Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fidaxomicin versus vancomycin for Clostridium difficile infection.

BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile infection is a serious diarrheal illness associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Patients generally have a response to oral vancomycin or metronidazole; however, the rate of recurrence is high. This phase 3 clinical trial compared the efficacy and safety of fidaxomicin with those of vancomycin in treating C. difficile infection. METHODS Adults with acute symptoms of C. difficile infection and a positive result on a stool toxin test were eligible for study entry. We randomly assigned patients to receive fidaxomicin (200 mg twice daily) or vancomycin (125 mg four times daily) orally for 10 days. The primary end point was clinical cure (resolution of symptoms and no need for further therapy for C. difficile infection as of the second day after the end of the course of therapy). The secondary end points were recurrence of C. difficile infection (diarrhea and a positive result on a stool toxin test within 4 weeks after treatment) and global cure (i.e., cure with no recurrence). RESULTS A total of 629 patients were enrolled, of whom 548 (87.1%) could be evaluated for the per-protocol analysis. The rates of clinical cure with fidaxomicin were noninferior to those with vancomycin in both the modified intention-to-treat analysis (88.2% with fidaxomicin and 85.8% with vancomycin) and the per-protocol analysis (92.1% and 89.8%, respectively). Significantly fewer patients in the fidaxomicin group than in the vancomycin group had a recurrence of the infection, in both the modified intention-to-treat analysis (15.4% vs. 25.3%, P=0.005) and the per-protocol analysis (13.3% vs. 24.0%, P=0.004). The lower rate of recurrence was seen in patients with non–North American Pulsed Field type 1 strains. The adverse-event profile was similar for the two therapies. CONCLUSIONS The rates of clinical cure after treatment with fidaxomicin were noninferior to those after treatment with vancomycin. Fidaxomicin was associated with a significantly lower rate of recurrence of C. difficile infection associated with non–North American Pulsed Field type 1 strains. (Funded by Optimer Pharmaceuticals; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00314951.)
Highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses with low virulence for chickens in in vivo tests

Four avian influenza viruses have been recognized that have genetic coding for highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses, but do not show virulence for chickens. The two different mechanisms that prevent this potential being expressed have been determined for A/chicken/Pennsylvania/1/83 (H5N2) and A/goose/Guandong/2/96 (H5N1), but neither of these applies to A/turkey/England/87-92BFC/91 (H5N1) or A/chicken/Texas/298313/04 (H5N2).
The Development of an Index of Academic Rigor for College Readiness. Research Report No. 2011-11.

The College Board's mission is to connect students to college success and opportunity. We are a not-for-profit membership organization committed to excellence and equity in education. The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of more than 5,900 of the world's leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT ® and the Advanced Placement Program ®. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools. For further information, visit www.collegeboard. org. and the acorn logo are registered trademarks of the College Board. PSAT/NMSQT is a registered trademark of the College Board and National Merit Scholarship Corporation. All other products and services may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Characteristics of Colonic Diverticulitis and Factors Associated With Complications: A Japanese Multicenter, Retrospective, Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the epidemiology of diverticulitis in Japan. Additional information is needed about its clinical characteristics and the factors associated with complications of diverticulitis. OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to determine the clinical characteristics of diverticulitis and factors associated with its complications in Japanese patients. DESIGN: This was a retrospective, multicenter, large-scale, cross-sectional study. SETTINGS: All of the consecutive patients in 21 Japanese hospitals with a final diagnosis of acute colonic diverticulitis were included in this study. PATIENTS: A total of 1112 patients, including 658 men and 454 women, with a mean age of 54.8 years, who were diagnosed by CT and/or ultrasonography between January 2006 and May 2011, were included in this study. INTERVENTIONS: Data on medical history, investigations, treatments, and prognosis were collected using a standard form to create a dedicated database. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clarification of the clinical characteristics of Japanese patients with acute diverticulitis was the main outcome measured. RESULTS: Diverticulitis was detected mainly in men and women aged 40 to 60 years. Although diverticulitis more frequently affected the right colon (70.1%), diverticulitis of the left colon was significantly more frequent (61.0%) in elderly patients. Of the 1112 patients with diverticulitis, 179 (16.1%) developed complications, including abscess formation, perforation, stenosis, and/or fistula, some of which required surgical treatment, such as drainage or colonic resection. The duration of hospitalization (24.1 ± 19.5 days) and mortality rate (2.8%) were significantly higher in patients with versus without complications. Factors associated with complications were fever (>38.5°C), involvement of the left colon, higher age, and delayed diagnosis. LIMITATIONS: Limitations included the nonconsideration of diverticulitis treatment, the effect of dietary fiber, and the retrospective design of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Complications were more frequent in elderly men with left-sided diverticulitis, although diverticulitis was more common in middle-aged people and on the right side of the colon. Factors associated with complications were fever, site of involvement, older age, and longer time until diagnosis.
PDE approach to valuation and hedging of credit derivatives

