Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-reported hypertension treatment practices among primary care physicians: blood pressure thresholds, drug choices, and the role of guidelines and evidence-based medicine.

BACKGROUND Primary care physician treatment practices affect the rate of hypertension control to the goal of 140/90 mm Hg. Awareness of and agreement with national hypertension management guidelines, and grounding in evidence-based medicine principles, may be important determinants of practice. METHODS A 26-item mail questionnaire was sent to a national sample of 1200 primary care physicians. The questionnaire elicited (1) the blood pressure (BP) criteria physicians use to initiate and intensify hypertension treatment, (2) first-line drug treatment choices, (3) familiarity with the Joint National Committee on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC) hypertension treatment guidelines, and (4) familiarity with research methods used to develop evidence-based medicine guidelines. The analysis focused on (1) determining the percentage of physicians who reported treatment practices consistent with JNC recommendations and (2) the relation between familiarity with JNC guidelines, evidence-based medicine methods, and reported treatment practices. RESULTS The overall response rate was 34%, with no important differences in demographic or professional training variables between respondents and nonrespondents. For middle-aged patients with uncomplicated hypertension, 33% of physicians would not start drug therapy unless the diastolic BP was greater than 95 mm Hg, and 43% would not start unless the systolic BP was greater than 160 mm Hg. In patients without complications who were receiving drug treatment, 25% of physicians would not intensify therapy for a persistent diastolic BP of 94 mm Hg, and 33% would not intensify therapy for a systolic BP of 158 mm Hg. Physicians were generally less aggressive in older patients. Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors were the most common first-line drug choice. Forty-one percent of physicians had not heard of or were not familiar with the JNC guidelines. In multiple logistic regression models, familiarity with the JNC guidelines was associated with lower treatment thresholds, and increased familiarity with research methods was associated with greater use of diuretics or beta-blockers as first-line agents. CONCLUSIONS Many physicians have higher BP thresholds for the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension than the 140/90 mm Hg criterion recommended by the JNC. Therefore, further improvements in population hypertension control will require physician behavior change. Physician practice is associated with awareness of practice guidelines and familiarity with evidence-based medicine methods, but the precise nature and extent of this relation requires further study.
Optimization of alkaline phosphatase gene expression in E. coli

Alkaline phosphatase is an enzyme with widespread use in research and industry such as protein labeling, dephosphorylation of nucleic acids, and enzyme based biosensors. In the present study, alkaline phosphatase gene was inserted into the pET15b vector. The recombinant DNA was then expressed using IPTG as an inducer. The expression of this enzyme was optimized by changing expression conditions such as IPTG concentration, time, and temperature. The obtained results demonstrate that with the expression system used, large quantities of active alkaline phosphatase can be produced in E. coli.
Type II protein secretion by Pseudomonas aeruginosa: genetic suppression of a conditional mutation in the pilin‐like component XcpT by the cytoplasmic component XcpR

Pseudomonas aeruginosa exports a number of hydrolytic enzymes and toxins using the type II or general secretion pathway, found in a variety of Gram‐negative bacteria and requiring the functions of at least 12 gene products (XcpP–Z and PilD/XcpA in P. aeruginosa). A number of these gene products are homologues of components of the type IV pilus biogenesis system, including four proteins, XcpT–W, which are highly similar to the pilin subunit in their size, localization and post‐translational modifications. These proteins, in addition to the pilin subunit, are cleaved and methylated by the PilD/XcpA prepilin peptidase, but their interactions with other components of the export apparatus are unclear. Using a medium developed for the selection of export‐proficient P. aeruginosa strains, we have isolated temperature‐sensitive mutations in the xcpT gene and extragenic suppressors for one of the mutants. These suppressors fall into two classes, one that maps outside of the xcpP–Z gene cluster and may define additional cellular functions that are required for export, and a second that maps to the xcpR gene product and indicates a potential protein–protein interaction connecting two different cellular compartments and required for the assembly or function of the export apparatus.
Influences of Plant Species, Season and Location on Leaf Endophytic Bacterial Communities of Non-Cultivated Plants

