Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A unique form of endemic pemphigus in northern Colombia.

BACKGROUND Endemic forms of pemphigus are a unique group of autoimmune diseases that represent opportunities to study interactions of the environment and genetics with the immune system. The restriction to relatively well-defined regions of South and Central America and perhaps Africa characterizes these diseases. OBJECTIVES The aims of this study were to confirm the endemic nature of a new type of autoimmune disease occurring in a mining town in northeastern Colombia in the El Bagre area, to characterize it, and to compare it with other forms of endemic pemphigus. METHODS A 10-year prospective, controlled epidemiologic, humanitarian, and immunologic fieldwork case-control survey was performed in El Bagre, Colombia. RESULTS Our work revealed that this disease is endemic in rural areas surrounding El Bagre. The disease appeared in 4.7% of middle-aged and older men and postmenopausal women from these rural areas. This disease differs from previously described forms of endemic pemphigus. It shares some heterogeneous immunoreactivity with paraneoplastic pemphigus but is not associated with malignant tumors. The disease resembles Senear-Usher syndrome (pemphigus and lupus) but occurs endemically either with a localized stable clinical course or in a systemic form. This systemic form may affect organs other than skin and is characterized by episodic relapses and poor prognosis in comparison with the localized form. CONCLUSION We have confirmed endemic pemphigus foliaceus in El Bagre as an autoimmune disease that shares features with Senear-Usher syndrome but occurs in an endemic fashion. Heterogeneous antigenic reactivity is observed as in paraneoplastic pemphigus but with no evidence of association with neoplasia. In addition, constant exogenous antigenic stimulation and a genetic predisposition may be required in the pathogenesis of this disease.
The state of in vitro science for use in bioaccumulation assessments for fish

Through the concerted evaluations of thousands of commercial substances for the qualities of persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity as a result of the United Nations Environment Program's Stockholm Convention, it has become apparent that fewer empirical data are available on bioaccumulation than other endpoints and that bioaccumulation models were not designed to accommodate all chemical classes. Due to the number of chemicals that may require further assessment, in vivo testing is cost prohibitive and discouraged due to the large number of animals needed. Although in vitro systems are less developed and characterized for fish, multiple high‐throughput in vitro assays have been used to explore the dietary uptake and elimination of pharmaceuticals and other xenobiotics by mammals. While similar processes determine bioaccumulation in mammalian species, a review of methods to measure chemical bioavailability in fish screening systems, such as chemical biotransformation or metabolism in tissue slices, perfused tissues, fish embryos, primary and immortalized cell lines, and subcellular fractions, suggest quantitative and qualitative differences between fish and mammals exist. Using in vitro data in assessments for whole organisms or populations requires certain considerations and assumptions to scale data from a test tube to a fish, and across fish species. Also, different models may incorporate the predominant site of metabolism, such as the liver, and significant presystemic metabolism by the gill or gastrointestinal system to help accurately convert in vitro data into representative whole‐animal metabolism and subsequent bioaccumulation potential. The development of animal alternative tests for fish bioaccumulation assessment is framed in the context of in vitro data requirements for regulatory assessments in Europe and Canada.
Internet access and utilization for health information among university students in Islamabad.

BACKGROUND Internet has changed the way we live and work. Advent of this technology has fundamentally transformed our lives the way invention of automobile changed how our lives and cities looked and worked before. Practically no information is available on the use of Internet for health by the people of Pakistan. The Objectives of the study were to assess the access and utilization pattern of Internet by university students in Islamabad, with emphasis on the healthcare information seeking. METHODS An anonymous, self-administered, and pre-tested questionnaire with questions on the access, and usage pattern of Internet, seeking health care information online, and belief about reliability of such information; was distributed to only those students who were enrolled in masters or higher degree programs. RESULTS A total of 600 students were approached and 598 (99.7%) completed the questionnaires. The mean age of students was 23.5 years (range 19-40). The majority of students (423) were enrolled in masters program. Four hundred and sixty-eight students (78.26%) students had access to the computer either at home or at their university hostel. While 304 (50.84%) students had Internet access at home or in their university hostel. Out of 304 students who reported having access to Internet in the past three months, one hundred and thirty-nine (43.4%) students replied affirmatively to the question of having used Internet for seeking health care information. And 109 (78.4%) thought that such information was reliable. Out of 139 students who had used Internet for seeking health information, 35 (25.2%) students replied affirmatively to the question of having discussed health information obtained from Internet with their doctor/physician whom they visited for any illness/treatment. CONCLUSION Majority of Islamabad university students in this study had access to computer and Internet. Young and healthy state of this educated age group perhaps accounts for limited use of Internet for seeking healthcare related information. However, high reliability of Internet obtained health information needs to be further studied in terms of websites utilized for seeking such information.
Integrating data on DNA copy number with gene expression levels and drug sensitivities in the NCI-60 cell line panel

