Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Barriers to screening for intimate partner violence: a mixed-methods study of providers in family planning clinics.

CONTEXT Universal screening for intimate partner violence has been recommended for health care settings. However, provider adherence to this recommendation is low, and little research has explored perspectives on relevant policies and procedures among providers in family planning centers. METHODS In 2009, a sample of 75 health care staff from a large, urban family planning organization that has a protocol for screening for partner violence participated in focus group discussions about their attitudes toward, perceptions of barriers to and preparedness for such screening; 64 of them also completed a brief survey. Multiple analysis of variance was used to assess differences between licensed practitioners (advanced practice clinicians and social workers) and unlicensed health care assistants; findings were analyzed for congruence with and divergence from the focus group data. RESULTS Barriers included lack of time, training and referral resources, but were reported less by licensed than by unlicensed providers. Overall, participants rated screening as helpful to clients, but licensed providers had more positive attitudes toward and felt more prepared for it than unlicensed ones. In the focus groups, some providers expressed frustration with clients' responses to referrals, concern about taking too much time away from other health care matters and opinions that it was more appropriate for licensed professionals than for unlicensed practitioners to conduct screening. Both licensed and unlicensed staff wanted more training on responding to disclosures of violence. CONCLUSIONS Family planning providers who are working under an institutional protocol continue to perceive barriers to screening and may benefit from ongoing professional development.
Affective and instrumental components in the physician-patient relationship: an additional dimension of interaction theory.

This study examines the empirical support for the assumptions underlying a previously published model of the professional-client interaction by investigating the affective and instrumental components in the physician-patient relationship. The findings stress the significance, for patients' evaluation of the affective quality and efficacy of medical treatment from general practitioners and hospital physicians, of accompanying the medical treatment with emotional support. In line with the approaches indicating the complex relationship between emotional and physiologicalfactors in disease, it is shown that emotional support not only bridges over patient uncertainty regarding the content and outcome of the treatment, but is a crucial element in patients' evaluation of the treatment itself, its significance increasing with the decrease in patients' social class. The study extends the applicability of the earlier model, which was logically confined to the interaction with the G.P. only, to wider medical settings, such as hospitals.
Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease Virus Induces and Benefits from Cell Stress, Autophagy, and Apoptosis

ABSTRACT The mode and timing of virally induced cell death hold the potential of regulating viral yield, viral transmission, and the severity of virally induced disease. Orbiviruses such as the epizootic hemorrhagic disease virus (EHDV) are nonenveloped and cytolytic. To date, the death of cells infected with EHDV, the signal transduction pathways involved in this process, and the consequence of their inhibition have yet to be characterized. Here, we report that the Ibaraki strain of EHDV2 (EHDV2-IBA) induces apoptosis, autophagy, a decrease in cellular protein synthesis, the activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), and the phosphorylation of the JNK substrate c-Jun. The production of infectious virions decreased upon inhibition of apoptosis with the pan-caspase inhibitor Q-VD-OPH (quinolyl-valyl-O-methylaspartyl-[-2,6-difluorophenoxy]-methyl ketone), upon inhibition of autophagy with 3-methyladenine or via the knockout of the autophagy regulator Atg5, or upon treatment of infected cells with the JNK inhibitor SP600125 or the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor roscovitine, which also inhibited c-Jun phosphorylation. Moreover, Q-VD-OPH, SP600125, and roscovitine partially reduced EHDV2-IBA-induced cell death, and roscovitine diminished the induction of autophagy by EHDV2-IBA. Taken together, our results imply that EHDV induces and benefits from the activation of signaling pathways involved in cell stress and death.
Phosphorylation of Serine 256 by Protein Kinase B Disrupts Transactivation by FKHR and Mediates Effects of Insulin on Insulin-like Growth Factor-binding Protein-1 Promoter Activity through a Conserved Insulin Response Sequence*

Insulin inhibits the expression of multiple genes in the liver containing an insulin response sequence (IRS) (CAAAA(C/T)AA), and we have reported that protein kinase B (PKB) mediates this effect of insulin. Genetic studies inCaenorhabditis elegans indicate that daf-16, aforkhead/winged-helix transcription factor, is a major target of the insulin receptor-PKB signaling pathway. FKHR, a human homologue of daf-16, contains three PKB sites and is expressed in the liver. Reporter gene studies in HepG2 hepatoma cells show that FKHR stimulates insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-1 promoter activity through an IRS, and introduction of IRSs confers this effect on a heterologous promoter. Insulin disrupts IRS-dependent transactivation by FKHR, and phosphorylation of Ser-256 by PKB is necessary and sufficient to mediate this effect. Antisense studies indicate that FKHR contributes to basal promoter function and is required to mediate effects of insulin and PKB on promoter activity via an IRS. To our knowledge, these results provide the first report that FKHR stimulates promoter activity through an IRS and that phosphorylation of FKHR by PKB mediates effects of insulin on gene expression. Signaling to FKHR-related forkheadproteins via PKB may provide an evolutionarily conserved mechanism by which insulin and related factors regulate gene expression.
The living standards of families with children reporting low incomes

