Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Cost-Effectiveness of Three Protocols for Diagnosis and Treatment of Gonococcal and Chlamydial Infections in Women in Africa

Background The cost-effectiveness of different STD diagnosis and treatment approaches has not been evaluated previously. Goals The goals of the study were to compare the cost-effectiveness of “gold standard” care (GS), syndromic management (SM), and mass treatment (MT) protocols for the treatment of cervical gonococcal and chlamydial infections in a hypothetical model of 1 million women in Africa. Study Design A decision tree model was constructed for each of the protocols. Sensitivity analyses were conducted and 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations were run to test the robustness of the cost-effectiveness estimates to changes in underlying assumptions. Results MT with doxycycline for chlamydia was the most cost-effective protocol in terms of cost per cure. SM protocol had the lowest total programmatic costs. For the GS protocol, using azithromycin for chlamydial infections was found to be more cost-effective than using doxycycline. For both the GS and SM protocols, the total cost of the program was most sensitive to the percentage of women seeking STD treatment and the prevalence of non-STD vaginal discharge, whereas the cost of MT was almost exclusively determined by coverage rates. Conclusions No single protocol carries with it all the desired conditions of an optimal cost-effective program. The treatment-seeking behavior, STD prevalence, and coverage of each locale must be evaluated to determine the most cost-effective and highest impact program. MT was found to be the most cost-effective protocol in terms of cost per woman treated when compared with the SM and GS protocols for STDs in women.
A CMOS Ultra Low-Power and Highly Efficient UWB-IR Transmitter for WPAN Applications

This brief presents an on-off LC oscillator-based ultrawideband impulse radio (UWB-IR) transmitter for long-range application. A thorough theoretical analysis of the pulse generation is provided. Implemented in a 0.18-mum CMOS, the transmitter works in the UWB lower band of 3-5 GHz and consumes an ultralow average power of 236 muW at 1.8-V power supply. UWB pulses with a bandwidth of 2 GHz and 10-dB sidelobe suppression are generated. The transmitter can deliver a large differential output swing of 4.9 V under 100-Omega load with the highest power efficiency of 25.4% to date. It is targeted for wireless sensor network (WSNs) and wireless personal area network (WPAN) applications.
Even and odd modes in coupled graphene nanoribbons

Dispersion, attenuation and characteristic impedance of the fundamental modes supported by a pair of identical graphene nanoribbons in free space are studied. An efficient full-wave approach is adopted, based on a method-of-moments discretization of the relevant electric-field integral equation in which the graphene is modeled through a simple local conductivity. A spatial-domain formulation is adopted as it allows for efficiently treating nanoribbons with wide transverse separations and having in mind future treatment of spatially nonuniform graphene conductivities.
The structural basis for the intrinsic disorder of the actin filament: the "lateral slipping" model

Three-dimensional (3-D) helical reconstructions computed from electron micrographs of negatively stained dispersed F-actin filaments invariably revealed two uninterrupted columns of mass forming the "backbone" of the double-helical filament. The contact between neighboring subunits along the thus defined two long-pitch helical strands was spatially conserved and of high mass density, while the intersubunit contact between them was of lower mass density and varied among reconstructions. In contrast, phalloidinstabilized F-actin filaments displayed higher and spatially more conserved mass density between the two long-pitch helical strands, suggesting that this bicyclic hepta-peptide toxin strengthens the intersubunit contact between the two strands. Consistent with this distinct intersubunit bonding pattern, the two long-pitch helical strands of unstabilized filaments were sometimes observed separated from each other over a distance of two to six subunits, suggesting that the intrastrand intersubunit contact is also physically stronger than the interstrand contact. The resolution of the filament reconstructions, extending to 2.5 nm axially and radially, enabled us to reproducibly "cut out" the F- actin subunit which measured 5.5 nm axially by 6.0 nm tangentially by 3.2 nm radially. The subunit is distinctly polar with a massive "base" pointing towards the "barbed" end of the filament, and a slender "tip" defining its "pointed" end (i.e., relative to the "arrowhead" pattern revealed after stoichiometric decoration of the filaments with myosin subfragment 1). Concavities running approximately parallel to the filament axis both on the inner and outer face of the subunit define a distinct cleft separating the subunit into two domains of similar size: an inner domain confined to radii less than or equal to 2.5-nm forms the uninterrupted backbone of the two long-pitch helical strands, and an outer domain placed at radii of 2-5-nm protrudes radially and thus predominantly contributes to the outer part of the massive base. Quantitative evaluation of successive crossover spacings along individual F-actin filaments revealed the deviations from the mean repeat to be compensatory, i.e., short crossovers frequently followed long ones and vice versa. The variable crossover spacings and diameter of the F-actin filament together with the local unraveling of the two long-pitch helical strands are explained in terms of varying amounts of compensatory "lateral slipping" of the two strands past each other roughly perpendicular to the filament axis. This intrinsic disorder of the actin filament may enable the actin moiety to play a more active role in actin-myosin-based force generation than merely act as a rigid passive cable as has hitherto been assumed.
“Me” as the Research Instrument: Subject Positions, Feminist Values and Multiple “Mes”