Chromosome rearrangement, a hallmark of cancer, has profound effects on carcinogenesis and tumor phenotype. We used a panel of 60 human cancer cell lines (the NCI-60) as a model system to identify relationships among DNA copy number, mRNA expression level, and drug sensitivity. For each of 64 cancer-relevant genes, we calculated all 4,096 possible Pearson's correlation coefficients relating DNA copy number (assessed by comparative genomic hybridization using bacterial artificial chromosome microarrays) and mRNA expression level (determined using both cDNA and Affymetrix oligonucleotide microarrays). The analysis identified an association of ERBB2 overexpression with 3p copy number, a finding supported by data from human tumors and a mouse model of ERBB2-induced carcinogenesis. When we examined the correlation between DNA copy number for all 353 unique loci on the bacterial artificial chromosome microarray and drug sensitivity for 118 drugs with putatively known mechanisms of action, we found a striking negative correlation (−0.983; 95% bootstrap confidence interval, −0.999 to −0.899) between activity of the enzyme drug l-asparaginase and DNA copy number of genes near asparagine synthetase in the ovarian cancer cells. Previous analysis of drug sensitivity and mRNA expression had suggested an inverse relationship between mRNA levels of asparagine synthetase and l-asparaginase sensitivity in the NCI-60. The concordance of pharmacogenomic findings at the DNA and mRNA levels strongly suggests further study of l-asparaginase for possible treatment of a low-synthetase subset of clinical ovarian cancers. The DNA copy number database presented here will enable other investigators to explore DNA transcript-drug relationships in their own domains of research focus. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(4):853–67]
Isolation of a newly recognized Bunyamwera serogroup virus from a febrile human in Panama.

A virus, strain 86MSP18, was isolated from the acute phase serum of a U.S. soldier with a febrile illness. He was stationed at Fort Sherman in the Republic of Panama when the onset of his illness occurred. A rise in neutralizing antibody to the viral isolate was observed between the patient's acute and convalescent-phase serum samples. Virus strain 86MSP18 has been shown by plaque reduction neutralization to be closely related to but distinct from Cache Valley virus and known subtypes. It appears to be a newly recognized subtype of Cache Valley virus and is believed to be the second isolation of a Cache Valley virus subtype from a human with a febrile illness. The name "Fort Sherman" virus for strain 86MSP18 is proposed.
Policy Work: Street-Level Organizations Under New Managerialism

Street-level organizations are pivotal players in the making of public policy. The importance of these organizations is reflected in new public management strategies that aim to influence how street-level organizations work – in part, by "steering" discretionary practices through performance-based incentives. The underlying assumptions are that if performance indicators provide the equivalent of a bottom line and if incentives (or penalties) are attached to them, one can leave it to streetlevel organizations to determine how best to do policy work. This article directly challenges the premise that how policy work is done does not matter so long as performance benchmarks are met. It brings a street-level perspective to bear on a growing debate that questions both the effectiveness and the political implications of new public management (NPM) strategies. I argue that these strategies are based, in part, on flawed assumptions about how street-level discretion interacts with performance incentives and how these strategies relate to policy politics. In this article, I elaborate on an analytic framework for understanding the streetlevel logic of choice and constraint under new managerialism, and then turn to the case of welfare reform to examine how new managerialism and discretion interact in the everyday life of a major urban welfare agency. The analysis reveals that street-level practitioners do not simply respond to performance incentives; rather, they use their discretion to adjust to them, producing informal practices that are substantively different from – and more diverse than – what policymakers or managers tend to recognize. A street-level view illuminates dimensions of welfare reform's apparent "success" that performance metrics do not capture, arguably obscuring the very transparency they are ostensibly designed to provide. A better
Mammalian TOR: A Homeostatic ATP Sensor