This paper presents a PDE approach in a Markovian setting to hedge defaultable derivatives. The arbitrage price and the hedging strategy for an attainable contingent claim are described in terms of solutions of a pair of coupled PDEs. For some standard examples of defaultable claims, we provide explicit formulae for prices and hedging strategies.
Conversational interaction between children using communication aids and their peers.

This thesis uses the principles and practices of Conversation Analysis in an examination of conversational interaction between non-speaking children with Cerebral Palsy using voice output communication aids (VOCAs) and their speaking peers. In order to capture the unique and subtle ways in which these interactions are organised this thesis presents a detailed examination of three dyads. Many children with Cerebral Palsy experience profound difficulty producing intelligible speech. Such children may be provided with communication aids, including VOCAs, as an alternative communication modality. Despite recognition of the value of children's peer relationships, few studies have focused on interaction between children using communication aids and their peers. The central aim of this thesis is to examine how such interactions are organised. In particular, this work is concerned with examining the role of the speaking partners in conversational organisation, how VOCAs contribute to interaction and how conversations are organised when non-speaking children participate through unintelligible vocalisations and non-verbal actions. A significant feature of each dyad is the work that speaking partners do in organising particular types of structural integrity for the conversation. This includes speaking partners locating the production of VOCA mediated turns and non-verbal actions within specific sequential contexts. Such practices provide frameworks within which VOCA mediated contributions and non-verbal actions may be understood. VOCA use initiated outside such predefined sequential locations may be realised problematically. Speaking children may also seek to organise the interaction through the treatment of their partners' unintelligible vocalisations and non-verbal actions with rich meaning. In so doing, speaking partners portray children with Cerebral Palsy with particular types of competence. By revealing the ways in which these children organise conversational interaction, this thesis highlights implications for intervention by Speech and Language Therapists who support children using communication aids in schools.
Comparison of Five Architecture Description Languages on Design Focus, Security and Style

A surgical instrument for the treatment of stenotic and occlusive coronary artery disease is described whereby the lumen of the coronary artery is longitudinally incised sub-epicardially through an area of narrowing or obstruction immediately whereafter dilation of the arterial lumen at the site of the stenotic blockage and arterial incision is effected by expansion under pressure of a balloon passed to the site through the artery. This coronary artery cutting and dilating instrument has a flexible probe at the distal end for guidance through the coronary artery, followed, in succession, by one or more radially extending knife blades for making the coronary incision and an inflatable balloon for dilating the stenotic artery zone immediately after the incision. A flexible inflating and control tube extends from the balloon to the proximal end, whereat a surgical syringe is connectable to effect hydraulic inflation of the balloon. The proximal tubular extension of the instrument is either short for use in exposed heart surgery on the beating heart by passage through the coronary artery beneath a purse-string incision made in the epicardium overlying the affected artery within a few centimeters from the blockage, or comparatively long for application through a catheter introduced via a peripheral artery.
Readministration of IgE Is Required for Repeated Passive Cutaneous Anaphylaxis in Mice

Background: Homologous passive cutaneous anaphylaxis (PCA) is an established technique that provides a useful tool to study local inflammation due to mast cell activation. Since mast cells are responsive to repeated challenge by IgE receptor crosslinking in vitro, we investigated the responsiveness of mice to repeated PCA activation. Methods: Female BALB/c mice were sensitized with intradermal injection of IgE into the ear and provocated through intravenous injection of trinitrophenol-BSA. Repeated provocation was administered, and the outcome was determined by colorimetrical measurement of Evans blue dye leakage. Results: After local IgE injection, mice could be challenged to demonstrate a PCA reaction at least up to 13 days after IgE sensitization. In contrast, passively sensitized mice did not respond to repeated antigen challenge, i.e. a second provocation administered between 1 and 12 days after the first PCA reaction. However, if these mice were intradermally resensitized with IgE at the same site after the first challenge, they became responsive to the repeated challenge. Conclusions: Mast cells become desensitized upon PCA reaction, and resensitization with IgE is critical for mice repeatedly stimulated by PCA activation.
Chunking models of expertise: Implications for education. Commentary

