Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thailand’s national alcohol survey as a policy monitoring tool

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to assess to what extent the Smoking and Alcohol Drinking Behavior Survey (SADBeS), the national alcohol survey, could be used in monitoring goals and cost-effective measures suggested by the National Alcohol Strategy (NAS) issued by public health authorities in 2010. Design/methodology/approach The NAS was reviewed. Strategies, measures, and corresponding indicators were extracted. Questionnaire items used in the 2014 SADBeS were assessed in comparison with those indicators. Findings Four primary indicators indicate overall success of the NAS. In all, 6 out of 15 measures were in accordance with best-buy or good-buy policies – cost-effective policies suggested by the World Health Organization. After excluding indicators unlikely to be obtained from population-based surveys, the SADBeS could be used in monitoring 5 out of 14 indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy measures. Of 103 questionnaire items, 26.2 percent of items could be used to monitor primary indicators of the NAS; 34.0 percent could be used to estimate indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy measures. Overall, only 35.0 percent of questionnaire items provided useful information for monitoring primary indicators and cost-effective measures suggested in the NAS. Practical implications The SADBeS questionnaire items should be added or replaced to cover feasibly obtained indicators corresponding to best-buy or good-buy policies in the next wave of the survey. Originality/value This is the first study addressing the compatibility between the national strategy and the national alcohol survey. It also includes the overview of Thailand’s alcohol strategy, which is, to the author’s knowledge, never presented in any English articles.
Assessing the economic costs of unhealthy diets and low physical activity: An evidence review and proposed framework.

Unhealthy diets and low physical activity contribute to many chronic diseases and disability; they are responsible for some 2 in 5 deaths worldwide and for about 30% of the global disease burden. Yet surprisingly little is known about the economic costs that these risk factors cause, both for health care and society more widely.
Family Effects on Student Achievement in Hong Kong

We examine the effects of family structures and processes on student achievement in Hong Kong. Specifically, we show that the negative effects of single parenthood in past studies are not universal. In Hong Kong, 4,405 15-year-old students completed a questionnaire, and tests in reading, mathematics and science. We analysed the data using multilevel models of Rasch test scores and Warm estimated indices of questionnaire items. In all subjects, the scores of children living with single parents did not differ significantly from those of children living with two parents. Moreover, students living with no parents had lower reading and science scores than other students, and this effect was mediated by lower family investment and involvement.
The Dichotomy of Auxiliaries in Javanese: Evidence from Two Dialects

Cole et al. find that auxiliary fronting in yes–no questions divides auxiliaries in the dialect of Peranakan Javanese as spoken in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia into two types: low auxiliaries that can front and high auxiliaries that cannot. In my research on two geographically distinct dialects of Javanese (Paciran Javanese, spoken in Paciran, East Java; and Standard Javanese, spoken in Yogyakarta and Solo, Central Java), I broach the question of whether this division is a feature of only Peranakan Javanese, given the uniqueness of this dialect. I present results from two different methods (elicitation and a Likert-type rating task via a questionnaire), showing that this division holds for auxiliary fronting in both Paciran Javanese and Standard Javanese. These results suggest that the division of auxiliaries is a property that holds across all dialects of Javanese. In further exploration of the structural properties of the two types of auxiliaries in Javanese, I show that two other syntactic constructions—VP-topicalization and Subject–auxiliary answers to yes–no questions—also exhibit the same dichotomy of auxiliaries in both dialects, where only low auxiliaries are grammatical. I offer significant amendments to Cole et al.'s analysis of auxiliary fronting in Javanese to account for these additional constructions.
Factors Affecting the Development of Cardiovascular Events Among Patients with End-Stage Renal Disease Undergoing Hemodialysis in Sudan

