Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Social Stratification, Oral Hygiene, and Trajectories of Dental Caries Among Old Americans

Objective: This study analyzed how oral hygiene (i.e., brushing, rinsing, and flossing) influences the trajectories of dental caries (i.e., numbers of decayed, missing, and filled teeth) among older Americans within the context of social stratification. Method: Data came from Piedmont Dental Study that involved a sample of 810 older Americans who were dentate in 1988 with up to four repeated observations through 1994. Hierarchical linear models were used for data analysis. Results: Brushing, flossing, and rinsing were associated with the trajectories of dental caries in distinct ways. In addition, oral hygiene was correlated with race, education, household income, and use of dental care. The effects of brushing and flossing on decayed and missing teeth remained robust, even when socio-demographic and health attributes were controlled. Conversely, socioeconomic disparities in dental caries persisted, when oral hygiene was adjusted. Discussion: Both social stratification and oral hygiene need to be considered in promoting oral health.
Staphylococcus aureus small-colony variants are adapted phenotypes for intracellular persistence.

BACKGROUND Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen of endovascular diseases, which can take a chronic course with a high relapse rate despite antimicrobial treatment. Thus far, persistent and antibiotic-refractory infections have been largely associated with a subpopulation of S. aureus, the small-colony variants (SCVs). METHODS In this work, we used endothelial cells to investigate infection with the highly virulent wild-type isolate (6850), 2 stable isogenic SCV phenotypes (hemB mutant IIb13 and JB1), and the complemented mutant. RESULTS All strains were highly invasive in endothelial cells but largely differed in host response induction. Microarray analysis showed that wild-type phenotypes up-regulated a large number of endothelial genes (including genes involved in innate immunity), whereas the SCVs did not cause these dramatic changes. The inflammatory response and cytotoxicity were strongest shortly after infection and largely decreased within the following days, which was accompanied by a fast elimination of intracellular wild-type bacteria. By contrast, SCVs survived within endothelial cells at high numbers. CONCLUSION S. aureus intracellular persistence via the development of an adapted subpopulation of SCVs most likely represents an important strategy of S. aureus to hide within the host cells, which could be a reservoir for chronic infections.
Towards Automatic Discovery of Web Portals Semantic Description of Web Portal Capabilities

Due to the problem of information overload, locating relevant Web portals precisely based on user requirements is quite an essential task. As the need for application-to-application communication and in- teroperability grows, providing Web portal services that satisfy human as well as machine requirements is becoming a new challenge for Web portals. However, a Web portal capability expressing mechanism, which enables the precise location of Web portals as well as the automated dis- covery and invocation of Web portal services, is lacking. In this paper, we investigate how to incorporate Semantic Web technology with Web service technologies to describe the capabilities of Web portals. We also discuss the possibilities of using these descriptions for discovering and using the distributed existing portal resources.
Electro-oxidative nanopatterning of silane monolayers on boron-doped diamond electrodes

Oxidized boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrodes were coated with a monolayer of n-octadecyltrichlorosilane as well as of other silanes. Scanning force microscopy was applied to pattern these monolayers, utilizing doped diamond-coated conductive probes. Patterns were generated on the nanometer scale, and conditions for the patterning process were quantified with regard to humidity and potential bias. It was observed that a sample bias of 3–3.5 V and a relative humidity >70% are necessary to generate reproducible and stable patterns. At potentials and relative humidities below these values, no or incomplete removal of the monolayer occurred. The results show that electro-oxidative patterning is an expedient way for the generation of nanostructures on chemically modified BDD.
Do Patient Characteristics Decide if Young Adult Cancer Patients Undergo Fertility Preservation?

PURPOSE The Fertility Attitudes and Cancer Treatment Study (FACTS) is a two-phase research initiative aimed to understand factors involved with decision making for future fertility. The FACTS will improve services and utilization of fertility preservation (FP) before cancer treatment. Phase-I examined patient characteristics as associated with FP decision. METHODS A retrospective cohort study of 108 reproductive-aged (18-45 years) males and females who received a fertility consultation before cancer treatment from January 1, 2012 to April 30, 2014 was conducted. Chi-square, student's t-test, and logistic regression were conducted to examine associations with FP decision. RESULTS The utilization rate of FP following fertility consultation was 49%. Gender was the most significant factor contributing to FP decision; 74% of those who choose FP were male (odds ratio = 12.5; 95% confidence interval 5.1-31.4). Those who opted for FP were more likely to be Caucasian (p = 0.042), have a solid tumor (p = 0.03), and have a shorter time from diagnosis to fertility consultation (29.5 vs. 58.8 days; p = 0.017). Age, relationship, tumor location, treatment plan, and parity were not significant predictors of FP. CONCLUSIONS Current perceptions about patient demographics do not predict FP utilization by young adult cancer patients. Providing patients an informed fertility consultation has demonstrated an increase in FP utilization to nearly one-half of patients. Despite gender being a significant factor in choosing FP, the study did not provide reasons as to why. The phase-II study will explore patients' reasons for FP decision in a qualitative design to understand these differences.
MOLECULAR ANALYSIS OF THE ALLELES OF ALCOHOL DEHYDROGENASE ALONG A CLINE IN DROSOPHILA MELANOGASTER. I. MAINE, NORTH CAROLINA, AND FLORIDA

