Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlates of negative intent to receive an AIDS vaccine: an exploratory study

Our objective was to investigate demographic, behavioural, and psychosocial correlates of negative intent to receive a hypothetical AIDS vaccine. A cross-sectional survey was conducted of 278 adults from three populations: gay men, African–American women, and persons who used illicit drugs (including injectable drugs). Twenty percent of the sample expressed negative intent. In controlled analyses, negative intent was significantly more likely among people reporting they had not had sex (past year) (P = 0.01), people who reported they worried about 'problems' that could be caused by an AIDS vaccine (P = 0.006), and those never diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease (P = 0.04). Finally, although significance was marginal, persons reporting they had not had a flu vaccination in the past five years were about 1.9 times more likely to have negative intent (P = 0.055). Among this demographically diverse sample, behavioural and psychosocial (rather than demographic measures) were associated with negative intent to receive an AIDS vaccine.
Association between Severity of Asthma and Degree of Chronic Rhinosinusitis

Background There is a clinical association between asthma and chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS). This study was designed to determine whether severity of coexistent asthma affects the clinical presentation of CRS. Methods Cross-sectional analysis was performed of prospectively collected data in 187 patients with CRS who were evaluated in a large, tertiary academic nasal and sinus center. Patients were stratified into three groups based on asthma status using National Institutes of Health criteria: (1) nonasthmatic, (2) intermittent/mild asthma, (3) or moderate/severe asthma. Results Mean Lund-Mackay scores were 9.7, 11.6, and 15.6, respectively. ANOVA testing with post-hoc Tukey analysis revealed that Lund-MacKay scores were significantly greater in group 3 than either group 1 (p < 0.05) or group 2 (p < 0.01). The prevalence of allergic sensitization was 72.4, 82.8, and 100% in groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively (p = 0.03). The prevalence of nasal polyposis was 31.4% in group 1, 48.3% in group 2, and 94.4% in group 3 (p < 0.0001). No differences were observed regarding demographic factors or the incidence of the triad of aspirin sensitivity, asthma, and nasal polyposis among those with different severities of asthma. Conclusion Increasing severity of asthma is associated with advancing radiological severity of CRS and a greater prevalence of allergic sensitization and nasal polyposis. This large adult series shows that asthma severity may have a significant correlation with the presentation of CRS. This study adds to the growing support for the unified airway theory.
WHEN FASHION IS FLEETING: TRANSITORY COLLECTIVE BELIEFS AND THE DYNAMICS OF TQM CONSULTING

We analyze changes over time in the types of consulting firms offering total quality management services. When TQM was a booming management fashion, consultants tended to be generalists with weak links to the technical foundations of the practice; after the fashion went bust, TQM consulting was increasingly populated by specialists with quality control expertise. These results suggest that fashionable practices can return to their technical roots after the hype is over, reversing the usual institutional trajectory. They also help explain why fashion booms are so fragile and how management practices can be sustained once a boom is over.
Spring-levered versus piezo-electric pedometer accuracy in overweight and obese adults.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of BMI, waist circumference, and pedometer tilt on the accuracy of a spring-levered pedometer (Yamax Digiwalker SW-200 (SW)) and a piezo-electric pedometer (New Lifestyles NL-2000 (NL)) during treadmill walking and over a 24-h period in overweight and obese adults. METHODS Forty participants (40 +/- 13.0 yr, 32.6 +/- 4.8 kg.m) walked on a treadmill at various speeds (54, 67, 80, 94, and 107 m.min) for 3-min stages. Simultaneously, an investigator determined actual steps by a hand counter. For all walking trials the SW and NL were positioned on the right and left waistband, respectively. Height, weight, pedometer tilt angle and circumference measures of the hip and waist were also measured. Thirty-six participants wore the pedometers for a 24-h period in the same position as during the treadmill walking trials. RESULTS : In general, the SW became less accurate with increasing BMI, increasing waist circumference, and greater pedometer tilt, whereas the NL was not affected by these variables. The SW error scores were significantly correlated with the absolute pedometer tilt angle at all walking speeds (P < 0.05), but the NL error scores were not. On average the NL recorded 1030 +/- 1414 (16.5 +/- 22.7%) more steps that the SW during the 24-h trial. CONCLUSION In overweight and obese individuals, a piezo-electric pedometer (NL) is more accurate than a spring-levered pedometer (SW), especially at slower walking speeds. In addition, it appears that pedometer tilt; more so than waist circumference and BMI, was the most important factor influencing the accuracy of the SW. The NL accuracy was not affected by pedometer tilt, waist circumference, or BMI.
The G+C-rich discriminator region of the tyrT promoter antagonises the formation of stable preinitiation complexes.

