Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[The relationship between medication adherence and rehospitalization: a prospective study of schizophrenia patients discharged from psychiatric acute wards].

BACKGROUND Antipsychotics have been regarded as the most effective therapy for schizophrenia; however, Taiwan's non-adherence rate for prescribed antipsychotics of 50-80% is an important issue that relates directly and significantly to schizophrenia patient relapse rates. PURPOSE This study examines the correlational and predictive relationships between medication adherence and rehospitalization in schizophrenia patients discharged from an acute ward. METHODS This study used a prospective research design. Schizophrenia patients discharged from a psychiatric acute ward who stated their plan to live in the community were recruited as participants. Participant medication adherence was assessed via home visits during the 6-month follow-up period using scales including the Medication Adherence Questionnaire (MAQ), drug attitudes, and regimen knowledge. Rehospitalization data were retrieved from electronic medical records. Relationships between medication adherence and rehospitalization were analyzed using t-tests and regression analysis. RESULTS Seventy-seven patients with schizophrenia discharged from the acute ward were recruited in accordance with sampling criteria. The majority were male, young, unmarried, had poorer global function, had 12 years of education, and were not rehospitalized during the past 6-month period. Using binomial regression analysis, we found the relative risk for number of rehospitalizations during the 6-month period to be significantly less and the average scores for the total scale, attitude subscale, and knowledge subscale of medication adherence to have increased (0.194-0.79 times). CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Our findings support that better medication adherence in people with schizophrenia decreases rehospitalization risk. We urge clinicians to develop sensitive interventions to promote antipsychotics adherence in this population.
The roles of myeloid-derived suppressor cells in transplantation

CD11b+Gr1+ myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are an important regulatory innate cell population and have significant inhibitory effect on T cell-mediated responses. In addition to their negative role in cancer development, MDSCs also exert strong regulatory effects on transplantation and autoimmunity. In many transplantation models, such as bone marrow transplant, renal transplant, heart transplant and skin transplant settings, MDSCs accumulate and have inhibitory effect on graft rejection. However, the inducing factors, detailed phenotype and functional molecular mediators of MDSCs are significantly different in various transplant models. With their strong suppressive activity, MDSCs could become a potential clinical therapy during transplantation tolerance induction and the combination of the MDSCs with other immunoregulatory cells or immunosuppressive drugs is an intriguing protocol in the future. In this review, we will summarize MDSC expansion, activation and induction in different transplantation models and discuss the effects of immunoregulatory cells and immunosuppressive drugs on MDSCs in transplant settings.
Privacy Paradox Revised: Pre-Existing Attitudes, Psychological Ownership, and Actual Disclosure

Prior research has pointed to discrepancies between users' privacy concerns and disclosure behaviors, denoted as the privacy paradox, and repeatedly highlighted the importance to find explanations for this dichotomy. In this regard, three approaches have been proposed by prior literature: (1) use of actual disclosure behavior rather than behavioral intentions, (2) systematic distinction between pre-existing attitudes and situation-specific privacy considerations, and (3) limited and irrational cognitive processes during decision-making. The current research proposes an experiment capable to test these three assumptions simultaneously. More precisely, the authors aim to explore the contextual nature of privacy-related decisions by systematically manipulating (1) individuals' psychological ownership with regard to own private information, and (2) individuals' affective states, while measuring (3) pre-existing attitudes as well as situation-specific risk and benefit perceptions, and (4) intentions as well as actual disclosure. Thus, the proposed study strives to uniquely add to the understanding of the privacy paradox.
The Role of Explanations on Trust and Reliance in Clinical Decision Support Systems

