Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward an Increased Understanding of User Demographics in Online Sexual Activities

A large study ( N = 7,037) was conducted through the MSNBC website during June 2000 to explore the general profile of people who engage in online sexual activity (OSA) as well as gender differences in OSA. The study explored ways in which the Internet is used for sexual activities, reasons for engaging in OSA, and consequences of use. The study found a relationship between use of OSA and its consequences in users' lives as well as significant gender differences in user profiles. Significant gender differences were found in reasons respondents gave for engaging in OSA and OSA-related behaviors. Overall, these findings increase our understanding of the user profiles of people who engage in OSA and corroborate gender differences in offline research. Implications for further research are discussed.
Suppression of Immune Induction of Collagen-Induced Arthritis in IL-17-Deficient Mice 1

Interleukin-17 is a T cell-derived proinflammatory cytokine. This cytokine is suspected to be involved in the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) because this cytokine expression is augmented in synovial tissues of RA patients. The pathogenic roles of IL-17 in the development of RA, however, still remain to be elucidated. In this study, effects of IL-17 deficiency on collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) model were examined using IL-17-deficient mice (IL-17−/− mice). We found that CIA was markedly suppressed in IL-17−/− mice. IL-17 was responsible for the priming of collagen-specific T cells and collagen-specific IgG2a production. Thus, these observations suggest that IL-17 plays a crucial role in the development of CIA by activating autoantigen-specific cellular and humoral immune responses.
Re-Structuring and Specific Similarity Computation of Electronic Medical Records

Electronic medical records (EMRs) have high value for research, as they contain the patient's personal information, medical history, clinical examination, treatment process, and other information. Analysis based on EMRs can effectively assist doctors in clinical decision-making, provide data support for clinical research as well as personalized healthcare service for patients. We introduce a novel approach for EMR similarity computation by re-structuring and filtering some parts of physical examination result. Our approach is motivated by observations that it is easier to distinguish disease bias special part than bias the whole EMR which maybe contain some ineffective information. Assuming the check parts are independent, we split them and select effective parts. Then, we apply Deep NLP, converting the word to vectors which can be used to measure syntactic and semantic word similarities better. In addition, We replace traditional Euclidean distance with Word Mover's Distance(WMD), a novel distance function between text documents. Finally, KNN cluster is been used to evaluate the similarity between EMRs. Compared with traditional method such as LDA and LSI, our proposed method achieved higher recall value of disease classification problem.
Relationship Between Pancreatic Secretory Trypsin Inhibitor and Early Recurrence of Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Following Surgical Resection

OBJECTIVES:The extremely unfavorable prognosis of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), even after surgical resection, is mainly attributed to a high rate of recurrence. The aim of this study was to identify the molecules associated with early recurrence of ICC following resection.METHODS:Between December 1984 and July 2003, 46 patients with ICC underwent surgical resection. The clinical outcome of these patients was evaluated in view of the time of recurrence. Consequently, we categorized ICC patients into subgroups, based on the clinical results, and screened differentially expressed genes by DNA microarray analysis. Furthermore, the obtained results were validated in an independent sample set by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Immunohistochemistry was performed to assess the expressed genes at the protein level.RESULTS:The survival of patients with early recurrence, occurring within a year after surgical resection, was significantly poor after surgery and even after recurrence, as compared to that of patients whose recurrence occurred beyond a year after surgery.By the DNA microarray analysis, 13 differentially expressed genes were picked up, and quantitative RT-PCR reaction identified the pancreatic secretory trypsin inhibitor (PSTI) as a candidate gene associated with early recurrence of ICC after resection. This observation was confirmed through examination of an independent set of samples, in which the patients with higher levels of PSTI mRNA expression had significantly shorter recurrence-free survival. Immunohistochemically, PSTI was expressed in the cytoplasm of cancer cells.CONCLUSIONS:PSTI might be a potential marker for identifying ICC patients with an increased risk of early recurrence after surgical resection.
Medical Affective Computing: Medical Informatics Meets Affective Computing

"The need to cope with a changing and partly unpredictable world makes it very likely that any intelligent system with multiple motives and limited powers will have emotions. " [1] From advisory systems that understand emotional attitudes toward medical outcomes, to wearable computers that compensate for communication disability, to computer simulations of emotions and their disorders, the research agendas of medical informatics and affective computing--how and why to create computers that detect, convey, and even have emotions--increasingly overlap. Some psychiatric and neurological researchers state their theories in terms of actual or hypothetical computer programs. Adaptive intelligent systems will increasingly rely on emotions to compensate for their own conflicting goals and limited resources--emotional reactions about which psychiatrists and neurologists have special insights. DEP2 (Depression Emulation Program 2) is a computer simulation of adaptive depression--learning from explainable patterns of failure in autobiographical memory--that simulates many depressive behaviors. In the terminology of fault-tolerant computing, adaptive depression involves fault detection (triggered by failure), fault location (strategic retreat and failure diagnosis), and fault recovery (return to on-line operation). DEP2 relies on subsystems whose structures and behaviors are based on popular hypotheses about left and right brain hemispheric function during depression and emotion. DEP2 and its predecessors, DEP and DEPlanner, are relevant to psychiatric and neurological informatics, and to the design of adaptive autonomous robots and software agents.
Case–control and within-family tests for association between 5HTTLPR and conduct problems in a longitudinal adolescent sample

