Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dimensions of medication adherence in African Americans with type 2 diabetes in rural North Carolina

PURPOSE Personal perceptions and beliefs are one of the least studied patient factors influencing medication adherence. This study explored adherence experiences of rural African Americans with type 2 diabetes in rural southeastern North Carolina. METHODS Social-ecological theory guided a mixed methods approach. The Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) assessed adherence. Clinical variables (HgA1c, fasting glucose levels, current medications) were obtained from medical records. Pearson correlation coefficients examined associations between demographics, clinical variables, and MMAS scores. Narrative data obtained from open-ended questions were analyzed through content analysis. RESULTS The study enrolled 45 rural residents with longstanding type 2 diabetes (11 years, 31% on insulin). The majority of MMAS scores (63%) reflected low adherence (<6); 30% averaged moderate adherence (6 to <8). Males had poor metabolic control (HgA1c 9.0); female glycemic control was moderately good (7.2). Adherence was associated with having health insurance (r = .594, p = .001) and working for pay (r = .440, p = .05). Participants frequently underused medications without consulting a provider; financial limitations served as a major barrier. Perceptions that diabetes only occurs when "sugar is high" are inconsistent with the course of this chronic disease. CONCLUSIONS High levels of nonadherence remain a major challenge for nursing care providers in economically distressed rural counties.
Collaborating in a virtual team; the challenges of purpose, people and technology

This paper reports on the results of an ethnographic study of a virtual team project in the travel and tourism industry. Key elements that contributed to the team’s ability to work effectively and gain benefit are identified and discussed within the context of the case. It was found that the caretaker/gatekeeper role of the project leader made a significant contribution to overcoming problems arising from project complexity. However, the lack of commitment to a range of information technologies heightened the reliance on periodic face-to-face meetings to provide an environment that supported team interactions.
Predicting electrical storms by remote monitoring of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator patients using machine learning

Aims Electrical storm (ES) is a serious arrhythmic syndrome that is characterized by recurrent episodes of ventricular arrhythmias. Electrical storm is associated with increased mortality and morbidity despite the use of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs). Predicting ES could be essential; however, models for predicting this event have never been developed. The goal of this study was to construct and validate machine learning models to predict ES based on daily ICD remote monitoring summaries. Methods and results Daily ICD summaries from 19 935 patients were used to construct and evaluate two models [logistic regression (LR) and random forest (RF)] for predicting the short-term risk of ES. The models were evaluated on the parts of the data not used for model development. Random forest performed significantly better than LR (P < 0.01), achieving a test accuracy of 0.96 and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80 (vs. an accuracy of 0.96 and an AUC of 0.75). The percentage of ventricular pacing and the daytime activity were the most relevant variables in the RF model. Conclusion The use of large-scale machine learning showed that daily summaries of ICD measurements in the absence of clinical information can predict the short-term risk of ES.
MRI demonstrates glutamine antagonist-mediated reversal of cerebral malaria pathology in mice

Significance Cerebral malaria (CM) is the deadliest complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection, resulting in a 15 to 25% mortality rate in African children despite antimalarial chemotherapy. Tragically, nearly a fourth of pediatric CM survivors suffer long-term neurological sequelae. There is an urgent public health and humanitarian need for therapies for CM. In a mouse model of CM, we used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor infected mice longitudinally as CM progressed and noninvasively demonstrate that the edema and blood–brain barrier dysfunction, which ultimately result in death, are rapidly reversed by treatment with the glutamine antagonist JHU-083. The similarities between CM MRI shown in mice and those reported in children and adults suggest that glutamine antagonists may be effective CM therapies. The deadliest complication of Plasmodium falciparum infection is cerebral malaria (CM), with a case fatality rate of 15 to 25% in African children despite effective antimalarial chemotherapy. No adjunctive treatments are yet available for this devastating disease. We previously reported that the glutamine antagonist 6-diazo-5-oxo-l-norleucine (DON) rescued mice from experimental CM (ECM) when administered late in the infection, a time by which mice had already suffered blood–brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction, brain swelling, and hemorrhaging. Herein, we used longitudinal MR imaging to visualize brain pathology in ECM and the impact of a new DON prodrug, JHU-083, on disease progression in mice. We demonstrate in vivo the reversal of disease markers in symptomatic, infected mice following treatment, including the resolution of edema and BBB disruption, findings usually associated with a fatal outcome in children and adults with CM. Our results support the premise that JHU-083 is a potential adjunctive treatment that could rescue children and adults from fatal CM.
Contribution of Thyrotropin-Releasing Hormone to Cerebellar Long-Term Depression and Motor Learning

Thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) regulates various physiological activities through activation of receptors expressed in a broad range of cells in the central nervous system. The cerebellum expresses TRH receptors in granule cells and molecular layer interneurons. However, the function of TRH in the cerebellum remains to be clarified. Here, using TRH knockout (KO) mice we studied the role of TRH in the cerebellum. Immunohistochemistry showed no gross morphological differences between KO mice and wild-type (WT) littermates in the cerebellum. In the rotarod test, the initial performance of KO mice was comparable to that of WT littermates, but the learning speed of KO mice was significantly lower than that of WT littermates, suggesting impaired motor learning. The motor learning deficit in KO mice was rescued by intraperitoneal injection of TRH. Electrophysiology revealed absence of long-term depression (LTD) at parallel fiber-Purkinje cell synapses in KO mice, which was rescued by bath-application of TRH. TRH was shown to increase cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) content in the cerebellum. Since nitric oxide (NO) stimulates cGMP synthesis in the cerebellum, we examined whether NO-cGMP pathway was involved in TRH-mediated LTD rescue in KO mice. Pharmacological blockade of NO synthase and subsequent cGMP production prevented TRH-induced LTD expression in KO mice, whereas increase in cGMP signal in Purkinje cells by 8-bromoguanosine cyclic 3’,5’-monophosphate, a membrane-permeable cGMP analog, restored LTD without TRH application. These results suggest that TRH is involved in cerebellar LTD presumably by upregulating the basal cGMP level in Purkinje cells, and, consequently, in motor learning.
NEW RECORDS OF LONG-LEGGED FLIES (DIPTERA: DOLICHOPODIDAE) FROM IRAN

In this study, the following six long-legged fly species (Diptera, Dolichopodidae) collected in the East Azerbaijan province during 2010-2013 are new records for the Iranian fauna: Chrysotimus molliculus (Fallen, 1823); Hercostomus apollo (Loew, 1869); Hydrophorus balticus (Meigen, 1824); Medetera meridionalis Negrobov, 1967; Orthoceratium lacustre (Scopoli, 1763) and Poecilobothrus principalis (Loew, 1861). General geographic distribution of the species and supplementary figures are provided.
Decision Making: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry.

Abstract : A conference on decision making held in March 1981, brought together prominent researchers from Behavioral Decision Making, Human Problem Solving, and Organizational Decision Making to compare their theoretical positions, methods, and applications. The conference was organized with the expectation that dialogue between these researchers would be fruitful in clarifying fundamental conceptual questions, research strategies, and assumptions that would eventually lead to integrative or convergent research. The twenty-five papers, to be published in a forth-coming book, highlight the lively and stimulating exchange of ideas. (Author)
Synthesis and characterization of Fe3O4@Ag core-shell: structural, morphological, and magnetic properties

