Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Buprenorphine maintenance versus placebo or methadone maintenance for opioid dependence.

BACKGROUND Buprenorphine has been reported as an alternative to methadone for maintenance treatment of opioid dependence, but differing results are reported concerning its relative effectiveness indicating the need for an integrative review. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the effects of buprenorphine maintenance against placebo and methadone maintenance in retaining patients in treatment and in suppressing illicit drug use. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched the following databases up to October 2006: Cochrane Drugs and Alcohol Review Group Register, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Current Contents, Psychlit, CORK , Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia, Australian Drug Foundation, Centre for Education and Information on Drugs and Alcohol, Library of Congress databases, reference lists of identified studies and reviews, authors were asked about any other published or unpublished relevant RCT. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised clinical trials of buprenorphine maintenance versus placebo or methadone maintenance. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Authors separately and independently evaluated the papers and extracted data for meta-analysis. MAIN RESULTS Twenty four studies met the inclusion criteria (4497 participants), all were randomised clinical trials, all but six were double-blind. The method of allocation concealment was not clearly described in the majority (20) of the studies, but where it was reported the methodological quality was good. Buprenorphine was statistically significantly superior to placebo medication in retention of patients in treatment at low doses (RR=1.50; 95% CI: 1.19 - 1.88), medium (RR=1.74; 95% CI: 1.06 - 2.87), and high doses (RR=1.74; 95% CI: 1.02 - 2.96). The high statistical heterogeneity prevented the calculation of a cumulative estimate. However, only medium and high dose buprenorphine suppressed heroin use significantly above placebo. Buprenorphine given in flexible doses was statistically significantly less effective than methadone in retaining patients in treatment (RR= 0.80; 95% CI: 0.68 - 0.95), but no different in suppression of opioid use for those who remained in treatment. Low dose methadone is more likely to retain patients than low dose buprenorphine (RR= 0.67; 95% CI: 0.52 - 0.87). Medium dose buprenorphine does not retain more patients than low dose methadone, but may suppress heroin use better. There was no advantage for medium dose buprenorphine over medium dose methadone in retention (RR=0.79; 95% CI:0.64 - 0.99) and medium dose buprenorphine was inferior in suppression of heroin use. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Buprenorphine is an effective intervention for use in the maintenance treatment of heroin dependence, but it is less effective than methadone delivered at adequate dosages.
Mechanisms Linking Diet and Colorectal Cancer: The Possible Role of Insulin Resistance

Diet is clearly implicated in the origin of colorectal cancer, with risk factors for the disease including reduced consumption of vegetables, fiber, and starch and increased consumption of red meat and animal fat. Several hypotheses have been developed to explain these associations. Most recently, McKeown-Eyssen and Giovannucci noted the similarity of the risk factors for colorectal cancer and those for insulin resistance and suggested that insulin resistance leads to colorectal cancer through the growth- promoting effect of elevated levels of insulin, glucose, or triglycerides. We briefly review the evidence from observational, epidemiological, and experimental animal studies linking diet with insulin resistance and colorectal cancer. The evidence suggests that diets high in energy and saturated fat and with high glycemic index carbohydrate and low levels of fiber and n-3 fatty acids lead to insulin resistance with hyperinsulinemia, hyperglycemia, and hypertriglyceridemia. We then consider how insulin, the related insulin-like growth factors, triglycerides, and nonesterified fatty acids could lead to increased growth of colon cancer precursor lesions and the development of colorectal cancer. Finally, we consider the implications of this scheme on possible future research directions, including studies of satiety and clinical tests of the importance of insulin resistance in the colon carcinogenesis process.
Prophylactic and Therapeutic Efficacy of Human Monoclonal Antibodies against H5N1 Influenza