Purpose: This study aimed to determine factors that affected the development of new onset cardiovascular events among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) undergoing hemodialysis (HD) at the Khartoum HD centers in Sudan. Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted among anemic ESRDpatients undergoing HD at Khartoum State HD centers. A total of 1015 patients undergoing HD were recruited from 12 HD centers. A standardized data collection form was used for collecting the required data. Logistic regression analysis was performed. Results: Of 1015 recruited patients, 534 (52.6%) were included in the final analysis; the 481 patients who were excluded comprised 194 (19.1%) patients who were transferred to other centers, 165 (16.3%) who died, 84 (8.3%) who were lost during follow-up, and 38 (3.7%) who underwent renal transplantation. The significant factors that affected the development of new cardiovascular events in 154 (28.8%) anemic ESRD patients were advanced age [for patients aged 45-64 years: odds ratio (OR), 1.94; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.18-3.18; p=0.009 and for patients aged ≥65 years: OR, 10.88; 95% CI, 6.12-19.33; p<0.001] and obstructive uropathy (OR, 2.33; 95%, 1.34-4.03; p=0.003). Conclusion: Advanced age and obstructive uropathy were important factors that significantly affected the development of cardiovascular events in patients. The detection and control of risk factors for cardiovascular events in patients with ESRD are important for the prevention or control of cardiovascular events.
Adenosine deaminase deficiency: current treatments and emerging therapeutics

ABSTRACT Introduction: Adenosine deaminase (ADA) deficiency is a systemic metabolic disorder characterized by severe immune and non-immune abnormalities and is often fatal in infancy. ADA deficiency can be treated by allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), ADA enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) or ex vivo gene therapy (GT). Areas covered: This article discusses the different treatment options currently available for ADA deficiency, remaining challenges and expected developments. Expert opinion: Experts in ADA deficiency should manage this complex disease, as a patient’s individual factors often determine treatment course. Unconditioned HSCT from an HLA identical sibling is the preferred option. ERT can provide short-term benefits for patients without such donors, or until other definitive treatments are established. Commercial gamma-retrovirus GT, currently available only in Italy, or investigational lentivirus GT have, to date, been shown to be safe, although long-term follow up is needed to determine their continued effectiveness. Therefore, GT should be considered for patients without an appropriate HSCT donor and when families are able to travel to Italy or participate in research protocols. Additional studies into the pathogenesis of ADA deficiency and the effects of the different treatment modalities will assist in determining the ideal management for individual patients.
Picasso

Rejecting the notion that Picasso's representations of faces should always be considered in a biographical context as portraits, it is argued that in considering them as human faces we encounter a crisis in the idea of an essential humanity. The essay then discusses Picasso's faces relation to Georges Bataille's treatment of vernacular portrait photography and of animality in human emotional expression, arguing that Picasso's human faces court the inhuman. This inhuman countenance, bred so effectively in the artist's work in the 1930s and 1940s, raises in turn the question of the origin of the human in the inhuman. Turning to Bataille's discussion of the cave of Lascaux, discovered in 1940 and made to stand for the question of humanity posed so brutally by the war, the essay analyses the irruption of the origin of the human ideal in the sovereign act of the depiction of animality. A double refusal of destinies, of animality and of humanity, is caught before our eyes in such depictions. This temporal suspension of destinies is read back into Picasso's (in)human faces.
Molecular Genetics and Developmental Physiology: Implications for Designing Better Forest Crops

ABSTRACT Current tree biology related to tree genetics and breeding has two important developments that have not well been integrated in the literature. The first is the physiological and biochemical dissection of plant yield, whereas the second is the genetic mapping based on molecular markers, such as RFLPs, RAPDs, AFLPs, and microsatellites. Genetic mapping has revolutionized traditional quantitative genetic analysis by which the genetic variation of a character is described in terms of its mean and (co)variance without the knowledge of the underlying genes. By integrating physiological and developmental studies of yield traits, genetic mapping can provide a unique means for detecting key QTL that play important roles in affecting tree growth and metabolism. The incorporation of these QTL into commercial populations through gene transformation or marker-assisted selection will move current breeding programs strictly based on an empirism to an approach that is mechanistically oriented. In this review, we discuss how plant physiology and development are merged with genetic mapping to formulate the strategy of molecular breeding in which superior forest crops are selected at the gene level. It is anticipated that this novel breeding strategy can potentially provide major breakthroughs for tree breeding.
Barriers and Enablers to Participation in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study

