Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sexually transmitted infections and vaginal douching in a population of female sex workers in Nairobi, Kenya

Objective: To assess the association between vaginal douching and sexually transmitted infections (STI) among a group of female sex workers (FSWs) in Nairobi, Kenya. Methods: This study was part of a randomised, placebo controlled trial of monthly prophylaxis with 1 g of azithromycin to prevent STIs and HIV infection in a cohort of Nairobi FSWs. Consenting women were administered a questionnaire and screened for STIs. Results: The seroprevalence of HIV-1 among 543 FSWs screened was 30%. HIV infection was significantly associated with bacterial vaginosis (BV), trichomoniasis, gonorrhoea, and the presence of a genital ulcer. Regular douching was reported by 72% of the women, of whom the majority inserted fluids in the vagina, generally after each sexual intercourse. Water with soap was the fluid most often used (81%), followed by salty water (18%), water alone (9%), and a commercial antiseptic (5%). Douching in general and douching with soap and water were significantly associated with bacterial vaginosis (p = 0.05 and p = 0.04 respectively). There was a significant trend for increased frequency of douching and higher prevalence of BV. There was no direct relation observed between douching and risk for HIV infection or other STIs. Conclusion: The widespread habit of douching among African female sex workers was confirmed. The association between vaginal douching and BV is of concern, given the increased risk of HIV infection with BV, which has now been shown in several studies. It is unclear why we could not demonstrate a direct association between douching and HIV infection. Further research is required to better understand the complex relation between douching, risk for bacterial vaginosis, and risk for HIV and other STIs.
Effect of Anthocyanin Pigments on Certain Enzymes.∗

Summary The activities of alpha glucan phosphorylase and glutamic acid decarboxyl-ase increased when increasing amounts of 4 anthocyanin compounds were added to the substrate. The activities of glycerol dehydro-genase, malate dehydrogenase and hexokinase decreased except at the lowest concentration, 0.01%. At this level, the tendency was to increase slightly the activity of the enzymes studied. Possible explanations for the effect of anthocyanin pigments on the enzyme systems studied are discussed.
Abandoning personalization to get to precision in the pharmacotherapy of depression

Effectiveness studies and analyses of naturalistic cohorts demonstrate that many patients with major depressive disorder do not experience symptomatic remission with antidepressant treatments. In an effort to better match patients with effective treatments, numerous investigations of predictors or moderators of treatment response have been reported over the past five decades, including clinical features as well as biological measures. However, none of these have entered routine clinical practice; instead, clinicians typically personalize treatment on the basis of patient preferences as well as their own. Here, we review the reasons why it has been challenging to identify and deploy treatment‐specific predictors of response, and suggest strategies that may be required to achieve true precision in the pharmacotherapy of depression. We emphasize the need for changes in how depression care is delivered, measured, and used to inform future practice.
High Anti-Tumor Activity in Prostate Cancer by Blocking SREBP-Regulated Metabolic Pathways and Androgen Receptor Signaling

* Corresponding author: Wen-Chin Huang, Ph.D., Uro-Oncology Research Program, Department of Medicine, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA; Phone: 310-423-7378; Fax: 310-4238543; E-mail: wen-chin.huang@cshs.org Running title: Inhibition of SREBPs in prostate cancer
Energy Harvesting Device Based on Spatial Electric Field in Substations

It is rich in electric field energy in high voltage substations while it is hardly collected and utilized. A novel energy harvesting device based on spatial electric field is presented in this paper, which is composed of capacitive energy collector and conditioning circuit. A simulation model of the energy collector is established to study the relationship between output voltage and its structural parameters and is verified by no-load tests. There are some restraining factors such as output voltage unstable in the traditional conditioning circuit. A new conditioning circuit is designed to overcome the problems and this new circuit is more effectively. This paper designs a new device to harvest the electric field energy within substations and it can provide broad potential use in the future. Full Text: PDF DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v12i6. 5521
Intracytoplasmic sperm injection in the rat

We applied intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to the rat comparing three different sperm injection techniques: conventional setup with a sharp needle bearing a spike (method 1), combination of partial zona dissection (PZD) needle and blunt pipette (method 2) and piezo-injection using a blunt pipette (method 3). We also investigated the timing of sperm pronuclear formation after injection. Survival rates after injection were 8%, 24% and 71% for the methods 1, 2 and 3, respectively. All surviving oocytes formed pronuclei by about 6 h after injection. Although the survival and activation rates following sperm injection using piezo-injection were high, the incidence of normal fertilisation, as evidenced by second polar body extrusion and formation of two pronuclei, was only 10%. The vast majority of the zygotes were multinucleated, although most of them subsequently underwent cleavage. Fixation and staining of injected oocytes at different times after injection revealed that replacement of sperm nuclear protamines by histones takes place by 15 min after injection, sperm head swelling occurs within 0.5–1 h after injection and pronuclei become fully developed by 7 h after injection. Although the rate of normal fertilisation in the rat following ICSI was low under the present experimental conditions, the results indicated that direct ICSI using a piezo-driven pipette would be a potentially valuable method of producing rat offspring.
Relationships Between Health Behaviors, Self-Efficacy, and Health Locus of Control of Students at the Universities of the Third Age

