Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Individual participant data validation of the PICNICC prediction model for febrile neutropenia

Background Risk-stratified approaches to managing cancer therapies and their consequent complications rely on accurate predictions to work effectively. The risk-stratified management of fever with neutropenia is one such very common area of management in paediatric practice. Such rules are frequently produced and promoted without adequate confirmation of their accuracy. Methods An individual participant data meta-analytic validation of the ‘Predicting Infectious ComplicatioNs In Children with Cancer’ (PICNICC) prediction model for microbiologically documented infection in paediatric fever with neutropenia was undertaken. Pooled estimates were produced using random-effects meta-analysis of the area under the curve-receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC), calibration slope and ratios of expected versus observed cases (E/O). Results The PICNICC model was poorly predictive of microbiologically documented infection (MDI) in these validation cohorts. The pooled AUC-ROC was 0.59, 95% CI 0.41 to 0.78, tau2=0, compared with derivation value of 0.72, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.76. There was poor discrimination (pooled slope estimate 0.03, 95% CI −0.19 to 0.26) and calibration in the large (pooled E/O ratio 1.48, 95% CI 0.87 to 2.1). Three different simple recalibration approaches failed to improve performance meaningfully. Conclusion This meta-analysis shows the PICNICC model should not be used at admission to predict MDI. Further work should focus on validating alternative prediction models. Validation across multiple cohorts from diverse locations is essential before widespread clinical adoption of such rules to avoid overtreating or undertreating children with fever with neutropenia.
Differential changes in growth patterns of anadromous brown trout and Atlantic salmon from the River Etneelva over a 25-year period

Abstract Freshwater and marine growth of anadromous brown trout (Salmo trutta) and Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) from the River Etneelva was analysed in relation to river, fjord and ocean temperatures during the periods 1976–1982 and 2000–2007. Anadromous brown trout grew more slowly through their first and second summers in the sea during the last observation period compared to the first period, and there were more growth checks in the scales sampled from the last period. The reduced growth in length corresponds to a weight reduction of about 20–40%. In fresh water, there was no change in growth rate of the trout parr, while in Atlantic salmon, growth rates of both parr and post-smolts increased from the first to the second period, possibly due to the corresponding increase in temperatures in the river and the marine environments. Anadromous brown trout stay in the fjord during the whole marine feeding period, and therefore the reduced growth in the sea must be caused by factors operating in the fjord environment. Although changes in food availability may also play a part in the observed changes, the negative trend for anadromous brown trout is most likely related to the high infection levels of salmon lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) observed in the central and outer parts of the Hardangerfjord.
DEWS 2004 I-703 Stepwise Optimisation Method for k-CNN Search

Department of Information Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University. Department of Systems and Social Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University. Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 464-8603, JAPAN Abstract The problem of k-CNN search along a specific route on road network is to find out k nearest neighbor (k-NN) objects for any place on the route. k nearest neighbors are selected based on the path length from the route to the objects, and the continuous search for all the points on the route should be considered. A k-CNN search method is proposed by using an incremental k-NN search based on road network. The method is an extension of CNN search method proposed by adding new data structure – a fixed length queue for recording up-to-now intermediate results. Because the search regions can be reduced stepwise by the intermediate results, our k-CNN search is efficient.
Nucleolar organizer region count, PCNA and Ki-67 indices are diagnostic markers of malignancy and cell proliferation rate in bovine lymphosarcoma.

Lymphoid tumors comprise one of the most common groups of tumors in domestic animals. Lymphosarcoma is expressed as a specific multicentric form in calvesupto six months of age (sporadic) and in adult cattle (enzootic); and as thymic form in young cattle. Eight calves of both sexes aged below six months were necropsied in the department of veterinary Pathology, college of Veterinary Science, Tirupati. During necropsy impression smears, represented tissue samples were collected for Cytopathology, histopathology, AgNOR count and immunohistochemical studies. Cytological smears revealed lymphocytes, prolymphocytes and lymphoblasts with anaplastic changes. Histopathologically, partial to complete obliteration of architecture due to the replacement of normal tissue by lymphoblastic cells in lymphnodes and other visceral organs. The mean AgNOR count of the lymphosarcoma was 4.25 and it appear as a round to irregular, dark brown to black dots of varying sizes in the nuclei. Positive expression of PCNA and Ki67 was noticed in lymphnode, liver, kidney and lung was observed. The labeling index of PCNA and Ki-67 expression and distribution of immunopositive cells may be helpful in the early diagnosis and prognosis of malignant tumors. Hence, AgNOR, PCNA and Ki-67 indices can be used as reliable markers of cell proliferation and malignancy.
Tracing Worldwide Turkey Genetic Diversity Using D-loop Sequence Mitochondrial DNA Analysis

