Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Medication adherence: pharmacist perspective.

OBJECTIVE To provide pharmacists with a current, comprehensive review of medication adherence challenges and solutions. DATA SOURCES A computerized search of the PubMed and Medline databases (through July 2008) identified English language review articles on medication adherence using the MeSH terms patient compliance or adherence and medication, drug regimen, or treatment. STUDY SELECTION By the authors. DATA EXTRACTION The results were filtered to include those published in pharmacy journals, and 117 publications were selected based on the content of their abstracts. The final version of this review article used 55 of the 117 publications. An additional 15 publications that provided examples of specific adherence issues were included. A vignette from the authors' experience was used as a case study. DATA SYNTHESIS This article introduces the challenge of patient medication adherence, discusses the various methods by which to monitor medication adherence, describes various treatment- and condition-related barriers to adherence, and discusses the effectiveness of numerous adherence intervention strategies. CONCLUSION Nonadherence to a medication regimen may have multiple underlying causes, some of which may be easier to address than others. Open discussion between the pharmacist and patient regarding barriers to adequate medication adherence, followed by a multifaceted, personalized intervention to address these barriers, plays a key role in encouraging patients to adhere to the recommendations of the health care team.
The impact of smoke‐free laws on business revenue in hotels and licensed clubs in South Australia

centre by the clinic RN and continues in its care. RHMC provides ongoing support via regular follow-up of the client, assistance with appointments and ancillary services. The client has obtained advice and resources for safer sex practices to minimise the risk of further HIV transmission, including condoms and lubricant and advice to disclose his HIV status to current and future sex-partners. Staff of the RHMC have a specific interest and skills in the management of people with drug dependence in whom a chaotic lifestyle may lead to neglect of healthcare needs in the face of more immediate concerns related to obtaining food, shelter and money to support their drug use. In contrast to conventional medical services, the RHMC welcomes active IDUs and offers drop-in arrangements. Most clients are seen on a walk-in, first-come first-served basis, with an emphasis on informality. The anonymous and confidential access to healthcare removes barriers for individuals engaged in illegal, covert and/or stigmatised activities. Identification of this HIV case underscores how clinics of this type can extend healthcare support to the IDU subgroup, whose lifestyles put them at high risk. Co-location with NSP is a key advantage for this type of service by providing opportunistic and continuous healthcare to IDUs who face barriers to accessing care elsewhere. The brief and opportunistic healthcare advice initially provided to the client reduced the risk that some of his future and current sex partners might acquire HIV infection. Successful treatment, management and prevention of HIV requires establishing a therapeutic relationship with a range of healthcare providers. This is particularly challenging to achieve in active IDUs. Transmission of HIV among IDUs is now one of the leading modes of incident HIV infection. Provision of primary health and other services, beyond syringe distribution, is a strategy that can facilitate early diagnosis of HIV and increase the uptake of effective prevention strategies, improving the capacity of NSP services to achieve their central goal of preventing the spread of blood-borne virus infection. Hence, NSP-based primary healthcare, such as the RHMC, is a valuable component of the overall HIV prevention strategy.
Facilitating Faculty Success: Outcomes and Cost Benefit of the UCSD National Center of Leadership in Academic Medicine

Problem and Background. In 1998, the University of California San Diego (UCSD) was selected as one of four National Centers of Leadership in Academic Medicine (NCLAM) to develop a structured mentoring program for junior faculty. Method. Participants were surveyed at the beginning and end of the seven-month program, and one-four years after. The institution provided financial information. Four primary outcomes associated with participation in NCLAM were assessed: whether participants stayed at UCSD, whether they stayed in academic medicine, improved confidence in skills, and cost-effectiveness. Results. Among 67 participants, 85% remained at UCSD and 93% in academic medicine. Their confidence in skills needed for academic success improved: 53% personal leadership, 19% research, 33% teaching, and 76% administration. Given improved retention rates, savings in recruitment was greater than cost of the program. Conclusions. Structured mentoring can be a cost-effective way to improve skills needed for academic success and retention in academic medicine.
ON THE BLOOD LACTIC ACID RESPONSE TO MEASURED EXERCISE IN HYPOXIC HUMAN SUBJECTS.