Background New prophylactic and therapeutic strategies to combat human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses are needed. We generated neutralizing anti-H5N1 human monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and tested their efficacy for prophylaxis and therapy in a murine model of infection. Methods and Findings Using Epstein-Barr virus we immortalized memory B cells from Vietnamese adults who had recovered from infections with HPAI H5N1 viruses. Supernatants from B cell lines were screened in a virus neutralization assay. B cell lines secreting neutralizing antibodies were cloned and the mAbs purified. The cross-reactivity of these antibodies for different strains of H5N1 was tested in vitro by neutralization assays, and their prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy in vivo was tested in mice. In vitro, mAbs FLA3.14 and FLD20.19 neutralized both Clade I and Clade II H5N1 viruses, whilst FLA5.10 and FLD21.140 neutralized Clade I viruses only. In vivo, FLA3.14 and FLA5.10 conferred protection from lethality in mice challenged with A/Vietnam/1203/04 (H5N1) in a dose-dependent manner. mAb prophylaxis provided a statistically significant reduction in pulmonary virus titer, reduced associated inflammation in the lungs, and restricted extrapulmonary dissemination of the virus. Therapeutic doses of FLA3.14, FLA5.10, FLD20.19, and FLD21.140 provided robust protection from lethality at least up to 72 h postinfection with A/Vietnam/1203/04 (H5N1). mAbs FLA3.14, FLD21.140 and FLD20.19, but not FLA5.10, were also therapeutically active in vivo against the Clade II virus A/Indonesia/5/2005 (H5N1). Conclusions These studies provide proof of concept that fully human mAbs with neutralizing activity can be rapidly generated from the peripheral blood of convalescent patients and that these mAbs are effective for the prevention and treatment of H5N1 infection in a mouse model. A panel of neutralizing, cross-reactive mAbs might be useful for prophylaxis or adjunctive treatment of human cases of H5N1 influenza.
Distributed wireless sensing-based routing and adaptive least-travel-time navigation in VANET

Most navigation systems adopt a static shortest path routing algorithm with an optional traffic information gathered from a few monitoring devices and managed by a centralised Traffic Information Centre TIC. It yields several drawbacks: only offering the partial traffic information and yielding a low reliability because of using a centralised TIC. This paper thus proposes a fully distributed approach, namely the Distributed Wireless sensor network-based Adaptive least-travel-time Navigation approach D-WAN. In D-WAN, the real-time traffic information is collected from diverse types of sensors equipped on vehicles and exchanged among neighbour vehicles, and then build a fully distributed and reliable navigation environment. Numerical results demonstrate D-WAN outperforms the compared approaches in travel time, exhausted gasoline, and traffic load balancing index while yielding competitive travel distance. The worst case running-time is analysed, which requires ON · R and OM² time under the high-density and sparse vehicle environments, respectively.
Rapid physics-based rough-terrain rover planning with sensor and control uncertainty

In future planetary exploration missions, rovers will be required to autonomously traverse challenging environments. Much of the previous work in robot motion planning cannot be successfully applied to the rough-terrain planning problem. A model-based planning method is presented in this paper that is computationally efficient and takes into account uncertainty in the robot model, terrain model, range sensor data, and rover path following errors. It is based on rapid path planning through the visible terrain map with a simple graph-search algorithm, followed by a physics-based evaluation of the path with a rover model. Simulation results are presented which demonstrate the effectiveness of the method presented.
Association Between Chronic Osteomyelitis and Risk of End-Stage Renal Disease

