Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Treating Opioid Addiction With Buprenorphine-Naloxone in Community-Based Primary Care Settings

PURPOSE Office-based treatment of opioid addiction with a combination of buprenorphine and naloxone was approved in 2002. Efficacy of this treatment in nonresearch clinical settings has not been studied. We examined the efficacy and practicality of buprenorphine-naloxone treatment in primary care settings. METHODS We studied a cohort of 99 consecutive patients enrolled in buprenor-phine-naloxone treatment for opioid dependence at 2 urban primary care practices: a hospital-based primary care clinic, and a primary care practice in a free-standing neighborhood health center. The primary outcome measure was sobriety at 6 months as judged by the treating physician based on periodic urine drug tests, as well as frequent physical examinations and questioning of the patients about substance use. RESULTS Fifty-four percent of patients were sober at 6 months. There was no significant correlation between sobriety and site of care, drug of choice, neighborhood poverty level, or dose of buprenorphine-naloxone. Sobriety was correlated with private insurance status, older age, length of treatment, and attending self-help meetings. CONCLUSIONS Opioid-addicted patients can be safely and effectively treated in nonresearch primary care settings with limited on-site resources. Our findings suggest that greater numbers of patients should have access to buprenorphine-naloxone treatment in nonspecialized settings.
Role of Cytokines and Major Histocompatibility Complex Restriction in Mouse Resistance to Infection with a Natural Recombinant Strain (Type I-III) of Toxoplasma gondii

ABSTRACT Herein we characterized various genetic markers and the biological behavior of a natural recombinant strain of Toxoplasma gondii (P-Br). From nine genetic markers analyzed, three (B1, ROP1, and SAG1) and three (cS10-A6, GRA6, and SAG3) markers belong to parasites from the type I and type III lineages, respectively. The SAG2 and L363 loci were shown to be type I-III chimera alleles. The cB2l-4 microsatellite marker showed a unique haplotype. The P-Br strain presented low virulence in the acute phase of infection and was cystogenic during the chronic infection. The interleukin 12/gamma interferon axis and inducible nitric oxide synthase were main determinants of resistance during the acute infection with the P-Br strain. As opposed to infection with the type II strain of T. gondii (ME-49), peroral infection with the P-Br strain led only to a light inflammatory infiltrate and no major lesions in the intestine of the C57BL/6 mice. In addition, the BALB/c (resistant to ME-49) and C57BL/6 (susceptible to ME-49) mice were shown, respectively, to be more susceptible and more resistant to cyst formation and toxoplasmic encephalitis when infected with the P-Br strain. Further, the C57BL/KsJ and DBA2/J congenic strains containing major histocompatibility complex (MHC) haplotype “d” were more resistant than the parental strains (C57BL/6 and DBA1/J), when infected with the ME-49 but not with the P-Br strain. Together, our results indicate that resistance to cyst formation and toxoplasmic encephalitis induced during infection with P-Br is not primarily controlled by the MHC haplotype d, as previously reported for type II strains of T. gondii.
Relative safety of 4 weeks of blood flow‐restricted resistance exercise in young, healthy adults

This study evaluated the effect of 4 weeks of low‐load resistance exercise with blood flow restriction (BFRE) on increasing strength in comparison with high‐load resistance exercise (HLE), and assessed changes in blood, vascular and neural function. Healthy adults performed leg extension BFRE or HLE 3 days/week at 30% and 80% of strength, respectively. During BFRE, a cuff on the upper leg was inflated to 30% above systolic blood pressure. Strength, pulse‐wave velocity (PWV), ankle‐brachial index (ABI), prothrombin time (PT) and nerve conduction (NC) were measured before and after training. Markers of coagulation (fibrinogen and D‐dimer), fibrinolysis [tissue plasminogen activator (tPA)] and inflammation [high sensitivity C‐reactive protein (hsCRP)] were measured in response to the first and last exercise bouts. Strength increased 8% with BFRE and 13% with HLE (P<0.01). No changes in PWV, ABI, PT or NC were observed following training for either group (P>0.05). tPA antigen increased 30–40% immediately following acute bouts of BFRE and HLE (P=0.01). No changes were observed in fibrinogen, D‐dimer or hsCRP (P>0.05). These findings indicate that both protocols increase the strength without altering nerve or vascular function, and that a single bout of both protocols increases fibrinolytic activity without altering selected markers of coagulation or inflammation in healthy individuals.
Comparative analysis of genome maintenance genes in naked mole rat, mouse, and human