When working mammalian muscle tissue is deprived of sufficient oxygen to support oxidative metabolism at a specified work load, lactic acid accumulates in the muscle cells, diffuses into the extracellular fluid and thence into the circulating blood. That the concentration of lactate in the circulating blood is a true indication of tissue lactate concentration in working muscle has been shown by Newman (1). Thus, it is theoretically possible to test the adequacy of a continuing supply of oxygen to working muscle by measuring changes that occur in blood lactate concentration following measured bouts of exercise. According to the hypothesis of Bang (2), who made extensive studies of the blood lactate response to exercise at sea level barometric pressure, all of the lactic acid formation by muscle during the transition from the resting to the working state occurs before the circulatory and respiratory responses of the organism have collaborated in delivering oxygen to the muscle at the rate required by its work load. When the intricate pattern of reflexes brought into play by the exercise have resulted in hyperpnea, increased cardiac output and local vasodilation in the working muscle, and when oxygen is delivered at a sufficiently rapid rate to support contraction aerobically, lactic acid production practically ceases. Thus, in a subject exercising at a constant rate, Bang (2) found identical blood lactate curves when the work was continued for 10, 15, or 30 minutes. During the performance of muscular work the organism must make circulatory and respiratory
HESS Opinions Catchments as meta-organisms – a new blueprint for hydrological modelling

Catchment-scale hydrological models frequently miss essential characteristics of what determines the functioning of catchments. The most important active agent in catchments is the ecosystem. It manipulates and partitions moisture in a way that supports the essential functions of survival and productivity: infiltration of water, retention of moisture, mobilization and retention of nutrients, and drainage. Ecosystems do this in the most efficient way, establishing a continuous, ever-evolving feedback loop with the landscape and climatic drivers. In brief, hydrological systems are alive and have a strong capacity to adjust themselves to prevailing and changing environmental conditions. Although most models take Newtonian theory at heart, as best they can, what they generally miss is Darwinian theory on how an ecosystem evolves and adjusts its environment to maintain crucial hydrological functions. In addition, catchments, such as many other natural systems, do not only evolve over time, but develop features of spatial organization, including surface or sub-surface drainage patterns, as a by-product of this evolution. Models that fail to account for patterns and the associated feedbacks miss a critical element of how systems at the interface of atmosphere, biosphere and pedosphere function. In contrast to what is widely believed, relatively simple, semi-distributed conceptual models have the potential to accommodate organizational features and their temporal evolution in an efficient way, a reason for that being that because their parameters (and their evolution over time) are effective at the modelling scale, and thus integrate natural heterogeneity within the system, they may be directly inferred from observations at the same scale, reducing the need for calibration and related problems. In particular, the emergence of new and more detailed observation systems from space will lead towards a more robust understanding of spatial organization and its evolution. This will further permit the development of relatively simple time-dynamic functional relationships that can meaningfully represent spatial patterns and their evolution over time, even in poorly gauged environments.
Hardy–Weinberg quality control

An efficient test of deviation from Hardy–Weinberg frequencies with one degree of freedom was applied to 44 marker loci in a genome scan, and 7 loci had a significant excess of apparent homozygotes (χ2(1) > 6) suggestive of typing error. In this example evidence for linkage did not increase when outliers were censored. Statistical quality control is an essential part of genotyping, and the effect of mistyping and map error should be considered in evaluating any genome scan.
Conferring flexibility and reconfigurability to a 26,400 microelectrode CMOS array for high throughput neural recordings

We present a highly configurable, high-temporal-and-spatial-resolution microelectrode array (MEA) system, fabricated in CMOS technology, featuring 26'400 platinum microelectrodes (5×9 μm2) with a pitch of 17.5 μm, arranged in a rectangular grid within an overall area of 3.8×2.1 mm2. The array constitutes a very flexible bidirectional interface to electrogenic cells. High-throughput, subcellular-resolution recording and stimulation of large networks of neurons enable studies of information processing and learning capabilities of neurons. An exemplary recording session demonstrates the flexibility in electrode selection and shows the system's capabilities to record from widely-spaced sets of electrodes that provide a network level overview and to subsequently perform subcellular-resolution single cell recordings of selected areas of interest.
Application of the Gingival Contour Plaque Index: Six-Month Plaque and Gingivitis Study

The Gingival Contour Plaque Index (GCPI) is a recently introduced and validated method of measuring plaque accumulation in dogs. It focuses on plaque accumulated along the gingival margin. Plaque accumulation in this area leads to gingival inflammation and, potentially, periodontitis. A 6-month plaque and gingivitis study was conducted to demonstrate the clinical research application of the GCPI, and to ensure that documented quantification of plaque-reducing efficacy could be related to a reduction in gingivitis. Advantages of the GCPI method are the ability to quantify plaque accumulation in an awake dog with fewer research personnel and more efficient time usage.
Mapk Activation Via 5-Hydroxytryptamine 1A Receptor is Involved in the Neuroprotective Effects of Xaliproden

