Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial Patterns of High Aedes aegypti Oviposition Activity in Northwestern Argentina

Background In Argentina, dengue has affected mainly the Northern provinces, including Salta. The objective of this study was to analyze the spatial patterns of high Aedes aegypti oviposition activity in San Ramón de la Nueva Orán, northwestern Argentina. The location of clusters as hot spot areas should help control programs to identify priority areas and allocate their resources more effectively. Methodology Oviposition activity was detected in Orán City (Salta province) using ovitraps, weekly replaced (October 2005–2007). Spatial autocorrelation was measured with Moran’s Index and depicted through cluster maps to identify hot spots. Total egg numbers were spatially interpolated and a classified map with Ae. aegypti high oviposition activity areas was performed. Potential breeding and resting (PBR) sites were geo-referenced. A logistic regression analysis of interpolated egg numbers and PBR location was performed to generate a predictive mapping of mosquito oviposition activity. Principal Findings Both cluster maps and predictive map were consistent, identifying in central and southern areas of the city high Ae. aegypti oviposition activity. A logistic regression model was successfully developed to predict Ae. aegypti oviposition activity based on distance to PBR sites, with tire dumps having the strongest association with mosquito oviposition activity. A predictive map reflecting probability of oviposition activity was produced. The predictive map delimitated an area of maximum probability of Ae. aegypti oviposition activity in the south of Orán city where tire dumps predominate. The overall fit of the model was acceptable (ROC = 0.77), obtaining 99% of sensitivity and 75.29% of specificity. Conclusions Distance to tire dumps is inversely associated with high mosquito activity, allowing us to identify hot spots. These methodologies are useful for prevention, surveillance, and control of tropical vector borne diseases and might assist National Health Ministry to focus resources more effectively.
Small Wins Approach to Changing Minds about Blended Learning

Although blended learning offers many potential benefits to students and institutions, there is still some resistance from faculty. Change management is especially difficult in university settings due to issues related to faculty governance. The “small-wins” approach to change management advocates undertaking a series of limited, concrete projects that bring about moderately-important outcomes. The small wins approach maps well to a number of strategies for overcoming resistance. This paper discusses the small wins approach to overcoming resistance to blended learning in a university setting.
Management of nonspecific low back pain by physiotherapists in Britain and Ireland. A descriptive questionnaire of current clinical practice.

STUDY DESIGN A descriptive questionnaire of chartered physiotherapists. OBJECTIVE To investigate current physiotherapeutic management of low back pain throughout Britain and Ireland. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Physiotherapists play a key role in low back pain management. Although clinical guidelines for best practice have been developed recently, there has been no large-scale attempt to describe current physiotherapeutic treatment approaches within Britain or Ireland. METHODS After semi-structured interviews (n = 6) and two pilot studies (n = 77) were done, postal questionnaires were distributed to four regional cluster samples of the membership of two physiotherapy professional organizations (n = 2654). After two mailings, a random sample of 90 nonresponders were followed up. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Ltd., Woking, Surrey, UK), and precision of the survey estimates was assessed by calculation of sampling errors and intraclass correlation coefficients for cluster sampling. RESULTS Results were received from 1548 therapists (total response rate, 58.3%); of these, 813 reported that they were practicing in settings in which they treated patients with low back pain. Analysis of the results indicated the overall popularity of the Maitland mobilization and McKenzie approaches among physiotherapists. Although exercise per se was mentioned frequently by respondents, a marked difference in opinion among therapists regarding the optimal type of exercise for low back pain was obvious. Little evidence was demonstrated of the use of manipulation, fitness programs, or multidisciplinary efforts involving behavioral and physical aspects of treatment. Commonly used methods of electrotherapy were interferential therapy, ultrasound, pulsed short-wave diathermy, and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study emphasize the need to evaluate further and improve the dissemination of findings regarding the effectiveness of specific physiotherapy approaches for low back pain management.
Pure Antiestrogens and Breast Cancer