Bacteria are known to be associated endophytically with plants. Research on endophytic bacteria has identified their importance in food safety, agricultural production and phytoremediation. However, the diversity of endophytic bacterial communities and the forces that shape their compositions in non-cultivated plants are largely uncharacterized. In this study, we explored the diversity, community structure, and dynamics of endophytic bacteria in different plant species in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve of northern Oklahoma, USA. High throughput sequencing of amplified segments of bacterial rDNA from 81 samples collected at four sampling times from five plant species at four locations identified 335 distinct OTUs at 97% sequence similarity, representing 16 phyla. Proteobacteria was the dominant phylum in the communities, followed by the phyla Bacteriodetes and Actinobacteria. Bacteria from four classes of Proteobacteria were detected with Alphaproteobacteria as the dominant class. Analysis of molecular variance revealed that host plant species and collecting date had significant influences on the compositions of the leaf endophytic bacterial communities. The proportion of Alphaproteobacteria was much higher in the communities from Asclepias viridis than from other plant species and differed from month to month. The most dominant bacterial groups identified in LDA Effect Size analysis showed host-specific patterns, indicating mutual selection between host plants and endophytic bacteria and that leaf endophytic bacterial compositions were dynamic, varying with the host plant’s growing season in three distinct patterns. In summary, next generation sequencing has revealed variations in the taxonomic compositions of leaf endophytic bacterial communities dependent primarily on the nature of the plant host species.
Capacitively coupled electrical stimulation treatment: results from patients with failed long bone fracture unions.

OBJECTIVE To determine the extent to which capacitively coupled electrical stimulation (CCEST) at a long bone fracture site can promote healing of nonunited fractures. DESIGN Sixteen patients with nonunited fractures of nine to seventy-six months were treated with CCEST. Thirteen patients had previously undergone one or more surgical procedures, and the other three had been given plaster casts. A sixty-three-kilohertz, six-volt peak-to-peak sine wave signal was applied across two forty-millimeter-diameter stainless steel plates placed on the skin at opposite sides of the fracture site. The device was used for up to thirty weeks until either healing occurred or it was removed after this period and considered to have failed. RESULTS Eleven of the nonunions achieved union at an average of fifteen weeks of stimulation. The only significant factor determining the success of healing was the distance between the plates; a distance of eighty millimeters or less resulted in healing in all cases. Healing was not affected significantly by any of the following factors: whether or not the nonunion had been treated surgically prior to stimulation, whether or not it had been infected, whether or not the patient bore weight after treatment, or by the presence or absence of metal at the fracture site from previous surgery. CONCLUSIONS These findings confirm those of previous studies that CCEST promotes bone healing of fracture nonunions. The dependence of healing on the interplate distance suggests that maintaining sufficient current across the plates is necessary to allow healing, which for larger bones may be achieved by increasing the area of the plates, the applied voltage, or the excitation frequency of the stimulation signal.
Joint resource allocation and dynamic base station activation in energy harvesting HetNets

We jointly investigate resource allocation along with dynamic activation of energy harvesting base stations in a two-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet) under energy harvesting as well as interference constraints. Considering the varying channel condition, user activity, and arrival of harvested energy in different time slots, we determine resource allocation and dynamic activation of energy harvesting base stations in the small cells (hotspots) to optimize the trade-off between throughput performance of the hotspot users and the associated power cost, while satisfying the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of all hotspot and macrocell users. To optimize the trade-off, we associate positive reward for the achievable throughput of the hotspot users and negative reward for the corresponding non-renewable power consumption at the small base station or macro base station and maximize the net reward over a number of time slots. We propose an offline resource allocation algorithm using discrete binary particle swarm optimization and dual decomposition technique. We use numerical results to analyze and compare the performance of the proposed algorithm with two baseline schemes.
Factors affecting adhesion of Fibrobacter succinogenes subsp. succinogenes S85 and adherence-defective mutants to cellulose

Fibrobacter succinogenes subsp. succinogenes S85, formerly Bacteroides succinogenes, adheres to crystalline cellulose present in the culture medium. When the cells are suspended in buffer, adhesion is enhanced by increasing the ionic strength. Heat, glutaraldehyde, trypsin, and pronase treatments markedly reduce the extent of adhesion. Treatment with dextrinase, modification of amino and carboxyl groups with Formalin or other chemical agents, and inclusion of either albumin (1%) or Tween 80 (0.5%) do not decrease the degree of adhesion. Adherence-defective mutants isolated by their inability to bind to cellulose exhibited different growth characteristics. Class 1 mutants grew on glucose, cellobiose, amorphous cellulose, and crystalline cellulose. Class 3 mutants grew on glucose and cellobiose but not on amorphous or crystalline cellulose. No substantial changes were detected in the endoglucanase, cellobiosidase, and cellobiase activities of the wild type and the mutants. These data suggest that adhesion to crystalline cellulose is specific and that it involves surface proteins.
Immigrant Trajectories into Homeownership: A Temporal Analysis of Residential Assimilation 1