Background This study aimed to determine the relationship of health behaviors with the health locus of control and the sense of self-efficacy against the background of socio-economic factors and self-rated health among students of the Universities of the Third Age (U3As). Material/Methods The study included 320 U3A students, with mean age of 67.5 years. The following research tools were used: Health Behavior Inventory (HBI), Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLC), Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES), and an original survey of the author’s own design. Results Mean total HBI and GSES scores were 90.63 and 30.12, respectively. These results are satisfactory. A slight predominance of internal health locus of control was documented. A number of significant correlations were found between the HBI, GSES, and MHLC scores, except for the MHLC subscale expressing the influence of chance. Educational attainment was shown to have a significant impact on the scores for the positive attitude and proper dietary habits subscales of HBI, as well as on the GSES scores. Economic status of the participants influenced the levels of positive attitude, internal health locus of control, and self-efficacy. Furthermore, internal health locus of control was found to be modulated by subjective health of the respondents. The scores for external health locus of control and the influence of chance increased significantly with age. Conclusions The currently noticeable emphasis placed on lifelong education should serve as a good prognostic factor for health behaviors and personal health resources for years to come.
Life-threatening sepsis associated with adjuvant doxorubicin plus docetaxel for intermediate-risk breast cancer.

CONTEXT Adjuvant chemotherapy with new cytotoxic agents for breast cancer must be properly assessed for toxicity. OBJECTIVE To describe adverse events associated with adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer, which led to premature termination of a clinical trial. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS We conducted a prospective randomized multicenter study (Reposant sur des Arguments Pronostiques et Predictifs [RAPP]-01) to compare the effectiveness of 2 chemotherapy regimens. Patients (women aged 18-70 years) had primary unilateral breast cancer and either a moderate number of positive axillary lymph nodes (< or =3) or no positive axillary lymph nodes (N0), but were at a high risk of relapse. Patients were treated at 11 French cancer referral centers from June 1999 through January 2003. Primary prophylaxis for febrile neutropenia was not recommended in the study protocol. INTERVENTIONS Doxorubicin, 50 mg/m2, plus docetaxel, 75 mg/m2, or doxorubicin, 60 mg/m2, plus cyclophosphamide, 600 mg/m2, given postoperatively for 4 courses. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES The main end point was the disease-free survival rate at 5 years, as estimated using the Kaplan-Meier product limit method. Secondary end points included safety, which is the focus of this article, and overall survival. RESULTS A total of 627 women were enrolled. Median follow-up is currently too short (24 months) to analyze the primary end point. The trial was terminated prematurely when 2 deaths related to drug toxicity and 1 case of perforative peritonitis occurred among patients with febrile neutropenia, all in the doxorubicin-docetaxel group. The incidence of febrile neutropenia was significantly higher with the doxorubicin-docetaxel regimen (40.8%) than with the doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide regimen (7.1%) (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS A high risk of life-threatening complications associated with the doxorubicin-docetaxel regimen was found in this open-label controlled trial. The doxorubicin-docetaxel combination should not be considered as an alternative to the doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide regimen outside carefully designed studies that include primary prophylaxis for febrile neutropenia.
An iterative method for propagation of probability distributions in feedback systems

Efficient propagation of probability distributions in feedback systems is central to a decomposition based approach for uncertainty propagation in complex, interconnected systems. In this note, we propose an iterative method for static feedback systems to obtain the probability density of the output from that of the input. We prove the convergence of the proposed method under the assumption that the loop operator is contractive. It is shown, based on the results from the theory iterated random functions, that the method extends to the case when additional parametric uncertainty is present within the loop.
Calcium currents in rat dentate granule cells are altered after adrenalectomy

