Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of Low Back Pain among Adolescent Students in a Nigerian Urban Community

This school-based survey was aimed at determining the prevalence of low-back pain (LBP) among adolescent students of selected secondary schools in Ibadan, Nigeria. Nine hundred secondary schools students, comprising 415 boys and 485 girls, with age range 12-17 years were surveyed. They were required to complete a self-developed, three-part items questionnaire which collected information on socio-demographic characteristics, history and intensity of low back pain, factors predisposing to low back pain, and activity limitations suffered because of low back pain. The 12-month and point prevalence of LBP among participants were 40.7% and 12.9% respectively. For boys the 12-month prevalence of LBP was 41.7% and for girls it was 39.8%. The point prevalence of LBP was 14.2% for girls and 11.3% for boys. Most of the participants had their first LBP experience at 10-15 years, with a peak at 12-14 years. The LBP experienced by most participants was of short duration and only a few episodes, suggesting non-chronicity. Over 50% of the participants were involved in activities that make them frequently bend at the waist. The findings of this survey suggest that LBP is fairly prevalent among Nigerian adolescents. Health education on LBP prevention will help reduce its incidence in this population. KEYWORDS : low back pain, prevalence, adolescent students, Nigeria
Suicide, and Other Causes of Death, Following Attempted Suicide

The number of deaths in a large series of suicide attempters followed up after their attempts was 3.3 times greater than expected. Suicide or probable suicide occurred in 2.8% by the end of the eighth year of follow-up, the rate of suicidal deaths being 26.9 times the expected rate. The highest risk of suicide was during the first 3 years, especially in the first 6 months, following an attempt. Factors identified at the time of the attempts which were associated with suicide risk included: being male, advancing age (females only), psychiatric disorder (especially schizophrenia), long-term use of hypnotics, poor physical health, and repeat attempts. Recent disruption of a relationship with a partner and major rows rarely preceded the attempts of those who later killed themselves. Factors predicting long-term risk of suicide also predicted short-term risk. There were more than double the expected number of deaths from natural causes, the excess being greatest in females. Markedly high death rates were found for endocrine, circulatory and respiratory diseases, and accidents.
Phase diagrams of nearly-hard-sphere binary colloids.

We have investigated the equilibrium compositions and structures of the phases of nearly-hardsphere binary colloids and obtained experimental phase diagrams. Aqueous dispersions of chargestabilized polystyrene spheres were studied in the hard-sphere limit, with sphere-diameter ratios ranging from 2 to 12 and total volume fractions less than 0.4. At sufficiently high volume fractions, the samples separated into two phases. One phase, consisting primarily of small spheres, is a disordered fluid. In the other phase, the large spheres form an ordered crystalline solid which is permeated by a disordered fluid of small spheres. Previously reported crystallites on the surface of the sample cell were demonstrated to have the same structure as the bulk crystals and are assumed to be a wetting of the bulk phase. A simple model of the bulk phases is described and free energies calculated. The predicted phase diagrams agree closely . with the results of computer simulations and with our experimental results.
Gyro sensor drift compensation by Kalman filter to control a mobile inverted pendulum robot system

In this paper, a sensor fusion technique of low cost sensors such as a gyro sensor and a tilt sensor to measure the balancing angle of the inverted pendulum robot system accurately is implemented. The complimentary filter consisting of the lowpass filter for the gyro sensor and the highpass filter for the tilt sensor are used based on the frequency response characteristics of those sensors. The Kalman filter is used to estimate the angle based on filtered sesnor data. Experimental studies of balancing and position control of the mobile inverted pendulum robot system are conducted to validate the proposed estimation method.
Blockade of Tumor Necrosis Factor-induced Bid Cleavage by Caspase-resistant Rb*