Summary Tamoxifen, which is the most commonly used drug for treatment of breast cancer, has both estrogen agonist and antagonist actions. Pure antiestrogens are devoid of any estrogen agonist effects. ICI182,780 (fulvestrant) (Faslodex) and ICI164,384 are competitive inhibitors of estrogen by binding to the estrogen receptor (ER). Preclinical and clinical studies show that fulvestrant and ICI164,384 are more potent than tamoxifen in inhibiting the growth of breast cancer cells. They are devoid of any estrogen-agonist action on the uterus and vagina but lack the beneficial effects of tamoxifen on the bone and serum lipid profile. Fulvestrant is the first pure antiestrogen to complete phase III clinical trials. Such studies have shown that fulvestrant is at least as good as anastrozole in the treatment of post-menopausal women with advanced breast cancer who had relapsed or progressed on prior endocrine therapy. The drug was well tolerated and only minor side-effects were reported. Its potential role in the adjuvant setting will be determined by its adverse effects on bone mass and serum lipids. EM-800 and EM-652 are the most potent pure antiestrogens and EM-652 has the highest affinity of all antiestrogens to ER. They have no stimulatory effects on the uterus or vagina. It seems reasonable to expect that pure antiestrogens will be good alternatives to tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors in the treatment of breast cancer.
A circadian-regulated gene, Nocturnin, promotes adipogenesis by stimulating PPAR-γ nuclear translocation

Nocturnin (NOC) is a circadian-regulated protein related to the yeast family of transcription factors involved in the cellular response to nutrient status. In mammals, NOC functions as a deadenylase but lacks a transcriptional activation domain. It is highly expressed in bone-marrow stromal cells (BMSCs), hepatocytes, and adipocytes. In BMSCs exposed to the PPAR-γ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ) agonist rosiglitazone, Noc expression was enhanced 30-fold. Previously, we reported that Noc−/− mice had low body temperature, were protected from diet-induced obesity, and most importantly exhibited absence of Pparg circadian rhythmicity on a high-fat diet. Consistent with its role in influencing BMSCs allocation, Noc−/− mice have reduced bone marrow adiposity and high bone mass. In that same vein, NOC overexpression enhances adipogenesis in 3T3-L1 cells but negatively regulates osteogenesis in MC3T3-E1 cells. NOC and a mutated form, which lacks deadenylase activity, bind to PPAR-γ and markedly enhance PPAR-γ transcriptional activity. Both WT and mutant NOC facilitate nuclear translocation of PPAR-γ. Importantly, NOC-mediated nuclear translocation of PPAR-γ is blocked by a short peptide fragment of NOC that inhibits its physical interaction with PPAR-γ. The inhibitory effect of this NOC-peptide was partially reversed by rosiglitazone, suggesting that effect of NOC on PPAR-γ nuclear translocation may be independent of ligand-mediated PPAR-γ activation. In sum, Noc plays a unique role in the regulation of mesenchymal stem-cell lineage allocation by modulating PPAR-γ activity through nuclear translocation. These data illustrate a unique mechanism whereby a nutrient-responsive gene influences BMSCs differentiation, adipogenesis, and ultimately body composition.
InP HEMT for sub-millimeter wave space applications: Status and challenges

InP HEMT technology has long had a place in both civil and defense space applications, particularly at millimeter wavelengths where it's high speed and low DC power provide clear benefits. With a new generation of transistor showing fMAX > 1.2 and integrated circuits operating frequencies reaching 850 GHz, new performance levels and applications become possible. This talk will provide a status of capabilities and technology readiness, as well as emerging applications.
The Effects of Southern White Workers on Race Relations in Northern Plants