Abstract Researchers are an integral part of the research process; for many qualitative researchers they become the research instrument. Through being that research instrument the researcher becomes intimately involved with the participants, their stories and their lives. Data are processed through the researcher, who makes decisions about what is regarded as data, how those data are collected and finally how the data are used. With this in mind the feminist researcher wears many hats and assumes many roles, in effect becoming what I term multiple “mes”. This term refers to the multiple subject positions that the researcher occupies. Therefore in this paper I explore the researcher as a research instrument from a feminist poststructural positioning and what this meant for designing data collection methods in my Doctor of Philosophy thesis. This exploration is done through the epistemological and ontological positioning of the feminist researcher and examines the corresponding methodological framework. From this framework many “mes” or other subject positions are constructed through the research journey. I argue that it is through the negotiation of multiple “mes” that the researcher demonstrates both personal values and institutional expectations. This paper concludes by elaborating the notion of doing no harm in the ‘field’ and reconciling feminist values.
Epidemiology of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease: a systematic review

A systematic review of the epidemiology of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD) has been performed, applying strict criteria for quality of studies and the disease definition used. The prevalence and incidence of GORD was estimated from 15 studies which defined GORD as at least weekly heartburn and/or acid regurgitation and met criteria concerning sample size, response rate, and recall period. Data on factors associated with GORD were also evaluated. An approximate prevalence of 10-20% was identified for GORD, defined by at least weekly heartburn and/or acid regurgitation in the Western world while in Asia this was lower, at less than 5%. The incidence in the Western world was approximately 5 per 1000 person years. A number of potential risk factors (for example, an immediate family history and obesity) and comorbidities (for example, respiratory diseases and chest pain) associated with GORD were identified. Data reported in this systematic review can be interpreted with confidence as reflecting the epidemiology of "true" GORD. The disease is more common in the Western world than in Asia, and the low rate of incidence relative to prevalence reflects its chronicity. The small number of studies eligible for inclusion in this review highlights the need for global consensus on a symptom based definition of GORD.
Taking Advantage of Basic Research: p63 Is a Reliable Myoepithelial and Stem Cell Marker

p63 is a recently characterized p53-homolog that is consistently expressed by basal/somatic stem cells of stratified epithelia, myoepithelial cells of the breast and salivary glands, and proliferative compartment of gastric mucosa. p63 is located on the long arm of chromosome 3 (3q27) and it encodes six isoforms, three transactivating (TA) and three &Dgr;N-isoforms. While the first three isoforms may act as tumor suppressor genes, the &Dgr;N-isoforms may inhibit the p53/TA-p63-driven cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Recently, the putative applications of p63 in the identification of myoepithelial cells of the breast and basal cells of the prostate acini have been evaluated; however, no critical systematic analysis of its role in surgical pathology practice have hitherto been reported. We review the putative roles of p63 in surgical pathology practice and provide guidelines for future directions on p63 translational research.
Relationship between the expression of Toll-like receptor 2 and 4 in mononuclear cells and postoperative acute lung injury in orthotopic liver transplantation.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the potential relationship between the dynamic expression of Toll-like receptor 2 and 4 (TLR2/4) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells as well as changes in serum concentration of inflammatory factors and acute lung injury (ALI) in patients after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). METHODS The peripheral blood samples of 27 patients (23 men and 4 women with ASA III to IV) who received OLT were collected for measurement of TLR2/4 at T1 (after induction of anesthesia), T2 (25 minutes after anhepatic phase), T3 (3 hours after graft reperfusion) and T4 (24 hours after graft reperfusion). The expression of TLR2/4 in mononuclear cells was measured by flow cytometry. The serum concentrations of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha, interleukin (IL)-1beta and IL-8 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Twenty-seven patients were assigned to ALI group (n = 9) and non-ALI group (n = 18) according to the diagnostic criteria of ALI. The expression of TLR2/4 in the ALI group or non-ALI group was analyzed. RESULTS Compared to the non-ALI group, the volumes of blood loss, ascites, total output and transfused red blood cells were higher in the ALI group, and the anhepatic phase lasted longer (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). The expression of TLR2/4 in mononuclear cells increased significantly at T3 and T4, and serum concentrations of TNF-alpha, IL-1beta and IL-8 increased significantly too. There was no significant difference in Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP) scores between the ALI group and non-ALI group (P > 0.05). The expression of TLR2/4 in mononuclear cells increased significantly at T3 and T4 in the ALI group (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). A positive correlation was noted between the expression of TLR4 in mononuclear cells and the serum concentrations of TNF-alpha, IL-1beta (P = 0.041, P = 0.046) in the ALI group. In the non-ALI group, statistical results showed that the expression level of TLR2/4 in mononuclear cells was not significantly different during the peri-operative period of OLT (besides TLR4 expression at T4). Compared to the non-ALI group, the increasing amplitude of TLR2/4 expression in mononuclear cells was more significant in the ALI group. The patients whose TLR2/4 expression in mononuclear cells exceeded that at T1 by one time were more likely to suffer from ALI (P = 0.013), with a relative risk of 16. CONCLUSION The expression level of TLR2/4 in mononuclear cells increases significantly in the peri-operative period of OLT, and it may be a high risk factor for occurrence of postoperative ALI.
Is Rising Obesity Causing a Secular (Age-Independent) Decline in Testosterone among American Men?