RNA polymerase forms a highly stable preinitiation complex at many prokaryotic promoters in the absence of ribonucleotides. These are often characterised by the longevity of the DNA strand-separated (open) complex in the presence of heparin. In contrast, such complexes are notoriously unstable at the promoters for rRNA and tRNA under similar conditions. The high G+C content within the DNA-melting region of these promoters has been implicated in this seemingly anomalous behaviour. Here, we used rapid-pulse UV laser photo-footprinting to monitor the transient structural intermediates formed at the Escherichia coli tyrT promoter. Promoter derivatives with A+T for G/C base substitutions within the G+C-rich discriminator region (-7 to -1) augmented the stability of complexes on both linear fragments and supercoiled plasmid DNA. Analysis of the lifetime of the preinitiation complexes as a function of the discriminator sequence reveals a direct relationship between the A+T content of the DNA-melting region and the stability of the ensuing complex. Our results are consistent with the premise that a G/C block to DNA-untwisting and/or DNA-melting operates to prevent the formation of the stable isomers that are implicated in most other transcription initiation pathways.
antalum cones and bone defects in revision total knee arthroplasty

Management of bone loss is a major challenge in revision total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The development of preformed porous tantalum cones offers new possibilities, because they seem to have biological and mechanical qualities that facilitate osseointegration. Compared to the original procedure, when metaphyseal bone defects are too severe, a single tantalum cone may not be enough and we have developed eywords: antalum evision total knee arthroplasty one defects rabecular metal cone a technique that could extend the indications for this cone in these cases. We used 2 cones to fill femoral bone defects in 7 patients. There were no complications due to wear of the tantalum cones. Radiological follow-up did show any migration or loosening. The short-term results confirm the interest of porous tantalum cones and suggest that they can be an alternative to allografts or megaprostheses in case of massive bone defects. © 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
Endoscopic features associated with development of metachronous gastric cancer in patients who underwent endoscopic resection followed by Helicobacter pylori eradication

The preventive effect of Helicobacter pylori (HP) eradication on metachronous gastric cancer development after endoscopic resection remains controversial. The aim of the present study was to identify specific endoscopic features that correlated with the risk of metachronous gastric cancer development after endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) using both endoscopic findings before ESD and changes of findings after HP eradication.
A low-power and area-efficient radix-3 SAR ADC

A new radix-3 Successive Approximation Register (SAR) Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) is proposed in this paper. The proposed architecture reduces one Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) and one comparator in the implementation. The algorithm takes 2N comparison cycles to generate N ternary bits (trits). The proposed technique is applied to the design for 4 and 7-ternary bits using 65nm CMOS technology. The simulation results show that circuit consumes 0.9mW power and achieves a Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of 38dB for 4-trit case, 1.57mW power and 67dB SNR for 7-trit case. The Proposed circuit shows a power saving of 85% in control logic, less than 50% in overall circuit power dissipation and a more than 50% saving in total area for N-trit case when compared to conventional radix-3 architecture.
An infra-red sensory system with local communication for cooperative multiple mobile robots

Distributed autonomous robotic systems which are composed of multiple robotic agents have been attracted the attention of many researchers as a new strategy for flexible and robust robotic systems. For cooperative multiple mobile robots in distributed autonomous robotic systems, recognition of the dynamic environment is required. In this paper, a new sensory system with local communication functionality is developed utilizing infra-red devices. Based on the discussion on sensing and communication for cooperative multiple mobile robots, requirements for the sensory system are derived. Then, the infra-red sensory system is designed and developed taking account of the required function. This system enables not only detection of collisions against obstacles or other robots but also local communication between robots. This system can also detect interference of plural infra-red signals. Finally the developed system as introduced, and its performance obtained as a results of experiments is shown.
Sulphur fertilizer effects on grain yield and the sum of physiological indices ofcanola (Brassica napus L.)