AbstractInflammation, which initiates endothelial dysfunction, vascular atherosclerosis, and oxidative stress, may negatively influence renal function and accelerate the development of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The role of chronic osteomyelitis (COM), a chronic inflammatory disease, in the development of ESRD has not been investigated. This study explored whether patients with COM have a higher risk of ESRD than that of patients without COM.Taiwan National Health Insurance claims from 1997 to 2010 were used to identify 24,267 newly diagnosed patients with COM and 97,068 age- and sex-matched non-COM controls for comparison. The risks of ESRD among COM patients, with adjustment for comorbidities, namely, hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, and hyperlipidemia, were assessed until the end of 2010.ESRD risk was 2.01-fold higher (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.81–2.25) in the COM cohort than in the non-COM cohort. Regarding the joint effect of COM with comorbidity, the ESRD risk was 1.57-fold higher (95% CI: 1.23–2.00) for the COM cohort without comorbidities and increased to 2.25 (95% CI: 1.97–2.57) for the COM cohort with at least 1 comorbidity. Age-specific analysis revealed that the adjusted ESRD risk for the COM cohort increased as age decreased, with the highest hazard ratio being 17.8 (95% CI: 5.18–61.4) for patients aged 20–34 years.This was the first study to report that COM is associated with an increased risk of ESRD, particularly among patients with comorbidities and younger patients.
High performance quadratic classifier and the application on pendigits recognition

A nonconvex quadratic classifier is proposed for pattern recognition. The classifier is obtained by solving a second-order cone optimization problem on the training data set. Numerical results are presented to compare this classifier with the Gaussian classifier and k-NN classifiers. Regarding to the application of hand written digits recognition, the computational result shows that the proposed quadratic classifier always achieves highest correctness in the testing stage although it takes the longest computational time in the training stage.
Power control flexibilities for grid-connected multi-functional photovoltaic inverters

This study explores the integration issues of next-generation high-penetration photovoltaic (PV) systems, where the grid is becoming more decentralised and vulnerable. In that case, the PV systems are expected to be more controllable with higher efficiency and reliability. Provision of ancillary and intelligent services, such as fault ride-through and reactive power compensation, is the key to attain higher utilisation of solar PV energy. Such functionalities for the future PV inverters can contribute to reduced cost of energy, and thus enable more cost-effective PV installations. To implement the advanced features, a flexible power controller is developed in this study, which can be configured in the PV inverter and flexibly change from one to another mode during operation. Based on the single-phase PQ theory, the control strategy offers the possibilities to generate appropriate references for the inner current control loop. The references depend on system conditions and also specific demands from both system operators and prosumers. Besides, this power control strategy can be implemented in commercial PV inverters as a standardised function, and also the operation modes can be achieved online in predesigned PV inverters. Case studies have verified the effectiveness and flexibilities of the proposal to realise the advanced features.
A Development of Smart Picking/Feeding System for a Production System

One of the common problems in a flow line like a packing process is line breakdown. This is due to several reasons such as part shortage, equipment malfunction, etc. Especially, when parts are stored in the warehouse or in a temporary buffer area and must transport to the packing area, without good management breakdown due to part shortage easily occurs. Typically, a person who places the part and one who picks the part is not the same person and without good communication tool, waste time can be expected and causes line breakdown since the new part cannot be served in time. Thus, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the implementation of a smart picking system and intelligent feeding schedule in order to reduce line breakdown due to part shortage. The feeding schedule is also generated for a feeding worker to replenish a pallet to the line before a buffer is running out. One of the factories is implemented as a case study where the current downtime due to part shortage is 8.2 percent and the productivity is 12.99 pieces per man-hour. A bar code system and industry tablet is used for pick and place system. Not only is the software for part location search developed, but also the feeding schedule of the whole packing line. As a result, the downtime due to part shortage is reduced to 1.2 percent and the productivity increases to 22.61 pieces per man-hour.
YMCA — Your mesh comparison application