The testosterone of men in industrial societies peaks in their twenties and tends to decline with increasing age. Apart from this individual-level decline, there have been reports of a secular (age-independent population-level) decline in testosterone among American and Scandinavian men during the past few decades, possibly an indication of declining male reproductive health. It has been suggested that both declines in testosterone (individual-level and population-level) are due to increasing male obesity because men in industrial society tend to add body fat as they age, and overall rates of obesity are increasing. Using an unusually large and lengthy longitudinal dataset (991 US Air Force veterans examined in six cycles over 20 years), we investigate the relationship of obesity to individual and population-level declines in testosterone. Over twenty years of study, longitudinal decline in mean testosterone was at least twice what would be expected from cross-sectional estimates of the aging decline. Men who put on weight intensified their testosterone decline, some greatly so, but even among those who held their weight constant or lost weight during the study, mean testosterone declined 117 ng/dl (19%) over 20 years. We have not identified the reason for secular decline in testosterone, but we exclude increasing obesity as a sufficient or primary explanation, and we deny the supposition that men who avoid excessive weight will maintain their youthful levels of testosterone.
An Update on Non‐clathrin‐coated Endocytosis

Recent evidence has proved that in addition to the well‐documented clathrin‐mediated endocytic route (vesicles of 100–150 nm), at least three distinct non‐clathrin‐coated endocytic pathways function at the surface of mammalian cells. Endocytosis via these pathways is initiated by caveolae (50–80 nm), macropinosomes (500–2000 nm) and micropinosomes (95–100 nm). The current state of knowledge about these non‐clathrin coated endocytic routes is presented and evidence that endocytic routes other than via clathrin‐coated vesicles are utilised by viruses is discussed. The recent advances in these areas have provided us with tools to investigate the entry of those viruses which appear to enter cells via endocytosis into non‐clathrin‐coated vesicles. Data indicate that these four endocytic pathways differ in the absence, presence and/or type of coat on the vesicles, the size of the vesicles, their sensitivity to a variety of inhibitors, and in the ligands endocytosed. A historical perspective of the discovery of these non‐clathrin‐coated endocytic pathways is provided and recent information is summarised and discussed. The entry of viruses via non‐clathrin‐coated pits is destined to be an exciting new area of viral‐cell entry, as has been indicated recently by the finding that entry of simian virus type 40 into cells occurs via caveolae. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
On the Performance of Mobile WiMAX System: Measurement and Propagation Studies

In this paper, we present drive test results for mobile WiMAX system for desert and cosmopolitan terrains where there are few studies reported in the literature. The extensive measurement is performed in the framework of the physical performance of the WiMAX technology which is often considered as a 4G system. Path loss model is fitted for the collected data. The work is unique in the sense that most empirical channel models are produced in regions where the environments (weather, buildings, vegetation, among others) are quite different from the desert terrains that are considered in this study. We also show that shadowing is truly lognormal in dB and the standard deviation values are calculated for the desert terrain from the measurement data. The measurements are collected using WiMAX BS station, with greenpacket dongle, and NEMO versatile outdoor drive test equipment to evaluate and characterize the performance of the system. The received signal strength indicators measured, are analyzed to complement network design and network optimization for regions where the popular models may not be accurate.
Presupposition Projection as Anaphora Resolution

