Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Child soldiers forgotten in Angola

A year after the end of Angola's devastating civil war, the needs of underage combatants have been neglected and children have been excluded from demobilisation programmes. This is the warning in a new report by Human Rights Watch, which campaigns to defend human rights worldwide. The report cautions: “The infrastructure of the country lies in ruins with schools and health clinics destroyed and few qualified professionals to deliver services. The success of child soldier reintegration projects will be contingent on the government's increase of funding to provide basic services to all Angolans. ” Both the …
Replication of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in Broth Culture

Low, Iolanda E. (Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.), and Monroe D. Eaton. Replication of Mycoplasma pneumoniae in broth culture. J. Bacteriol. 89:725–728. 1965. —Reproducible growth curves of Mycoplasma pneumoniae can be obtained with the use of shaking cultures, which allows earlier and higher yields of the organism than stationary or roller cultures. Decreasing oxygen tension clearly decreases the growth of M. pneumoniae to barely detectable levels, with or without glucose or pyruvate as substrates. The use of phenol red as a pH indicator in the medium is helpful in judging the replication of a culture so that log-phase organisms can be harvested in large amounts.
Applying expert systems to health care management

Due to the specialized nature of problems in health care management, expert systems are an effective technique for developing automated decision support systems. The authors have developed four*expert systems to improve the quality of health care management services. These systems are used daily to identify potentially catastrophic or chronic cases, to review the medical necessity of surgical procedures, and to review the necessity of hospital admissions.
Fibre Laser Treatment of Beta TNZT Titanium Alloys for Load-Bearing Implant Applications: Effects of Surface Physical and Chemical Features on Mesenchymal Stem Cell Response and Staphylococcus aureus Bacterial Attachment

A mismatch in bone and implant elastic modulus can lead to aseptic loosening and ultimately implant failure. Selective elemental composition of titanium (Ti) alloys coupled with surface treatment can be used to improve osseointegration and reduce bacterial adhesion. The biocompatibility and antibacterial properties of Ti-35Nb-7Zr-6Ta (TNZT) using fibre laser surface treatment were assessed in this work, due to its excellent material properties (low Young’s modulus and non-toxicity) and the promising attributes of fibre laser treatment (very fast, non-contact, clean and only causes changes in surface without altering the bulk composition/microstructure). The TNZT surfaces in this study were treated in a high speed regime, specifically 100 and 200 mm/s, (or 6 and 12 m/min). Surface roughness and topography (WLI and SEM), chemical composition (SEM-EDX), microstructure (XRD) and chemistry (XPS) were investigated. The biocompatibility of the laser treated surfaces was evaluated using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) cultured in vitro at various time points to assess cell attachment (6, 24 and 48 h), proliferation (3, 7 and 14 days) and differentiation (7, 14 and 21 days). Antibacterial performance was also evaluated using Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) and Live/Dead staining. Sample groups included untreated base metal (BM), laser treated at 100 mm/s (LT100) and 200 mm/s (LT200). The results demonstrated that laser surface treatment creates a rougher (Ra value of BM is 199 nm, LT100 is 256 nm and LT200 is 232 nm), spiky surface (Rsk > 0 and Rku > 3) with homogenous elemental distribution and decreasing peak-to-peak distance between ripples (0.63 to 0.315 µm) as the scanning speed increases (p < 0.05), generating a surface with distinct micron and nano scale features. The improvement in cell spreading, formation of bone-like nodules (only seen on the laser treated samples) and subsequent four-fold reduction in bacterial attachment (p < 0.001) can be attributed to the features created through fibre laser treatment, making it an excellent choice for load bearing implant applications. Last but not least, the presence of TiN in the outermost surface oxide might also account for the improved biocompatibility and antibacterial performances of TNZT.
Gestational diabetes mellitus.