This article draws from narratives of 14 slum dwellers of Christian Colony, Islamabad, Pakistan, to explore their struggle through a web of barriers and enablers to participate in higher education. Using the qualitative approach, primary data was collected through in-depth interviews. The respondents were mostly from the families where males worked as sanitary workers or unskilled laborers while the females worked as sanitary workers or housemaids. The interview data was transcribed, labelled and thematically analyzed. As a result, various themes around the barriers and enablers to participation in higher education emerged. For the most recurrent themes that emerged from the data, a second round of interviews was conducted and four illustrative examples were chosen that richly provide contextual information about their respective themes. Thus, the study used narrative storytelling technique under Systems Theory Framework to depict the struggle of individual slum dwellers within multiple intrapersonal and social systems. The study concluded that lack of guidance and dearth of financial resources were the key barriers that the slum dwellers faced to participate in higher education. Also, the study concluded that the coping strategy for the key barriers could be affirmative interventions of career counselling and financial assistance to support egalitarian participation of the slum dwellers in higher education.
Obituary

Pierangelo Garegnani passed away on 15 October 2011. Born in Milan in 1930, he studied economics and political science at the University of Pavia. He wrote his Master’s thesis on Ricardo’s theory of value, stimulated by Piero Sraffa’s general introduction in volume I of The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo (Sraffa 1951). The thesis won him a Trinity College grant, which allowed him to study in Cambridge, UK, from 1953 on. In 1958, he obtained a Cambridge Ph.D. in Economics. His thesis on ‘A problem in the theory of distribution from Ricardo to Wicksell’ was supervised by Maurice Dobb, but the main influence on his thinking came from Sraffa. While the thesis was never published, a revised Italian version entitled Il capitale nelle teorie della distribuzione came out in 1960 (Garegnani 1960), was soon translated into Japanese, French and Spanish and established Garegnani’s reputation as a major young economic theorist. In 1958, he became an assistant professor in Rome and worked also for SVIMEZ, a public research institute devoted to studying the possibilities of developing Southern Italy. In 1964–1965 he published, in two instalments, an essay on the problem of effective demand in Italian economic development. A revised version in English entitled ‘Notes on consumption, investment and effective demand’ came out in 1978 and 1979 (Garegnani 1978–1979). In 1961–1962, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship brought him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow. There he read the not yet published paper of Samuelson on ‘Parable and realism in capital theory: The surrogate production function’ (Samuelson 1962). In it Samuelson argued that the so-called ‘Clark–Ramsey parable’ of production and income distribution portrayed in important respects the situation in an economy
Equity, justice and standards: assessment decision making in higher education

Recent concerns about ‘fairness’ in university entrance have highlighted the need to review existing practices in admissions processes. The agendas for equity and social inclusion, however, must also apply to the processes and outcomes of higher education, where considerations of ‘standards’ are additionally crucial. As principles underpinning the assessment process, ‘equity’ and ‘justice’ and ‘academic standards’ are part of taken‐for‐granted cultures and practices which impact on decisions about progression, eligibility for awards and degree classification for individual students. Changing discourses of academic standards have given rise to contrasting decision‐making processes rooted in the role and operation of assessment boards. Contrasting models of assessment board cultures are developed to highlight how practices are beset by conceptual confusions about what is being assessed and the basis for judgements about success and failure in higher education. There is a strong case, not only for critical review of assessment processes, but also for monitoring outcomes for different social groups.
B4GALT3 promotes cell proliferation and invasion in glioblastoma

