Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Written informed consent and HIV testing rates: the San Francisco experience.

Goldman et al. posit without empirical evidence that written informed consent is not a barrier to routine HIV testing.1 Our experience in San Francisco, California, suggests otherwise. In May 2006, the San Francisco Department of Public Health Medical Care System, which includes an acute care hospital, a long-term care facility, and more than 15 primary health care centers, eliminated the requirement for a separate written informed consent form for HIV testing.2 Before May 2006, clinicians were required to complete a separate HIV-test laboratory requisition form and obtain written documentation of patient informed consent to order an HIV test. Incomplete forms were rejected by the laboratory. Beginning in mid-May 2006, patient consent forms were removed from medical settings, and HIV antibody testing was added to the routine laboratory requisition form. Clinicians were required to obtain informed consent and to document in the medical chart that the patient consented, but a patient signature was not required, consistent with California state law. These administrative changes resulted in an increase in the monthly rate of HIV testing (from 13.5 HIV tests per 1000 patient visits in June 2006 to 17.9 HIV tests per 1000 patient-visits in December 2006). 3 The mean number of positive tests per month increased from 20.6 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 17.3, 23.8) before the change in policy to 30.6 (95% CI = 25.7, 35.5) after the change in policy (P = .006). 2 No tests were rejected because of incomplete documentation after the policy change.2 The trend of increased HIV testing after the policy change has continued. No adverse consequences of this policy change have been reported. In San Francisco, as in the United States as a whole, we continue to have unacceptable numbers of undiagnosed HIV infections. We also continue to miss opportunities to diagnose individuals early: approximately 40% of those newly diagnosed with HIV are diagnosed with AIDS within 12 months of their positive test.3,4 Facilitating awareness of HIV serostatus is vital for both treatment and prevention; testing is a necessary step toward linking to care,5 and receipt of an HIV-positive test is associated with dramatic reductions in HIV risk behavior.6 We strongly support efforts to increase HIV serostatus awareness and believe that ethical and professional testing can be done without requiring written documentation of informed consent. Our results demonstrate the public health benefits of such an approach.
Orthologues of the Anaphase-Promoting Complex/Cyclosome Coactivators Cdc20p and Cdh1p Are Important for Mitotic Progression and Morphogenesis in Candida albicans

ABSTRACT The conserved anaphase-promoting complex/cyclosome (APC/C) system mediates protein degradation during mitotic progression. Conserved coactivators Cdc20p and Cdh1p regulate the APC/C during early to late mitosis and G1 phase. Candida albicans is an important fungal pathogen of humans, and it forms highly polarized cells when mitosis is blocked through depletion of the polo-like kinase Cdc5p or other treatments. However, the mechanisms governing mitotic progression and associated polarized growth in the pathogen are poorly understood. In order to gain insights into these processes, we characterized C. albicans orthologues of Cdc20p and Cdh1p. Cdc20p-depleted cells were blocked in early or late mitosis with elevated levels of Cdc5p and the mitotic cyclin Clb2p, suggesting that Cdc20p is essential and has some conserved functions during mitosis. However, the yeast cells formed highly polarized buds in contrast to the large doublets of S. cerevisiae cdc20 mutants, implying a distinct role in morphogenesis. In comparison, cdh1Δ/cdh1Δ cells were viable but showed enrichment of Clb2p and Cdc5p, suggesting that Cdh1p may influence mitotic exit. The cdh1Δ/cdh1Δ phenotype was pleiotropic, consisting of normal or enlarged yeast, pseudohyphae, and some elongated buds, whereas S. cerevisiae cdh1Δ yeast cells were reduced in size. Thus, C. albicans Cdh1p may have some distinct functions. Finally, absence of Cdh1p or Cdc20p had a minor or no effect on hyphal development, respectively. Overall, the results suggest that Cdc20p and Cdh1p may be APC/C activators that are important for mitosis but also morphogenesis in C. albicans. Their novel features imply additional variations in function and underscore rewiring in the emerging mitotic regulatory networks of the pathogen.
Wireless power transfer for mobile devices with consideration of ground effect

In this study, a wireless power transfer (WPT) system including three coils and working at 6.78 MHz is investigated. By employing a 2 × 3 metamaterial (MTM) array, the efficiency of the proposed WPT system is significantly enhanced. Experiments show that with the MTM array, a maximum efficiency improvement of 27 % is achieved at transfer distance of 35 cm. The impact of ground plane on the transfer efficiency is also studied. Several methods to reduce this impact are discussed and measured.
Applications of composite flour in development of food products