Background Several recent studies have reported an association between the serotonin transporter 5HTTLPR (s-allele) and aggression; however, nonreplications have also been reported. Inconsistencies may be explained by gene–environment interactions. Using a large general population sample, we sought to test for an association between 5HTTLPR and conduct problems, and to explore for a possible 5HTTLPR by maltreatment interaction. Methods Using Caucasian adolescents from the genetic-pairs sample of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n=1736), we tested for an association between 5HTTLPR and both a categorical and, separately, a continuous measure of conduct problems using regression analyses while controlling for sex, family effects, and age. We then tested for an association between 5HTTLPR and conduct problems using the within-family test Quantitative Transmission Disequilibrium Test. Analyses were repeated for a measure of adolescence-limited delinquency. Results Results did not support an association between 5HTTLPR and conduct problems or delinquency. The Quantitative Transmission Disequilibrium Test analyses, which account for population stratification, were nonsignificant (F=0.17; P=0.68); introducing maltreatment as a covariate into the model did not affect this association (F=0.17; P=0.68). No association was seen between 5HTTLPR and a measure of adolescence-limited delinquency (F=0.54; P=0.46). Discussion Using two methods in a large general population sample we did not find a significant association between 5HTTLPR and conduct problems. A gene by maltreatment interaction was not supported.
A novel NADH kinase is the mitochondrial source of NADPH in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Mitochondria require NADPH for anti‐oxidant protection and for specific biosynthetic pathways. However, the sources of mitochondrial NADPH and the mechanisms of maintaining mitochondrial redox balance are not well understood. We show here that in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, mitochondrial NADPH is largely provided by the product of the POS5 gene. We identified POS5 in a S.cerevisiae genetic screen for hyperoxia‐sensitive mutants, or cells that cannot survive in 100% oxygen. POS5 encodes a protein that is homologous to NAD+ and NADH kinases, and we show here that recombinant Pos5p has NADH kinase activity. Pos5p is localized to the mitochondrial matrix of yeast and appears to be important for several NADPH‐requiring processes in the mitochondria, including resistance to a broad range of oxidative stress conditions, arginine biosynthesis and mitochondrial iron homeostasis. Pos5p represents the first member of the NAD(H) kinase family that has been identified as an important anti‐oxidant factor and key source of the cellular reductant NADPH.
Oxide Semiconductor-Based Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Dual-Gate Nonvolatile Memory Thin-Film Transistor

An organic/inorganic hybrid dual-gate (DG) nonvolatile memory thin-film transistor (M-TFT) was proposed as a device with high potential for implementing large-area electronics on flexible and/or transparent substrates. The active channel and bottom and top gate insulators (GIs) of the M-TFT were composed of In-Ga-Zn-O, Al2O3, and poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF-TrFE)], respectively. It was confirmed that the fabricated DG M-TFT showed excellent device characteristics, in which the obtained field-effect mobility, subthreshold swing, and on/off ratio were approximately 32.1 cm2 V-1 s-1, 0.13 V/dec, and 108, respectively. It was also successfully demonstrated that the DG configuration for the proposed M-TFT could effectively work for improving the device controllability by individually controlling the bias conditions of the top gate and bottom gate (BG). The turn-on voltage could be dynamically modulated and controlled when an appropriate fixed negative voltage was applied to the BG. The required duration of the programming pulse to obtain a memory margin of more than 10 could be reduced to 100 μs. These results correspond to the first demonstration of a hybrid-type DG M-TFT using a ferroelectric copolymer GI/oxide semiconducting active channel structure and demonstrate the feasibility of a promising memory device embeddable in a large-area electronic system.
Genomic evolution and phenotypic distinctions of Chikungunya viruses causing the Indian Ocean outbreak