The Government has high-profile child poverty targets which are assessed using a measure of income, as recorded in the Household Below Average Income series (HBAI). However, income is an imperfect measure of living standards. Previous analysis suggests that some children in households with low income do not have commensurately low living standards. This report aims to document the extent to which this is true, focusing on whether children in low-income households have different living standards depending on whether their parents are employed, self-employed, or workless.
Reinforcing Spirals Model: Conceptualizing the Relationship Between Media Content Exposure and the Development and Maintenance of Attitudes

The reinforcing spirals model (RSM) has two primary purposes. First, the RSM provides a general framework for conceptualizing media use as part of a dynamic, endogenous process combining selective exposure and media effects that may be drawn on by theorists concerned with a variety of social processes and effects. Second, the RSM utilizes a systems-theory perspective to describe how patterns of mediated and interpersonal communication contribute to the development and maintenance of social identities and ideology as well as more transient attitudes and related behaviors, and how those outcomes may influence subsequent media use. The RSM suggests contingencies that may lead to homeostasis or encourage certain individuals or groups to extreme polarization of such attitudes. In addition, the RSM proposes social cognitive mechanisms that may be responsible for attitude maintenance and reinforcement. This article discusses empirical progress in testing the model, addresses misconceptions that have arisen, and provides elaborated illustrations of the model. The article also identifies potentially fruitful directions for further conceptual development and empirical testing of the RSM.
Directional Hearing Aids

A miniature hearing aid unit to be fitted to and carried on a person's head; there being a directional microphone in the housing which has front and rear sound admitting openings to respectively supply sounds to the fore and aft ports of the directional microphone; the rear opening in the hearing aid housing being located significantly closer to the inner side of the housing than the forward opening so that the alignment between front and rear openings is at an oblique angle of approximately 20° relative to the frontal direction.
Mammalian Tumor Susceptibility Gene 101 (TSG101) and the Yeast Homologue, Vps23p, Both Function in Late Endosomal Trafficking

The mammalian tumor susceptibility gene tsg101 encodes the homologue of Vps23p, a class E Vps protein essential for normal membrane trafficking in the late endosome/multivesicular body of yeast. Both proteins assemble into large (∼350 kDa) cytosolic protein complexes and we show that the yeast complex contains another class E Vps protein, Vps28p. tsg101 mutant cells exhibit defects in sorting and proteolytic maturation of the lysosomal hydrolase cathepsin D, as well as in the steady‐state distribution of the mannose‐6‐phosphate receptor. Additionally, endocytosed EGF receptors that are normally sorted to the lysosome are instead rapidly recycled back to the cell surface in tsg101 mutant cells. We propose that tsg101 mutant cells are defective in the delivery of cargo proteins to late endosomal compartments. One consequence of this endosomal trafficking defect is the delayed down‐regulation/degradation of activated cell surface receptors, resulting in prolonged signaling. This may contribute to the tumorigenic phenotype exhibited by the tsg101 mutant fibroblasts.
A Systematic Review of End-of-Life Visual Impairment in Open-Angle Glaucoma: An Epidemiological Autopsy

Purpose:Glaucoma patients are still at risk of becoming blind. It is of clinical significance to determine the risk of blindness and its causes to prevent its occurrence. This systematic review estimates the number of treated glaucoma patients with end-of-life visual impairment (VI) and blindness and the factors that are associated with this. Methods:A systematic literature search in relevant databases was conducted in August 2014 on end-of-life VI. A total of 2574 articles were identified, of which 5 on end-of-life VI. Several data items were extracted from the reports and presented in tables. Results:All studies had a retrospective design. A considerable number of glaucoma patients were found to be blind at the end of their life; with up to 24% unilateral and 10% bilateral blindness. The following factors were associated with blindness: (1) baseline severity of visual field loss: advanced stage of glaucoma or substantial visual field loss at the initial visit; (2) factors influencing progression: fluctuation of intraocular pressure (IOP) during treatment, presence of pseudoexfoliation, poor patient compliance, higher IOP; (3) longer time period: longer duration of disease and older age at death because of a longer life expectancy; and (4) coexistence of other ocular pathology. Conclusions:Further prevention of blindness in glaucoma patients is needed. To reach this goal, it is important to address the risk factors for blindness identified in this review, especially those that can be modified, such as advanced disease at diagnosis, high and fluctuating IOP, and poor compliance.
Measuring informal sector incomes in Tanzania – some constraints to cost-benefit analysis