Chunking models offer a parsimonious explanation of how people acquire knowledge and have been validated in domains such as expert behaviour and the acquisition of language. In this paper, we review two computational theories based on chunking mechanisms (the chunking theory and the template theory) and show what insight they offer for instruction and training. The suggested implications include the importance of perception in learning, the cost of acquiring knowledge, the significance of segmenting and ordering instruction material, the role of the variability of the instructional material in acquiring schemata, and the importance of taking individual differences into account.
Adaptive Modulation for Opportunistic Decode-and-Forward Relaying

Orthogonal relay based cooperative communication enjoys distributed spatial diversity gain at the price of spectral efficiency. This work aims at improving the spectral efficiency for orthogonal opportunistic decode-and-forward (DF) relaying through employment of novel adaptive modulation scheme. The proposed scheme allows source and relay to transmit information in different modulation formats, while the MAP receiver is employed at destination for the diversity combining. Given the individual power constraint and target bit-error-rate (BER), the proposed scheme can significantly improve the spectral efficiency in comparison with the non-adaptive DF relaying and adaptive direct transmission.
Effects of Desoxypyridoxine and Vitamin B6 on Development of the Chick Embryo.∗

Summary Desoxypyridoxine (1000 fig) injected into eggs prior to the start of the incubation period resulted in 100% mortality of the embryos; this inhibition was prevented by simultaneous injection of any of the three forms of vitamin B6. The ratio of vitamin to inhibitor which permitted approximately 50% of the embryos to produce live chicks was 1/20 for pyridoxal, 1/50 for pyridoxamine and 1/100 for pyridoxine. When injected after 4 or more days of incubation, 1000 μg of desoxypyridoxine proved non-toxic. Higher levels injected at 6 days of incubation proved toxic but this toxicity could not be prevented by any of the 3 forms of vitamin B6. A possible explanation for this observed variation in toxicity of desoxypyridoxine at different stages of incubation is offered. Pyridoxal hydrochloride and pyridoxine hydrochloride also proved toxic at high levels while pyridoxamine dihydro-chloride was not toxic at the highest level tested. Neither nicotinic acid nor its amide affected the inhibitory action of desoxypyridoxine; negative results were also obtained when DL-alanine was injected alone or with nicotinic acid. These experiments demonstrate that vitamin B6 becomes essential for embryonic growth very early in the incubation period.
PENGEMBANGAN PERANGKAT PEMBELAJARAN FISIKA BERBASIS INKUIRI PADA MATERI ALAT OPTIK DAN INDIKATOR DAMPAK TERHADAP KOMPETENSI SISWA KELAS X SMA

Penelitian ini dilatarbelakangi belum tersedianya perangkat pembelajaran yang sesuai dengan karakteristik siswa dan tuntutan kurikulum. Selain itu belum bisa memotivasi siswa untuk aktif dalam pembelajaran, membangun pikiran sendiri, dan menemukan atau membuktikan konsep fisika melalui pratikum. Salah satu pembelajaran yang bisa digunakan adalah model pembelajaran inkuiri. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan perangkat pembelajaran menggunakan model inkuiri yang valid, praktis, dan efektif, serta untuk mengetahui indikator dampak terhadap kompetensi siswa. Jenis penelitian yang digunakan adalah penelitian pengembangan (research and development) menggunakan model 4-D. Adapun tahap penelitian adalah pendefinisian (define), perancangan (design), pengembangan (development), dan penyebaran (dissemination). Pada tahap pendefinisian dilakukan analisis kurikulum, analisis siswa, analisis konsep, analisis indikator dampak. Pada tahap perancangan dilakukan perancangan terhadap perangkat pembelajaran, berupa silabus, RPP, modul, LKS, dan penilaian. Selanjutnya, pada tahap pengembangan dilakukan uji validitas, praktikalitas, dan uji efektivitas. Data penelitian ini diperoleh melalui lembar validasi perangkat pembelajaran, angket praktikalitas, dan lembaran observasi. Hasil penelitian adalah perangkat pembelajaran fisika yang diuji kevalidan, kepraktisan, dan keefektifan menyatakan bahwa perangkat pembelajaran yang dikembangkan sangat valid dengan persentase rata-rata silabus 86%, RPP 89.5%, modul 83.5%, LKS 87%, penilaian 82.7%. Hasil uji kepraktisan menunjukkan bahwa perangkat pembelajaran yang dikembangkan adalah sangat praktis dengan persentase rata-rata angket kepraktisan oleh guru 87% dan siswa 84.64%. Berdasarkan hasil uji efektivitas, dinyatakan bahwa perangkat pembelajaran yang dikembangkan sangat efektif digunakan. Dengan nilai uji efektifitas dari siswa 82.39% dan guru 81.52%. Kemudian, perangkat pembelajaran yang dikembangkan menunjukkan peningkatan indikator dampak terhadap kompetensi siswa. Dengan demikian, penelitian ini menghasilkan perangkat pembelajaran berbasis inkuiri yang valid, praktis, efektif, dan menghasilkan indikator dampak.
A fast algorithm for cofactor implication checking and its application for knowledge discovery