T HIS analysis of the effects of southern white workers on race relations in northern industrial plants is part of a larger study of the adjustment of these migrants to northern, urban ways, as found in Chicago. The relationships of the southern whites to Negroes in the plants, and their effects on the policies of management, must be viewed in the context of the position of the so-called "hillbillies" themselves in the community and in industry. Prior to the concentration of large numbers of migrants, both white and Negro, in defense centers during World War II, students of race relations evinced only a casual interest in the effects of southern white migration on race relations in other parts of the country. For example, Donald Young, in his American Minority Peoples, dismissed the movement of native white migrants as relatively unimportant, saying:
T Helper Cell Fate Specified by Kinase-Mediated Interaction of T-bet with GATA-3

Cell lineage specification depends on both gene activation and gene silencing, and in the differentiation of T helper progenitors to Th1 or Th2 effector cells, this requires the action of two opposing transcription factors, T-bet and GATA-3. T-bet is essential for the development of Th1 cells, and GATA-3 performs an equivalent role in Th2 development. We report that T-bet represses Th2 lineage commitment through tyrosine kinase–mediated interaction between the two transcription factors that interferes with the binding of GATA-3 to its target DNA. These results provide a novel function for tyrosine phosphorylation of a transcription factor in specifying alternate fates of a common progenitor cell.
Branch Obfuscation Using Code Mobility and Signal

The branch information is disclosed during software execution. In a malicious host, adversaries could collect predicates from leaked branch information using concolic execution technique. Exploiting collected predicates, adversaries could accurately reason about software's internal logic, which is a significant threat to software intellectual property protection. In order to mitigate branch information leakage, this paper proposed a branch obfuscation approach that replaces explicit conditional jump instructions with implicit trap codes and bogus codes, and deploys jump conditions on the remote trusted entity. Therefore, in the malicious host the executable is incomplete that gets path selection results from the trusted entity dynamically, which reduces adversaries' visibility on the branch information. The experimental results show that branch obfuscation could effectively mitigate the branch information leakage, yet practical in terms of performance.
A Fuzzy Expert Model of Haptic Perception for Automobile Touch-Screen Displays

Haptic feedback is currently emerging as a feasible solution to cope with the security-related issues of automobile touch-screen displays, and at the same time to improve users satisfaction and quality of use. Therefore, we have developed a fuzzy symbolic model of haptic perception for automobile interfaces in cooperation with an automotive ergonomics expert. The model predicts the induced comfort degree of the haptic effects based on their ergonomic properties, and achieves, on a set of 48 haptic patterns , a global error rate of 14.6% and a compatibility rate of 89.6% with the expert evaluations.
A novel framework for supervised mobile assessment and risk triage of skin lesions

Mobile Teledermatology is a promising tool with the potential to empower patients to adopt an active role in managing their own health status. The main objective of this work is to create a mobile-based framework for risk triage and early diagnosis of skin cancers, with the active involvement of an online community of dermatologists. The presented prototype is composed by the following components: 1) Mobile Application for the patients; 2) Back-end Server that hosts the image processing module and database; and 3) Web Interface for the dermatologists. Using the mobile application, the patients can send a check-up to the back-end server, composed by an image and additional information of the considered skin lesion. The check-up image is automatically analyzed using supervised classification, according to the ABCD Rule and Overall Risk. The system generates an analysis report for each check-up, which will assist the doctors in the check-up risk assessment. After the doctor's validation, a report is sent to the patient's mobile application, and the validated data is used to retrain the supervised classifiers. The overall system architecture and functionalities are briefly described.
Signatures of Rapid Evolution in Urban and Rural Transcriptomes of White-Footed Mice (Peromyscus leucopus) in the New York Metropolitan Area