Clinical decision support systems (CDSS) are increasingly used by healthcare professionals for evidence-based diagnosis and treatment support. However, research has suggested that users often over-rely on system suggestions - even if the suggestions are wrong. Providing explanations could potentially mitigate misplaced trust in the system and over-reliance. In this paper, we explore how explanations are related to user trust and reliance, as well as what information users would find helpful to better understand the reliability of a system's decision-making. We investigated these questions through an exploratory user study in which healthcare professionals were observed using a CDSS prototype to diagnose hypothetic cases using fictional patients suffering from a balance-related disorder. Our results show that the amount of system confidence had only a slight effect on trust and reliance. More importantly, giving a fuller explanation of the facts used in making a diagnosis had a positive effect on trust but also led to over-reliance issues, whereas less detailed explanations made participants question the system's reliability and led to self-reliance problems. To help them in their assessment of the reliability of the system's decisions, study participants wanted better explanations to help them interpret the system's confidence, to verify that the disorder fit the suggestion, to better understand the reasoning chain of the decision model, and to make differential diagnoses. Our work is a first step toward improved CDSS design that better supports clinicians in making correct diagnoses.
ASRPAKE: An Anonymous Secure Routing Protocol with Authenticated Key Exchange for Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we present a novel anonymous secure routing protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The proposed protocol not only provides anonymity from all the intermediate nodes, but also integrates the authenticated key exchange mechanisms into the routing algorithm design. Furthermore, a new attack on anonymous services, called snare attack, is introduced, where a compromised node lures a very important node (VIN) into communicating with him and traces back to the VIN by following the route path. An adversary can then snare the VIN and launch decapitation strike on the VIN. Finally, we present a novel DECOY mechanism as a countermeasure to enhance anonymity of VINs and defeat snare attack.
Liquid Flow in Biofilm Systems

A model biofilm consisting of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Pseudomonas fluorescens, and Klebsiella pneumoniae was developed to study the relationships between structural heterogeneity and hydrodynamics. Local fluid velocity in the biofilm system was measured by a noninvasive method of particle image velocimetry, using confocal scanning laser microscopy. Velocity profiles were measured in conduit and porous medium reactors in the presence and absence of biofilm. Liquid flow was observed within biofilm channels; simultaneous imaging of the biofilm allowed the liquid velocity to be related to the physical structure of the biofilm.
The role of the serotonergic system in locomotor recovery after spinal cord injury

Serotonin (5-HT), a monoamine neurotransmitter synthesized in various populations of brainstem neurons, plays an important role in modulating the activity of spinal networks involved in vertebrate locomotion. Following spinal cord injury (SCI) there is a disruption of descending serotonergic projections to spinal motor areas, which results in a subsequent depletion in 5-HT, the dysregulation of 5-HT transporters as well as the elevated expression, super-sensitivity and/or constitutive auto-activation of specific 5-HT receptors. These changes in the serotonergic system can produce varying degrees of locomotor dysfunction through to paralysis. To date, various approaches targeting the different components of the serotonergic system have been employed to restore limb coordination and improve locomotor function in experimental models of SCI. These strategies have included pharmacological modulation of serotonergic receptors, through the administration of specific 5-HT receptor agonists, or by elevating the 5-HT precursor 5-hydroxytryptophan, which produces a global activation of all classes of 5-HT receptors. Stimulation of these receptors leads to the activation of the locomotor central pattern generator (CPG) below the site of injury to facilitate or improve the quality and frequency of movements, particularly when used in concert with the activation of other monoaminergic systems or coupled with electrical stimulation. Another approach has been to employ cell therapeutics to replace the loss of descending serotonergic input to the CPG, either through transplanted fetal brainstem 5-HT neurons at the site of injury that can supply 5-HT to below the level of the lesion or by other cell types to provide a substrate at the injury site for encouraging serotonergic axon regrowth across the lesion to the caudal spinal cord for restoring locomotion.
Location-aware cache management for many-core processors with deep cache hierarchy