In our current global community with the rapid movement of products and people across and between continents, the emergence of a human pathogen can have devastating consequences. One dramatic example of this has been the emergence of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV), which causes a severe, prolonged, and debilitating arthralgic disease. This virus emerged in a large outbreak on the east coast of Africa in 2004; over the subsequent seven years, CHIKV has spread across the Indian Ocean, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and even reached Europe, leaving more than two million people affected. Because CHIKV has a small genome, currently available tools to analyze complete viral genomes have provided scientists with unique opportunities to understand the epidemiology, pathogenesis and transmission of the virus. The most commonly used application of these cutting edge tools has been to track the movement of the virus over time and space. While this is an important concept for identifying areas that remain at risk for outbreaks, these postgenomic era tools can also be applied to the highly significant tasks of understanding how viral microevolutionary changes can affect both invertebrate transmission and vertebrate virulence. Significant alterations in the patterns of CHIKV movement have already been identified using microevolutionary studies. These approaches now need to be further expanded to aid in expanding vaccine, therapeutic and control options. This review will highlight some of the most significant recent research developments obtained using these cutting edge approaches for CHIKV.
Farm Income Variability and the Supply

The total number of farms in the United States decreased by 63.5% between 1950 and 1993. Over the same period, the total number of farm operators decreased by 18.9% (U.S. Department of Commerce). The primary reasons for these changes are that the supply of agricultural products grew faster (due to technical change) than demand and relative wage rates rose in nonfarm sectors. These changes were paralleled by significantly greater work off the farm by U.S. farmers. In 1992, over 83% of U.S. farmers worked off the farm more than 100 days per year, up from 62% in 1974 (U.S. Department of Commerce). Economic theory maintains that risk-neutral farmers will divide their labor supply between farm and nonfarm employment opportunities such that expected marginal returns are equalized. If expected marginal returns are greater in one opportunity, more labor will be devoted to that alternative. However, if producers are risk averse and perceive the variance of wages (or earnings) to be greater in one occupation than another, they will allocate less time to the risky job and will be willing to accept lower wages in the less risky alternative. Changes in the riski
Low frequency region of vocal tract information for speech / music classification

This work explores the energy variation in low frequency region corresponding mostly to the first formant of speech for speech / music classification. In speech, there are alternating states between high and low vowels. The information about highness of a vowel is characterized by the first formant. Due to the presence of these states in speech, there is higher energy variation around the first formant of speech whereas this kind of nature is not present in case of music. The energy variation around the first formant can be expressed in terms of the filter bank energy variance. Different distributions of the filter bank are explored to find the frequency range which gives the best discrimination, in terms of the first formant energy variation for the task. The best performing filter bank energy variance coefficient which represents this frequency range is derived. This coefficient called the Energy Variance of Inverse Mel Filter No. 2 (EVIMF2) is compared with the state of the art existing features. It is observed that performance of the proposed feature is better than the existing features. On combining this feature with the existing ones, an additional improvement is achieved for the speech / music classification task.
Drinking over the life course within gender and ethnic groups: a hyperparametric analysis.

OBJECTIVE This study examines drinking patterns over the life course among males and females and among three ethnic groups (whites, blacks and Hispanics) in order to compare gender group and ethnic group differences in alcohol use as a continuous function of age. METHOD Data are from a general population sample of 13,553 respondents aged 12 to 80 interviewed by telephone in 20 urban areas of the United States. Drinking measures include total consumption, drinking participation, drinking frequency and average drinks per occasion. RESULTS In the total sample over age cohorts, total consumption, participation and average drinks per occasion rose rapidly before age 21, peaked in young adulthood and declined gradually thereafter. Drinking frequency rose rapidly before age 21, but generally showed no decline thereafter. As expected, compared to women, men consumed more total alcohol, were more likely to participate in drinking, drank more often and drank more per occasion. Men did not differ from women in the age at which peak drinking occurred. Relationships of drinking to ethnicity were more complex. Although white total consumption exceeded that of blacks and Hispanics over the entire life course, the other drinking measures involved interactions in which white participation and frequency exceeded that of blacks and Hispanics in later adulthood, but black and Hispanic average drinks per occasion exceeded that of whites in later adulthood. CONCLUSIONS Differences in drinking patterns over the life course among gender groups and ethnic groups are largely a result of differences in rates of change over age cohorts in alcohol use, both in rates of increase in youth and of decrease thereafter.
The role of RNA processing in the pathogenesis of motor neuron degeneration

Motor neurons are large, highly polarised cells with very long axons and a requirement for precise spatial and temporal gene expression. Neurodegenerative disorders characterised by selective motor neuron vulnerability include various forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). A rapid expansion in knowledge on the pathophysiology of motor neuron degeneration has occurred in recent years, largely through the identification of genes leading to familial forms of ALS and SMA. The major emerging theme is that motor neuron degeneration can result from mutation in genes that encode factors important for ribonucleoprotein biogenesis and RNA processing, including splicing regulation, transcript stabilisation, translational repression and localisation of mRNA. Complete understanding of how these pathways interact and elucidation of specialised mechanisms for mRNA targeting and processing in motor neurons are likely to produce new targets for therapy in ALS and related disorders.
International experts' perspectives on the state of the nurse staffing and patient outcomes literature.