This paper is a report on the synthesis of the Fe3O4@Ag core-shell with high saturation magnetization of magnetite nanoparticles as the core, by using polyol route and silver shell by chemical reduction. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analyses confirmed that the particles so produced were monophase. The magnetic properties of the product were investigated by using a vibrating sample magnetometer. Magnetic saturation of magnetite was 91 emu/g that around about bulk magnetization. This high saturation magnetization can be attributed to the thin dead layer. By using polyethylene glycol as a surfactant to separate and restrict the growth of the particles, magnetostatic interactions are in good agreement with the remanence ratio analysis. Morphology and the average size of the particles were determined with field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). Spherical aggregates of Fe3O4 (size around 73 nm) are composed of a small primary particle size of about 16 nm. Silver deposition was done using butylamine as the reductant of AgNO3 in ethanol with different ratio. The silver layers were estimated using statistical histogram images of FESEM. Silver-coated iron oxide nanohybrids have been used in a broad range of applications, including chemical and biological sensing, due to the broad absorption in the optical region associated with localized surface plasmon resonance.
The BackPack Food Program's effects on self-reported hunger and on-task behavior

Variations of the BackPack Food Program are implemented in cities and states throughout the nation, however little is known regarding the effects that providing this food has on student performance in school. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the BackPack Food Program’s effectiveness in combating student’s hunger over the weekends and school breaks, thus decreasing student’s self-reported hunger levels. Additionally, this study attempted to analyze the program’s effects on student’s on-task behavior in the classroom. Over the course of three semesters, hunger surveys were evaluated for 82 students and observations of on-task behavior were recorded for 52 students. Statistical analysis indicated that reports of hunger did not decrease significantly and on-task behavior did not increase significantly. Several limitations must be considered when interpreting the results of this study. Therefore, results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research. FOOD PROGRAM’S EFFECT ON HUNGER AND BEHAVIOR 2 In a nation of plenty, childhood hunger and food insecurity continues to be a problem. Food insecurity (also referred to as food scarcity in the literature) refers to food scarce homes where families do not have access at all times to enough food to maintain an active and healthy lifestyle (Barrett, 2002; Nord & Parker, 2010; Rodgers & Milewska, 2007; United States Department of Agriculture, 2010). In 2009, 50.2 million Americans lived in food scarce homes; 17.2 million were children (Feeding America, 2011). The level of food insecurity a household encounters can range from mild to severe and can fluctuate over time. In extreme food scarce homes at least one family member goes hungry at some point during the year because the household cannot afford to purchase enough food (Rodgers & Milewska, 2007). Effects of Food Scarcity Characteristically, families who are living at or below the poverty line have experienced some form of food insecurity at least once. Children living in food scarce homes are less likely to have access to healthy foods that are nutrient-dense (Dunifon & Kowaleski-Jones, 2003). In addition, these children are more likely to consume foods that have a high-calorie, high-fat content because of the convenient, inexpensive nature of these foods (Winicki & Jemison, 2003). It can reasonably be expected that the frequent consumption of high-calorie, high-fat foods may lead to complicated health problems such as obesity. Similarly, the limited access to nutrientrich foods put this group of children at risk not only for physical health concerns, but also delays in mental and social development (Lozoff, Jimenez, Hagen, Mollen, & Wolf, 2000; United States Department of Agriculture, 2010). Ramey, Campbell, and Ramey (1999) point out that poverty and poor nutrition are among the social and biological risk factors for poor intellectual
Suppression of axial growth by boron incorporation in GaAs nanowires grown by self-catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy

The addition of boron to GaAs nanowires grown by self-catalyzed molecular beam epitaxy was found to have a strong effect on the nanowire morphology, with axial growth greatly reduced as the nominal boron concentration was increased. Transmission electron microscopy measurements show that the Ga catalyst droplet was unintentionally consumed during growth. Concurrent radial growth, a rough surface morphology and tapering of nanowires grown under boron flux suggest that this droplet consumption is due to reduced Ga adatom diffusion on the nanowire sidewalls in the presence of boron. Modelling of the nanowire growth puts the diffusion length of Ga adatoms under boron flux at around 700–1000 nm. Analyses of the nanowire surfaces show regions of high boron concentration, indicating the surfactant nature of boron in GaAs.
Knee Biomechanics during Side-Step Cutting and Performance on Return toSport Tests: Retrospective Analysis Following Anterior Cruciate Ligament Re-Injury