As cache hierarchies become deeper and the number of cores on a chip increases, managing caches becomes more important for performance and energy. However, current hardware cache management policies do not always adapt optimally to the applications behavior: e.g., caches may be polluted by data structures whose locality cannot be captured by the caches, and producer-consumer communication incurs multiple round trips of coherence messages per cache line transferred. We propose load and store instructions that carry hints regarding into which cache(s) the accessed data should be placed. Our instructions allow software to convey locality information to the hardware, while incurring minimal hardware cost and not affecting correctness. Our instructions provide a 1.07× speedup and a 1.24× energy efficiency boost, on average, according to simulations on a 64-core system with private L1 and L2 caches. With a large shared L3 cache added, the benefits increase, providing 1.33× energy reduction on average.
Adjusting medical school admission: assessing interpersonal skills using situational judgement tests

Context Today’s formal medical school admission systems often include only cognitively oriented tests, although most medical school curricula emphasise both cognitive and non‐cognitive factors. Situational judgement tests (SJTs) may represent an innovative approach to the formal measurement of interpersonal skills in large groups of candidates in medical school admission processes. This study examined the validity of interpersonal video‐based SJTs in relation to a variety of outcome measures.
Non-sedentary Lifestyle Can Reduce Hip Fracture Risk among Older Caucasians Adults: The Adventist Health Study-2

Aims The beneficial effect of physical activity on reducing hip fracture risk has been supported in many previous studies. The present cohort study explores the relationship between total daily physical activity expressed as MET-hour/day and hip fracture risk among men over 50 years of age and postmenopausal women (n=22,836). Methodology Associations between self-reported hip fracture incidence and total daily physical activity and selected lifestyle factors were assessed using Cox proportional hazard regression. Results In gender-specific multivariable models, total activity above average (≥ 51 MET-hours per day for men, ≥ 48 MET-hours per day for women) compared to those with sedentary lifestyle (< 40 MET-hours per day) reduced the risk of hip fracture by 60% among men (HR=0.40, 95%CI: 0.23–0.70) (Ptrend=0.002) and 48% among women (HR=0.52, 95%CI: 0.32–0.84) (Ptrend=0.01). Conclusion Our findings suggest that a moderate level of physical activity and avoiding a sedentary lifestyle can reduce the risk of hip fracture among the elderly.
Relationship between adherence to evidence-based pharmacotherapy and long-term mortality after acute myocardial infarction.

CONTEXT The extent to which drug adherence may affect survival remains unclear, in part because mortality differences may be attributable to "healthy adherer" behavioral attributes more so than to pharmacological benefits. OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between drug adherence and mortality in survivors of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Population-based, observational, longitudinal study of 31 455 elderly AMI survivors between 1999 and 2003 in Ontario. All patients filled a prescription for statins, beta-blockers, or calcium channel blockers, with the latter drug considered a control given the absence of clinical trial-proven survival benefits. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patient adherence was subdivided a priori into 3 categories--high (proportion of days covered, > or =80%), intermediate (proportion of days covered, 40%-79%), and low (proportion of days covered, <40%)--and compared with long-term mortality (median of 2.4 years of follow-up) using multivariable survival models (and propensity analyses) adjusted for sociodemographic factors, illness severity, comorbidities, and concomitant use of evidence-based therapies. RESULTS Among statin users, compared with their high-adherence counterparts, the risk of mortality was greatest for low adherers (deaths in 261/1071 (24%) vs 2310/14,345 (16%); adjusted hazard ratio, 1.25; 95% confidence interval, 1.09-1.42; P = . 001) and was intermediary for intermediate adherers (deaths in 472/2407 (20%); adjusted hazard ratio, 1.12; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.25; P = . 03). A similar but less pronounced dose-response-type adherence-mortality association was observed for beta-blockers. Mortality was not associated with adherence to calcium channel blockers. Moreover, sensitivity analyses demonstrated no relationships between drug adherence and cancer-related admissions, outcomes for which biological plausibility do not exist. CONCLUSION The long-term survival advantages associated with improved drug adherence after AMI appear to be class-specific, suggesting that adherence outcome benefits are mediated by drug effects and do not merely reflect an epiphenomenon of "healthy adherer" behavioral attributes.
Concise Report