In order to evaluation of influence of sulphur fertilizer on grain yield and the some of physiological indices of canola, an split plot experiment based on randomized complete block design was conducted in Research Farm Islamic Azad University, Ardabil branch in 2007. Factors were: sulfur fertilizer at four levels (0 as control, 25, 50 and 75 kg S/ha) in the main plots and canola cultivars at three levels (Fornax, Opera and Slmo) in the sub plots. The results showed that various levels of sulfur fertilizer affected yield and yield components of canola. Means comparisons in compound of treatment cultivar× levels of sulfur showed that maximum grain yield was obtained by the plots which was applied 75 kg sulfur/ ha with opera cultivar. Similar results were obtained in grain per pod, pod per plant and thousand kernel weights. Investigation of variances of dry matter accumulation indicated that in all of treatment compounds, it increased slowly until 212 days after sowing with increasing of sulphur fertilizer and then increased rapidly till 296 days after sowing. From 296 days after sowing till harvest time, it decreased due to increasing aging of leaves and decreasing of leaf area index. Increase in S levels also significantly increased the crop growth rate and the maximum of it was observed by the plots that received 75 kg S/ha with opera cultivar. In addition, in all of treatment compounds, CGR increased slowly until 240 days after sowing and then decreased slowly till 254 days after sowing. From 254 days after sowing till harvest time, it decreased due to increasing aging of leaves and decreasing of leaf area index. Thus, it can be suggested that in order to increasing of grain yield, dry matter accumulation, crop growth rate and the other of physiological indices should be applied opera cultivar with 75 kg S ha-1 in conditions of Ardabil Plain.
Automated detection of breast tumors in ultrasonic images using fuzzy reasoning

This paper proposes a novel method for the automated detection of breast tumors in three dimensional ultrasonic images using fuzzy reasoning. The algorithm consists of two stages of processing. In the first stage a three dimensional LoG (Laplace of Gaussian) filtering is employed to generate a membership function for the fuzzy inference. In the second stage, each voxel in the three dimensional image is classified as "tumor", "normal tissue" or "boundary" by fuzzy reasoning followed by the defuzzification using relaxation techniques. We apply the method to 10 cases of malignant and 10 cases of benign tumors. Both of the two types of extracted tumors agree well with the manually traced boundaries. Further we define a parameter for evaluation of the uneven complexity of the surface roughness for diagnosis of malignant and benign tumors. The results show a successful characterization.
Cadmium and chlorpyrifos inhibit cellular immune response in spleen of rats

Cadmium (Cd) and chlorpyrifos (CPF) are common pollutants coexisting in the environment, and both of them have been reported to have immunotoxicity to organisms. However, the joint effects of these two chemicals on the immune system are still unknown. In this study, we used CdCl2 and CPF to study their combined effects on immune functions in the spleen of rats. In in vivo experiments, SD rats were exposed to different doses of CdCl2 (0.7 and 6 mg kg−1 body weight/day) and CPF (1.7 and 15 mg kg−1 body weight/day) or their combinations for consecutive 28 days. The proliferation and cytokine production ability of the splenocytes isolated from the treated animals were assessed. In in vitro experiments, we used different concentrations of CdCl2 and CPF to treat concanavalin A (Con A)‐induced splenocytes isolated from untreated rats. We found that the combination of CPF and high dose of CdCl2 had a synergistic inhibitory effect on production of IFN‐γ by spleen cells induced by Con A. The in vitro results showed that two chemicals had different effects on the cell proliferation and cytokine production depending on the exposure doses and time. This result suggests that exposure to both CdCl2 and CPF at the environmentally‐relevant low dose may be potentially more hazardous than exposure to each individual toxicant.
Crowdsourcing in the Fuzzy Front End of innovation