Polygonal meshes can be created in several different ways. In this paper we focus on the reconstruction of meshes from point clouds, which are sets of points in 3D. Several algorithms that tackle this task already exist, but they have different benefits and drawbacks, which leads to a large number of possible reconstruction results (i.e., meshes). The evaluation of those techniques requires extensive comparisons between different meshes which is up to now done by either placing images of rendered meshes side-by-side, or by encoding differences by heat maps. A major drawback of both approaches is that they do not scale well with the number of meshes. This paper introduces a new comparative visual analysis technique for 3D meshes which enables the simultaneous comparison of several meshes and allows for the interactive exploration of their differences. Our approach gives an overview of the differences of the input meshes in a 2D view. By selecting certain areas of interest, the user can switch to a 3D representation and explore the spatial differences in detail. To inspect local variations, we provide a magic lens tool in 3D. The location and size of the lens provide further information on the variations of the reconstructions in the selected area. With our comparative visualization approach, differences between several mesh reconstruction algorithms can be easily localized and inspected.
Autophagy and Cancer Therapy

Autophagy is a dynamic process of protein degradation which is typically observed during nutrient deprivation. Recently, interest in autophagy has been renewed among oncologists, because different types of cancer cells undergo autophagy after various anticancer therapies. This type of non-apoptotic cell death has been documented mainly by observing morphological changes, e.g., numerous autophagic vacuoles in the cytoplasm of dying cells. Thus, autophagic cell death is considered programmed cell death type II, whereas apoptosis is programmed cell death type I. These two types of cell death are predominantly distinctive, but many studies demonstrate cross-talk between them. Whether autophagy in cancer cells causes death or protects cells is controversial. In multiple studies, autophagy has been inhibited pharmacologically or genetically, resulting in contrasting outcomes—survival or death—depending on the specific context. Interestingly, the regulatory pathways of autophagy share several molecules with the oncogenic pathways activated by tyrosine kinase receptors. Tumor suppressors such as Beclin 1, PTEN, and p53 also play an important role in autophagy induction. Taken together, these accumulating data may lead to development of new cancer therapies that manipulate autophagy.
An effective grayscale conversion with applications to image enhancement

Recent efforts to accurately integrate properties of human visual perception have fueled an impressive improvement not only in digital photography but also in color manipulation tools. Color is one of the main attributes that influences human visual system, being ultimately the result of our experience and perception. However, several important applications such as substitution systems for visually impaired people, computerized tomography, printed textbooks and aesthetical stylization still require a reliable grayscale representation of images. Mapping three dimensional color information onto a single dimension while still preserving the original appearance, contrast and finest details is not a trivial task. Standard monochromatic transformations, found in commercial image editing software, neglect the color distribution, being unable to conserve in many cases the discriminability of the original chromatic contrast. Consequently, isoluminant colors are mapped to similar grayscale levels increasing the ambiguity in the decolorized image version. Although luminance is a definite value, our subjective interpretation that measures apparent brightness is very important in image decolorization process.
The basic depression ratio of the host: the evolution of host resistance to microparasites

The basic reproduction ratio R0 occupies a central position in the theory of host–pathogen interactions. However, this quantity stresses the role of the pathogen. This paper proposes an additional, more host–centred characterization using the basic depression ratio D0. This quantity is the number of host individuals per infected by which the infected host population is depressed below its uninfected level. This paper shows that a baseline criterion for the evolution of host resistance to microparasites is that resistance evolves to minimize D0. This parallels the result for pathogen virulence where R0 is maximized. The tension between these two criteria is noted. The framework established allows a discussion of trade–offs between aspects of the pathogen–free host biology and the host–pathogen interaction. For certain linear and convex trade–offs it is shown that the strain with the lowest transmission parameter β wins (despite the fact that it has the lowest intrinsic birth rate a). For corresponding concave trade–offs, either the strain with minimum β and a or the strain with maximum β and a wins. Finally, the connection with the techniques of adaptive dynamics is made. Evolutionary singular points are shown to occur at extrema of D0. The evolutionary attainment of the results is discussed.
Math–gender Stereotypes in Elementary School Children