The development of food products using composite flour has increased and is attracting much attention from researchers, especially in the production of bakery products and pastries. This article focuses on the use of composite flour to produce food products, namely bread, biscuits, and pasta, with looks at on its impact, following some improvements made, on the sensory quality, rheology characteristics, and nutritional values as well as its overall acceptance. The blending of wheat flour with various sources of tubers, legumes, cereals and fruit flour in different percentages to produce variety of food products are also reported in this review. It was found that composite flour used to produce food products is still able to maintain similar characteristics to products made from full-wheat flour. The positive effects of the use of composite flour can be seen in the final product related to the functional and physicochemical properties and health benefits of raw blended flour along with percentage blending. Overall, composite flour is a good new approach to utilizing uncommon food products as the application of composite flour produced products with different characteristics and quality, depending on the types and percentage of wheat flour used in the formulation.
Combating opiate dependence: a comparison among the available pharmacological options

Pharmacotherapies for heroin addiction may target opiate withdrawal symptoms, facilitate initiation of abstinence and/or reduce relapse to heroin use either by maintenance on an agonist or antagonist agent. Available agents include opioid agonists, partial opioid agonists, opioid antagonists and α2-agonists for use during managed withdrawal and long-term maintenance. Experimental approaches combine α2-agonists with naltrexone to reduce the time of opiate withdrawal and to accelerate the transition to abstinence. Recently, buprenorphine has been introduced in the US for office-based maintenance, with the hope of replicating the success of this treatment in Europe and Australia. Naloxone has been added to buprenorphine in order to reduce its potential diversion to intravenous use, whilst facilitating the expansion of treatment. Although comprehensive substance abuse treatment is not limited to pharmacotherapy, this review will focus on the rationale, indications and limitations of the range of existing medications for detoxification and relapse prevention treatments. The two major goals of pharmacotherapy are to relieve the severity of opiate withdrawal symptoms during the managed withdrawal of the opioid and to prevent relapse to heroin use either after abstinence initiation or after being stabilised on a long-acting opiate agonist, such as methadone.
Quantum projection noise: Population fluctuations in two-level systems.

Measurements of internal energy states of atomic ions confined in traps can be used to illustrate fundamental properties of quantum systems, because long relaxation times and observation times are available. In the experiments described here, a single ion or a few identical ions were prepared in well-defined superpositions of two internal energy eigenstates. The populations of the energy levels were then measured. For an individual ion, the outcome of the measurement is uncertain, unless the amplitude for one of the two eigenstates is zero, and is completely uncertain when the magnitudes of the two amplitudes are equal. In one experiment, a single 199 Hg + ion, confined in a linear rf trap, was prepared in various superpositions of two hyperfine states
Improving Gaze-based Selection using Variable Dwell Time

In order to avoid the "Midas Touch" problem, gaze-based interfaces for selection often introduce a dwell time: a fixed amount of time the user must fixate upon an object before it is selected. Past interfaces have used a uniform dwell time across all objects. Here, we propose an algorithm for adjusting the dwell times of different objects based on the inferred probability that the user wishes to select them. In particular, we introduce a probabilistic model of gaze behavior and train it on natural gaze trajectories collected while users surf the web through a gaze-based web browser. Using this model, we can infer the probability that each hyperlink on the web page is the one the user intends to select. We assign shorter dwell times to more likely hyperlinks and longer dwell times to less likely hyperlinks. The resulting variable dwell time gaze-based browser enables subjects to surf the web faster and/or more reliably. We use a two-stage hidden Markov model based algorithm to model the natural eye gaze trajectories. We have evaluated this method objectively both in simulation and experimentally, and subjectively through questionnaires. Our results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves a better tradeoff between accuracy and speed. This work demonstrates that natural eye movements can be used to infer user intent, and that this information can be used to improve gaze-based selection without increased cognitive load on users.
Answering Tag-Term Keyword Queries over XML Documents in DHT Networks

The emergence of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing model and the popularity of Extensible Markup Language (XML) as the web data format have fueled the extensive research on retrieving XML data in P2P networks. In this paper, we developed an efficient and effective keyword search framework that can support tag-term keyword queries in Distributed Hash Table (DHT) networks. We employed a concise Bloom-Filter data structure to index XML meta-data in the DHT repository. We also developed an effective algorithm that supports tag-term keyword queries over our Bloom-Filter encoded XML meta-data in the DHT network. We conducted extensive experiments to demonstrate the efficiency of indexing scheme, the effectiveness of our keyword query algorithm and the system scalability of our framework.
School students and part-time work: Workplace problems and challenges.

