, and 1 HIV-positive persons from Jamaica, respectively; 1 person had both C. hominis and C. felis. Multilocus sequence typing indicated the presence of a homogeneous but geographically distinct C. hominis population in Jamaica.
Controlled hypotension to minimize blood loss of anaemic Jehovah's witness patient undergoing total hip and shoulder replacement.

A Jehovah's Witness with disabling rheumatoid arthritis, and a normocytic, normochromic anaemia, underwent on separate occasions a staged total hip and a shoulder replacement. Controlled hypotension with therapeutic doses of sodium nitroprusside was used to minimize blood loss, and haemodiluoon with crystalloid fluids was used to maintain normal cardiac output
Individual Inconsistency and Reliability of Measurement1

THE concept of reliability of measurement is clearly not as simple and static as standard definitions often imply. Reliability is not an all or none criterion which, if once satisfied, is invariant for a given measuring instrument, for different groups, or for different testing conditions. Reliability may also be examined in relation to a given measure for a given individual, thus implying the relevance of examining specific individual factors contributing to unreliability. Unreliability, Thorndike’s “error variance” (1951), can be seen as being composed of two classes of elements: (1) characteristics of the observer and the environment; and (2) characteristics of the individual. The first group is composed of such factors as poor testing conditions, careless investigators, inaccurate calculations and numerous other factors which are external to the individual being examined. Included in individual characteristics are aspects such as test-taking ability, response sets, response styles and guessing habits. Reliability of measurement implies more than consistency of response over a time interval. Rather, reliability can be discussed in two different framemorks-test-retest reliability (stability) and internal consistency reliability. Test-retest reliability refers to the stability of measurement across some time interval. Stability de-