Myocardial ischaemia without obstructive coronary artery disease in rheumatoid arthritis: hypothesis-generating insights from a cross-sectional study Abstract Objective. RA is associated with increased cardiovascular events, reportedly to equal diabetes mellitus (DM). The presence of myocardial ischaemia was assessed in asymptomatic high-risk RA patients and compared with patients with DM and a healthy control group. Methods. Eighteen consecutive non-diabetic RA patients without known cardiovascular disease who developed a new carotid atheromatic plaque during the last 3 years were matched 1:1 for traditional cardiovascular risk factors with asymptomatic type 2 DM patients and 1:2 with asymptomatic non-RA, non-DM control subjects. After dobutamine stress contrast echocardiography with wall-motion and per-fusion evaluation, coronary angiography was performed in those with positive stress tests. Results. Ischaemia by echocardiography was found in 67% of RA patients; this was significantly higher than controls (31%, P = 0.019) but comparable to those with DM (78%, P = 0.71). Angiography performed in eight consenting RA patients was normal in four, revealed non-flow-limiting coronary atheromatic le-sions in two and significant lesions in two patients. RA patients with ischaemia had CRP serum levels significantly higher by six-fold compared with those with normal stress echocardiography. Conclusion. Asymptomatic RA patients may display myocardial ischaemia at similar levels to DM patients but with low prevalence of obstructive coronary artery disease. Microvascular abnormalities associated with increased inflammatory response may account for these findings. Their exact nature and significance require further evaluation.
Antibiogram, Biochemical Reactions and Genotyping Characterization of Biofield Treated Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is the key organism for food poisoning due to massive production of heat stable exotoxins. The current study was attempted to investigate the effect of Mr. Trivedi’s biofield treatment on S. aureus. S. aureus (ATCC 25923) was divided into two parts, Group (Gr.) I: control and Gr. II: treatment. After biofield treatment, Gr. II was further subdivided into two parts, Gr. IIA and Gr. IIB. Gr. IIA was analyzed on day 10, while Gr. IIB was stored and analyzed on day 159 after revival (Study I). The revived sample (Gr. IIB) were retreated on day 159 (Study II), and divided into three separate tubes. Tube 1 was analyzed on day 5, likewise, tube 2 and 3 were analyzed on day 10 and 15, respectively. All the experimental parameters were studied using automated MicroScan Walk-Away® system. The 16S rDNA sequencing was carried out in Gr. IIA sample to correlate the phylogenetic relationship of S. aureus with other bacterial species. The antimicrobial susceptibility and minimum inhibitory concentration showed significant alteration i.e. 92.86% and 90.00% respectively in treated cells of S. aureus as compared to control. The biochemical reactions also showed the significant (35.71%) alteration in treated sample with respect to control. The biotype number and microbial species were substantially changed in Gr. IIA (767177; Staphylococcus cohnii subsp. urealyticum) on day 10, while only the biotype numbers were changed in rest of the treated samples as compared to control (307016; S. aureus). The 16S rDNA analysis showed that the identified strain in this experiment was S. aureus (GenBank Accession No.: L37597) after biofield treatment. However, the nearest homolog genus-species was found as Staphylococcus simiae (GenBank Accession No.: DQ127902). These results suggested that biofield treatment has a significant impact on S. aureus in lyophilized as well as revived state.
Multiscale Modeling of Planar and Nanowire Field-Effect Biosensors