Roughly 600 informal sector entrepreneurs in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were surveyed in order to compare incomes of project beneficiaries with those of a suitable control group. The aim was to carry out a cost-benefit analysis and ultimately to gauge whether the project intervention could be justified in terms of increased incomes. However, the act of measurement significantly affected the results. It strongly mattered who asked the questions and how the questions were actually worded. Furthermore, project participation should not be considered a truly exogenous variable. In all probability it is systematically correlated with stated income and with the degree of truthfulness in the interviewee's response. In the light of these problems, a variation on willingness to pay is suggested as a more appropriate monitoring and evaluation indicator.
KINFix – A formalin-free non-commercial fixative optimized for histological, immunohistochemical and molecular analyses of neurosurgical tissue specimens

An optimal fixative should ideally combine the advantages of formalin fixation and freezing, allowing for good preservation of histology and molecular components, easy handling and storage, lack of toxicity, and low costs. Most of these criteria are fulfilled by ethanol-based solutions, and due to our good experience with the commercial RCL2 fixative, reflected by our published single-center trial, we initiated a multicenter ring trial. However, during its course, RCL2 was discontinued on the market. Therefore, we created our own agent, KINFix, composed of the same main constituents as RCL2, and employed it in our laboratory with similar results. Here we present our evaluation of the three fixatives formalin, RCL2, and KINFix from the perspective of histopathology as well as nucleic acid and protein analyses in comparison to fresh frozen tissues together with the multicenter ring trial data for RCL2. We observe that RCL2 and KINFix offer comparable histomorphology and superior template for molecular analyses than formalin. Moreover, KINFix as freely available fixative might overcome some of the difficulties related to the commercial agents. Therefore, we conclude that KINFix might be an attractive complement to formalin in tissue processing and advocate its use in neuropathological practice.
LOWER BACK PAIN--SILENT SYMPTOM OF CHRONIC INFRARENAL ABDOMINAL ANEURYSM RUPTURE.

INTRODUCTION The rupture of infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm is a surgical emergency condition with a high rate of mortality before the patients arrive at hospital. The signs and symptoms of abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture into the retroperitoneal cavity are pulsatile mass, abdominal pain, hypotension and shock, but sometimes silent symptoms also hide a dangerous and life threatening condition, such as chronic aneurysm rupture of abdominal aorta into the retroperitoneal cavity. CASE REPORT We present a patient having had the lower back pain for 4 months, which had been recognized and treated as lumbar ischialgia but which was eventually diagnosed to be chronic infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture by computed tomography angiography. The surgical intervention was successful and the patient was discharged from hospital after 6 days without any clinical complications. Preoperative imaging by computed tomography angiography of ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm is highly sensitive for detection of several specific signs for rupture. This condition leads to urgent vascular surgery.
Should Education Be Publicly Provided?

This study suggests that a subsidy in the form of public provision has the potential to be the most efficient educational policy because it stimulates investment in human capital, which would otherwise be inefficiently low because of distortionary income taxation and possible external benefits. Moreover, it can potentially do this without grossly distorting the mix of investments in human capital. Other policies do not have the potential to achieve both these ends without introducing additional, perhaps overwhelming, problems. Thus public provision of education appears to provide incentives for human capital accumulation which are more efficient than any other feasible policy.
Ownership structure and stock market liquidity: evidence from Tunisia

The aim of this paper is to identify and analyse the influence of ownership concentration on stock market liquidity in general, and the adverse selection component of the spread in particular for a panel of Tunisian firms from 2001 to 2007. We document that firms with greater insider ownership display significantly lower liquidity. The negative relation between liquidity and insider ownership is attributable to adverse selection. We also find that the only negative correlation between blockholders and liquidity persists is that with turnover. Thus, it appears that blockholders decrease liquidity. We find that ownership effect depends on the owner identity. Our results suggest that state ownership is negatively related to spread, and positively related to market depth. Foreign ownership has no significant effect on liquidity measures.
Phoneme recognition with an artificial neural network

An artificial neural network has been trained to recognize phonemes using the error back-propagation technique. First a coarse feature network is trained to extract seven quasi-phonetic features from the spectral frames of a Bark-scaled filter bank. The outputs of this net and the spectral outputs of the filter bank were input to a phoneme recognition net. The coarse features were recognized with 80% 93% accuracy. Using manual segmentation the phone recognition rate was 64% and in 82% of the cases, the correct phone was among the best three candidates.
Ten-Nanometer Ferroelectric $\hbox{Si:HfO}_{2}$  Films for Next-Generation FRAM Capacitors