This paper begins presenting the different ways in which crowdsourcing could be adopted in the context of innovation. We then focus on its potential use in the Fuzzy Front End (FFE). An extant literature review allows us to identify the main success factors, issues, and challenges that should be considered if crowdsourcing is to be implemented into the FFE. We discuss what conditions could encourage or constrain its use as a strategic alternative in a more generalized way in the near future. Our study led us to many questions not yet explored in the research of Crowdsourcing, considering its specific use in the FFE. This paper contributes to the incorporation of non-traditional means in the management of innovation, because it proposes ways to integrate the theoretical and empirical findings about crowdsourcing with the management of the Fuzzy Front End. We also suggest some alternatives for further empirical research.
Maintenance IV immunoglobulin treatment in chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy

Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (CIDP) patients treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) usually start with a standard dosage of 2 g/kg bodyweight. Only a minority of patients has a sustained improvement, and most require ongoing maintenance treatment. Preferred IVIg regimens, however, vary considerably between doctors and at present it is unknown which is optimal. As there are also large differences in IVIg dosage and interval requirements between patients, optimal IVIg maintenance treatment of CIDP is even more complex. The lack of evidence‐based guidelines on how IVIg maintenance treatment should be administered may potentially lead to under‐ or overtreatment of this expensive therapy. We provide an overview of published practical IVIg maintenance treatment regimens, IVIg maintenance schedules used in randomized controlled trials and one based upon our own long‐term experience on how this treatment could be given in CIDP.
Winter vomiting disease.

a similar, apparently infectious, illness-usually in girls' schools-have become familiar. The dominant symptom has varied, but the epidemiological features of outbreaks variously called epidemic nausea and vomiting, epidemic vertigo, or epidemic collapse strongly suggest that they have been due to either a related group of air-borne virus infections, or are clinical variants of the same disease. '-0 Whatever the clinical picture, a sudden onset is highly characteristic. In the classical outbreak of winter vomiting disease the patient often wakes in the early hours of the morning and vomits quite suddenly before he can get out of bed. Such an illness in a large number of girls in a residential school may simulate an outbreak of food-poisoning, though inquiry will usually show that in the previous week a few similar illnesses have occurred in the school. Apart from nausea and vomiting, frontal headache, vertigo, and abdominal discomfort or pain are prominent. Fever has sometimes been the rule,' 9 but often the exception. Diarrhoea usually occurs in less than one-quarter of those affected, but in one British outbreak all patients developed profuse diarrhoea within a few hours of the initial projectile vomiting. "' Diarrhoea has been more prominent in a number of American outbreaks, and studies in volunteers have pointed strongly to the presence of an infective agent in filtrates of the stools of patients with the disease. ' Outbreaks in which some patients have complained of symptoms typical of winter vomiting disease and others of acute gastro-enteritis often occur in the early summer months in hotels at seaside towns. The symptoms of winter vomiting disease may last only a few hours, especially in children-though adults may be ill for up to a fortnight. Relapses are fairly common in some outbreaks. In an outbreak at a Sheffield hospital' one patient relapsed three times with nausea, abdominal pain, and occipital headache recurring at weekly intervals and lasting a couple of days. School outbreaks of winter vomiting disease have nearly all taken place between September and March. Sporadic cases of the disease are often widely prevalent in the populations concerned at the same time, affecting both sexes and all age groups. Curiously, it is unusual for more than
Everyone Is You . . . Or Me

In my youth I used to wander in the mountains. I would gain a "feel" of the terrain and gradually build up a reliable intuition of how to get from here to there and back again. Always, on these expeditions, I would discover special places a tiny area, the only one, where fairy slippers grew; a pool in a rushing stream that was deep enough to swim in. Invariably I would find myself excitedly climbing some promising knoll or uppermost peak. Suddenly a whole new vista would open up, showing a great expanse of prairie, a hidden lake in some inaccessible canyon, an entire new ridge of peaks.
Automatic comparison of interactomes