Homeownership is an important symbol of a middle-class standard of living and residential assimilation in the United States. This study explores the rate of advancement into homeownership of immigrants, relative to native borns, in Southern California, a principal region of immigrant settlement. Application of a double cohort method enables longitudinal trends for immigrants, due to both aging and assimilation, to be distinguished from the cohort levels observable by cross-sectional techniques. Recent immigrants as well as young native borns are newcomers to the housing market and have lower attainment levels than earlier arrivals or older cohorts. Cohort trajectories are tracked from 1980 to 1990, adjusting for the influence of income, education, English proficiency, and marital status. Asian immigrants achieved extraordinarily high levels of homeownership soon after arrival, whereas Hispanic immigrants demonstrated sustained advancement into homeownership from initially very low levels.
Functional consequences and population differences in the developmental plasticity of muscle to temperature in Atlantic herring Clupea harengus

The development of the axial muscles was investigated in Atlantic herring Clupea harengus from 2 spring-spawning (Clyde and Blackwater) and 1 autumn-spawning (Manx) popula- tions in 2 successive years. The results indicate significant developmental differences between stocks. Myofibril synthesis and the development of acetylcholinesterase activity at the neuromuscular junctions occurred later with respect to embryonic stage at 5°C than at 8 and 12°C in Clyde herring, with much less pronounced differences between temperatures for the other populations. In a second series of experiments, Clyde herring were incubated at 5 and 12°C until shortly after hatching, and then reared at ambient temperature in triplicate tanks. The 5°C group had a faster growth rate than the 12°C group with respect to effective day-degrees from hatch. However, flexion of the notochord and the development of the dorsal and anal fin ray muscles occurred at shorter body lengths in the 12 than 5°C groups. The maximum escape velocity of larvae during fast-starts was determined using a high-speed video. Over the size range 11.2 to 18.5 mm total length, the adjusted mean maximum velocity was 24% higher in larvae hatched from 12 than 5°C eggs. Cruising swimming behaviour also differed between groups with the 12°C larvae showing reduced yaw relative to the 5°C larvae, indicating a more developmentally advanced sub-carangiform style of locomotion.
Obfuscrypt: A Novel Confidentiality Technique for Cloud Storage

In today’s IT industry, the more sophisticated data storage is cloud storage. Cloud storage mainly helps Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) to reduce their investments and maintenance of storage servers. Most of SMEs are outsourcing their data to cloud storage. Users’ data that are sent to the cloud have to be stored in the public cloud environment. Data stored in the cloud storage might mingle with other users’ data. This will lead the data protection issue in cloud storage. If the confidentiality of cloud data is broken, then it will cause loss of data to the industry. Security of cloud storage is ensured through confidentiality parameter. To ensure confidentiality, the most commonly used technique is encryption. But encryption alone doesn’t give maximum protection to the data in the cloud storage. To have efficient cloud storage confidentiality, this paper uses encryption and obfuscation as two different techniques to protect the data in the cloud storage. Based on the type of data, encryption and obfuscation can be applied. Encryption can be applied to alphabets, alphanumeric and symbols. Obfuscation can be applied to numeric type of data. Applying encryption and obfuscation techniques on the cloud data will provide more protection against unauthorized usage. Confidentiality could be achieved with a combination of encryption and obfuscation.
Structure classification‐based assessment of CASP3 predictions for the fold recognition targets

The sequences of at least 23 of the 43 CASP3 targets showed no significant similarity to the sequences of known structures. The experimental structures of all but three of these 23 targets revealed substantial similarities to known structures, with at least eleven of the target structures likely being distantly homologous to known structures. Nineteen of the 23 target structures were available at the time of the final CASP3 meeting in Asilomar in December 1998, whereas the experimental data on the protein folds of the remaining four targets were obtained afterwards. The predicted three‐dimensional structures for each of the 23 targets were analyzed to select those predictions sharing with the experimental structures a similar overall fold and/or having correctly folded a substantial fraction of the target sequence. Initially, predicted models were numerically evaluated and the evaluation results aided the selection process. Each target structure was then classified to identify a minimal set of structural features characteristic to its protein fold and evolutionary superfamily. The predictions containing this set were assessed comparatively to find the best predictions for each target. The predictions of new folds were assessed separately. The total number of the selected `correct' predictions and the quality of these predictions were used to compare the performance of different predictor teams and different prediction methods in the fold prediction/recognition category. Proteins Suppl 1999;3:88–103. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Worker turnover and job reallocation in Taiwanese manufacturing