GESTATIONAL DIABETES MELLItus (GDM) is carbohydrate intolerance with onset or first recognition during pregnancy. This diagnosis is independent of insulin use or persistence of the condition after the pregnancy and does not apply to pregnant women with previously diagnosed diabetes. Gestational diabetes has been recognized for decades, but the potential significance of the condition, as well as criteria for screening and diagnosis, remain controversial. While there is also controversy as to the optimal monitoring and treatment strategy, it is apparent that even mild degrees of maternal hyperglycemia may result in fetal developmental defects.
Problems with the Identification of ‘Problematic' Cannabis Use: Examining the Issues of Frequency, Quantity, and Drug Use Environment

Considerable recent attention has focused on how harmful or problematic cannabis use is defined and understood in the literature and put to use in clinical practice. The aim of the current study is to review conceptual and measurement shortcomings in the identification of problematic cannabis use, drawing on the WHO ASSIST instrument for specific examples. Three issues with the current approach are debated and discussed: (1) the identification of problematic cannabis use disproportionately relies on measures of the frequency of cannabis consumption rather than the harms experienced; (2) the quantity consumed on a typical day is not considered when assessing problematic use, and (3) screening tools for problematic use employ a ‘one-size-fits-all approach' and fail to reflect on the drug use context (networks and environment). Our commentary tackles each issue, with a review of relevant literature coupled with analyses of two Canadian data sources - a representative sample of the Canadian adult population and a smaller sample of adult, regular, long-term cannabis users from four Canadian cities - to further articulate each point. This article concludes with a discussion of appropriate treatment interventions and approaches to reduce cannabis-related harms, and offers suggested changes to improve the measurement of problematic cannabis use.
Pharmacologic Repression of Retinoic Acid Receptor–Related Orphan Nuclear Receptor γ Is Therapeutic in the Collagen‐Induced Arthritis Experimental Model

The nuclear receptor retinoic acid receptor–related orphan nuclear receptor γ (RORγ; T cell–specific isoform RORγt) is a key regulator of Th17 cell differentiation, controlling the production of the inflammatory cytokine interleukin‐17 (IL‐17). Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation of monocytes leads to the induction of RORγ. We previously showed that the potent and selective inverse agonist of RORγ, SR2211, was effective at suppressing IL‐17 production in EL4 cells. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of SR2211 treatment on proinflammatory cytokine expression in LPS‐stimulated RAW 264.7 cells as well as on joint inflammation in vivo in mice with collagen‐induced arthritis (CIA).
Data prefetching by dependence graph precomputation

Data cache misses reduce the performance of wide-issue processors by stalling the data supply to the processor. Prefetching data by predicting the miss address is one way to tolerate the cache miss latencies. But current applications with irregular access patterns make it difficult to accurately predict the address sufficiently early to mask large cache miss latencies. This paper explores an alternative to predicting prefetch addresses, namely precomputing them. The Dependence Graph Precomputation scheme (DGP) introduced in this paper is a novel approach for dynamically identifying and precomputing the instructions that determine the addresses accessed by those load/store instructions marked as being responsible for most data cache misses. DGP's dependence graph generator efficiently generates the required dependence graphs at run time. A separate precomputation engine executes these graphs to generate the data addresses of the marked load/store instructions early enough for accurate prefetching. Our results show that 94% of the prefetches issued by DGP are useful, reducing the D-cache miss stall time by 47%. Thus DGP takes as about half way from an already highly tuned baseline system toward perfect D-cache performance. DGP improves the overall performance of a wide range of applications by 7% over tagged next line prefetching, by 13% over a baseline processor with no prefetching, and is within 15% of the perfect D-cache performance.
Pediatric Sports-Related Concussion Produces Cerebral Blood Flow Alterations