Motoneurons require neurotrophic factors for their survival and their differentiation. Xaliproden (SR57746A) is a synthetic compound that exhibits in vivo and in vitro neurotrophic effects in several experimental studies. Here we demonstrate that neuroprotective effects of Xaliproden on motoneuron cultures are mediated by the activation of the mitogen activated protein kinase pathway. It is inhibited by PD98059, a selective and irreversible inhibitor of MEK1. The activation of this pathway seems to involve two different proteins, the protein kinase C and the Ras. Indeed, we show that Xaliproden is able to activate the MAP kinases ERK1/2 and PKC in motoneurons. In addition, the use of a 5-hydroxytryptamine 1A receptor antagonist, Pindobind and pertussis toxin, inhibits the effect of Xaliproden on motoneuron survival, suggesting the involvement of this G-protein coupled receptor. Morever, 8-OH-DPAT, an agonist of 5-hydroxytryptamine 1A receptor, increases the survival of mouse motoneurons but not by the same extent as BDNF or xaliproden. Since 8-OH-DPAT does not act synergistically with Xaliproden, it is likely that their neuroprotective properties involve a similar pathway. Taken together, these results indicate that neuroprotective effects of Xaliproden on mouse motoneurons are dependent on the mitogen-activated protein kinase activation via 5-hydroxytryptamine 1A receptor.
Attribute-driven edge bundling for general graphs with applications in trail analysis

Edge bundling methods reduce visual clutter of dense and occluded graphs. However, existing bundling techniques either ignore edge properties such as direction and data attributes, or are otherwise computationally not scalable, which makes them unsuitable for tasks such as exploration of large trajectory datasets. We present a new framework to generate bundled graph layouts according to any numerical edge attributes such as directions, timestamps or weights. We propose a GPU-based implementation linear in number of edges, which makes our algorithm applicable to large datasets. We demonstrate our method with applications in the analysis of aircraft trajectory datasets and eye-movement traces.
Multiple Blood Feeding and Host-Seeking Behavior in Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae)

ABSTRACT The body size of mosquitoes can influence a number of bionomic factors, such as their blood-feeding ability, host attack rate, and fecundity. All of these traits are important determinants of their potential to transmit diseases. Among abiotic and biotic factors, high temperature and low nutrition in the developing stages of mosquitoes generally result in small adults. We studied the relationship between body size and multiple feeding in a gonotrophic cycle and some fecundity attributes by using three strains of two competent vector species, Aedes aegypti (L.) and Aedes albopictus (Skuse). We raised small and large mosquitoes under low and high food conditions in the laboratory to measure parameters of fecundity and blood-feeding behavior. Fecundity was positively correlated with body size in both species, whereas the number of bloodmeals, the frequency of host-seeking behavior, and egg retention were negatively correlated with body size in the Ae. albopictus Nagasaki strain. We found that multiple feeding and host-seeking behavior were negatively correlated with body size, i.e., small mosquitoes tended to have more contact with hosts. We found that two mechanisms that inhibit engorged mosquitoes from seeking out hosts, distension-induced and oocyte-induced inhibition, were not strong enough to limit host-seeking behavior, and multiple feeding increased fecundity. Size-dependent multiple feeding and host-seeking behavior affect contact frequency with hosts and should be considered when predicting how changes in mosquito body size affect disease transmission.
Parallel Auto-tuned GMRES Method to Solve Complex Non-Hermitian Linear Systems

Solving a linear system in a minimum time is a key factor in many scientific fields. It is possible to reduce time of computation for a given linear system by using auto-tuning and adaptive parameters. We propose auto-tuning within the GMRES solver by changing the value of the restart parameter dynamically in order to reduce the time of computation. We outline the limits of our heuristic through sequential an parallel experiments on complex-valued non-hermitian non-symmetric matrices including Helmholtz matrices.
On the evaluation of Six Sigma projects

Most of the research on the success in implementing Six Sigma agrees upon the fact that one of the key success factors is the selection of profitable projects. This seems to be especially important for high‐risk, large‐scope and long‐term projects, as is mostly the case in the design for Six Sigma projects. The purpose of this paper is to outline Six Sigma project characteristics and to present a new model for evaluating Six Sigma projects. To design a Six Sigma project evaluation model, we utilized mathematical optimization modeling techniques and real options theory. The model allows for the quantification of not only the project's value prior to its start but also its progress and the consideration of possible decisions based on this progress. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Transformation of the archaebacterium Halobacterium volcanii with genomic DNA

We describe optimization of a transformation system for the halophilic archaebacterium Halobacterium volcanii. Transformation of spheroplasts in the presence of polyethylene glycol permits the uptake and expression of high-molecular-weight linear fragments of genomic DNA as well as plasmid or bacteriophage DNA. Transformations can be performed with either fresh or frozen cell preparations. Auxotrophic mutants were transformed to prototrophy with genomic DNA from wild-type cells with efficiencies of 5 x 10(4)/micrograms of DNA and frequencies of 8 x 10(-5) per regenerated spheroplast. The overall efficiency of transformation with genomic DNA implies that genetic recombination is an efficient process in H. volcanii.
Searching for protein–protein interaction sites and docking by the methods of molecular dynamics, grid scoring, and the pairwise interaction potential of amino acid residues