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF) activates caspase-8 to cleave effector caspases or Bid, resulting in type-1 or type-2 apoptosis, respectively. We show here that TNF also induces caspase-8-dependent C-terminal cleavage of the retinoblastoma protein (Rb). Interestingly, fibroblasts from RbMI/MI mice, in which the C-terminal caspase cleavage site is mutated, exhibit a defect in Bid cleavage despite caspase-8 activation. Recent results suggest that TNF receptor endocytosis is required for the activation of caspase-8. Consistent with this notion, inhibition of V-ATPase, which plays an essential role in acidification and degradation of endosomes, specifically restores Bid cleavage in RbMI/MI cells. Inhibition of V-ATPase sensitizes RbMI/MI but not wild-type fibroblasts to TNF-induced apoptosis and stimulates inflammation-associated colonic apoptosis in RbMI/MI but not wild-type mice. These results suggest that Rb cleavage is required for Bid cleavage in TNF-induced type-2 apoptosis, and this requirement can be supplanted by the inhibition of V-ATPase.
Myelin-Associated Oligodendrocytic Basic Protein: A Family of Abundant CNS Myelin Proteins in Search of a Function

The myelin-associated oligodendrocytic basic protein (MOBP) family constitutes the third most abundant protein in CNS myelin. The mouse Mobp gene comprises eight exons. Mobp pre-mRNA processing gives rise to at least seven Mobp splice variants which are expressed solely in the oligodendrocyte. The predicted proteins all, with one exception, share a 68 residue amino terminus, encoded by exon 3. The carboxyl termini differ in length, giving rise to the diverse array of the protein isoforms. Like myelin basic protein, MOBP is present in the major dense line of CNS myelin suggesting a role in the compaction or stabilization of myelin. However, Mobp homozygous null mice display no overt clinical phenotype and no defect in the process of myelination. MOBP can induce experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in mice and has been proposed to have a role in the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis. Despite 10 years of rigorous study, the normal physiological function of MOBP remains unknown.
Evaluation of Thymidylate Synthase Protein Expression by Western Blotting and Immunohistochemistry on Human Colon Carcinoma Xenografts in Nude Mice

In this study we investigated the relationship between thymidylate synthase (TS) protein expression, evaluated by Western blotting analysis and by immunohistochemistry (IHC), and growth rate in human colon xenograft tumors in nude mice. Human colon cancer cell lines were used to induce xenograft tumors and the tumor mass growth rate was calculated by measuring tumor size variations over time. TS 106 monoclonal antibody was used for both Western blotting and IHC TS detection. Tumor cell growth fraction was measured by Ki67/MIB1 immunolabeling and tumor cell growth rate by evaluating the mean nucleolar size in silver-stained sections. TS Western blotting values were related to tumor mass growth rate (p<0.001) and cell growth rate (p=0.002) but not to cell growth fraction (p=0.676). The degree of the IHC staining showed only a trend to be associated with TS protein expression measured on Western blotting, and was not related either to tumor mass growth or cell proliferation rate. Tumor xenografts were also characterized for TS promoter tandem repeat and p53 status. No relationship was observed between these variables and TS expression evaluated by both Western blotting and IHC analysis. Our results demonstrate that TS expression evaluated by Western blotting analysis is directly related to the tumor mass growth rate and question the use of the IHC approach to obtain precise quantitative information on TS expression in tumor samples.
Mobile Acquisition of Sales Operations Based on a BlackBerry Infrastructure with Connection to an Inventory and ERP Management System

The following solution enables the mobile acquisition of sales and return operations on sales stalls and shop-in-shop systems. It takes advantage of the use of mobile devices and wireless communication for data transmission, so there is no need to install large and complex systems in the sales rooms. Thereby all information about sales and returns are available nearly in real-time to the central office and company management. Through the abolition of maybe used manual solutions, the user gets the benefit of greater potential savings and an enhancement of productivity in invoicing.To build this solution, the components of the BlackBerry platform from the Canadian manufacturer Research In Motion were chosen, which provide an independence of location as well as a very high level of security during the radio transmission. So the whole communication between device and infrastructure is handled encrypted.
Document Classification with Recommendation Architecture: Extensions for Feature Intensity Recognition and Column Labeling