Genome maintenance (GM) is an essential defense system against aging and cancer, as both are characterized by increased genome instability. Here, we compared the copy number variation and mutation rate of 518 GM‐associated genes in the naked mole rat (NMR), mouse, and human genomes. GM genes appeared to be strongly conserved, with copy number variation in only four genes. Interestingly, we found NMR to have a higher copy number of CEBPG, a regulator of DNA repair, and TINF2, a protector of telomere integrity. NMR, as well as human, was also found to have a lower rate of germline nucleotide substitution than the mouse. Together, the data suggest that the long‐lived NMR, as well as human, has more robust GM than mouse and identifies new targets for the analysis of the exceptional longevity of the NMR.
Cross‐Sectional Anthropometric Study of the External Ear

ABSTRACT: This cross‐sectional anthropometric study was aimed at estimating expansion of the external ear during adult life, in order to evaluate the extent to which anatomical features appearing in earprints may vary with time. A review of the literature was provided. Data extracted from photographed ears of 1353 subjects were analyzed. The effect of age on auricle length, earlobe length, and auricle width was explored using univariate analyses of variance. The regression coefficients of age on these dimensions were, respectively, 0.178, 0.115, and 0.073 mm/yr for males, and 0.162, 0.100, and 0.073 mm/year for females (p=0.000). Regression coefficients of age corrected for stature were assumed to be less accurate. Anthelix prominence and helix width were analyzed using data of 175 subjects, and appeared unaffected by age. As lobe expansion appeared to exceed the estimated cartilage expansion, it was assumed that particularly the imprint of the lobe would be less stable with time.
Autonomic Imbalance and the Hypothalamus (Implications for Physiology, Medicine, Psychology, and Neuropsychiatry)

Part I of this volume consists of a presentation of the various methods of investigation of the functions of the autonomic nervous system derived from experimental animals with which the author has had extensive experience. This includes the anterior and posterior hypothalamus along with the effects of the sino-aortic reflex and responses of the autonomic nervous system to hypothalamic excitability. These hypothalamic studies, predominantly on cats (using blood pressure, pulse rate, and the nictitating membrane as indices of response) are made by utilizing electrical stimulation, drugs, lesions, and asphyxial states.
ANÁLISE COMPARATIVA DA VELOCIDADE DE CAMINHADA DE MULHERES IDOSAS PRATICANTES DE GINÁSTICA, HIDROGINÁSTICA E DANÇA SENIOR

That research had as objective compares the maximum speed of practicing senior women's of Gymnastics walk, Water aerobics and Senior Dance. The sample was composed by 43 healthy senior women, divided in three groups: (GH) with 13 practicing volunteers of Water aerobics, average of age of 63 ±3,42 years, (GG) with 15 practicing volunteers of Gymnastics, average of age of 64 ± 3,51 years, (GD) with 15 practicing volunteers of Senior Dance, average of age of 65±3,89 years. To evaluate the walk speed, the test was used to walk 10 meters, developed by Sipila et al. (1996) mentioned for it is Worth (2005). To statistical analysis was used (ANOVA ONE-WAY), which verified the existence of significant difference (p ≤0,05) in the average of time of walk among the apprentices of the three groups. The test of multiple comparisons Post-Hoc of Tukey, verified the not existence of significant
Focal myositis: Sonographic findings

may be the effect of modifier genes or may due to environmental factors. Although the contribution of epigenetic factors was not explored in this study, we did investigate the potential role of lifestyle and associated conditions in determining disease manifestations. These data show that age-related penetrance is a characteristic feature of LGMD1F that reduces the predictive value of the genetic test. Because age-related penetrance is a major challenge when attempting to quantify the genetic risk of a patient’s offspring, our results may be useful for genetic counseling, especially in younger patients with the mutation.
A new biometric authentication system using heart sounds based on wavelet packet features

In this paper, a new approach for human recognition using heart sounds is proposed. The new approach is based mainly on extracting features from heart sounds using wavelet packet decomposition. Different linear and non-linear filter banks at different decomposition levels are designed using wavelet packet decomposition to select the appropriate bases for extracting discriminant features. Automatic wavelet de-noising and linear discriminant analysis are adopted for pre-processing and classification stages, respectively. The proposed system is tested using an open database for heart sounds known as HSCT-11 which contains data collected from 206 subjects. Based on the achieved results, the proposed system can identify subjects with best accuracy of 91.05% and verify them with an equal error rate of 3.2%. The obtained results in this paper show that wavelet packet based features are appropriate for human recognition task using heart sounds.
Simulation Experiments on (the Absence of) Ratings Bias in Reputation Systems

As the gig economy continues to grow and freelance work moves online, five-star reputation systems are becoming more and more common. At the same time, there are increasing accounts of race and gender bias in evaluations of gig workers, with negative impacts for those workers. We report on a series of four Mechanical Turk-based studies in which participants who rated simulated gig work did not show race- or gender bias, while manipulation checks showed they reliably distinguished between low- and high-quality work. Given prior research, this was a striking result. To explore further, we used a Bayesian approach to verify absence of ratings bias (as opposed to merely not detecting bias). This Bayesian test let us identify an upper- bound: if any bias did exist in our studies, it was below an average of 0.2 stars on a five-star scale. We discuss possible interpretations of our results and outline future work to better understand the results.
Automated Machine Translation Improvement Through Post-Editing Techniques: Analyst and Translator Experiments