Ferroelectric properties of Si-doped HfO2 thin films (10 nm) have been investigated. The focus of this letter is to evaluate the potential applicability of these thin films for future 3-D ferroelectric random access memory capacitors. Polarization switching was tested at elevated temperatures up to 185°C and showed no severe degradation. Domain switching dynamics were electrically characterized with pulse-switching tests and were not in accordance with Kolmogorov-Avrami-type switching. Nucleation-limited switching is proposed to be applicable for these new types of ferroelectric thin films. Furthermore, same-state and opposite-state retention tests were performed at 125°C up to 20 h. It was found that samples that had previously been annealed at 800°C showed improved retention of the written state as well as of the opposite state. In addition, fatigue measurements were carried out, and no degradation occurred for 106 programming and erase cycles at 3 V.
ImSET 3.1: Impact of Sector Energy Technologies Model Description and User's Guide

This 3.1 version of the Impact of Sector Energy Technologies (ImSET) model represents the next generation of the previously-built ImSET model (ImSET 2.0) that was developed in 2005 to estimate the macroeconomic impacts of energy-efficient technology in buildings. In particular, a special-purpose version of the Benchmark National Input-Output (I-O) model was designed specifically to estimate the national employment and income effects of the deployment of Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)–developed energy-saving technologies. In comparison with the previous versions of the model, this version features the use of the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis 2002 national input-output table and the central processing code has been moved from the FORTRAN legacy operating environment to a modern C++ code. ImSET is also easier to use than extant macroeconomic simulation models and incorporates information developed by each of the EERE offices as part of the requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act. While it does not include the ability to model certain dynamic features of markets for labor and other factors of production featured in the more complex models, for most purposes these excluded features are not critical. The analysis is credible as long as the assumption is made thatmore » relative prices in the economy would not be substantially affected by energy efficiency investments. In most cases, the expected scale of these investments is small enough that neither labor markets nor production cost relationships should seriously affect national prices as the investments are made. The exact timing of impacts on gross product, employment, and national wage income from energy efficiency investments is not well-enough understood that much special insight can be gained from the additional dynamic sophistication of a macroeconomic simulation model. Thus, we believe that this version of ImSET is a cost-effective solution to estimating the economic impacts of the development of energy-efficient technologies. « less
European Technology Policy

European countries do less research than Japan and the United States. We use a quantitative multi-country growth model to ask: (i) Why is this so? (ii) Would there be any benefit to expanding research in Europe? (iii) What would various European research promotion policies do? We find that (i) Europe's lower research effort has more to do with the smaller markets facing European inventors than with lower research productivity. (ii) Europe has substantial research potential in that increased research effort in most European countries generates bigger income benefits there than increased effort in the United States and Japan of equivalent amounts. (iii) Policies to stimulate research in Europe raise productivity not only there but elsewhere. But a problem with pursuing these policies at the national level is the potential for free riding. A second possible problem with promoting research is distributional: While all countries within the European Union benefit, the countries that are already best at doing research, which tend to be the richer members, fare best. The benefits of policies that facilitate the adoption of innovations are more evenly spread.
Comparative analysis of Synchronous Rectification Boost and Diode Rectification Boost converter for DMPPT applications

Photovoltaic systems performances are strongly influenced by mismatching phenomena. Such a drawback can be overcome by means of Distributed Maximum Power Point Tracking (DMPPT) which is based on the adoption of a DC-DC converter dedicated to the MPPT of each PV module. A DMPPT converter has to fulfil requirements of low complexity, high efficiency and high reliability. Many DC-DC converter topologies are available for DMPPT applications. The most widely used one is the boost converter. In this paper a comparative analysis between DMPPT Synchronous Rectification boost converter and Diode Rectification boost converter is carried out. Efficiency performance, thermal behaviour and reliability evaluation of the two converters power stages are compared by numerical and experimental data. The analysis demonstrates that the Synchronous Rectification boost converter is better for the PV system efficiency improvement and thermal requirements. The Diode Rectification boost instead is more reliable. A strategy to improve the Synchronous Rectification boost converter reliability is presented.
Heterogeneity of Agents and Exchange Rate Dynamics: Evidence from the EMS

We develop and estimate a dynamic heterogeneous agent model for the EMS period. Our empirical results suggest that the existence of heterogeneous interacting agents is indeed a possible explanation for the dynamics of exchange rates during the EMS. We find strong evidence of heterogeneous boundedly rational beliefs, and the fact that agents switch between these beliefs. Moreover, we show that the dynamic heterogeneous agent model outperforms the random walk and the static heterogeneous agents' model in out-of-sample forecasting in the large majority of country-horizon combinations.