Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mortality in siblings of patients coinfected with HIV and hepatitis C virus.

BACKGROUND Coinfection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a poor prognostic factor for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients. We examined whether the increased mortality in these patients is partly explained by a familial excess risk of death. METHODS Danish HIV-infected patients who had had at least 1 HCV test were included (n=3531). In addition, 336,652 population control subjects matched for sex, age, and residency were identified from the Danish Civil Registration System. For both HIV-infected patients and population control subjects, we identified all siblings born after 1951, with dates of death or emigration. Siblings of HIV-infected patients were classified according to the patients' HCV serostatus. Survival after age 20 years was compared among the groups of siblings. RESULTS We identified 437 siblings of HIV/HCV-coinfected patients, 1856 siblings of HIV-monoinfected patients, and 285,509 siblings of population control subjects. Mortality was substantially higher in siblings of HIV/HCV-coinfected patients than in either siblings of HIV-monoinfected patients (mortality rate ratio [MRR], 2.97 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 1.98-4.45]) or siblings of control subjects (MRR, 4.23 [95% CI, 3.09-5.79]). Siblings of HIV-monoinfected patients had slightly higher mortality (MRR, 1.43 [95% CI, 1.10-1.85]) than siblings of control subjects. CONCLUSIONS HCV infection is a marker of familial factors that affect the survival of HIV-infected patients independently of the pathogenicity of HCV.
Using models of finite transition systems for checking web-service security

In this paper we discuss how the web-service security can be checked using finite automata. We analyze existed attack patterns and discuss different representations for these patterns. We also consider automata equations in order to describe malicious inputs. We describe a class of such equations that have no solutions and provide some venues for a future work.
Kinetic Numerical Simulation of the Cathode Attachment Zone of Constricted High-Current Vacuum Arcs

This paper is devoted to numerical simulation of the cathode attachment zone of constricted high-current vacuum arcs driven by a transverse magnetic field. With help of particle-in-cell and direct simulation Monte Carlo methods, a 1-D model of the attachment zone was developed, and the stationary-cathode-spot mode was investigated. The states of the charged particles and atoms in the Knudsen layer, the ionization layer, and the plasma sheath are determined in detail. The results support the adaptation of simplified cathode attachment models to be able to reduce the computational effort needed for self-consistent numerical simulations of magnetically driven constricted high-current vacuum arcs.
The Need for Accurate Risk‐Adjusted Measures of Outcome in Surgery: Lessons Learned Through Coronary Artery Bypass

Objective The authors review the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council reports on coronary artery surgery and compare this reporting structure to others, including the Society for Thoracic Surgeons database, currently used by their own program. The authors review the growing likelihood of a need for outcome measures for all of the surgical subspecialties. Summary and Background Data Pressure from consumers and insurers will require surgical specialties to be graded by objective outcome measures. Practitioners must be prepared and become involved in the process. Methods The authors reviewed the data, which grades all of Pennsylvania's hospitals at which coronary artery bypass is performed. Apparently, the major risk factors commonly employed in most other risk adjustment schemes for cardiac surgery have been deleted, and the practitioners might be judged unfairly. The Pennsylvania system appears to be insurance driven to reward low‐cost providers who operate on patients with the lowest risk. Results Review of data suggests that the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council's annual publication, A Consumer's Guide for Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery, misrepresents fair risk adjustment in favor of lower‐risk patients, thereby encouraging better score cards for those institutions with patients who are less ill. Data regarding charges for the procedure have not been risk adjusted or related to a regional economic index. Conclusions Surgeons must prepare to better understand relevant models that evaluate outcome. Cardiothoracic surgery is one of the first specialties to feel the pressures of mandated evaluations, and the lessons learned in Pennsylvania should be applicable to other states and their practitioners.
Civil Service Reform in Indonesia: Culture and Institution Issues