In this paper, we propose a new method for discovering hidden information from large-scale transaction databases by considering a property of cofactor implication. Cofactor implication is an extension or generalization of symmetric itemsets, which has been presented recently. Here we discuss the meaning of cofactor implication for the data mining applications, and show an efficient algorithm of extracting all non-trivial item pairs with cofactor implication by using Zero-suppressed Binary Decision Diagrams (ZBDDs). We show an experimental result to see how many itemsets can be extracted by using cofactor implication, compared with symmetric item set mining. Our result shows that the use of cofactor implication has a possibility of discovering a new aspect of structural information hidden in the databases.
GENETIC CONTROL OF LEISHMANIA MAJOR INFECTION IN CONGENIC, RECOMBINANT INBRED AND F2 POPULATIONS OF MICE

The outcome of subcutaneous infection with L. major NIH 173 was evaluated in a series of recombinant inbred and congenic strains, as well as F2 progeny generated from a genetic linkage testing stock carrying the visible markers Ra, Os, and Pt. The disease parameters monitored were the incidence of open or necrotic lesions and footpad depths of infected feet, and the incidence and number of amastigotes in livers following infection. Regions of mouse chromosomes 2, 4, 7, 8, 12 and 15 were excluded from linkage to a gene (Scl‐1)involved in the susceptibility of inbred strains of mice to cutaneous infection with L. major NIH 173 by F2 and congenic strain analyses. Strain distribution patterns generated for Scl‐1 in the CXB and CXS recombinant inbred strains suggested linkage to the distal end of mouse Chromosome 11.
Collaborative Augmented Reality for Outdoor Navigation and Information Browsing

Augmented reality (AR) can provide an excellent user interface for visualization in a mobile computing application. The user’s view is augmented with location based information at the correct spatial location, thus providing an intuitive way of presenting such information. In this work we demonstrate the use of AR for collaborative navigation and information browsing tasks in an urban environment. A navigation function allows one or more users to roam through a city and guides them to selected destinations. Information browsing presents users with information about objects in their surrounding. Both functions feature support for collaboration. The developed system does not only concentrate on the user interface aspects but also provides a scalable infrastructure to support mobile applications. To this end we developed a 3-tier architecture to manage a common data model for a set of applications. It is inspired by current Internet application frameworks and consists of a central storage layer using a common data model, a transformation layer responsible for filtering and adapting the data to the requirements of a particular applications on request, and finally of the applications itself.
Iterative Group MAP Detection in MIMO Wireless Systems

Based on the basic group-based maximum a posterior (MAP) detector, an iterative group MAP detection scheme is proposed. The novality of the proposed scheme lies in carrying out MAP detection in a serial fashion and thus MAP detection for the later groups can use the information provided by the former ones. Furthermore, the process can be iterated, leading to the so called iterative group MAP detection. The iterative group-based MAP detector can fully use the information from the channel and the decoder. Simulation results show that the new detector has a significant performance gain over the basic group-based MAP detector in uncoded systems and a faster convergence in coded systems.
Functional Aspects of the Norepinephrine Receptor Coupled Adenylate Cyclase System in the Limbic Forebrain and its Modification by Drugs which Precipitate or Alleviate Depression: Molecular Approaches to an Understanding of Affective Disorders

The results provide evidence for a central postsynaptic regulatory mechanism involving the noradrenergic receptor coupled adenylate cyclase system. This particular system in the limbic forebrain displays properties of an adrenergic receptor with partial beta characteristics. Drugs which either can precipitate or alleviate depression in man cause time dependent opposite changes in the reactivity of this receptor system. It is tempting to speculate that depression-prone patients may have catecholamine receptors in limbic and possibly other brain structures with heightened responsiveness and that successful treatment requires desensitization of enhanced noradrenergic receptor function thus causing a reduction in the postulated amplificational mechanism that translates sensory input eventually into physiological and behavioral events.