Adrenal corticosteroid hormones modulate voltage‐gated calcium currents in rat CA1 hippocampal neurons. In the present whole‐cell recording study we examined whether calcium currents in dentate granule cells are also under control of corticosteroids. In a first series of experiments, in which the calcium chelator BAPTA was added to the recording solution, the amplitude of calcium currents induced by a voltage step to −10 mV was found to be enhanced shortly (1 or 2 days) after adrenalectomy compared to sham operation. No enhancement was seen when adrenalectomized animals received a low dose of corticosterone in the drinking water. By contrast, 3 or 7 days after adrenalectomy calcium current amplitude was decreased. Starting 3 days after adrenalectomy, some of the granule cells underwent apoptosis. This caused a bias in the recorded cell population towards relatively apoptosis‐resistant cells, suggesting that restricted calcium influx may be a key feature of cells withstanding the apoptotic route. In accordance, cells from a small percentage (≈ 20%) of animals that resisted apoptosis after adrenalectomy also displayed small calcium currents. In a second series without BAPTA, thus focusing on the endogenous calcium‐buffering capacity, we found that the time constant for the decay of the calcium current was decreased after adrenalectomy, probably due to enhanced calcium‐dependent inactivation of the current. The data indicate that cellular calcium current characteristics of dentate granule cells are altered after adrenalectomy and that the alterations may in part determine the vulnerability to undergo apoptosis.
Surgery for Degenerative Lumbar Spondylosis: Updated Cochrane Review

Study Design. An updated Cochrane review. Objective. To review current scientific evidence on the effectiveness of surgical interventions for degenerative lumbar spondylosis. Summary of Background Data. There is still limited scientific evidence on spinal surgery. Methods. Use of standard Cochrane review methods to analyze all randomized controlled trials published to March 31, 2005. Results. A total of 31 randomized controlled trials were identified. Most of the earlier trials reported mainly surgical outcomes; more of the recent trials also reported patient-centered outcomes of pain or disability. There is still very little information on occupational outcomes or long-term outcomes beyond 2-3 years. Seven heterogeneous trials on spondylolisthesis, spinal stenosis, and nerve compression permitted limited conclusions. There were two new trials on fusion that showed conflicting results. One trial showed that fusion gave better clinical outcomes than conventional physiotherapy, and the other showed that fusion was no better than a modern exercise and rehabilitation program. There were 8 trials that showed that instrumented fusion produces a higher fusion rate, but any improvement in clinical outcomes is probably marginal. Conclusions. No conclusions are possible about the relative effectiveness of anterior, posterior, or circumferential fusion. The preliminary results of three small trials of intradiscal electrotherapy suggest it is ineffective, except possibly in highly selected patients. Preliminary data from three trials of disc arthroplasty do not permit firm conclusions.
The relationship between salivary IgA levels and dental caries in children.

PURPOSE The aim of the study was to find the relationship between salivary IgA (s-IgA) levels and dental caries in children. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 40 children in the age group of 8 to 12 years were selected and divided into two groups. Group I with DMFT score 0 and Group II with DMFT score ≥3. The whole unstimulated s-IgA levels were estimated using ELISA method. RESULTS Whole s-IgA levels were significantly higher in group II with DMFT score ≥3 as compared with group I with DMFT score 0. CONCLUSIONS There was an increase in s-IgA levels in caries-active mouth to give protection mechanism against dental caries and the Streptococcus mutans which are active in caries-active mouth. The s-IgA antibodies can play an important role in control of dental caries.
Performance Evaluation of Textile-Based Electrodes and Motion Sensors for Smart Clothing

Development of textile-based electrodes and motion sensors is one of the main issues of recent smart textile research utilizing electronic textiles. Electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes have been developed by various textile technologies such as sputtering or electroless-plating on the fabric surfaces, and embroidering or knitting with stainless steel yarns. In addition, two types of motion sensors have also been developed using piezo-resistive textiles. They were fabricated by knitting and braiding. To examine the usability of the ECG electrode, waveforms of the conventional AgCl electrode, and the new electrodes developed in our lab were compared. It was found that electrodes using metallic embroidering are more efficient when its substrate was a metal blended fabric. The electrolessly Cu/Ni plated fabrics obtained the best conductivity in textile-based electrodes. The first motion-measuring textile-based sensor was used to predict and measure the changes in electric resistances that accompany the angle changes in the elbow joint. An advanced piezo-resistive textile by braiding showed more accurate resistance changes and also better durability. Changes in its electrical resistance were mapped to changes in its length extension. From the relationship between the extension and the electrical resistance, movement or posture of human body was detected.
Migraine: fusional-eye movement stress.

This paper indicates that the sources of migraine have always been in doubt, from ancient times when physicians first described the syndrome of migraine without clarifying it sources to the present day when physicians, still in some doubt, contend that excess of such substances as acetylcholine or serotonin may trigger the migraine. This paper argues that dynamic binocular seeing, normally a stress function, excites the migraine headache, primarily, howver, among visual pain sensitive individuals. Cases are offered whose migraine is relieved by creating a finer binocular seeing balance through fusion-eye movement training with the V.T. Reading Aid.
A combined PWM algorithm to eliminate spikes of common mode voltages