The present paper presents an anaphoric account of presupposition. It is argued that presuppositional expressions should not be seen as referring expressions, nor is presupposition to be explicated in terms of some non-standard logic. The notion of presupposition should not be relegated to a pragmatic theory either. Instead presuppositional expressions are claimed to be anaphoric expressions which have internal structure and semantic content. In fact they only differ from pronouns and other semantically less loaded anaphors in that they have more descriptive content. It is this fact which enables them to create an antecedent in case discourse does not provide one. If their capacity to accommodate is taken into account they can be treated by basically the same mechanism which handles the resolution of pronouns. The theory is elaborated in the framework of discourse representation theory. It is shown that pragmatic factors interfere in the resolution of presuppositio nal anaphors. The resulting account can neither be classified as wholly semantic nor wholly pragmatic. Section 1 presents a survey of standing problems in the theory of presupposition projection and discusses the major competing approaches. An argumentation for a purely anaphoric account of presupposition is given in section 2. Section 3 presents a coding of presuppositional expressions in an extension of discourse representation theory. The final section is devoted to a discussion of the constraints which govern the resolution of presuppositional anaphors.
A new cooperative particle swarm optimizer with dimension partition and adaptive velocity control

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) has been proposed as an alternative to traditional evolutionary algorithms. In this work, we present a new PSO approach to control the trade-off between exploitation and exploration in the search process for solving multimodal functions. Our approach focuses on two search strategies for multimodal functions. One is a two-swarm cooperative strategy that controls search region and integrates partial and full dimension PSO search. The other strategy is to control the velocity of the particles in an adaptive way. To evaluate the proposed approach, experiments have been conducted and comparisons to several popular PSO variants have been made. The results prove that our approach can have better performance than others in most of the test cases.
Myths and Realities about Online Forums in Open Source Software Development: An Empirical Study

The use of free and open source software (OSS) is gaining momentum due to the ever increasing availability and use of the Internet. Organizations are also now adopting open source software, despite some reservations, in particular regarding the provision and availability of support. Some of the biggest concerns about free and open source software are post release software defects and their rectification, management of dynamic requirements and support to the users. A common belief is that there is no appropriate support available for this class of software. A contradictory argument is that due to the active involvement of Internet users in online forums, there is in fact a large resource available that communicates and manages the provision of support. The research model of this empirical investigation examines the evidence available to assess whether this commonly held belief is based on facts given the current developments in OSS or simply a myth, which has developed around OSS development. We analyzed a dataset consisting of 1880 open source software projects covering a broad range of categories in this investigation. The results show that online forums play a significant role in managing software defects, implementation of new requirements and providing support to the users in open source software and have become a major source of assistance in maintenance of the open source projects.
Regulation of Matrix Metalloproteinase Activity in Ischemic Tissue by Interleukin-10: Role in Ischemia-Induced Angiogenesis

Abstract— We have previously shown that deficiency in the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) is responsible for enhanced angiogenesis after hindlimb ischemia. This study examined the putative involvement of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activation in this process. Ischemia was produced by artery femoral occlusion in both C57BL6 IL-10+/+ and IL-10−/− mice. Angiographic vessel density and laser Doppler perfusion data at day 28 showed significant improvement in ischemic/nonischemic leg ratio by, respectively, 1.8-fold and 1.4-fold in IL-10−/− mice compared with IL-10+/+ mice. This was associated with an increase in vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) protein content in the ischemic hindlimb. Three days after ischemia, gelatin zymography showed a significant increase in both pro- and active forms of MMP-2 and MMP-9 in ischemic hindlimbs of IL-10−/− mice compared with IL-10+/+ mice (P <0.01). This increase in MMP activity in IL-10−/− mice was completely inhibited by treatment with BB-94 (5 mg/kg IP), a specific MMP inhibitor. Furthermore, increases in both vessel density and blood perfusion indexes at day 28 in IL-10−/− mice were abolished after treatment with BB-94 (0.78±0.06 versus 1.17±0.09 and 0.62±0.02 versus 0.88±0.04, for vessel density and blood perfusion ratio, respectively, in IL-10−/− mice treated with BB-94 versus untreated IL-10−/− mice, P <0.05). In contrast, BB-94 treatment did not affect the rise in VEGF protein content. These findings in IL-10−/− mice underscore the critical role of MMP activation, in a context of increased VEGF expression, in promoting ischemia-induced angiogenesis.