Objective: Re-injury rates following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) are elevated compared to rates for initial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. The purpose of this study was to examine three-dimensional knee mechanics in an individual who had undergone an ACLR and then went on to re-injure that reconstructed ACL. Methods: The primary subject was a female soccer player, 18 months post-ACLR, who then re-injured her ACL 3 months after biomechanical testing and return to sport (RTS) testing. We conducted 3-dimensional biomechanical testing of her knee mechanics and performance on return to sport (RTS) tests prior to her ACL re-injury. In addition, we compared her knee mechanics prior to re-injury to a control group of healthy female soccer athletes to determine if any biomechanical differences existed that may have indicated risk for ACL re-injury. Results: Our findings indicate that altered lower extremity biomechanics, previously associated with increased risk of ACL injury, are present following ACLR and return to sports participation despite a lack of marked bilateral differences in performance on return to sport tests. Conclusion: These findings are consistent with those in the literature suggesting that subjects’ post-ACLR may be adopting a strategy that minimizes loading at the knee joint. While it is not known if this biomechanical pattern increases the risk for a re-injury event, it suggests that there are deficits present following ACLR that may not be addressed with rehabilitation and recognized with RTS testing prior to return to sports participation. These findings point to an important gap in the literature with regards to clinical predictors of ACL re-injury.
Sunitinib in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors: updated progression-free survival and final overall survival from a phase III randomized study

Background In a phase III trial in patients with advanced, well-differentiated, progressive pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, sunitinib 37.5 mg/day improved investigator-assessed progression-free survival (PFS) versus placebo (11.4 versus 5.5 months; HR, 0.42; P < 0.001). Here, we present PFS using retrospective blinded independent central review (BICR) and final median overall survival (OS), including an assessment highlighting the impact of patient crossover from placebo to sunitinib. Patients and methods In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, cross-sectional imaging from patients was evaluated retrospectively by blinded third-party radiologists using a two-reader, two-time-point lock, followed by a sequential locked-read, batch-mode paradigm. OS was summarized using the Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model. Crossover-adjusted OS effect was derived using rank-preserving structural failure time (RPSFT) analyses. Results Of 171 randomized patients (sunitinib, n = 86; placebo, n = 85), 160 (94%) had complete scan sets/time points. By BICR, median (95% confidence interval [CI]) PFS was 12.6 (11.1-20.6) months for sunitinib and 5.8 (3.8-7.2) months for placebo (HR, 0.32; 95% CI 0.18-0.55; P = 0.000015). Five years after study closure, median (95% CI) OS was 38.6 (25.6-56.4) months for sunitinib and 29.1 (16.4-36.8) months for placebo (HR, 0.73; 95% CI 0.50-1.06; P = 0.094), with 69% of placebo patients having crossed over to sunitinib. RPSFT analysis confirmed an OS benefit for sunitinib. Conclusions BICR confirmed the doubling of PFS with sunitinib compared with placebo. Although the observed median OS improved by nearly 10 months, the effect estimate did not reach statistical significance, potentially due to crossover from placebo to sunitinib. Trial registration number NCT00428597.
The value of being innovative in information technology

We developed this paper in order to better understand the effects of being innovative in the use of Information Technology (IT). Through a measure for listed companies that are innovative in IT use, we developed a quantitative analysis considering the investments made by institutional investors in these companies. As institutional investors, the sample includes observations from 2,880 mutual funds, since managers of these funds are presumed to be experts in choosing good companies to invest financial resources. Regarding the companies’ stocks, the final sample of this study is comprised of 592 observations during the period from 2013 to 2015. The main result obtained in this paper indicates that “innovative companies in IT use” receive more investments from institutional investors when compared with the other firms. These results are robust to other variables presented by academic literature as relevant factors to understand resources allocation in financial market.
D, L-lysine acetylsalicylate + glycine Impairs Coronavirus Replication