Various pulse width modulation strategies have been proposed to reduce the common mode voltage (CMV) in the variable speed motor drive system. However, unexpected voltage spikes appear as a result of the dead time effect. This paper investigates the principles of those reduced CMV PWM (RCMV PWM) methods mathematically and analyzes the reasons for those voltage spikes theoretically and experimentally. Results suggest that three-dimension active zero state PWM and near state PWM can effectively eliminate the spikes even with the dead time effect taken into consideration. Then a combined algorithm using those two methods is proposed, and it covers the linearity modulation region as large as the conventional space vector PWM. The switchover between those two methods is smooth along with the variation of the modulation index. Experimental results show that no distortion is brought to the modulation wave and verify the validity and feasibility of the proposed combined algorithm.
ADAPTATION AND SPECIALIZATION IN A TWO‐RESOURCE ENVIRONMENT IN DROSOPHILA SPECIES

We assayed two components of performance (development time and survivorship), on food medium with and without ethanol, in laboratory populations of Drosophila simulans and D. melanogaster for which ethanol‐medium was a novel food resource. These assays were done before and after 12 generations of rearing in either one‐(regular medium only) or two‐resource (regular medium and ethanol medium) environments. Initially, D. simulans was highly susceptible to ethanol, whereas D. melanogaster was relatively unaffected. After 12 generations in the two‐resource environment, D. simulans showed significantly improved mean performance on ethanol medium; mean performance of D. melanogaster did not significantly change. Variation among families for both traits was higher on ethanol medium in D. simulans. Variation in D. melanogaster was not significantly affected by ethanol level, suggesting that resource quality was more important than novelty per se. In both species, the least variation was seen in populations after 12 generations in the two‐resource environment. For development time in D. simulans, the decrease in variation was largely due to reduced variation within families, suggesting the evolution of canalization. Development time on the two media was not negatively correlated. In D. simulans, correlations measured before and after the experiment were not heterogeneous, suggesting that trade‐offs in performance did not block diet expansion. In D. melanogaster, correlations became significantly less positive after 12 generations in the two‐resource environment, supporting the view that correlations between performance on different resources may become less positive over time through selection.
The role of oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with acute coronary syndrome

Dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin and a P2Y12 receptor antagonist represents the current standard of care to prevent atherothrombotic recurrences in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, despite the use of DAPT, the recurrence rate of cardiovascular ischemic events still remains high. This persistent risk may be in part attributed to the sustained activation of the coagulation cascade leading to generation of thrombin, which may continue to play a key role in thrombus formation. The use of vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) as a strategy to reduce atherothrombotic recurrences after an ACS has been previously tested, leading to overall unfavorable outcomes due to the high risk of bleeding complications. The recent introduction of non-VKA oral anticoagulants (NOACs), characterized by a better safety profile and ease of use compared with VKA, has led to a reappraisal of the use of oral anticoagulant therapy for secondary prevention in ACS patients. The present article provides an overview of the rationale and prognostic role of oral anticoagulant therapy in ACS patients as well as recent updated clinical data, in particular with NOACs, in the field and future perspectives on this topic.
Effect of splenectomy on T-cell subsets and plasma HIV viral titers in HIV-infected patients.

OBJECTIVE In previous studies we have shown that removal of the spleen in HIV-infected people during the asymptomatic phase of disease results in slower time to AIDS and may also result in improved survival. In this paper, we examine whether splenectomy affects lymphocyte counts, T-cell subsets, and HIV plasma viremia in a manner that could explain the clinical benefits associated with this intervention. METHODS 10 HIV-infected patients who underwent splenectomy and 23 HIV-infected controls with idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura who did not undergo splenectomy were studied. These groups were compared for changes in cell subpopulations and HIV plasma viremia. RESULTS Splenectomy resulted in increases in absolute lymphocyte numbers with rises in both CD4 and CD8 counts, whereas CD4 and CD8 percentage levels remained unchanged. In controls, absolute and percentage CD4+ T-cell counts declined with time from date of HIV infection. Plasma viremia decreased more than threefold, the limit of biologic variation, after splenectomy in 4 of 9 subjects and in only 1 of 18 controls. The proportion of subjects exhibiting reduced viremia following splenectomy was greater than that in HIV-infected patients that did not undergo splenectomy (chi 2 test, P = .015). CONCLUSIONS Improved survival and time to AIDS in splenectomized HIV-infected patients is associated with temporary reduction of plasma viremia and increase in absolute CD4 and CD8 counts. These effects could not be attributed to antiretroviral therapy because subjects were either untreated or treated with antiretroviral monotherapy during the observation period. These observations may have importance in the understanding of T-cell dynamics and the potential for splenectomy as an HIV reservoir-debulking procedure.
AN INTRODUCTION OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND ITS ROLE IN MEDICAL EDUCATION: A BRIEF REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Emotional intelligence is a different way of being smart and it is the ability to understand and recognize emotional status and managing emotions, which promotes productivity, proper social relations and makes good decision in life. There are growing reports of the integration of emotional intelligence in medical practice, so the purpose of this paper is a literature review related to emotional intelligence and its role in medical education.