The bacterial macrolide rapamycin is an efficacious anticancer agent against solid tumors. In a hypoxic environment, the increase in mass of solid tumors is dependent on the recruitment of mitogens and nutrients. When nutrient concentrations change, particularly those of essential amino acids, the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) functions in regulatory pathways that control ribosome biogenesis and cell growth. In bacteria, ribosome biogenesis is independently regulated by amino acids and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Here we demonstrate that the mTOR pathway is influenced by the intracellular concentration of ATP, independent of the abundance of amino acids, and that mTOR itself is an ATP sensor.
Size Dependence of the Directional Scattering Conditions on Semiconductor Nanoparticles

The resonant modes observed in semiconductor nanoparticles and the coherent interaction between them, producing directional light scattering, may be very interesting for CMOS integrated all-optical devices. In these systems, the control over the light scattering should be crucial, as well as the strength of this control. Fabrication parameters such as the size and shape of the nanoparticles and the optical properties of the environment can strongly affect to the emergence of these phenomena. In this letter, we numerically explore the size dependence of the directional scattering conditions of semiconductor nanoparticles. Several semiconductor materials and a large size range have been considered as a reference for further works. An interesting and unexpected linear behavior has been observed.
High-speed architecture for Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm

This paper presents high speed architecture for AES encryption. The proposed architecture uses integrated unit of encryption in which the consecutive transformations of AES are integrated into a single unit to arrive at an architecture with shorter critical path. Further reduction in critical path is achieved by applying pre-computation technique. Synthesis results using Synopsis 0.18 μm CMOS process are also provided to substantiate the claims.
Lightweight key management for wireless sensor networks

Given the growing number of applications of wireless sensor networks, some recent research has focused on managing secure wireless communications in such networks. When a large group of sensors that typically are constrained in energy, computation and communication resource are deployed, efficient key management becomes critical. In this paper, we propose a new hierarchical key management scheme for wireless sensor networks based on a combinatorial optimization of the group key management problem. Our solution uses symmetric encryption and re-keying to support current, forward and backward secrecy. An important contribution of our solution is that it yields optimal results for the number of administrative keys per network granule and the number of re-key messages. We also present a mechanism for recovery from a node failure or compromise.
Evidence-Based Medicine: Wound Management

Learning Objectives: After reading this article, the participant should be able to: 1. Describe the basic science of chronic wounds. 2. Discuss the general and local factors that should be considered in any patient with a chronic wound. 3. Discuss the rationale of converting a chronic wound into an acute wound. 4. Describe techniques used to prepare chronic wounds. 5. Discuss the appropriate use of different dressings presented in this article. 6. Discuss the pros and cons of the adjuncts to wound healing discussed in this article. Summary: This is the second Maintenance of Certification article on wound healing. In the first, Buchanan, Kung, and Cederna dealt with the mechanism and reconstructive techniques for closing wounds. In this article, the authors have concentrated on the chronic wound. The authors present a summary of the basic science of chronic wounds and the general and local clinical factors important in assessing any chronic wound. The evidence for interventions of these conditions is presented. The surgical and nonsurgical methods of wound preparation and the evidence supporting the use of the popular wound dressings are presented. The authors then present the evidence for some of the popular adjuncts for wound healing, including hyperbaric oxygen, electrotherapy, and ultrasound. A number of excellent articles on negative-pressure wound therapy have been written, and are not covered in this article.
Erectile dysfunction and comorbid diseases, androgen deficiency, and diminished libido in men

Abstract Erectile dysfunction affects an estimated one in ten men in the United States. According to one study, the prevalence of impotence at all degrees is approximately 52% in men aged 40 to 70 years. This prevalence rate might be underestimated, given patients' reluctance to discuss the issue with their physicians. Erectile dysfunction is often accompanied by comorbid conditions because of overlapping risk factors. It is important that physicians be aware of the frequency of this coexistence so that they may monitor all potential health concerns and treat patients optimally.
A Case-Based Reasoning Approach to Convert Natural Language into First Order Logic

Text is the backbone of the web and most of the information and human knowledge is represented in natural language. Every day, a vast amount of textual information is posted in web portals, wikis and news sites and necessitates automated approaches to analyze and understand their content. In this paper, we present a case-based reasoning approach to transform natural language sentences into first order logic formulas. The formalization approach relies on the principle that natural language sentences with similar grammatical structures and dependency trees would have similar representation in first order logic. The approach consists of two main stages. First, a deep analysis of the natural language sentence is performed, where proper characteristics are extracted and dependencies are specified. After that, in the second stage a cased based reasoning approach is used to utilize existing knowledge (formalized sentences) and drive the formalization of a new sentence. The similarity between natural language sentences is conducted on their dependency trees and is calculated based on the tree edit distance. Then, if needed, the adaptation of a solution is made based on rules. Example studies have shown the applicability of the method and the results on a small number of sentences are very promising.
A comparison of mail and telephone administration of district-level questionnaires for the School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) 2006: effects on estimates and data quality.