Simple Summary The development of new production lines of turkeys has relegated native breeds to a second position. This has increased the need for new research to ensure the conservation of local turkey breeds and the maintenance of biodiversity. The objective of the present study was to identify turkey populations, their origins, and maternal lines through mitochondrial DNA analysis. For this study, mitochondrial DNA samples from 93 turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo) were used. The animals belonged to populations in Brazil, Mexico, Spain (Andalusia and Majorca) Italy, Iran, Egypt, and the United States. The haplogroup network that formed suggested that turkey domestic populations group into a single haplotype. However, genetic differences within the haplogroup were found. The present study may provide a better approach for the implementation of conservation strategies for domestic turkey populations. Abstract According to recent archeological evidence, turkey (Meleagris gallopavo gallopavo) domestication may have occurred in Mexico around 2000 years ago. However, little is known about the phylogenetic and genealogical background underlying domestic turkey populations. This study aimed to further understand the domestication process and identify inter- or intraspecific connections between turkey populations to determine their origins, trace their global expansion, and define the species’ genetic value. Ninety-three domestic turkeys (local breeds) were sampled from populations in Brazil, Mexico, USA, Spain, Italy, Iran, and Egypt. Publicly available sequences from previous studies were also included. Standard mitochondrial DNA, genetic diversity, and haplotype network analyses were performed. Seventy-six polymorphic sites were identified. Turkeys from Mexico showed the greatest number of polymorphic sites (40), while turkeys from Italy and Brazil reported only one site each. Nucleotide diversity was also highest in Mexico and the USA (π = 0.0175 and 0.0102, respectively) and lowest in Brazil and Italy. Of the six major haplogroups defined, the Mexican and USA populations appeared to have remained more stable and diverse than the other populations. This may be due to conservative husbandry policies in the rural areas of other populations, which have prevented the introduction of commercial turkey lines.
Heterogeneity in the Determinants of Health? An Empirical Analysis of the Smoking-Health Relationship in Socioeconomic Context

Systematic variations in health and illness among social groups have persisted and, in some cases increased, in many countries in spite of improvements in the availability of, and access to, health care services. Health policy makers have responded by showing increasing interest in non-clinical determinants of health as a way of explaining the observed systematic variations in health and illness. Yet health care and non-health care “factors” are often seen as competing for society’s scarce resources in the production of health. The purpose of this paper is to augment this traditional approach to understanding the determinants of health in populations by adopting a framework in which the impact of one determinant may be dependent upon the presence, absence or level of other determinants (that is, interactions), thus creating a set of complementary ‘inputs’ to health production. To test the proposed framework, logistic regression analyses were performed using data from the 1992-93 Sante Quebec survey (N = 21454). The findings suggest that the socioeconomic variables are ‘effect modifiers,’ and the association between smoking and health cannot be assessed without reference to a specific value (category) of the socioeconomic variable. These findings, although preliminary, will be of importance for the development of strategic plans, policy development and programme management in the area of population health.
The Role of Language in the Automatic Coding of Political Texts

Automatic approaches to coding party manifestos and other political texts have become more widespread. This research note addresses the question to what extent the source language of a text affects the results. To do so, Swiss manifestos in German and French are coded automatically, comparing a keyword-based dictionary approach and Wordscores. Because of language differences, both stemming and particularly stop words are important to obtain comparable results for Wordscores. If both are used, the predicted scores are almost identical in both languages. With the right preparations, the challenge of language differences can thus be overcome.
Vulnerability of benthic invertebrates of the Great Barrier Reef to climate change

This chapter deals with benthic invertebrates inhabiting the extensive inter-reef soft bottom habitats and those occurring on the reef, excluding corals. An assessment of the impacts of climate change on non-coral benthic invertebrates poses particular challenges: i) benthic invertebrates include an extraordinary diversity of marine organisms, including many microscopic, infaunal, boring or ephemeral species that can be difficult to sample and are poorly known taxonomically; ii)benthic invertebrates employ a diversity of reproductive strategies, broadly including planktotrophy (development through feeding larvae), lecithotrophy (development through non-feeding larvae) and direct development (release of post-metamorphic juveniles), as well as asexual reproduction, making broad generalisations of dispersal capabilities difficult; iii) factors determining species distributions are poorly known for most species; iv) benthic invertebrates exhibit a tremendous variety of lifestyles and forms, including colonial, sedentary and errant species; v) many species include either a pelagic larval or adult stage, so effects of climate change may vary during their lives (see McKinnon et al. chapter 6 for comments on planktonic forms); and, vi) research on the biogeography of benthic invertebrates on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is strongly biased towards commercial or destructive species.
o male and female gammarids defend themselves differently during hemical stress ?