Objectives: The pathophysiology of sports-related concussion (SRC) is incompletely understood. Human adult and experimental animal investigations have revealed structural axonal injuries, decreases in the neuronal metabolite N-acetyl aspartate, and reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF) after SRC and minor traumatic brain injury. The authors of this investigation explore these possibilities after pediatric SRC. Patients And Methods: Twelve children, ages 11 to 15 years, who experienced SRC were evaluated by ImPACT neurocognitive testing, T1 and susceptibility weighted MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and phase contrast angiography at <72 hours, 14 days, and 30 days or greater after concussion. A similar number of age- and gender-matched controls were evaluated at a single time point. Results: ImPACT results confirmed statistically significant differences in initial total symptom score and reaction time between the SRC and control groups, resolving by 14 days for total symptom score and 30 days for reaction time. No evidence of structural injury was found on qualitative review of MRI. No decreases in neuronal metabolite N-acetyl aspartate or elevation of lactic acid were detected by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Statistically significant alterations in CBF were documented in the SRC group, with reduction in CBF predominating (38 vs 48 mL/100 g per minute; P = .027). Improvement toward control values occurred in only 27% of the participants at 14 days and 64% at >30 days after SRC. Conclusions: Pediatric SRC is primarily a physiologic injury, affecting CBF significantly without evidence of measurable structural, metabolic neuronal or axonal injury. Further study of CBF mechanisms is needed to explain patterns of recovery.
Finger multibiometric cryptosystems: fusion strategy and template security

Abstract. We address two critical issues in the design of a finger multibiometric system, i.e., fusion strategy and template security. First, three fusion strategies (feature-level, score-level, and decision-level fusions) with the corresponding template protection technique are proposed as the finger multibiometric cryptosystems to protect multiple finger biometric templates of fingerprint, finger vein, finger knuckle print, and finger shape modalities. Second, we theoretically analyze different fusion strategies for finger multibiometric cryptosystems with respect to their impact on security and recognition accuracy. Finally, the performance of finger multibiometric cryptosystems at different fusion levels is investigated on a merged finger multimodal biometric database. The comparative results suggest that the proposed finger multibiometric cryptosystem at feature-level fusion outperforms other approaches in terms of verification performance and template security.
Intrusion Tolerance Approaches in ITUA

The purpose of the Intrusion Tolerance by Unpredictable Adaptation (ITUA) project is to develop a middleware based intrusion tolerance solution that would help applications survive certain kinds of attacks. This paper presents an overview and the key aspects of the ITUA project. We will describe the kind of attacks we are considering, how unpredictability can be used for intrusion tolerance, the architecture of the intrusion tolerant system we are envisioning, and the protocols we are developing to obtain a group communication system that tolerates the intrusions specified in the ITUA project.
Presenting through performing: on the use of multiple lifelike characters in knowledge-based presentation systems

In this paper, we investigate a new style for presenting information. We introduce the motion of presentation teams which — rather than addressing the user directly — convey information in the style of performances to be observed by him or her. The paper presents an approach to the automated generation of performances which has been tested in two different application scenarios, car sales dialogues and soccer commentary.
Adverse effects of topical corticosteroids in paediatric eczema: Australasian consensus statement

Atopic eczema is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting about 30% of Australian and New Zealand children. Severe eczema costs over AUD 6000/year per child in direct medical, hospital and treatment costs as well as time off work for caregivers and untold distress for the family unit. In addition, it has a negative impact on a child's sleep, education, development and self‐esteem. The treatment of atopic eczema is complex and multifaceted but a core component of therapy is to manage the inflammation with topical corticosteroids (TCS). Despite this, TCS are often underutilised by many parents due to corticosteroid phobia and unfounded concerns about their adverse effects. This has led to extended and unnecessary exacerbations of eczema for children. Contrary to popular perceptions, (TCS) use in paediatric eczema does not cause atrophy, hypopigmentation, hypertrichosis, osteoporosis, purpura or telangiectasia when used appropriately as per guidelines. In rare cases, prolonged and excessive use of potent TCS has contributed to striae, short‐term hypothalamic‐pituitary‐adrenal axis alteration and ophthalmological disease. TCS use can also exacerbate periorificial rosacea. TCS are very effective treatments for eczema. When they are used to treat active eczema and stopped once the active inflammation has resolved, adverse effects are minimal. TCS should be the cornerstone treatment of atopic eczema in children.
Optimal Morphology