Field-effect nanobiosensors (or Biofets, biologically sensitive field-effect transistors) have recently been demonstrated experimentally and have thus gained interest as a technology for direct, label-free, real-time, and highly sensitive detection of biomolecules. The experiments have not been accompanied by a quantitative understanding of the underlying detection mechanism. The modeling of field-effect biosensors poses a multiscale problem due to the different length scales in the sensors: the charge distribution and the electric potential of the biofunctionalized surface layer changes on the Angstrom length scale, whereas the exposed sensor area is measured in micrometers squared. Here a multiscale model for the electrostatics of planar and nanowire field-effect sensors is developed by homogenization of the Poisson equation in the biofunctionalized boundary layer. The resulting interface conditions depend on the surface charge density and dipole moment density of the boundary layer. The multiscale mode.
A Role for PCNA Ubiquitination in Immunoglobulin Hypermutation

Proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) is a DNA polymerase cofactor and regulator of replication-linked functions. Upon DNA damage, yeast and vertebrate PCNA is modified at the conserved lysine K164 by ubiquitin, which mediates error-prone replication across lesions via translesion polymerases. We investigated the role of PCNA ubiquitination in variants of the DT40 B cell line that are mutant in K164 of PCNA or in Rad18, which is involved in PCNA ubiquitination. Remarkably, the PCNAK164R mutation not only renders cells sensitive to DNA-damaging agents, but also strongly reduces activation induced deaminase-dependent single-nucleotide substitutions in the immunoglobulin light-chain locus. This is the first evidence, to our knowledge, that vertebrates exploit the PCNA-ubiquitin pathway for immunoglobulin hypermutation, most likely through the recruitment of error-prone DNA polymerases.
A comparison of diabetes medication adherence and healthcare costs in patients using mail order pharmacy and retail pharmacy

Objective: To compare long-term diabetes medication adherence and healthcare costs in patients using mail order pharmacy versus retail pharmacy. Methods: The MarketScan database was used to identify patients who filled prescriptions for oral anti-diabetes medications in a retail pharmacy for at least 6 months before switching to mail order pharmacy for at least 12 months. These patients were matched to others who used retail pharmacy continuously for at least 18 months. A propensity score was used to create matched groups of patients comparable on probability of switching to mail order, weighted Poisson regression was used to analyze differences in medication adherence, and Tobit regression was used to compare costs. Results: A total of 14,600 patients who switched to mail order were matched to 43,800 patients who used retail pharmacy continuously. The average adjusted adherence in retail pharmacy was 63.4% compared to 84.8% after switching to mail order. Per-member-per-month total healthcare and total medical costs were on average $34.32 and $37.54 lower in the mail order group, respectively. Diabetes-related medical costs were on average $19.14 lower in the mail order group, while pharmacy costs were $14.13 higher. Limitations: Limitations include a patient population under the age of 65, no information on pharmacy benefit design, and limited follow-up time relative to that necessary to identify long-term diabetes complications. Conclusions: After adjusting for measured confounders of medication adherence and disease severity, individuals who switched to mail order pharmacy had higher medication possession ratios and trended toward lower total and diabetes-related medical costs over time.
An assessment of distortions of supply voltage waveform in all-electric ship power network - case study

This paper deals with problems of electric power quality evaluation in ship's network. The measurements of voltage waveform distortion have been carried out on an all electric ship - a research vessel equipped with electric propulsion comprising AC active front end (AFE) drives. The exemplary results of experimental research have been shown and compared with current requirements of Standards and Rules concerning power quality in ships' networks.
Control of Telomere Length in Drosophila

The problem of incomplete end replication of DNA was originally raised by the Russian scientist Aleksey Olovnikov (Olovnikov, 1971, 1973). The main function of telomeric DNA is the compensation of end degradation. In most eukaryotes, telomeric DNA is maintained by the action of telomerase, which is responsible for the synthesis of short 6-9 nucleotide repeats using an RNA component as a template (Greider and Blackburn, 1985). In contrast, telomeres of Drosophila are maintained as a result of retrotransposition of specialized telomeric non-long terminal repeat retrotransposons (Biessmann et al., 1990a; Biessmann et al., 1992a; Levis et al., 1993; Abad et al., 2004b).