In this paper we present the adaptation of the Recommendation Architecture (RA) model for successfully classifying text documents. The RA is a connectionist model that attempts to simulate the human process of discovering and recognizing repeating patterns among objects. We propose to extend the RA model to effectively apply to the problem of text classification in three areas. We extend the model to use the word frequency information of the document vectors when recognizing patterns, which increase the sensitivity of the created columns (clusters). We also present a scheme to label the created columns with contributing features (words) by way of a word map. This word map represent the new patterns that the system has identified within the set of documents spanning many categories and assist a human user to assign meaning to a discovered patterns. Input to the RA is prepared in a pre-processing phase where an existing feature selection method is modified to give a priori guidance to the system about the major document categories (topics) . A set of experiments is carried out with the TREC CD-5 containing news articles of the Foreign Broadcasting Information Services and LA Times. A detailed discussion of the experiment results are presented with comparison to early experiments.
Weighing the universe with the cosmic microwave background.

Variations in Ω, the total density of the Universe, leave an imprint on the power spectrum of temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We evaluate the precision with which Ω can be determined by a CMB map as a function of sky coverage, pixel noise, and beam size. Assuming only that the primordial density perturbations were adiabatic and with no prior information on the values of any other cosmological parameters, a full-sky CMB map at 0.5° angular resolution and a noise level of 15 μK per pixel can determine Ω with a standard error of 5%. If all other cosmological parameters are fixed, Ω can be measured to better than 1%.
The Biology of Aging and Cancer: A Brief Overview of Shared and Divergent Molecular Hallmarks

Aging is the inevitable time-dependent decline in physiological organ function and is a major risk factor for cancer development. Due to advances in health care, hygiene control and food availability, life expectancy is increasing and the population in most developed countries is shifting to an increasing proportion of people at a cancer susceptible age. Mechanisms of aging are also found to occur in carcinogenesis, albeit with shared or divergent end-results. It is now clear that aging and cancer development either share or diverge in several disease mechanisms. Such mechanisms include the role of genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic changes, loss of proteostasis, decreased nutrient sensing and altered metabolism, but also cellular senescence and stem cell function. Cancer cells and aged cells are also fundamentally opposite, as cancer cells can be thought of as hyperactive cells with advantageous mutations, rapid cell division and increased energy consumption, while aged cells are hypoactive with accumulated disadvantageous mutations, cell division inability and a decreased ability for energy production and consumption. Nonetheless, aging and cancer are tightly interconnected and many of the same strategies and drugs may be used to target both, while in other cases antagonistic pleiotrophy come into effect and inhibition of one can be the activation of the other. Cancer can be considered an aging disease, though the shared mechanisms underpinning the two processes remain unclear. Better understanding of the shared and divergent pathways of aging and cancer is needed.
Layout-driven test generation

Conventionally, test vectors are generated using gate-level models to represent the circuit design and abstract fault models (e.g. the stuck-fault model) to describe all of the processing defects causing circuit failure. The authors demonstrate that test vectors can be generated using realistic defect models and actual IC layouts, which should lead to test vectors with a higher defect detectability. The layout-driven generation of the faults has a computational complexity which is similar to that of design-rule checking, i.e. O(n log n). <<ETX>>
A millimeter-wave elastomeric microstrip phase shifter