The paper examines time-series patterns of job and worker flows in a newly industrializing economy (NIE). Using plant-level data from the Taiwan manufacturing sector, the cyclical behaviour of job reallocation and its relation with worker turnover is analysed. It is found that job reallocation and labour turnover are procyclical, at both the aggregate and (two-digit) industry levels. The share of worker turnover caused by gross job reallocation is 17%, suggesting the majority of observed worker turnover reflects rotations of positions that are neither created or destroyed. There is substantial heterogeneity in plant-specific job and worker turnover patterns. Job creation and job destruction rates are higher among small plants and private-sector plants. The private plants are more dynamic than public plants in terms of worker turnover. Controlling for year and industry effects, it is found that job creation and worker turnover are both higher in export-oriented industries.
Social Media Analytics Based Product Improvement Framework

In the traditional world, marketing studies managed to employ various techniques to explore customers' consensual experiences toward products with limited information available. The uses of surveys, focus groups or regular individual interviews are some of the frequently used methods by marketers. We are now entering in the era of Big Data. The explosion and profusion of the unprecedented scale of heterogeneous data available in this new era allow us to acquire further insights and knowledge about the market for improving the quality of products. In this paper, we present a Social Media-based Product Improvement Framework (SM-PIF) which is capable of deriving recommendations for product improvement and subsequently increase the product's market competitiveness. The recommendation generated by the SM-PIF is expected to be more accurate and less biased than traditional methods due to its "Big Data" nature.
Failure of Energy Mega-Projects in Chile: A Critical Review from Sustainability Perspectives

A number of successive energy crises over the last decade due to the lack of a balanced investment planning in the energy sector in Chile has led to a strong dependence on external sources and also doubled energy prices in the country, thus posing a significant challenge to the local economy. With the purpose of reaching long-term goals while simultaneously addressing short-term urgencies, Chile seeks to build a consistent and integrated energy policy in order to attract investment in the sector. Despite an overall attractive investment climate and encouraging market conditions in the country, the energy sector has been adversely affected, in particular, by the communities’ opposition to mega-projects based on their expected environmental and social impacts. The study highlights recent experiences of energy generation mega-projects in terms of addressing aspects of sustainability. Based on these experiences, it discusses underdeveloped role of environmental evaluations and the main regulatory challenges ahead, recommending then public policies to effectively address these challenges.
Low Folate and the Risk of Cognitive and Functional Deficits in the Very Old: The Monzino 80-plus Study

Objective: To cross sectionally investigate the association of serum vitamin B12 and folate concentrations with cognitive and functional ability in the very old in the general population. Methods: Serum vitamin B12 and folate concentrations were assessed in 471 consenting subjects participating in the Monzino 80-plus study (mean age: 87.4 years), a door-to-door population-based survey among very old subjects living in Northern Italy. Cognitive and functional evaluations included Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) and Spontaneous Behavior Interview-basic Activities of Daily Living (SBI-bADL). Results: MMSE, IADL and SBI-bADL scores were all significantly correlated with folate concentrations (respectively: r = 0.36, r = −0.39, r = −0.35; p < 0.0001), while no significant associations were found with vitamin B12 concentrations. When entered into multiple linear regression analyses with several covariates, folate showed a highly significant, curvilinear association with both cognitive and functional scores (p < 0.0001). Subjects in low and middle folate tertiles had significantly higher odds ratios for dementia (p < 0.0001; adjusted ORs = 5.40 and 6.56, lower 95% CIs 2.53 and 3.11, higher 95% CIs 12.73 and 15.29). Conclusions: Findings of this population-based study suggest that subclinical folate deficiency may represent a risk factor for the cognitive decline associated with aging that could contribute to AD as well as other dementia development.
Compensation for Source Non-Stationarity in Multi-Reference, Scan-Based Nearfield Acoustical Holography

Multi-reference, scan-based Nearfield Acoustical Holography is a useful measurement tool when insufficient microphones are available to measure a complete hologram at once. When the sound sources are stationary, this procedure can be used to construct a complete hologram by joining together sub-holograms captured using a relatively small scan array. Here that approach is extended by the development of a formulation that explicitly includes the acoustical transfer functions between the reference microphones and the scanning microphones. Based on those expressions, a source-non-stationarity compensation procedure is proposed. It has been verified both numerically and experimentally that this procedure can help suppress spatially distributed noise caused by the source level non-stationarity that is always present in a measurement.
Use of Insulin in Type 2 diabetes : when Maximal Oral Therapy Fails

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