Clinal variation in natural populations is often assumed to be due to the operation of natural selection. However, for many clines there exist plausible neutralist explanations which suggest that aspects of population structure maintain differences among subpopulations for particular traits. We used a restriction‐mapping technique to investigate the contributions of population subdivision and selection to the maintenance of the allozyme polymorphism at the alcohol dehydrogenase (Adh) locus of Drosophila melanogaster. Digestions of genomic DNAs from 270 lines of flies by seven enzymes reveal 15–20% of all possible nucleotide substitutions and virtually all of the insertion/deletion variation in a 2.7‐kilobase region containing the Adh structural locus. Analysis of large samples from each of three populations along the east coast of the United States provides evidence of founder effects in the most northerly population. Although there are signs of population differentiation among the samples, similarities between two of the populations indicate that migration among populations is extensive and strengthen the argument that natural selection plays a role in maintaining the cline.
Economic Research

Politische Rückschläge für den europäischen Einigungsprozess 2005 war bisher kein allzu gutes Jahr für den europäischen Einigungsprozess. Der Stabilitätsund Wachstumspakt, die fiskalpolitische Flanke der Währungsunion, hat nach den zahlreichen und weitgehend folgenlosen Verstößen seine disziplinierende Wirkung nahezu verloren. Der LissabonProzess, das Entschlackungsprogramm für die europäische Wirtschaft zur Freisetzung der Wachstumspotenziale, ist zur Halbzeit weiter von seinen Zielen entfernt denn je; und schließlich ist der europäische Verfassungsvertrag, das ehrgeizigste Projekt von allen, mit dem die gemeinschaftlichen Strukturen nachhaltig gestärkt werden sollten, in den Referenden in Frankreich und den Niederlanden gescheitert.
Rapid HIV Testing and Counseling for Residents in Domestic Violence Shelters

Over one million Americans live with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and roughly 20 percent of those living with HIV are unaware of their status. One way to decrease this epidemic is community-based rapid testing with high-risk populations. One high-risk population that has received limited attention is victims of intimate partner violence who seek shelter. In an effort to gain foundational information to implement rapid HIV testing and counseling services in domestic violence shelters, the current study conducted a series of focus groups with eighteen residents and ten staff of local shelters from October 15 to December 12, 2012. Participants provided valuable insight into how HIV rapid testing and counseling might be best implemented given the resources and constraints of shelter life. Despite identifying some potential barriers, most believed that the promise of quick results, the convenience and support afforded by the shelter venue, and the timing of the intervention at a point when women are making life changes would render the intervention acceptable to residents. Further insights are discussed in the article.
An integrated CMOS current driver using nonlinear feedback for bioimpedance applications

An integrated circuit has been developed for a basic nonlinear negative feedback current driver which isolates the poles required for stability from the high frequency characteristics of the output transconductor. It provides a 1 MHz, 1 mAp-p current with a phase delay of 16° into a 1kΩ load. While it can be designed as a stand-alone circuit its main use is for application in a proposed circuit using multiple copies of this basic circuit, which significantly extends its high frequency performance by substantially reducing phase delay at high frequencies. The circuit was fabricated in a 0.35-μm CMOS technology and measured results are presented. It is intended for bioimpedance applications.
A 28-year study of the course of hepatitis Delta infection: a risk factor for cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Chronic infection with hepatitis Delta virus (HDV) is a risk factor for cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); predictors of disease outcome are, however, poorly defined. We tracked the course of HDV infection in 299 patients over a mean period of 233 months. METHODS We analyzed data from patients who had been HDV positive for at least 6 months (230 males; mean age, 30 years) admitted from 1978 to 2006 to Maggiore Hospital, Milan. HDV infection was defined by the presence of HDV antigen in liver tissue or serum HDV RNA in anti-HDV/hepatitis B surface antigen seropositive patients. At enrollment, 7 patients had acute hepatitis, 101 had mild-moderate chronic hepatitis, 76 had severe chronic hepatitis, and 104 had histologic or clinical cirrhosis. Ninety patients were treated with interferon, 62 with corticosteroids, and 12 with nucleoside analogues; 135 received no therapy. RESULTS Over a mean period of 233 months, 82 patients developed cirrhosis. Among the 186 total patients with cirrhosis, 46 developed HCC, 43 ascites, 44 jaundice, and 1 encephalopathy. Female sex, alcohol abuse, and HDV replication were associated with liver decompensation; HBV replication and interferon were associated with HCC development. By the end of the study, 186 patients were still alive, 63 had died, and 29 had received liver transplants. The main cause of death was liver failure (n = 37, 59%); HDV replication was the only independent predictor of mortality. CONCLUSIONS Persistent HDV replication leads to cirrhosis and HCC at annual rates of 4% and 2.8%, respectively, and is the only predictor of liver-related mortality.
Virtual MIMO in Multi-Cell Distributed Antenna Systems: Coordinated Transmissions with Large-Scale CSIT