This communication reports an innovative lowcost millimeter-wave microstrip phase shifter using the mechanical reconfiguration of a metallized polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomeric ground plane. The reconfigurable ground plane is used to tune an air gap under a fused quartz substrate, inducing a change of the effective dielectric constant in a microstrip line, leading to a phase shift that can be continuously adjusted. The phase shifter is studied both numerically and experimentally in the 30–60 GHz band, and its fabrication using flexible electronics micromachining advances is detailed. The maximum experimental figure-of-merit is 118°/dB at 57.5 GHz and can be further improved.
Abdominal or vaginal hysterectomy for enlarged uteri: a randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to compare advantages, disadvantages, and outcomes in patients who undergo vaginal or abdominal hysterectomy for enlarged symptomatic uteri. STUDY DESIGN In a prospective, randomized study, 60 vaginal hysterectomies (study group) were compared with 59 abdominal hysterectomies (control group); all of the hysterectomies were performed for symptomatic uterine fibroids from January 1997 through December 2000. We excluded from the study the other common causes of hysterectomy such as prolapse, bleeding, adenomyosis, and endometrial or cervical carcinoma. In both groups, uterine weights ranged from 200 g to 1300 g. For enlarged uteri, vaginal hysterectomies were performed with the use of volume reduction techniques: Intramyometrial coring, corporal bisection, and morcellation. The evaluated parameters included patient age, weight, parity, uterine weight, operative time, blood loss, demand for analgesics, eventual surgical complications, length of admission, and hospital charges. The Mann-Whitney U test and chi(2) tests were applied for statistical analysis. Probability values of <. 05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS There were no major differences in patient age, weight, parity, and uterine weight between the two groups. Operative time was significantly lower for the vaginal route as compared with the abdominal route (86 minutes vs 102 minutes, P <.001). No intraoperative complications were noted both in the study and control groups or the control group. Surgical bleeding (expressed by hemoglobin loss) was not significantly different between the two groups. In the postoperative period, we found a higher incidence of fever (30.5% vs 16.6%, P <.05) and demand for analgesics (86% vs 66%, P <.05) in the abdominal group as compared with the vaginal group. Significant advantages of vaginal hysterectomy were a reduction in the hospital stay (3 days vs 4 days, P <.001) and cost. CONCLUSION These results should lead to the choice of vaginal hysterectomy as a valid alternative to the abdominal hysterectomy, even for enlarged uteri.
Trachoma in Jimma Zone, South Western Ethiopia.

A population‐based survey on trachoma was carried out in Jimma zone. The survey showed that trachoma is hyperendemic: of 7,423 people examined, 33.02% had signs of trachoma, 28.9% of males and 37.01% of females; 26.13% of the urban and 34.09% of the rural population had clinical signs of trachoma. Active trachoma (TF*TI) was seen in 24.5% of the study population (an estimated half million people). The prevalence of signs of active trachoma among children 0–10 years of age was 35.7%. Blinding trachoma (CO*TT) was seen in 3.81% of the population: 6.86% of the female population aged 15 years had trichiasis and/or entropion.
SMEs' Internationalization Strategies Based on a Typical Subsidiary's Evolutionary Life Cycle in Three Distinct Stages

■ Due to Globalization, MNEs have entered SMEs' competitive space and compete for their local and potential global markets. Within a game-theoretic perspective, this paper draws on a number of theoretical traditions to form a basis for assessing competitive intensity and competition. It presents a competitive typology at the top of which MNEs, with access to the highest portfolio of competitive and strategic advantages, compete locally and globally with large and small firms. ■ The extensive network of sister-subsidiaries forms the competitive context for growth-oriented internationalizing SMEs. The paper examines a typical subsidiary's evolutionary path in order to derive counter-strategies for the competing SMEs that aspire to globalize effectively and strategically. It then formulates effective counterstrategies for such SMEs competing with the evolving competition, represented by an evolving subsidiary. Conclusions and implication point to lessons for SMEs' in quest for successful internationalization and competition, both locally and globally.
Survival analysis with electronic health record data: Experiments with chronic kidney disease

This article presents a detailed survival analysis for chronic kidney disease (CKD). The analysis is based on the electronic health record (EHR) data comprising almost two decades of clinical observations collected at New York‐Presbyterian, a large hospital in New York City with one of the oldest electronic health records in the United States. Our survival analysis approach centers around Bayesian multiresolution hazard modeling, with an objective to capture the changing hazard of CKD over time, adjusted for patient clinical covariates and kidney‐related laboratory tests. Special attention is paid to statistical issues common to all EHR data, such as cohort definition, missing data and censoring, variable selection, and potential for joint survival and longitudinal modeling, all of which are discussed alone and within the EHR CKD context.
Very few couples remain voluntarily childless.