A celula e o bloco de construcao basico para a existencia da vida. O nucleo da celula contem o seu proprio DNA, o qual e composto por genes. Por outro lado, a maioria dos genes contem as informacoes necessarias para criar moleculas funcionais chamadas proteinas, usando interacoes de proteinas e possivel criar redes biologicas que podem ser denominadas interactomas. O conhecimento de interactomas e essencial para a nossa compreensao das funcoes celulares e a origem de muitas doencas. No entanto, nao e trivial comparar tais redes, uma vez que o nome das proteinas varia de especie para especie, alem disso, as redes foram maioritarimente estabelecidas em modelos de especies humanas, onde apenas 10\% das interacoes foram descobertas.Uma vez que existe uma grande quantidade de redes metabolicas comuns entre diferentes especies, e possivel utilizar a informacao de um interactoma especifico de uma especie bem estudada e procurar "genes em falta" em especies nao tao bem estudadas. A pesquisa do biologo ira entao ser focada na deteccao de genes previstos nas especies menos estudadas em vez de fazer uma "busca cega de genes". O objetivo principal desta dissertacao e projetar, implementar e testar, uma ferramenta, que permite a comparacao de interactomas pertencentes a especies iguais ou diferentes e apresente essas interacoes de genes.
Somatosensory Event-Related Potentials (ERPS) Associated with Stopping Ongoing Movement

The somatosensory event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with stopping ongoing movement and increasing muscular tension were examined. 14 healthy right-handed volunteers, 10 men and 4 women (21–29 years old, M age ± SD, 24.1 ± 12.5 yr.) performed a stop/increase reaction task. They were requested to perform an elbow extension movement with the right arm and to maintain 20% of the maximum voluntary contraction forces (MVC) before the electrical stimuli were delivered to either the left index finger or the left little finger. They executed one of two movements from the sustained contraction state: they had to stop the muscular tension following the left little finger stimulus or increase the muscular tension from 20% to 40% of the maximum voluntary contraction forces following the left index finger stimulus. The reaction time and somatosensory sequence P100-N140-P300 components of event-related potentials were recorded for each electrical stimulus, respectively. The reaction time was longer to the increase reaction condition than to the stop reaction condition. Neither P100 nor N140 components showed significant differences between stop and increase reaction conditions. The P300 to the stop reaction condition was of greater amplitude and latency than those of the increase reaction condition. These results suggest that stopping the ongoing movement processing requires a longer stimulus evaluation time and is more demanding than increasing reaction processing.
Micro-architectural Enhancements in Distributed Memory CGRAs for LU and QR Factorizations

LU and QR factorizations are the computationally dear part of many applications ranging from large scale simulations (e.g. Computational fluid dynamics) to augmented reality. These factorizations exhibit time complexity of O (n3) and are difficult to accelerate due to presence of bandwidth bound kernels, BLAS-1 or BLAS-2 (level-1 or level-2 Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) along with compute bound kernels (BLAS-3, level-3 BLAS). On the other hand, Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architectures (CGRAs) have gained tremendous popularity as accelerators in embedded systems due to their flexibility and ease of use. Provisioning these accelerators in High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms is the research challenge wrestled by the computer scientists. We consider a CGRA environment in which several Compute Elements (CEs) enhanced with Custom Functional Units (CFUs) are interconnected over a Network-on-Chip (NoC). In this paper, we carry out extensive micro-architectural exploration for accelerating core kernels like Matrix Multiplication (MM) (BLAS-3) for LU and QR factorizations. Our 5 different design enhancements lead to the reduction in the latency of BLAS-3 kernels. On a stand-alone CFU, we achieve up to 8x speed-up for MM. A commensurate improvement is observed for MM in a CGRA environment. We achieve better GF LOP S/mm2 compared to recent implementations.