In adapting to the globalization era, the Indonesian government has to improve the structure of its bureaucracy, both in terms of enhancing the quality of government employee, and developing a modern and efficient government system. As with any reform, strong and determined leadership is crucial. While good governance is central for anticipatring the challenges of global competition, Indonesia must also undertake civil service reforms to achieve a cleaner and more efficient bureaucracy.
Sodium and potassium movements in human red cells

Human red cells are generally believed to maintain their ionic composition by pumping potassium in and sodium out, using energy derived from glycolysis. In the present experiments 24Na and 42K have been used to study the movements of sodium and potassium across the red cell membrane under a variety of experimental conditions. The experiments fall into two groups. Those of the first group were designed to investigate the existence of a link between the active uptake of potassium and the active extrusion of sodium. Such a link is suggested by the complementary nature of the movements of potassium and sodium during incubation after cold-storage, and by observations on sodium movements at low external potassium concentrations (Harris & Maizels, 1951; Shaw, 1954). The aim of the experiments of the second group was to see whether the passive fluxes of sodium and potassium could be explained by free diffusion of the ions, in aqueous solution, through holes in the membrane. A preliminary account of this work has already been published (Glynn, 1954).
The Fusarium toxin enniatin B exerts no genotoxic activity, but pronounced cytotoxicity in vitro.

Enniatin B, a fungal metabolite produced by various Fusarium strains, is a frequent contaminant in cereals used for human foods and animal feeds, but, so far very limited data are available on its toxicity. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of enniatin B in a battery of short-term tests to evaluate its genotoxic potential. In Salmonella typhimurium assays (Ames assay) with the strains TA 98, TA 100, TA 102, and TA 104, both in the presence and absence of an external metabolizing enzyme system (rat liver S9), no mutagenicity was detected up to toxic levels (100 microM) of enniatin B. Likewise, mutagenicity tests in mammalian cells, i. e. , the hypoxanthin-guanin-phosphoribosyl-transferase (HPRT) assay with V79 cells performed with and without S9 mix, did not reveal a significant increase in mutant frequency for enniatin B up to 30 microM, a cytotoxic concentration. Additional tests on other types of genotoxicity, i. e. , clastogenicity and chromosomal damage, were conducted in V79 cells, applying the alkaline single cell gel electrophoresis (Comet assay with and without FPG, formamidopyrimidine DNA glycosylase, enzyme) and the micronucleus assay. None of these assays revealed a significant genotoxic potential of enniatin B. However, enniatin B exerts pronounced cytotoxic effects in V79 cells as determined by neutral red uptake assay for 48 h exposure: The IC(20) and IC(50) values of 1.5 and 4 microM, are higher than those of the more potent Fusarium toxin deoxynivalenol (IC(20) 0.6 microM, IC(50) of 0.8 microM), but in a similar range as values reported for cytotoxicity of enniatin B in various tumor cell lines. In summary, despite an apparent lack of genotoxic activity, enniatin B can exert biological activity at low micromolar concentrations in mammalian cells.
Person classification leveraging Convolutional Neural Network for obstacle avoidance via Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Obstacle avoidance capability for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) remains an active research in order to provide a better sense-and-avoid technology. More severely, in an environment where it contains and involves humans, the capability required is of high reliability and robustness. Prior to avoiding obstacles during mission, having a high performance of obstacle detection is deemed important. We first tackled the detection problem by solving the classification task. In this work, humans were treated as a special type of obstacles in indoor environment by which they may potentially cooperate with UAVs in indoor setting. While existing works have long been focusing on using classical computer vision techniques that suffer from substantial disadvantages with respect to robustness, studies on the use of deep learning approach i.e. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to achieve this purpose are still scarce. Using this approach for binary person classification task has revealed improved performance of more than 99% both for True Positive Rate (TPR) and True Negative Rate (TNR), hence, is promising for realizing robust obstacle avoidance.
Production of staphylococcal enterotoxin A in cheddar and colby cheese.