Optimal morphology (OM) is a finite state formalism tha t unifies concepts from Optimality Theory (OT, Prince ~: Smolensky, 1993) and Declarative Phonology (DP, Scobbie, Coleman Bird, 1996) to describe morphophonological alternations in inflectional morphology. Candidate sets are formalized by inviolable lexical constraints which map abstract morpheme signatures to allomorphs. Phonology is implemented as violable rankable constraints selecting optimal candidates from these. Both types of constraints are realized by finite state transducers. Using phonological da ta from Albanian it is shown tha t given a finite s tate lexicalization of candidate outputs for word forms OM allows more natural analyses than unviolable finite s ta te constraints do. Two possible evaluation strategies for OM grammars are considered: the global evaluation procedure from E1lisou (1994) and a simple s t ra tegy of local constraint evaluation. While the OM-specific lexicalization of candidate sets allows straightforward generation and a simple method of morphological parsing even under global evaluation, local constraint evaluation is shown to be preferable empirically and to be formally more restrictive. The first point is illustrated by an account of directionality effects in some classical Mende data. A procedure is given tha t generates a finite s ta te t ransducer simulating the effects of local constraint evaluation. Thus local as opposed to global evaluation (Frank & Satta, 1998) seems to guarantee the finite-stateness of the input-output-mapping. 1 C/O-Alternations in Albanian Verbs In many cases C/O-al ternat ions in the Albanian verb paradigm are triggered by the tendency to avoid sequences of vowels (VV, hiatus) or consonants (CC), e.g.
Paralinguistic Discussion in an Online Educational Setting: A Preliminary Study

One of the perceived drawbacks of e-learning is the absence of non-verbal communication. This leads one to conclude that e-learning in general, and fully online education in particular, is inferior to its on-campus counterpart in terms of its communicative capability. This paper challenges this viewpoint, arguing that not only is non-verbal communication 'alive and well' in an online educational setting, it is becoming more robust as the various information and communication technologies (ICTs) in common usage act to redefine non-verbal forms of communication. Reporting on a preliminary study conducted within a Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme at a completely online business school, the authors outline the importance of incorporating the opportunity for non-verbal communication in the learning environment, particularly in an international or cross-cultural setting. Then, focusing on the use of 'emoticons' in a longitudinal study of Organisational Behaviour classes, they analyse the frequency of use of specific categories of emoticons, and their significance for effective cross-cultural communication. The paper concludes that emoticons facilitate a depth and range of non-verbal communication which, in this preliminary study at least, appear comparable to that in the non-virtual world, enhancing the quality of interaction and minimising the potential for friction and misunderstanding between learners.
A nonparametric approach to signal detection in impulsive interference

Impulsive interference poses a challenge to conventional detection techniques. The /spl alpha/-stable distribution, while sometimes providing a good model for impulsive interference, has proven to be no exception. Some of these difficulties have motivated the investigation and development of computationally tractable, locally suboptimum correlation, and rank correlation detectors for signals embedded in impulsive interference modeled as a symmetric /spl alpha/-stable process. The performance of some of these detectors is evaluated and compared with that of the locally optimum (LO), locally optimum rank (LOR), matched filter, and Cauchy detectors. Simulation results show that a rank-based detector is able to approach the performance of the computationally intensive LO and LOR detectors across a range of values for for /spl alpha/.
Dentin sialophosphoprotein in biomineralization

Two of the proteins found in significant quantity in the extracellular matrix (ECM) of dentin are dentin phosphoprotein (DPP) and dentin sialoprotein (DSP). DPP, the most abundant of the noncollagenous proteins (NCPs) in dentin is an unusually polyanionic protein, containing a large number of aspartic acids (Asp) and phosphoserines (Pse) in the repeating sequences of (Asp–Pse)n. and (Asp–Pse–Pse)n. The many negatively charged regions of DPP are thought to promote mineralization by binding calcium and presenting it to collagen fibers at the mineralization front during the formation of dentin. This purported role of DPP is supported by a sizeable pool of in vitro mineralization data showing that DPP is an important initiator and modulator for the formation and growth of hydroxyapatite (HA) crystals. Quite differently, DSP is a glycoprotein, with little or no phosphate. DPP and DSP are the cleavage products of dentin sialophosphoprotein (DSPP). Human and mouse genetic studies have demonstrated that mutations in, or knockout of, the Dspp gene result in mineralization defects in dentin and/or bone. The discoveries in the past 40 years with regard to DPP, DSP, and DSPP have greatly enhanced our understanding of biomineralization and set a new stage for future studies. In this review, we summarize the important and new developments made in the past four decades regarding the structure and regulation of the Dspp gene, the biochemical characteristics of DSPP, DPP, and DSP as well as the cell/tissue localizations and functions of these molecules.
Diet and Paraoxonase 1 Enzymatic Activity in Diabetic Foot Patients from Romania and Belgium: Favorable Association of High Flavonoid Dietary Intake with Arylesterase Activity