BACKGROUND The School Health Policies and Programs Study (SHPPS) is a national study periodically conducted to assess school health policies and programs at the state, district, school, and classroom levels. For SHPPS 2006, district-level questionnaires were designed for telephone administration, but mixed-mode data collection that also used paper-and-pencil mail questionnaires was required to obtain an acceptable response rate. Because most mode effect research has involved person-level rather than institution-level data, little is known about the effects of mixed-mode data collection on data quality and prevalence estimates obtained through surveys of school personnel. METHODS SHPPS 2006 used 1-stage stratified cluster sampling to select a nationally representative sample of public school districts. Personnel in about half of the 538 responding districts completed paper questionnaires and returned them via mail. Analyses were performed comparing data quality and prevalence estimates for mail and telephone administration. RESULTS Prevalence estimates for only 7.0% (39) of 554 questions tested across the 7 questionnaires differed significantly by response mode at the p < . 01 level. Regarding data quality, use of the "don't know" response was higher for telephone administration. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study demonstrate that SHPPS 2006 successfully used a mixed-mode approach, allowing the data to be used without concern about the mixed-mode administration. The results may also be useful to other researchers interested in using surveys to collect data on schools or school districts or other data that is not person level.
Spam, spam, spam, spam: how can we stop it

How do we keep our channels of electronic communication, both individual and group, open, while keeping out inappropriate and unrelated materials, such as spam? Does someone other than the intended recipient have the right to control what electronic mail users see? Might this lead to censorship? If others DO have the right to control what e-mail users see, how should this filtering or censorship occur? Are users aware of this filtering? If others are NOT controlling what users receive, what can users themselves do to control their environments to limit the amount of incoming spam? These are some of the topics that this CHI panel will address.
Prepregnancy health status and the risk of preterm delivery.

BACKGROUND Despite extensive evaluation, our understanding of risk factors for premature delivery is incomplete. OBJECTIVE To examine whether a woman's health status and risk factors before pregnancy are associated with a woman's risk of preterm delivery, independent of risk factors that occur during pregnancy. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective cohort of pregnant women in the San Francisco Bay area who delivered a singleton infant (n = 1619). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Preterm delivery (<37 weeks' gestational age). RESULTS Sociodemographic characteristics alone explained 13.0% of the risk of preterm delivery, whereas risk factors that occurred before pregnancy explained 39.8% and risk factors that occurred during pregnancy explained 47.1%. After we adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, prepregnancy risk factors, and pregnancy risk factors, women who reported poor physical function during the month before conception were nearly twice as likely to experience a preterm delivery (odds ratio, 1.97; 95% confidence interval, 1.18-3.30) as women with better physical function. CONCLUSION A broader focus on the health of women prior to pregnancy may improve rates of preterm delivery.
Experiences from a field test using ICN for live video streaming

Information Centric Networking (ICN) aims to evolve the Internet from a host-centric to a data-centric paradigm. In particular, it improves performance and resource efficiency in events with large crowds where many users in a local area want to generate and watch media content related to the event. In this paper, we present the design of a live video streaming system built on the NetInf ICN architecture and how the architecture was adapted to support live streaming of media content. To evaluate the feasibility and performance of the system, extensive field tests were carried out over several days during a major sports event. We show that our system streams videos successfully with low delay and communication overhead compared with existing Internet streaming services, by scalability tests using emulated clients we also show that it could support several thousands of simultaneous users.
Fifty Ways to Develop Professionally: What Language Educators Need to Succeed

This paper discusses the importance and purposes of professional development in the lives of language educators in the Asian context and describes what teachers need to consider in designing a professional development plan. It provides a definition, rationale, and fifty professional development activities with references and resources found in the TESOL literature. Three steps are proposed in the formation of professional development plans: 1) determine one’s strengths and weaknesses, 2) consider one’s current stage of development and what one wants to accomplish, and 3) select long and short term goals and the resources needed to accomplish them. It is posited that continued development is the obligation of the professional language educator and that through reflection upon one’s practice, awareness of opportunities, and a comprehensive plan, educators can obtain their professional development goals even with limited resources.