Abstract Enterotoxin A production by Staphylococcus aureus in Cheddar and Colby cheeses was determined by inoculating milk with different initial S. aureus populations and making cheese using normal and inhibited starter cultures. Detectable amounts of enterotoxin A were observed more frequently in Colby than in Cheddar cheese, both made with normal starter. With initial S. aureus inocula of at least 35,000 to 250,000 per milliliter of milk, enterotoxin A was detected when at least 15million S. aureus per gram in Colby and 28million in Cheddar developed. Starter failure induced by lactic bacteriophage during the early stages of cheese-making (draining or prior), resulted in extensive growth of S. aureus and detectable enterotoxin A, even with initial S. aureus populations of 1 to 2 thousand per milliliter of milk. Under these conditions, minimal S. aureus populations associated with enterotoxin A were about 3 to 5million pergram. Partial failure of mixed-type multiple-strain starter culture or late failure (beyond the milling in Cheddar cheese) of single strain starter culture also resulted in enterotoxin A without extensive growth of S. aureus , 3 to 11million per gram. Enterotoxin A persisted for over 3 years in Cheddar cheese made with normal or inhibited starter.
Mechanistical Studies on the Irradiation of Methanol in Extraterrestrial Ices

Pure ices of amorphous methanol, CH3OH(X 1A′), were irradiated at 11 K by 5 keV electrons at 100 nA for 1 hr. These energetic electrons simulate electronic energy transfer processes that occur as interstellar ices, comets, and icy solar system bodies are subjected to irradiation from MeV ions and secondary electrons produced in this process. The results were analyzed quantitatively via absorption-reflection-absorption Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, with the identification of new species aided by high-level electronic structure calculations. The unimolecular decomposition of methanol was found to proceed via the formation of (1) the hydroxymethyl radical, CH2OH(X 2A′′), and atomic hydrogen, H(2S1/2), (2) the methoxy radical, CH3O(X 2A′), plus atomic hydrogen, (3) formaldehyde, H2CO(X 1A1) plus molecular hydrogen, H2(X 1Σ), and (4) the formation of methane, CH4(X 1A1), together with atomic oxygen, O(1D). The accessibility of the last channel indicates that the reverse process, oxygen addition into methane to form methanol, should also be feasible. A kinetic model is presented for the decomposition of methanol into these species, as well as the formyl radical, HCO(X2A′), and carbon monoxide, CO(X 1Σ+). During the subsequent warming up of the sample, radicals previously generated within the matrix were mobilized and found to recombine to form methyl formate, CH3OCHO(X 1A′), glycolaldehyde, CH2OHCHO(X 1A′), and ethylene glycol, HOCH 2CH2OH(X 1A). Upper limits for the production of these species by the recombination of neighboring radicals produced during irradiation as well as during the warm-up procedure are presented. The generation of these molecules by irradiation of ices in the solid state and their subsequent sublimation into the gas phase can help explain their high abundances as observed toward hot molecular cores and underlines their importance in astrobiology.
STRUCTURAL MONOIDS ASSOCIATED TO EQUATIONAL VARIETIES

Monoids of elementary transformations are associated to certain equational varieties in order to describe the corresponding free objects; in some regular cases, these monoids reduce to groups, and the word problem for the free objects of the variety is connected with the existence of normal forms for the members of the associated group. 1. The general framework Let "V be an equational variety (Co) and X be any set of generators. The free object of "V generated by X will be denoted by f ^(X). If (E) is a set of equations defining "V, and if M(X) denotes the free magma generated by X with respect to the signature of "V then fr(X) is the quotient structure of Af (X) under the least congruence =j that forces the equations in (E) to hold. We assume that an infinite sequence of variables, say Var, is fixed. A term built from Var and the operators (i.e., an element of M(Var)) will be called an abstract term, while the elements of M(L) are simply called terms. A pair of abstract terms (o, t) is said to be balanced if and only if the set of variables occurring (at least once) in a is exactly the set of variables occurring (at least once) in t . A presentation (E) is said to be balanced if all equations in (E) (considered as pairs of terms) are balanced. Notice that if (E) is a balanced set of equations then any identity that is a consequence of (E) is still balanced. We shall give a description of =^ in terms of some elementary transformations in the case that (E) is balanced. To get simpler notation, we shall assume in the sequel that the signature of 'V reduces to a single binary operator, say *; the general case could be treated in a similar way. If tp is any mapping from Var into Af (X), we still denote by cp the unique morphism of Af (Var) to Af (X) that extends tp, and write a9 for the image under cp of the abstract term a ; the set of all a9 's when cp ranges over all mappings of Var to M(L) is denoted by Substj(o-). Similar notation will occasionally be used for tp a mapping from Var to Af (Var), or from X to M(Z).
NOVEL METHOD FOR ASSESSMENT AND SELECTION OF TRAINEES FOR HIGHER SURGICAL TRAINING IN GENERAL SURGERY