The virtual multiple input multiple output (MIMO) technique can dramatically improve the performance of a multi-cell distributed antenna system (DAS), thanks to its great potentials for inter-cell interference mitigation. One of the most challenging issues for virtual MIMO is the acquisition of channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT), which usually leads to an overwhelming amount of system overhead. In this work, we focus on the case that only the slowly-varying large-scale channel state is required at the transmitter, and explore the performance gain that can be achieved by coordinated transmissions for virtual MIMO with large-scale CSIT. Aiming at maximizing the achievable ergodic sum rate, the input covariances for all the mobile terminals (MTs) are jointly optimized, which turns out to be a complicated non-convex problem with a non-closed-form objective function. Further analysis reveals that the coordinated transmission problem can be recast as a Max-Min problem with a closed-form objective function and linear constraints. Then, by appealing to the successive approximation method and the saddle-point theory of concave-convex functions, we propose an iterative algorithm for coordinated transmissions with large-scale CSIT and establish its convergence. Simulation results corroborate that the proposed scheme converges quickly, and it yields significant performance gains compared to the existing schemes. Moreover, it is observed that the proposed scheme can achieve a nearly globally-optimal point under the diagonal input covariance constraint. Since the acquisition of large-scale CSIT is far less demanding than that of full CSIT, we believe that the proposed coordinated transmissions with large-scale CSIT in DASs shed some light on virtual MIMO in the making.
Target Speaker Detection with Concealed EEG Around the Ear

Target speaker identification is essential for speech enhancement algorithms in assistive devices aimed toward helping the hearing impaired. Several recent studies have reported that target speaker identification is possible through electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. If the EEG system could be reduced to acceptable size while retaining the signal quality, hearing aids could benefit from the integration with concealed EEG. To compare the performance of a multichannel around-the-ear EEG system with high-density cap EEG recordings an envelope tracking algorithm was applied in a competitive speaker paradigm. The data from 20 normal hearing listeners were concurrently collected from the traditional state-of-the-art laboratory wired EEG system and a wireless mobile EEG system with two bilaterally-placed around-the-ear electrode arrays (cEEGrids). The results show that the cEEGrid ear-EEG technology captured neural signals that allowed the identification of the attended speaker above chance-level, with 69.3% accuracy, while cap-EEG signals resulted in the accuracy of 84.8%. Further analyses investigated the influence of ear-EEG signal quality and revealed that the envelope tracking procedure was unaffected by variability in channel impedances. We conclude that the quality of concealed ear-EEG recordings as acquired with the cEEGrid array has potential to be used in the brain-computer interface steering of hearing aids.
Three dimensional flow in the human left atrium

BACKGROUND Abnormal flow patterns in the left atrium in atrial fibrillation or mitral stenosis are associated with an increased risk of thrombosis and systemic embolisation; the characteristics of normal atrial flow that avoid stasis have not been well defined. OBJECTIVES To present a three dimensional particle trace visualisation of normal left atrial flow in vivo, constructed from flow velocities in three dimensional space. METHODS Particle trace visualisation of time resolved three dimensional magnetic resonance imaging velocity measurements was used to provide a display of intracardiac flow without the limitations of angle sensitivity or restriction to imaging planes. Global flow patterns of the left atrium were studied in 11 healthy volunteers. RESULTS In all subjects vortical flow was observed in the atrium during systole and diastolic diastasis (mean (SD) duration of systolic vortex, 280 (77) ms; and of diastolic vortex, 256 (118) ms). The volume incorporated and recirculated within the vortices originated predominantly from the left pulmonary veins. Inflow from the right veins passed along the vortex periphery, constrained between the vortex and the atrial wall. CONCLUSIONS Global left atrial flow in the normal human heart comprises consistent patterns specific to the phase of the cardiac cycle. Separate paths of left and right pulmonary venous inflow and vortex formation may have beneficial effects in avoiding left atrial stasis in the normal subject in sinus rhythm.
LCFRS binarization and debinarization for directional parsing