Background/Aims: The antiatherosclerotic enzyme paraoxonase (PON1) is affected by disease and lifestyle. We investigated the impact of diet in diabetic foot patients from 2 European countries. Methods: Dietary intake and serum PON1 activity, using as substrate paraoxon (paraoxonase) or phenylacetate (arylesterase), were assessed in patients from Bucharest (n = 40) and Antwerp (n = 30) and in 34 healthy controls. Results: The diabetic patients had lower paraoxonase and arylesterase activities than the controls. Arylesterase was lowest in the Bucharest patients, 116 ± 42 U/ml, versus 141 ± 43 and 184 ± 49 U/ml in the Antwerp patients and controls, respectively (p < 0.0005). The Bucharest patients had worse glycemic control, higher blood pressure, lower HDL cholesterol and a diet richer in cholesterol and poorer in monounsaturated fats and fish. In contrast, their median intake of vitamins E and C, folic acid and flavonoids was higher, 82 mg (range: 4–259 mg), versus 28 mg (range: 5–169 mg) aglycone units in Antwerp (p = 0.005). Flavonoid intake predicted arylesterase independently of HDL cholesterol, region and sex (β = 0.27; p = 0.03), and patients with high intake achieved normal levels of arylesterase (30.1 ± 10.0 U/µmol in the highest versus 21.0 ± 8.2 U/µmol total cholesterol in the lowest tertile; p = 0.02). Conclusion: A flavonoid-rich diet is positively associated with PON1 arylesterase activity in diabetic foot patients.
Bacillus subtilis DprA Recruits RecA onto Single-stranded DNA and Mediates Annealing of Complementary Strands Coated by SsbB and SsbA*

Background: Different mediators assist RecA to catalyze genetic recombination. Results: DprA facilitates the displacement of both SSBs (SsbB and SsbA), increases RecA nucleation onto SSB-coated ssDNA, and mediates DNA strand annealing. Conclusion: DprA facilitates RecA-mediated strand exchange and anneals complementary strands coated by an SSB protein. Significance: RecA-dependent chromosomal transformation and RecA-independent plasmid transformation require the competence-induced DprA mediator. Naturally transformable bacteria recombine internalized ssDNA with a homologous resident duplex (chromosomal transformation) or complementary internalized ssDNAs (plasmid or viral transformation). Bacillus subtilis competence-induced DprA, RecA, SsbB, and SsbA proteins are involved in the early processing of the internalized ssDNA, with DprA physically interacting with RecA. SsbB and SsbA bind and melt secondary structures in ssDNA but limit RecA loading onto ssDNA. DprA binds to ssDNA and facilitates partial dislodging of both single-stranded binding (SSB) proteins from ssDNA. In the absence of homologous duplex DNA, DprA does not significantly increase RecA nucleation onto protein-free ssDNA. DprA facilitates RecA nucleation and filament extension onto SsbB-coated or SsbB plus SsbA-coated ssDNA. DprA facilitates RecA-mediated DNA strand exchange in the presence of both SSB proteins. DprA, which plays a crucial role in plasmid transformation, anneals complementary strands preferentially coated by SsbB to form duplex circular plasmid molecules. Our results provide a mechanistic framework for conceptualizing the coordinated events modulated by SsbB in concert with SsbA and DprA that are crucial for RecA-dependent chromosomal transformation and RecA-independent plasmid transformation.