From the Automatic Language Processing Advisory Committee (ALP AC) (Pierce et al., 1966) machine translation (MT) evaluations of the ‘60s to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE) (Olive, 2008) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (NIST, 2008) MT evaluations of today, the U.S. Government has been instrumental in establishing measurements and baselines for the state-of-the-art in MT engines. In the same vein, the Automated Machine Translation Improvement Through Post-Editing Techniques (PEMT) project sought to establish a baseline of MT engines based on the perceptions of potential users. In contrast to these previous evaluations, the PEMT project’s experiments also determined the minimal quality level output needed to achieve before users found the output acceptable. Based on these findings, the PEMT team investigated using post-editing techniques to achieve this level. This paper will present experiments in which analysts and translators were asked to evaluate MT output processed with varying post-editing techniques. The results show at what level the analysts and translators find MT useful and are willing to work with it. We also establish a ranking of the types of post-edits necessary to elevate MT output to the minimal acceptance level.
iTRAQ-Based Proteomics Analysis and Network Integration for Kernel Tissue Development in Maize

Grain weight is one of the most important yield components and a developmentally complex structure comprised of two major compartments (endosperm and pericarp) in maize (Zea mays L.), however, very little is known concerning the coordinated accumulation of the numerous proteins involved. Herein, we used isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantitation (iTRAQ)-based comparative proteomic method to analyze the characteristics of dynamic proteomics for endosperm and pericarp during grain development. Totally, 9539 proteins were identified for both components at four development stages, among which 1401 proteins were non-redundant, 232 proteins were specific in pericarp and 153 proteins were specific in endosperm. A functional annotation of the identified proteins revealed the importance of metabolic and cellular processes, and binding and catalytic activities for the tissue development. Three and 76 proteins involved in 49 Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathways were integrated for the specific endosperm and pericarp proteins, respectively, reflecting their complex metabolic interactions. In addition, four proteins with important functions and different expression levels were chosen for gene cloning and expression analysis. Different concordance between mRNA level and the protein abundance was observed across different proteins, stages, and tissues as in previous research. These results could provide useful message for understanding the developmental mechanisms in grain development in maize.
A Data Quality Model of Information-sharing in a Two-level Supply Chain

Data quality affects decision quality. In any forecasting and estimation model, the quality of the forecast data or the estimated data needs to be evaluated before using for decision-making. In two-level supply chain model, the retailer collects the sales information and use it to forecast the future demands over the lead-time, and the manufacturer collects the information about retailer's orders and its sales data (if possible) to forecast the future demand over the external supplier's lead-time. However, the quality of the forecast data will decrease and needs to be measured as the time period increases. Hence a quality dimension is needed in this case for indicating the quality level of the estimate. This research defines a quality dimension, “reliability”, and provides a mathematical method to measure the reliability level of the forecast data under two cases: information sharing and non-information sharing [7]. With the outcome of the method, a score ranging from 0 to 1 (including 0 and 1) can be obtained to measure the reliability level associated with the forecast value. This can be a much meaningful indicator for representing the forecast data, thus being helpful for management level to make the right decision.
An Empirical Study of the Complex Relationship between KMR and Trust in GSD

In GSD, trusting working relationships is critical for the success of the strategic goals of the organization. In order for an organization to build and maintain this relationship there must be a process in place. This paper outlines the use of a KMS which integrates the overall knowledge of an organization and helps in easy access and sharing of this knowledge among the distributed development teams, and ultimately helps in the development of trust. Most investigations have focused on how trust helps in knowledge sharing and acceptance by examining the impact of trust on knowledge management. In this study we focus on the dynamics of knowledge management system in the development of trust among GSD teams. This paper first investigates the relationship between KM and trust through literature review. Secondly, it aims to evaluate the role KM plays in the development of trust. Finally, we conducted a controlled experiment in academic settings with four groups of students located into two different countries to study the impact of KMS in the development of trust. The results indicate that applying KMS in GSD projects positively affects the trusting working relationship among GSD teams. An evaluation of the results is presented along with a proposal for future work.
Life-history strategy defends against disease and may select against physiological resistance