The literature has identified some potential problems and challenges associated with teenage part-time workers and the nature of the workplaces that employ them. However a large national project on student-working found few problems in the two companies researched because these companies had policies in place that addressed the potential problems. Some suggestions are made about how problems and challenges could be avoided in a wider range of adolescent workplaces.
Solution of measuring the impedance of encapsulated RFID chip

A solution of measuring the impedance of encapsulated RFID chip by designing a series of RFID tag antenna according to the conjugate impedance of chip is presented in this paper. After simulation, calculation, making this series of antenna, whose theory readable distance in UHF band are almost the same, the tag's identification performance is measured with signal generator and spectrum analyzer. The best performance tag, whose antenna's conjugate impedance is given to be the RFID chip packaging impedance, is picked out. This impedance is to indicate the impedance characteristic of the chip after the packaging process. This method can determine RFID chip's packaging impedance with certain accuracy.
A High Performance, Low Area Overhead Carry Lookahead Adder

Adders are some of the most critical data path circuits requiring considerable design effort in order to “squeeze” out as much performance gain as possible. Many adder designs manage high performance by reducing the delay of the critical path, an effort that results in high area overhead in most cases. In this paper we present a carry lookahead adder (CLA) with a prediction scheme that results in improved performance and low area overhead. Carry prediction enables for the reduction of the carry circuitry within a block while reducing the delay involved in the generation of the carry-out to the subsequent blocks. We have performed simulations of a 16-bit adder and recorded performance improvements of 67% in propagating the carry and generating the sum when compared with the traditional (fixed group4) CLA designed in the same technology.
An Ethnographic Study of a High Cognitive Load Driving Environment

This poster outlines Ethnographic research into the design of an environment to study a land speed record vehicle, or more generally, a vehicle posing a high cognitive load for the user. The challenges of empirical research activity in the design of unique artifacts is discussed, where we may not have the artefact available in the real context to study, nor key informants that have direct relevant experience. We also describe findings from the preliminary design studies and the study into the design of the yoke for driving steer-by-wire.
Olivary hypertrophy without palatal myoclonus associated with a metastatic lesion to the pontine tegmentum

A 46-year-old man had metastasis to the central tegmental tract of the pons with ipsilateral olivary hypertrophy. Although the phenomenon of palatal myoclonus has been repeatedly correlated with the finding of olivary hypertrophy, no palatal myoclonus was noted on repeated examinations. The clinical pathologic correlates and the literature of similar cases are reviewed.
Horizontal and vertical transmission of mouse class I MHC sequence in Schistosoma mansoni

The mouse major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I sequence was detected in 8-week-old Schistosoma mansoni by in situ polymerase chain reaction (in situ PCR). The signals to the mouse class I MHC sequence were observed in the nuclei of the mesenchymal and reproductive cells of S. mansoni. Signals were also observed in the cytoplasm of the tegumental tubercles. This finding suggested the possibility of MHC gene transfer from the host to schistosomes. Furthermore, the class I MHC sequence was detected in the DNA extracted from the cercariae of S. mansoni by nested PCR. Neither the nucleotide sequence of class I MHC detected in adult worm DNA nor that of class I MHC detected in the host (mouse) DNA was identical with that of class I MHC detected in the cercarial DNA. From the data we assumed that S. mansoni may have retained their own mouse class I MHC sequence in their genome throughout their life-cycle.
Nonlinear observer design for synchronization and information recovery in communication systems using contraction theory

This paper proposes new LMI conditions for state and input recovery of a particular class of nonlinear systems. The convergence approach is presented under the original framework of the contraction theory and the conditions are derived thanks to the differential mean value theorem. This method is more general and more easily implementable than an original method, presented in [1], for the same class of systems. It is applied with success on two numerical examples of chaotic systems with unknown input, used for information encryption and decryption. Experimental results, based on a basic communication setup, are also included.
Psychosis, depression, and high risk for sudden cardiac death: time for co-operation between psychiatrists and cardiologists.

This editorial refers to ‘Psychotropic medications and the risk of sudden cardiac death during an acute coronary event’, by J. Honkola et al. , doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehr368 Psychiatric patients have an excess rate of unexplained sudden death.1 Some studies have linked this to the disease itself and to an increased prevalence of other risk factors such as dyslipidaemia and diabetes in this population.2 However, a number of observations have suggested that the use of antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs might be at the root of these deaths.3⇓ Figure 1 The triangle of sudden death in psychiatric patients. The work coming from the University of Oulu4 can bring some clarity to this debate. Is this a population at higher risk for sudden cardiac death who should be screened and treated accordingly, or is the treatment they …
Uridine diphosphate glucuronosyl transferase 1A1 promoter polymorphism predicts the risk of gastrointestinal toxicity and fatigue induced by irinotecan‐based chemotherapy

In the current Phase II study, the authors evaluated the association between genomic polymorphic variants in uridine diphosphate glucuronosyl transferase (UGT1A1), methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR), and thymidylate synthase (TS) genes, and the incidence of the adverse effects of irinotecan and raltitrexed in previously heavily treated patients with metastatic colorectal carcinoma.
On the spectral theory of groups of affine transformations of compact nilmanifolds