ABSTRACT Background: β-1, 4-galactosyltransferase III (B4GALT3) plays an important role in development tumourigenesis. But its role in human glioblastoma (GBM) is still unknown. Materials and methods: To perform gain-of-function and loss-of-function experiment, we transfected siRNA or vector into GBM cells. CCK-8, EdU staining, transwell, western blot, immunofluorescence staining were applied to perform phenotype and mechanism experiment. GlioVis platform was used to analyze B4GALT3 expression from TCGA datasets. Results: B4GALT3 is upregulated in glioblastoma and predicts poor prognosis. Upregulation of B4GALT3 promotes GBM cell proliferation and invasion while the downregulation of B4GALT3 reduces GBM cell proliferation and invasion. B4GALT3 regulates cell proliferation and invasion via β-catenin and vimentin. B4GALT3 correlates with cell invasion markers in clinical samples. Conclusion: B4GALT3 might be a potential molecular therapeutic target of glioblastoma.
The Impact of a Social Networking Service–Enhanced Smart Care Model on Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease: Quasi-Experimental Study

Background Stage 5 chronic kidney disease (CKD) presents a high risk for dialysis initiation and for complications such as uremic encephalopathy, uremic symptoms, gastrointestinal bleeding, and infection. One of the most common barriers to health care for patients with stage 5 CKD is poor continuity of care due to unresolved communication gaps. Objective Our aim was to establish a powerful care model that includes the use of a social networking service (SNS) to improve care quality for patients with CKD and safely delay dialysis initiation. Methods We used a retrospective cohort of CKD patients aged 20-85 years who received care between 2007 and 2017 to evaluate the efficacy of incorporating an SNS into the health care system. In 2014, author F-JY, a nephrologist at the National Taiwan University Hospital Yunlin Branch, started to use an SNS app to connect with stage 5 CKD patients and their families. In cases of emergency, patients and families could quickly report any condition to F-JY. Using this app, F-JY helped facilitate productive interactions between these patients and the health care system. The intention was to safely delay the initiation of dialysis therapy. We divided patients into four groups: group 1 (G1) included patients at the study hospital during the 2007-2014 period who had contact only with nephrologists other than F-JY; group 2 (G2) included patients who visited F-JY during the 2007-2014 period before he began using the SNS app; group 3 (G3) included patients who visited nephrologists other than F-JY during the 2014-2017 period and had no interactions using the SNS; and group 4 (G4) included patients who visited F-JY during the 2014-2017 period and interacted with him using the SNS app. Results We recruited 209 patients with stage 5 CKD who had been enrolled in the study hospital’s CKD program between 2007 and 2017. Each of the four groups initiated dialysis at different times. Before adjusting for baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), the G4 patients had a longer time to dialysis (mean 761.7 days, SD 616.2 days) than the other groups (G1: mean 403.6 days, SD 409.4 days, P=.011 for G4 vs G1; G2: 394.8 days, SD 318.8 days, P=.04; G3: 369.1 days, SD 330.8 days, P=.049). After adjusting for baseline eGFR, G4 had a longer duration for each eGFR drop (mean 84.8 days, SD 65.1 days) than the other groups (G1: mean 43.5 days, SD 45.4 days, P=.005; G2: mean 42.5 days, SD 26.5 days, P=.03; G3: mean 3.8.7 days, SD 33.5 days, P=.002). Conclusions The use of an SNS app between patients with stage 5 CKD and their physicians can reduce the communication gap between them and create benefits such as prolonging time-to-dialysis initiation. The role of SNSs and associated care models should be further investigated in a larger population.
Cross-species cortical alignment identifies different types of anatomical reorganization in the primate temporal lobe