In data-driven parsing with Linear Context-Free Rewriting System (LCFRS), markovized grammars are obtained through the annotation of bi-narization non-terminals during grammar binarization, as in the corresponding work on PCFG parsing. Since there is indication that directional parsing with a non-binary LCFRS can be faster than parsing with a binary LCFRS, we present a debinarization procedure with which we can obtain a non-binary LCFRS from a previously binarized one. The resulting grammar retains the markovization information. The algorithm has been implemented and successfully applied to the German NeGra treebank.
Outcome of Bone Availability After Secondary Alveolar Bone Graft in Two Age Groups

Abstract The aim of this study is to evaluate outcome of bone availability after the secondary alveolar bone graft in 2 age groups: group 1 patients were between 9 and 13 years old and group 2 patients were above 14 years old. Acceptance success criteria (ASC) consisted of sufficient bone height (more than 10 mm), bone width (more than 4 mm), and adequate continuity between maxillary segments. The height and width of alveolar grafted bone were measured by using the cone-beam CT scans. We studied 45 patients who underwent a bone graft in their alveolar cleft in 2 groups (25 patients in group 1 and 20 in group 2). The results showed that as the patients’ ages increased, the incidence of ASC significantly decreased. In group 1, 23 patients had ACS (92%), and in group 2, only 4 patients (20%) had ASC. Cleft type did not affect the ASC. The critical age for decreasing ASC was 14.5 years. Our study showed successful outcomes of grafted bone were good when done in the mixed dentition period. Additionally, bone availability was more predictable at the mixed dentition stage.
Adenovirus virus-associated RNA and translation control

Theadenovirus genome istranscribed bytwoRNA polymerases furnished bythehostcell. RNA polymerase II transcribes bothstrands oftheviral DNA over nearly allof itslength, andtheresultant mRNAs encode more than50 viral proteins. RNA polymerase IIItranscribes lessthan1% oftheviral genome, giving rise to one or two species (depending on thevirus serotype) ofshort, noncoding RNAs (44, 59). ThisRNA was namedvirus-associated (VA)RNA whenits origin fromtheviral genome was still uncertain (45). Eventhough VA RNA was detected ininfected cells asearly as1966, itsrole intranslational control andincounteracting hostantiviral defenses onlybecameapparentinthe1980s andthedetails ofitsaction remain thesubject ofactive investigation. VA RNAs are common toalladenoviruses studied todate, butmostworkhasconcentrated on the groupC adenoviruses, adenovirus types2and5(Ad2and AdS), upon whichthis review will necessarily focus.
Micro-fabricated super-hydrophobic substrate for amyloid fibers characterization

Micro-fabricated super-hydrophobic substrate for amyloid fibers characterization Andrea Ricco In recent years super-hydrophobic micro-patterned substrates (SHS) have been successfully used for the suspension of a few biological molecules, allowing the further characterization in a background-free environment by label-free techniques such as Raman spectroscopy, SEM and TEM in one device. This result is due to the combined action of laminar flow and shear stress exerted on the molecules contained in a drop that is spotted on top of the SHS and slowly evaporates. This new method is here proposed for the label-free formation and background-free characterization of amyloid fibers. Amyloids are insoluble aggregates formed by proteins that convert from a misfolded form into highly-organized β-sheet structures that could accumulate in different organs and compromise their normal physiological functions. Known amyloid-related diseases, named amyloidosis, are for instance Alzheimer, Parkinson, and type 2 diabetes. In classical crystallography, the study of the amyloid aggregates structure is often hampered by the laborious and time consuming sample preparation techniques. Therefore the need of a quick reproducible technique, has emerged. The amyloid fibers investigated in this work are derived from a lysozyme protein and a Tau-derived short peptide, both known to be related to two forms of amyloidosis. With this technique we demonstrate that threads of protein fibers are deposited on the substrate helped by the patterning of the SHS and its properties, and by characterizing them with Raman spectroscopy technique we revealed that they are anisotropic structures of amyloid nature. This type of sample preparation technique arises from