PURPOSE To assess the key variables used in research on nurse staffing and patient outcomes from the perspective of an international panel. DESIGN A Delphi survey (November 2005-February 2006) of a purposively-selected expert panel from 10 countries consisting of 24 researchers specializing in nurse staffing and quality of health care and 8 nurse administrators. METHODS Each participant was sent by e-mail an up-to-date review of all evidence related to 39 patient-outcome, 14 nurse-staffing and 31 background variables and asked to rate the importance/usefulness of each variable for research on nurse staffing and patient outcomes. In two subsequent rounds the group median, mode, frequencies, and earlier responses were sent to each respondent. FINDINGS Twenty-nine participants responded to the first round (90.6%), of whom 28 (87.5%) responded to the second round. The Delphi panel generated 7 patient-outcome, 2 nurse-staffing and 12 background variables in the first round, not well-investigated in previous research, to be added to the list. At the end of the second round the predefined level of consensus (85%) was reached for 32 patient outcomes, 10 nurse staffing measures and 29 background variables. The highest consensus levels regarding measure sensitivity to nurse staffing were found for nurse perceived quality of care, patient satisfaction and pain, and the lowest for renal failure, cardiac failure, and central nervous system complications. Nursing Hours per Patient Day received the highest consensus score as a valid measure of the number of nursing staff. As a skill mix variable the proportion of RNs to total nursing staff achieved the highest consensus level. Both age and comorbidities were rated as important background variables by all the respondents. CONCLUSIONS These results provide a snapshot of the state of the science on nurse-staffing and patient-outcomes research as of 2005. The results portray an area of nursing science in evolution and an understanding of the connections between human resource issues and healthcare quality based on both empirical findings and opinion.
What Can the Chronobiologist Do to Help the Shift Worker?

This article is composed of a review of how the increasing numbers of people working abnormal hours (referred to as “shift workers”) can best be helped by the science of chronobiology. While recognizing that chronobiologists can give much general advice regarding such things as diet, sleep hygiene, cardiovascular health, and the need to address social and domestic tensions, this article will focus specifically on the advice that can be given to employers and employees, which is directly rooted in our knowledge of chronobiology.
Factors associated with low immunity to rubella infection on antenatal screening

Background: Rubella infection during the first trimester results in congenital rubella syndrome. There has been little recent published evidence identifying those at‐risk of infection in the first trimester of pregnancy. This study examined the level of rubella immunity in pregnant women in a part of Sydney and risk factors for non‐immunity.
Synchronization optimization of networked second order infinite dimensional systems

We consider optimization aspects for the synchronization control of networked second order infinite dimensional systems. It is assumed that a number of identical such systems are desired to be synchronized and using output feedback controllers, the resulting coupled systems are brought in an aggregate form in order to optimize the synchronization gains. Using a closed-loop energy as the optimization metric, the choice of the synchronization gains reduces to the minimization of the optimization index. This eventually is described by the trace of the solution to a parameterized Lyapunov operator equation. Numerical studies on a network of four one-dimensional cantilevered beams provide insight on the optimization of the proposed synchronization control.
Family of fast transforms over GF(3) logic

New classes of recursive transforms over GF(3) have been introduced here. They are based on simple recursive equations what allows to obtain corresponding fast forward and inverse transforms and very regular butterfly diagrams. The classification is further extended into various transforms with horizontal and vertical permutations. The relations between various classes of introduced ternary transforms are also discussed.
The role of amino acids supplementation of protective Na2H2EDTA containing ointments in chelation of allergenic metal ions.

The chelating agents are often used as an active ingredients in the protective ointments because of their capacity of allergenic metal ions binding and reducing its penetration through the skin. The most effective ligands yet discovered preventing from metal ions induced dermatitis include ethylenodiaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), diphenylglyoxime and dimethyloglyoxime and clioquinol (1). EDTA can be used in topical barrier creams as monoto tetra-substituted salts or in the chelating complexes such as cyclohexane-1,2-diaminetetraacetic acid (CDTA) or diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) (2, 3). Little is known about the influence of the additional chelating molecules introduced into the protective ointment containing with the primary chelating ligand on the efficacy of allergenic metal ions binding (4). The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of presence of selected amino acid ingredient on the chelation ability of Ni or Co ions of the protective ointment containing 10% disodium salt ethylenodiaminetetraactic acid (Na2H2EDTA∑2H2O). Three amino acids (glycine ñ Gly, aspartic acid ñ Asp and histidine ñ His) in two concentrations and two pharmaceutical formulations were tested in the diffusion glass chamber with artificial membrane.