Evolutionary adaptations of temporo-parietal cortex are considered to be a critical specialization of the human brain. Cortical adaptations, however, can affect different aspects of brain architecture, including local expansion of the cortical sheet or changes in connectivity between cortical areas. We distinguish different types of changes in brain architecture using a computational neuroanatomy approach. We investigate the extent to which between-species alignment, based on cortical myelin, can predict changes in connectivity patterns across macaque, chimpanzee, and human. We show that expansion and relocation of brain areas can predict terminations of several white matter tracts in temporo-parietal cortex, including the middle and superior longitudinal fasciculus, but not the arcuate fasciculus. This demonstrates that the arcuate fasciculus underwent additional evolutionary modifications affecting the temporal lobe connectivity pattern. This approach can flexibly be extended to include other features of cortical organization and other species, allowing direct tests of comparative hypotheses of brain organization.
Effect of feline characteristics on plasma N‐terminal‐prohormone B‐type natriuretic peptide concentration and comparison of a point‐of‐care test and an ELISA test

Abstract Background Increased plasma concentration of N‐terminal‐prohormone B‐type natriuretic peptide (NT‐proBNP) can be detected in cats with cardiac disease. Potential effects of feline characteristics on NT‐proBNP concentration may influence clinical usefulness. Objectives To evaluate potential effects of feline characteristics on NT‐proBNP plasma concentration and to compare NT‐proBNP plasma concentrations in healthy cats with results in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) cats with or without left atrial enlargement (LAE) using an ELISA and a point‐of‐care test (POCT), and assess if POCT results reflect ELISA results. Animals One hundred healthy cats of 3 breeds and 39 HCM cats were included. Methods Diseases other than HCM were excluded by physical examination, blood pressure measurement, echocardiography, hematology, and serum biochemistry. Results Higher NT‐proBNP concentrations were found in males than in females in healthy (P = .005) and in HCM cats (P = .0021), but breed had no effect on NT‐proBNP concentrations. Using ≥100 pmol/L as a cutoff for abnormal samples, ELISA and POCT had similar sensitivity (SE; 72 and 74%) and specificity (SP; 97 and 98%) for detecting cats with HCM, cats with HCM and LAE (SE, both 100%; SP, 97 versus 98%), and cats with HCM without LAE (SE, both 69%; SP, 97 versus 98%), respectively, when compared to healthy cats. Conclusions and Clinical Importance Breed had no effect on plasma NT‐proBNP concentrations, but higher concentrations were found in male than in female cats. The ELISA and POCT had similar SE and SP for detecting HCM. Both tests could identify all HCM cats with LAE but not all HCM cats without LAE.
Machine Learning Analysis of Digital Clock Drawing Test Performance for Differential Classification of Mild Cognitive Impairment Subtypes Versus Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract Objective: To determine how well machine learning algorithms can classify mild cognitive impairment (MCI) subtypes and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) using features obtained from the digital Clock Drawing Test (dCDT). Methods: dCDT protocols were administered to 163 patients diagnosed with AD(n = 59), amnestic MCI (aMCI; n = 26), combined mixed/dysexecutive MCI (mixed/dys MCI; n = 43), and patients without MCI (non-MCI; n = 35) using standard clock drawing command and copy procedures, that is, draw the face of the clock, put in all of the numbers, and set the hands for “10 after 11. ” A digital pen and custom software recorded patient’s drawings. Three hundred and fifty features were evaluated for maximum information/minimum redundancy. The best subset of features was used to train classification models to determine diagnostic accuracy. Results: Neural network employing information theoretic feature selection approaches achieved the best 2-group classification results with 10-fold cross validation accuracies at or above 83%, that is, AD versus non-MCI = 91.42%; AD versus aMCI = 91.49%; AD versus mixed/dys MCI = 84.05%; aMCI versus mixed/dys MCI = 84.11%; aMCI versus non-MCI = 83.44%; and mixed/dys MCI versus non-MCI = 85.42%. A follow-up two-group non-MCI versus all MCI patients analysis yielded comparable results (83.69%). Two-group classification analyses were achieved with 25–125 dCDT features depending on group classification. Three- and four-group analyses yielded lower but still promising levels of classification accuracy. Conclusion: Early identification of emergent neurodegenerative illness is criterial for better disease management. Applying machine learning to standard neuropsychological tests promises to be an effective first line screening method for classification of non-MCI and MCI subtypes.