"The secular decline of fertility, which reached its bottommost level between the two world wars, went together with a rise in permanent infertility that was sometimes, in the ideological atmosphere of the time, ascribed to physiological factors, but obviously indicated that some couples were refusing to have children. The signs of a similar pattern in present-day France are much more discreet. Having emerged relatively recently, it is difficult to quantify, but the main problem is that sterility therapy now makes it more difficult to define once and for all a level of infertility beyond which we can speak of ¿refusal to have children'. In an attempt to do so, [the author] uses an impressive range of tools: analysis of vital registration and census data, of ad hoc and general surveys, methods of estimation to fill in the many gaps, fertility models and so on. It is a useful reminder that the understanding of fertility behaviour goes beyond the mere interpretation of individual intentions. "
Transparent things: Cell fates and cell movements during early embryogenesis of zebrafish

Development of an animal embryo involves the coordination of cell divisions, a variety of inductive interactions and extensive cellular rearrangements. One of the biggest challenges in developmental biology is to explain the relationships between these processes and the mechanisms that regulate them. Teleost embryos provide an ideal subject for the study of these issues. Their optical lucidity combined with modern techniques for the marking and observation of individual living cells allow high resolution investigations of specific morphogenetic movements and the construction of detailed fate maps. In this review we describe the patterns of cell divisions, cellular movements and other morphogenetic events during zebrafish early development and discuss how these events relate to the formation of restricted lineages.
Cost of schizophrenia in England.

BACKGROUND Despite the wide-ranging financial and social burdens associated with schizophrenia, there have been few cost-of-illness studies of this illness in the UK. AIM OF THE STUDY To provide up-to-date, prevalence based estimate of all costs associated with schizophrenia for England. METHODS A bottom-up approach was adopted. Separate cost estimates were made for people living in private households, institutions, prisons and for those who are homeless. The costs included related to: health and social care, informal care, private expenditures, lost productivity, premature mortality, criminal justice services and other public expenditures such as those by the social security system. Data came from many sources, including the UK-SCAP (Schizophrenia Care and Assessment Program) survey, Psychiatric Morbidity Surveys, Department of Health and government publications. RESULTS The estimated total societal cost of schizophrenia was 6.7 billion pounds in 2004/05. The direct cost of treatment and care that falls on the public purse was about 2 billion pounds; the burden of indirect costs to the society was huge, amounting to nearly 4.7 billion pounds. Cost of informal care and private expenditures borne by families was 615 million pounds. The cost of lost productivity due to unemployment, absence from work and premature mortality of patients was 3.4 billion pounds. The cost of lost productivity of carers was 32 million pounds. Estimated cost to the criminal justice system was about 1 million pounds. It is estimated that about 570 million pounds will be paid out in benefit payments and the cost of administration associated with this is about 14 million pounds. DISCUSSION It is difficult to compare estimates from previous cost-of-illness studies due to differences in the methods, scope of analyses and the range of costs covered. Costs estimated in this study are detailed, cover a comprehensive list of relevant items and allow for different levels of disaggregation. The main limitation of the study is that data came from a variety of secondary sources and some official data publicly available was not the latest. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH CARE PROVISION Schizophrenia continues to be a high cost illness because of the range of health needs that people have. Despite the shifting balance of care away from hospital-based care, the health care costs of treating and supporting people with schizophrenia remain high. IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICIES Decision-makers need to recognise the breadth of economic impacts, well beyond the health system as conventionally defined. For example, as nearly 80% of schizophrenia patients remain unemployed, the cost of lost productivity is especially large. IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Better measurement of criminal justice services costs, private expenditures borne by families and valuation of lost quality of life could improve the estimates further.