In CAPRI Rounds 1 and 2, we assumed that because there are many ionic charges that weaken electrostatic interaction forces in living cells, the hydrophobic interaction force might be important entropically. As a result of Rounds 1 and 2, the predictions for binding sites and geometric centers were acceptable, but those of the binding axes were poor, because only the largest benzene cluster was used for generating the initial docking structures. These were generated by fitting of benzene clusters formed on the surface of receptor and ligand. In CAPRI Rounds 3–5, the grid‐scoring sum on the protein–protein interaction surface and the pairwise potential of the amino acid residues, which were indicated as coming easily into the protein–protein interaction regions, were used as the calculation methods, along with the smaller benzene clusters that participated in benzene cluster fitting. Good predicted models were obtained for Targets 11 and 12. When the modeled receptor proteins were superimposed on the experimental structures, the smallest ligand root‐mean‐square deviation (RMSD) values corresponding to the RMSD between the model and experimental structures were 6.2 Å and 7.3 Å, respectively. Proteins 2005;60:289–295. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An approach to fuzzy control of nonlinear systems: stability and design issues

Presents a design methodology for stabilization of a class of nonlinear systems. First, the authors represent a nonlinear plant with a Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model. Then a model-based fuzzy controller design utilizing the concept of the so-called "parallel distributed compensation" is employed. The main idea of the controller design is to derive each control rule so as to compensate each rule of a fuzzy system. The design procedure is conceptually simple and natural. Moreover, the stability analysis and control design problems can be reduced to linear matrix inequality (LMI) problems. Therefore, they can be solved efficiently in practice by convex programming techniques for LMIs. The design methodology is illustrated by application to the problem of balancing and swing-up of an inverted pendulum on a cart.
Compenstion of phase voltage error in unbalanced 3-phase at integrated ESS and UPS system

In this paper, integrated Energy Storage System(ESS) and Uninterruptible Power Supply(UPS) is suggested. Integrated ESS and UPS system not only improves the efficiency but also prevents the grid voltage error situation. Using this system, change of characteristic at the load makes unbalanced 3-phase voltage. The comparison shows considerable discrepancy between sensed phase voltage and actual phase voltage, when unbalance situation occurs. This discrepancy makes difficult to detect accurate phase voltage error, so it is hard to satisfy the standard for switching ESS to UPS system. In this paper, integrated ESS and UPS system is suggested. And also analyzed unbalanced 3-phase voltage, and compensated the error voltage to actual voltage magnitude.
Racetrack Coils for Dedicated MRI Magnets

The need to optimize the magnet shape, size and region of homogeneity with respect to the anatomy of the patient is particularly strong in dedicated MRI magnet design: cost and weight are often determining factors for success in the market. An elongated coil geometry could be useful in cases where the scanner is designed for imaging non axisymmetric parts of the human body (e.g. extremities): in this paper we present a fast design method based on Linear Programming (LP), in which racetrack coils are used to optimize the magnetic field homogeneity over an ellipsoidal region, together with some results.
Mycoplasma agassizii causes upper respiratory tract disease in the desert tortoise

The desert tortoise is listed by the United States government as a threatened species in part of its range. A major contributing factor in the decline of this animal has been the presence of an upper respiratory tract disease (URTD) which is characterized by a chronic disease which eventually leads to severe occlusion of the nares with viscous exudate and destruction of the respiratory epithelium. Electron microscopy of infected tissues demonstrated the presence of a mycoplasma-like organism attached to the respiratory surfaces. The mycoplasma was isolated and designated as a new species, with the proposed name Mycoplasma agassizii. The current study was designed to fulfill Koch's postulates and determine if M. agassizii was the etiologic agent of URTD. Clinically healthy animals with known antibody status were infused intranasally with pooled exudate (n = 8) from ill donor animals, with M. agassizii alone (n = 9) or in combination with Pasteurella testudinis (n = 8), with P. testudinis alone (n = 9), or with sterile broth (n = 12). The pooled exudate was culture positive for M. agassizii. Tortoises which received exudate or M. agassizii alone or in conjunction with P. testudinis were significantly more likely to develop clinical disease (P < 0.0004) than animals which received P. testudinis alone or the broth controls. Tortoises demonstrated a strong immune response to M. agassizii, and seroconversion was seen in all groups with clinical disease. M. agassizii was isolated from the upper respiratory tracts of clinically ill animals up to 6 months postinfection. On the basis of the results of these transmission studies, we conclude that M. agassizii is an etiologic agent of URTD in the desert tortoise.