Urbanization is a major cause of ecological degradation around the world, and human settlement in large cities is accelerating. New York City (NYC) is one of the oldest and most urbanized cities in North America, but still maintains 20% vegetation cover and substantial populations of some native wildlife. The white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus , is a common resident of NYC’s forest fragments and an emerging model system for examining the evolutionary consequences of urbanization. In this study, we developed transcriptomic resources for urban P . leucopus to examine evolutionary changes in protein-coding regions for an exemplar “urban adapter. ” We used Roche 454 GS FLX+ high throughput sequencing to derive transcriptomes from multiple tissues from individuals across both urban and rural populations. From these data, we identified 31,015 SNPs and several candidate genes potentially experiencing positive selection in urban populations of P . leucopus . These candidate genes are involved in xenobiotic metabolism, innate immune response, demethylation activity, and other important biological phenomena in novel urban environments. This study is one of the first to report candidate genes exhibiting signatures of directional selection in divergent urban ecosystems.
Development of a Recommender System to the Virtual Patient Simulator Health Simulator

This paper presents a recommender system on clinical cases and materials that may help the student in the learning process. The experiment involves the development of collaborative and content based filters and also three hybrid methods. The system was qualitatively evaluated, using accuracy metrics in prediction and classification tasks. The obtained results show promising values on the collaborative filters.
Investigation into the Presence of and Serological Response to XMRV in CFS Patients

The novel human gammaretrovirus xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), originally described in prostate cancer, has also been implicated in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). When later reports failed to confirm the link to CFS, they were often criticised for not using the conditions described in the original study. Here, we revisit our patient cohort to investigate the XMRV status in those patients by means of the original PCR protocol which linked the virus to CFS. In addition, sera from our CFS patients were assayed for the presence of xenotropic virus envelope protein, as well as a serological response to it. The results further strengthen our contention that there is no evidence for an association of XMRV with CFS, at least in the UK.
A Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (rs4236480) in TRPV5 Calcium Channel Gene Is Associated with Stone Multiplicity in Calcium Nephrolithiasis Patients

Nephrolithiasis is characterized by calcification of stones in the kidneys from an unknown cause. Animal models demonstrated the functional roles of the transient receptor potential vanilloid member 5 (TRPV5) gene in calcium renal reabsorption and hypercalciuria. Therefore, TRPV5 was suggested to be involved in calcium homeostasis. However, whether genetic polymorphisms of TRPV5 are associated with kidney stone multiplicity or recurrence is unclear. In this study, 365 Taiwanese kidney-stone patients were recruited. Both biochemical data and DNA samples were collected. Genotyping was performed by a TaqMan allelic discrimination assay. We found that a TRPV5 polymorphism (rs4236480) was observed to be associated with stone multiplicity of calcium nephrolithiasis, as the risk of stone multiplicity was higher in patients with the TT+CT genotype than in patients with the CC genotype (p = 0.0271). In summary, despite the complexity of nephrolithiasis and the potential association of numerous calcium homeostatic absorption/reabsorption factors, TRPV5 plays an important role in the pathogenesis of calcium nephrolithiasis.
The NR1 M3 Domain Mediates Allosteric Coupling in the N-Methyl-D-aspartate Receptor

N-Methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptors play a critical role in both development of the central nervous system and adult neuroplasticity. However, although the NMDA receptor presents a valuable therapeutic target, the relationship between its structure and functional properties has yet to be fully elucidated. To further explore the mechanism of receptor activation, we characterized two gain-of-function mutations within the NR1 M3 segment, a transmembrane domain proposed to couple ligand binding and channel opening. Both mutants (A7Q and A7Y) displayed significant glycine-independent currents, indicating that their M3 domains may preferentially adopt a more activated conformation. Substituted cysteine modification experiments revealed that the glycine binding clefts of both A7Q and A7Y are inaccessible to modifying reagents and resistant to competitive antagonism. These data suggest that perturbation of M3 can stabilize the ligand binding domain in a closed cleft conformation, even in the absence of agonist. Both mutants also displayed significant glutamate-independent current and insensitivity to glutamate-site antagonism, indicating partial activation by either glycine or glutamate alone. Furthermore, A7Q and A7Y increased accessibility of the NR2 M3 domain, providing evidence for intersubunit coupling at the transmembrane level and suggesting that these NR1 mutations dominate the properties of the intact heteromeric receptor. The equivalent mutations in NR2 did not exhibit comparable phenotypes, indicating that the NR1 and NR2 M3 domains may play different functional roles. In summary, our data demonstrate that the NR1 M3 segment is functionally coupled to key structural domains in both the NR1 and NR2 subunits.
The Economic Rationale for Investing in Stunting Reduction