The aim of the study was to select surgeons for a higher surgical training in general surgery programme at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) using an objective, transparent and fair assessment programme. Thirty‐two individuals applied for higher surgical training in general surgery in Ireland in 2006. Sixteen applicants were short‐listed for interview and further assessment. All applicants were required to report on their education performance at undergraduate level and their postgraduate professional development. Applicants were scored on their training record during basic surgical training, structures references, clinical experience, approved technical skills courses, validated logbook and consolidation sheet. Assessments of their research and academic surgery included, the award of a higher degree by thesis, and other surgically relevant degree’s or diplomas that had been obtained through part‐time studies and were awarded by educational establishments recognized by RCSI or the Irish Medical Council. Short‐listed applicants completed validated objective assessment simulations of surgical skills, an interview and assessment of their suitability for a career in surgery. The nine individuals who were selected for higher surgical training in general surgery consistently scored higher than those candidates who were not, in post‐graduate development (P < 0.001), surgical skills (P < 0.002), interview scores (P < 0.007) and suitability for a career in surgery (P < 0.002). All performance assessment elements except undergraduate education showed high internal reliability α = 0.89 and good statistical power (range 0.95–0.99). The statistical power of undergraduate education was 0.7. The objective assessment programme introduced by RCSI for selection of candidates for the programme in higher surgical training in general surgery reliably and consistently distinguished between candidates. Candidates selected for further training consistently outperformed those who were not in good concordance between measures. This common selection process for higher surgical training is now being rolled out for selection into higher surgical training across all surgical specialties in Ireland.
DESIGN ACTIVITY THROUGH OPEN COLLABORATION:Design Case Study of Open Collaboration at Sporepedia

: This study proposes acknowledging that open collaboration as the one of design activities and that the open collaboration has different features compared to the conventional, ownership-based designing activities. Initially, the cases of open collaboration projects were collected and they were divided into 3 types based on their commonalities. Among Competitive type, Hierarchical type , and Heterogeneous type , founded Heterogeneous type is the most similar to the solution generation process of conventional design activity, and thus chose it as the main object of this research. The grounded theory method, a qualitative approach, has been employed to analyze the context in which the selected 1,065 game creature designs of Spore was created by the participants of Sporepedia, as it corresponds to Heterogeneous type. The following elements turned out to be the key factors through which the participants acquire design activity: Unlimited copy and modification; the influence of “celebrities” who improve the level of design quality and participation; and collaborative activities, such as creature contest.
Edge detection of digital color images using information sets

Abstract. Most image processing and computer vision applications require edge detection for object recognition, image segmentation, and scene analysis. The traditional algorithms cannot handle the demanding requirements on the accuracy and robustness of these applications. Information set theory is utilized in this paper for defining edge strength measures which help in finding robust edges. The proposed work is originated from the smallest univalue segment assimilating nucleus concept, wherein a mask is applied on the red, green, and blue components of the color image for calculating a small area of neighboring pixels with similar brightness to center pixels. A symmetric Gaussian membership function (MF) is used to fuzzify the histogram of this area. This MF is converted into sigmoidal MF to strengthen and sharpen the weak edges. These two MFs provide the best results in comparison to other MFs used in literature. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed technique produces better results than other existing techniques in terms of the qualitative and quantitative measures, which include Pratt’s figure of merit, structural similarity index, and analysis of variance. The proposed technique also works well in the presence of impulse noise.
Detection of Epstein-Barr Virus Genomes in Peripheral Blood B Cells from Solid-Organ Transplant Recipients by Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization

ABSTRACT Resolution of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) infection in pediatric solid-organ transplant recipients often leads to an asymptomatic carrier state characterized by a persistently elevated circulating EBV load that is 2 to 4 orders of magnitude greater than the load typical of healthy latently infected individuals. Elevated EBV loads in immunosuppressed individuals are associated with an increased risk for development of posttransplant lymphoproliferative disease. We have performed fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) studies with peripheral blood B cells from carriers of persistent EBV loads in order to directly quantitate the number of EBV genomes per infected cell. Patients were assigned to two groups on the basis of the level of the persistent load (low-load carriers, 8 to 200 genomes/105 peripheral blood lymphocytes; high-load carriers, >200 genomes/105 peripheral blood lymphocytes). FISH analysis revealed that the low-load carriers predominantly had circulating virus-infected cells harboring one or two genome copies/cell. High-load carriers also had cells harboring one or two genome copies/cell; in addition, however, they carried a distinct population of cells with high numbers of viral genome copies. The increased viral loads correlated with an increase in the frequency of cells containing high numbers of viral genomes. We conclude that low-load carriers possess EBV-infected cells that are in a state similar to normal latency, whereas high-load carriers possess two populations of virus-positive B cells, one of which carries an increased number of viral genomes per cell and is not typical of normal latency.
Correlations between lncRNA-SOX2OT polymorphism and susceptibility to breast cancer in a Chinese population.

AIM We evaluated the effect of lncRNA SOX2OT expression and its SNP in tumorigenesis and development of breast cancer (BC) in a case-control study. METHODS A total of 1106 individuals, 505 newly diagnosed BC patients and 601 age-matched controls (±2 years) were testified. Real-time PCR was adopted for testing tissues' SOX2OT expression. Genotyping of rs9839776 were conducted by using SNaPshot assays. RESULTS SOX2OT were overexpressed in BC tissues (p < 0.001). SOX2OT SNP rs9839776 was strongly associated with the higher expression of SOX2OT and an increased risk of BC in Chinese women (odds ratio: 1.42; 95% CI: 1.06-1.90; p = 0.018). CONCLUSION These results confirmed that BC was conspicuously associated with higher SOX2OT expression. SOX2OT SNP rs9839776 was significantly associated with the onset of BC possibly via influencing the expression of SOX2OT.
Bone Bruises Associated with ACL Rupture

Background Different patterns of bone bruising are seen on magnetic resonance imaging in acute anterior cruciate ligament ruptures. These patterns may relate to the mechanism of injury. Hypothesis There is a correlation between the mechanism of anterior cruciate ligament injury and bone bruise patterns on magnetic resonance imaging. Study Design Cohort study; Level of evidence, 2. Methods Data regarding the mechanism of anterior cruciate ligament rupture were collected prospectively on patients who had anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions. Inclusion criteria included a clear history of mechanism, magnetic resonance imaging within 6 weeks of injury, and no previous knee injury. Patients were divided into noncontact and contact mechanism groups. Bone bruise frequency, location, depth, and intensity were analyzed using magnetic resonance imaging and correlated with the mechanism of injury. Results Two hundred fifty-six patients were identified; 100 met the inclusion criteria, 86 were in the noncontact mechanism group, and 14 were in the contact mechanism group. The proportion of bone bruises in the lateral compartment in both groups was higher (P < .001) than in the medial compartment. Bone bruising was more frequent, deeper, and more intense in the non-contact group, with frequency (P = .019) and intensity (P < .001) scores reaching significance at the lateral tibial plateau. Medial compartment bone bruising was seen more frequently than previously reported, particularly in the noncontact group. Conclusion The noncontact mechanism appears to cause more severe bone bruising in both the medial and lateral compartments.