Host ecological traits may limit exposure to infectious disease, thereby generating the wide variation in disease incidence observed between host populations or species. The exclusion of disease by ecological traits may then allow selection to act against physiological defenses when they are costly to maintain in the absence of disease. This study investigates ecological resistance in the Silene-Microbotryum pathosystem. An estimated 80% of perennial Silene species host the anther-smut disease while no annuals harbor the disease in nature. Artificial inoculations of annual and perennial Silene plants, obtained from both natural and horticultural populations, demonstrate that the absence of disease in annuals is not explained by elevated physiological resistance. The annual habit is thus a powerful form of ecological defense against anther smut. Moreover, the higher susceptibility of annual species to anther smut relative to perennials supports the hypothesis of a loss of costly physiological resistance under ecological protection. The observation in annuals that physiological susceptibility is correlated with lower rates of flowering (i.e., lower fitness) suggests that variation in physiological resistance is costly in the absence of disease, even in a naїve Silene species. The absence of disease in natural populations of annuals combined with their high physiological susceptibility attest to the strength of host ecology in shaping the distribution of disease and to the dynamic nature of disease resistance.
Functional Roles of microRNAs in Agronomically Important Plants—Potential as Targets for Crop Improvement and Protection

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small non-coding RNAs that have recently emerged as important regulators of gene expression, mainly through cleavage and/or translation inhibition of the target mRNAs during or after transcription. miRNAs play important roles by regulating a multitude of biological processes in plants which include maintenance of genome integrity, development, metabolism, and adaptive responses toward environmental stresses. The increasing population of the world and their food demands requires focused efforts for the improvement of crop plants to ensure sustainable food production. Manipulation of mRNA transcript abundance via miRNA control provides a unique strategy for modulating differential plant gene expression and miRNAs are thus emerging as the next generation targets for genetic engineering for improvement of the agronomic properties of crops. However, a deeper understanding of its potential and the mechanisms involved will facilitate the design of suitable strategies to obtain the desirable traits with minimum trade-offs in the modified crops. In this regard, this review highlights the diverse roles of conserved and newly identified miRNAs in various food and industrial crops and recent advances made in the uses of miRNAs to improve plants of agronomically importance so as to significantly enhance crop yields and increase tolerance to various environmental stress agents of biotic—or abiotic origin.
Epigenetic signature of childhood trauma

Childhood abuse is one of the major risk factors for the development of adult psychopathology though the response to childhood abuse and other types of early life adversities is not uniform. Genetic predisposition modulates the exposure to environmental factors in form of gene by environment interaction. This has been shown for FKBP5, a modulator of the stress hormone axis, with certain alleles in FKBP5 conferring a higher risk towards PTSD in adulthood in response to childhood abuse. This thesis investigates the potential molecular mechanism behind this gene by environment interaction and delineates an allele-specific demethylation mechanism in response to childhood abuse. In addition, data on genome-wide gene expression and DNA methylation profiles in peripheral blood in response to childhood abuse is presented providing evidence for the hypothesis that childhood trauma leads to a different molecular trajectory towards adult psychopathology compared to adult traumatization. The data presented here contribute to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying gene by environment interactions in psychiatry and the pathophysiology of trauma- and stress-induced psychiatric disorders.
An SVM-Based High-accurate Recognition Approach for Handwritten Numerals by Using Difference Features

Handwritten numeral recognition is an important pattern recognition task. It can be widely used in various domains, e.g., bank money recognition, which requires a very high recognition rate. As a state-of-the-art classifier, support vector machine (SVM), has been extensively used in this area. Typically, SVM is trained in a batch model, i.e., all data points are simultaneously input for training the classification boundary. However, some slightly exceptional data, only accounting for a small proportion, are critical for the recognition rates. Training a classifier among all the data may possibly treat such legal but slightly exceptional samples as "noise ". In this paper, we propose a novel approach to attack this problem. This approach exploits a two-stage framework by using difference features. In the first stage, a regular SVM is trained on all the training data; in the second stage, only the samples misclassified in the first stage are specially considered. Therefore, the performance can be lifted. The number of misclassifications is often small because of the good performance of SVM. This will present difficulties in training an accurate SVM engine only for these misclassified samples. We then further propose a multi-way to binary approach using difference features. This approach successfully transforms multi-category classification to binary classification and expands the training samples greatly. In order to evaluate the proposed method, experiments are performed on 10,000 handwritten numeral samples extracted from real banks forms. This new algorithm achieves 99.0% accuracy. In comparison, the traditional SVM only gets 98.4%.
Are we doing enough to promote the effective use of mosquito repellents?

Mosquito-borne pathogens remain a threat to public health in Australia. The activity of dengue and chikungunya viruses has increased across South-East Asia and the Pacific region in recent years, and the number of travellers returning to Australia infected with mosquito-borne pathogens has steadily grown.1 Annual notifications of endemic mosquito-borne disease resulting from infection with Ross River or Barmah Forest viruses persist at around 5000 cases a year in Australia, and local transmission of dengue viruses remains a threat in Far North Queensland.2