This paper outlines the economic rationale for investments that reduce stunting. We present a framework that illustrates the functional consequences of stunting in the 1000 days after conception throughout the life cycle: from childhood through to old age. We summarize the key empirical literature around each of the links in the life cycle, highlighting gaps in knowledge where they exist. We construct credible estimates of benefit-cost ratios for a plausible set of nutritional interventions to reduce stunting. There are considerable challenges in doing so that we document. We assume an uplift in income of 11% due to the prevention of one fifth of stunting and a 5% discount rate of future benefit streams. Our estimates of the country-specific benefit-cost ratios for investments that reduce stunting in 17 high-burden countries range from 3.6 (DRC) to 48 (Indonesia) with a median value of 18 (Bangladesh). Mindful that these results hinge on a number of assumptions, they compare favourably with other investments for which public funds compete.
Neuroscience of Pavlovian Conditioning: A Brief Review

Current knowledge on the neuronal substrates of Pavlovian conditioning in animals and man is briefly reviewed. First, work on conditioning in aplysia, that has showed amplified pre-synaptic facilitation as the basic mechanism of associative learning, is summarized. Then, two exemplars of associative learning in vertebrates, fear conditioning in rodents and eyelid conditioning in rabbits, are described and research into its neuronal substrates discussed. Research showing the role of the amygdala in fear conditioning and of the cerebellum in eyelid conditioning is reviewed, both at the circuit and cellular plasticity levels. Special attention is given to the parallelism suggested by this research between the neuronal mechanisms of conditioning and the principles of formal learning theory. Finally, recent evidence showing a similar role of the amygdala and of the cerebellum in human Pavlovian conditioning is discussed. El artículo revisa brevemente los conocimientos actuales acerca de los substratos neuronales del condicionamiento pavloviano en los animales y en el hombre. En primer lugar, se resume la investigación sobre condicionamiento en aplysias, que ha demostrado la importancia de la facilitación sináptica amplificada como mecanismo básico del aprendizaje asociativo. A continuación, se describen dos ejemplos de aprendizaje asociativo en vertebrados, el condicionamiento del miedo en roedores y el condicionamiento del parpadeo en conejos, con referencias a la investigación sobre sus substratos neuronales. Se revisa la investigación que muestra el papel de la amígdala en el condicionamiento del miedo y del cerebelo en el condicionamiento del parpadeo, al nivel tanto de circuitos como de la plasticidad celular. Se presta especial atención a los paralelismos que esta área de investigación sugiere entre los mecanismos neuronales del condicionamiento y los principios de las teorías formales del aprendizaje. Por último, se comentan diversas pruebas recientes que demuestran un papel semejante de la amígdala y del cerebelo en el condicionamiento pavloviano humano.
Segmentation of Text Lines and Characters in Ancient Tamil Script Documents using Computational Intelligence Techniques

image segmentation is one of the critical phases in handwritten character recognition system. Correct segmentation of individual characters decides the accuracy of the recognition system. It is used to decompose the sequence of characters into individual characters to segmenting text lines and then words. Ancient Tamil scripts documents consist of vowels, consonants and various modifiers. Hence proper segmentation algorithm is required. In existing methods, segmentation of overlapping lines and characters are difficult. In order to overcome this problem, two methods are proposed one for line segmentation and another for character segmentation, first method uses projection profile and PSO for line segmentation. In second method combination of connected components along with nearest neighborhood methods are used to segment the characters. Experimental results show that these methods give better results when compared to other methods.