Let $N$ be a connected and simply connected nilpotent Lie group, $\Lambda$ a lattice in $N$, and $X=N/\Lambda$ the corresponding nilmanifold. Let $Aff(X)$ be the group of affine transformations of $X$. We characterize the countable subgroups $H$ of $Aff(X)$ for which the action of $H$ on $X$ has a spectral gap, that is, such that the associated unitary representation $U$ of $H$ on the space of functions from $L^2(X)$ with zero mean does not weakly contain the trivial representation. Denote by $T$ the maximal torus factor associated to $X$. We show that the action of $H$ on $X$ has a spectral gap if and only if there exists no proper $H$-invariant subtorus $S$ of $T$ such that the projection of $H$ on $Aut (T/S)$ has an abelian subgroup of finite index. We first establish the result in the case where $X$ is a torus. In the case of a general nilmanifold, we study the asymptotic behaviour of matrix coefficients of $U$ using decay properties of metaplectic representations of symplectic groups. The result shows that the existence of a spectral gap for subgroups of $Aff(X)$ is equivalent to strong ergodicity in the sense of K.Schmidt. Moreover, we show that the action of $H$ on $X$ is ergodic (or strongly mixing) if and only if the corresponding action of $H$ on $T$ is ergodic (or strongly mixing).
On the compression of still images using the derivative of Gaussian transform

The derivative of Gaussian transform was introduced by the authors as a technique to locally represent image frequency information using functions which have also been used to model certain aspects of human vision. This paper presents the application of this transform to still image compression. A set of basis selection criteria are used in order to minimize the leakage and edge artifacts which can be introduced by quantization of the transform coefficients. A quantization mask is derived which is based on a model of the contrast sensitivity function of the human visual system and is appropriately extended for the DGT basis functions.
Evaluation of AMSR‐E soil moisture product based on ground measurements over temperate and semi‐arid regions

Soil moisture (SM) products provided by remote sensing approaches at continental scale are of great importance for land surface modeling and numerical weather prediction. Before using remotely sensed SM products it is crucial to validate them. This paper presents an evaluation of AMSR‐E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer ‐ Earth Observing System) SM products over two sites. They are located in the south‐west of France and in the Sahelian part of Mali in West Africa, in the framework of the SMOSREX (Surface Monitoring Of Soil Reservoir Experiment) and AMMA (African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis) projects respectively. The most representative station of the four stations of each site is used for the comparison of AMSR‐E derived and in‐situ SM measurements in absolute and normalized values. Results suggest that, although AMSR‐E SM product is not able to capture absolute SM values, it provides reliable information on surface SM temporal variability, at seasonal and rainy event scale. It is shown, however, that the use of radiometric products, such as polarization ratio, provides better agreement with ground stations than the derived SM products.
Interactive Multiobjective Optimization by the Sequential Proxy Optimization Technique (SPOT)

A new interactive, multiobjective, decision-making technique for obtaining the preferred solution of the decision maker from among a Pareto optimal solution set is called the sequential proxy optimization technique, SPOT. A time-sharing computer program for this interactive procedures implements man-machine interactive procedures. This paper summarizes the theoretical framework of SPOT and applies it to reliability design of a series-parallel system. The details of SPOT and the interaction processes to solve an illustrative example are in a separately available Supplement.
Atherosclerotic carotid lumen segmentation in combined B-mode and contrast enhanced ultrasound images

Patients with carotid atherosclerotic plaques carry an increased risk of cardiovascular events such as stroke. Ultrasound has been employed as a standard for diagnosis of carotid atherosclerosis. To assess atherosclerosis, the intima contour of the carotid artery lumen should be accurately outlined. For this purpose, we use simultaneously acquired side-by-side longitudinal contrast enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and B-mode ultrasound (BMUS) images and exploit the information in the two imaging modalities for accurate lumen segmentation. First, nonrigid motion compensation is performed on both BMUS and CEUS image sequences, followed by averaging over the 150 time frames to produce an image with improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). After that, we segment the lumen from these images using a novel method based on dynamic programming which uses the joint histogram of the CEUS and BMUS pair of images to distinguish between background, lumen, tissue and artifacts. Finally, the obtained lumen contour in the improved-SNR mean image is transformed back to each time frame of the original image sequence. Validation was done by comparing manual lumen segmentations of two independent observers with automated lumen segmentations in the improved-SNR images of 9 carotid arteries from 7 patients. The root mean square error between the two observers was 0.17±0.10mm and between automated and average of manual segmentation of two observers was 0.19±0.06mm. In conclusion, we present a robust and accurate carotid lumen segmentation method which overcomes the complexity of anatomical structures, noise in the lumen, artifacts and echolucent plaques by exploiting the information in this combined imaging modality.