Coronaviruses (CoV) belong to the large family Coronaviridae within the order of Nidovirales. Among them, several human pathogenic strains (HCoV) are known to mainly cause respiratory diseases. While most strains contribute to common cold-like illnesses others lead to severe infections. Most prominent representatives are SARSCoV and MERS-CoV, which can lead to fatal infections with around 10% and 39% mortality, respectively. This resulted in 8098 casualties in the 2002/2003 SARS-CoV outbreak and in 1806 documented human infections (September 2016) during the recent on-going MERS-CoV outbreak in Saudi Arabia. Currently patients receive treatment focusing on the symptoms connected to the disease rather than addressing the virus as the cause. Therefore, additional treatment options are urgently needed which would ideally be widely available and show a broad affectivity against different human CoVs. Here we show that D, L-lysine acetylsalicylate + glycine sold as “Asprin i.v. 500mg®” (LASAG), which is an approved drug inter alia in the treatment of acute pain, migraine and fever, impairs propagation of different CoV including the highly-pathogenic MERS-CoV in vitro. We demonstrate that the LASAG-dependent impact on virus-induced NF-κB activity coincides with (i) reduced viral titres, (ii) decreased viral protein accumulation and viral RNA synthesis and (iii) impaired formation of viral replication transcription complexes.
Encoding prior knowledge in the structure of the likelihood

The inference of deep hierarchical models is problematic due to strong dependencies between the hierarchies. We investigate a specific transformation of the model parameters based on the multivariate distributional transform. This transformation is a special form of the reparametrization trick, flattens the hierarchy and leads to a standard Gaussian prior on all resulting parameters. The transformation also transfers all the prior information into the structure of the likelihood, hereby decoupling the transformed parameters a priori from each other. A variational Gaussian approximation in this standardized space will be excellent in situations of relatively uninformative data. Additionally, the curvature of the log-posterior is well-conditioned in directions that are weakly constrained by the data, allowing for fast inference in such a scenario. In an example we perform the transformation explicitly for Gaussian process regression with a priori unknown correlation structure. Deep models are inferred rapidly in highly and slowly in poorly informed situations. The flat model show exactly the opposite performance pattern. A synthesis of both, the deep and the flat perspective, provides their combined advantages and overcomes the individual limitations, leading to a faster inference.
Hybrid prevalence estimation: Method to improve intervention coverage estimations

Significance Over the last 2 decades, low- and middle-income countries have moved from fragmented paper-based systems to electronic health information systems (HIS). Although these are a major advance, they are not well suited to drive operational policy decisions and detect gaps in service coverage. To avoid overreliance on administrative estimates from HIS, probability surveys of population coverage are increasingly used operationally. By combining the probability survey and HIS data, a hybrid prevalence estimate can be generated that can be used to validate and/or moderate HIS administrative estimates of coverage. Delivering excellent health services requires accurate health information systems (HIS) data. Poor-quality data can lead to poor judgments and outcomes. Unlike probability surveys, which are representative of the population and carry accuracy estimates, HIS do not, but in many countries the HIS is the primary source of data used for administrative estimates. However, HIS are not structured to detect gaps in service coverage and leave communities exposed to unnecessary health risks. Here we propose a method to improve informatics by combining HIS and probability survey data to construct a hybrid estimator. This technique provides a more accurate estimator than either data source alone and facilitates informed decision-making. We use data from vitamin A and polio vaccination campaigns in children from Madagascar and Benin to demonstrate the effect. The hybrid estimator is a weighted average of two measurements and produces SEs and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the hybrid and HIS estimators. The estimates of coverage proportions using the combined data and the survey estimates differ by no more than 3%, while decreasing the SE by 1–6%; the administrative estimates from the HIS and combined data estimates are very different, with 3–25 times larger CI, questioning the value of administrative estimates. Estimators of unknown accuracy may lead to poorly formulated policies and wasted resources. The hybrid estimator technique can be applied to disease prevention services for which population coverages are measured. This methodology creates more accurate estimators, alongside measured HIS errors, to improve tracking the public’s health.