A total of 247 American children between 6 and 10 years of age (126 girls and 121 boys) completed Implicit Association Tests and explicit self-report measures assessing the association of (a) me with male (gender identity), (b) male with math (math–gender stereotype), and (c) me with math (math self-concept). Two findings emerged. First, as early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype that math is for boys on both implicit and explicit measures. Second, elementary school boys identified with math more strongly than did girls on both implicit and self-report measures. The findings suggest that the math– gender stereotype is acquired early and influences emerging math self-concepts prior to ages at which there are actual differences in math achievement. Imagine yourself an elementary school teacher. One of your female students fails to complete an arithmetic assignment and offers an excuse that ''Girls don't do math.'' What might be a pretext for avoiding homework could also be the outcome of social-cognitive development. Combining cultural stereotypes (''Math is for boys'') with the knowledge about one's own gender identity (''I am a girl'') to influence one's self-concept (''Math is not for me'') reflects the tendency to achieve what social psychologists (Heider, 1946) call cognitive balance. In the foregoing example, ''Girls don't do math'' is a widespread cultural stereotype in the United States: Studies with both adults (Nosek et al., 2009) and children (Lummis & Stevenson, 1990) show that people in United States believe that math is stereotypically a male domain. Given such stereotypes , a tendency to keep the related concepts of self, gender, and math consistent with one another (what Heider, 1946, called cognitive balance) may play a role in why a young girl would say—and possibly believe—that math is not for her (of course, there will be individual differences). Social knowledge can be represented as a network of interconnections among concepts (Green-wald et al., 2002). In the foregoing example, three aspects of social cognition are involved. The first is the association between math and boy or girl. If this takes a societally characteristic form (e.g., math = boy), it can be called a math–gender stereotype. The second involves gender identity, defined as the association between me and either boy or girl. The third is a math self-concept, the association between self and math. Past research using implicit measures with adults has shown that for women, the stronger the …
A multi-level multidimensional approach for measuring dynamic capabilities in service innovation management

Service innovation is a domain with growing strategic importance for a broad variety of firms all around the world. Due to a lack of adequate management models, many attempts to introduce new or enhanced services result in failures. One way of informing the field of service innovation about how organizations can adapt and reconfigure their resources is offered by the dynamic capability view (DCV). However, conceptualization and measurement of dynamic capabilities in service innovation have been difficult. This paper addresses this issue by arguing that a set of common dynamic service innovation capabilities consists of measurable processes on a lower level their microfoundations. We introduce a new scale for measuring dynamic capabilities in service providing firms. This, in turn, allows for the development of a set of indicators to consistently measure them. We test the reliability and validity of the scale with multi-industry data collected from a survey conducted among 461 firms. Our results prompt discussion of a number of options for further research.
Persistence of human herpesvirus 6 according to site and variant: possible greater neurotropism of variant A.

Little is known of the persistence and pathogenicity of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) after primary infection, including the role of strain variant. Over 2 to 5 years, 2,716 children and 149 families were studied. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC), saliva, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) specimens were examined for HHV-6 DNA and variant. Ninety-nine percent of isolates causing primary infection were HHV-6 variant B (HHV-6B), which predominated in 95%-98% of the variants persisting in PBMC and saliva specimens from children and adults. Of 668 CSF samples, 13% contained HHV-6 DNA; of 77 children examined after primary infection, 61% had HHV-6 DNA detected only in their CSF and 39% had HHV-6 DNA in both CSF and PBMCs. HHV-6 variant A (HHV-6A) was detected significantly (P = .0001) more frequently in CSF than in PBMCs or saliva. In children for whom HHV-6 was identified in both CSF and PBMCs, PBMCs contained only HHV-6B, while CSF contained HHV-6A or HHV-6B, not both. Thus, in patients with dual infection, only HHV-6A persisted in CSF, which suggests that HHV-6A has greater neurotropism. Findings for adults indicate that dual infection occurs; variant persistence is similar to that for children. The frequency of HHV-6A infection increased little with age, thereby indicating that HHV-6A infection remains uncommon into adulthood. This study suggests that HHV-6 variants have different immunobiologic courses and neurotropism.