To investigate xenobiotic impacts on organism physiology, several studies involve biomarker assessment. However, most studies do not take into account the toxic effect on both males and females. Here, we have investigated the influence of gender on the detoxification response (reduced glutathione, metallothionein, -glutamylcystein ligase and carotenoid), energy reserves (protein, lipids and glycogen) and biomarker of toxic effects (malondialdehyde) in Gammarus roeseli exposed to cadmium. A principal component analysis revealed that G. roeseli males and females were differently impacted by cadmium. We observed lower malondialdehyde levels in females than in males, whatever the condition tested (i.e. −1 −1 admium etoxification mechanisms
Quality of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV Services in Public Hospitals of Hadiya Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Background: Prevention of mother-to-child transmission describes a comprehensive package of services intended to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Transmission of HIV from mother to child accounts for more than 90% of pediatric Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Few studies examining the quality of PMTCT services provision in Ethiopia are available. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the quality of PMTCT services in public hospitals of Hadiya zone, southern Ethiopia. Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study design using both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted in public hospitals from March 1 to April 10, 2017. A total of 423 pregnant women were consecutively interviewed at three hospitals. Service provision processes were observed for 21 counseling sessions and nine in-depth interviews were conducted with health care providers, medical director and mothers’ support group. Additionally, resource inventory was done. Donabedian’s Structure-Process-Outcome model was used to assess the quality of PMTCT service at respective study area. Data was analyzed using SPSS 20. Binary and multivariate logistic regressions were computed. The qualitative data were analyzed manually using thematic analysis method to support quantitative result through triangulation. Result: Most of the minimum required resources such as test kits, ARV drugs and other supplies were available in hospitals studied. However, inadequate of trained human resource was observed. About 89.8% clients were satisfied with PMTCT services provided at public hospitals. The client satisfaction with PMTCT services were associated with waiting time [AOR=4.6, 95% CI; 2.18, 9.89], counseling time [AOR=3.7, 95% CI; 1.64, 8.54] and counseling given by same counselor before and after HIV test [AOR=0.2, 95% CI; 0.09, 0.41]. Discussion: Although clients’ satisfaction by PMTCT service is very high. Availability of necessary resource and compliance of health care providers to national guideline need improvement. More efforts to be exerted on improving providers’ compliance with national PMTCT guideline, consistent supply of necessary resources to improve quality of PMTCT services.
Substance use frequency and related characteristics among adolescents presenting to an emergency department in Turkey

Abstract It has been reported that drug-related visits to emergency department (ED) by youth have been increased in recent years. We aimed to determine the frequency of, and associated risk factors for, substance abuser adolescents presenting to the emergency department. We conducted a biphasic (retrospective-prospective), observational study of all adolescents, presenting to our emergency department with complaints related to recreational drug use and having a positive urine drug screening from January, 2013 to December 2016. To obtain some spesific data, a telephone interview was done. Baseline demographic and clinical data were obtained. During the study period urine toxicology screen was positive for illicit drugs in 131 (0.9%) patients. The total of substance users by years were respectively 17 (13%) in 2013, 27 (20%) in 2014, 39 (30%) in 2015 and 48 (37%). The median age was 16 years and 65% were male. Majority of substance users (61%) had neuropsychiatric complaint. Amphetamine type stimulants (60%) were the most commonly used substance. Rate of cigarette and alcohol use in this adolescent group was respectively 95% and 88%. This group also had some specific features such as low income (59%) and single‐parent family (54%). Our findings suggest that the number of illicit drug use has been steadily increasing among adolescents. The most common identified substance was amphetamine type stimulants. They had poor socioeconomic conditions.
The Effects of Human Resource Management on Workers' Wages and Firm Productivity

We analyze whether the effects of human resource practices on workers’ wages and firm productivity are similar or different. We find that firms’ wage policies overestimate the relevance of sector-specific skills and underestimate the productivity enhancing effect of computer skills. Moreover, only the firm benefits from performance related pay, whereas only the workers benefit from performance evaluation interviews. Finally, our estimation results show that in small firms a more advanced HRM system may not result in a convergence of interests between workers and the firm.
L-DAG: Enabling Loopy Workflow in Scientific Application with Automatic DAG Transformation

With the advance of distributed computing, workflows are widely used in the process of scientific discovery. To satisfy the increasing demands for more complicated science workflows, many workflow engines are developed on top of the batch scheduling systems, such as HTCondor. The workflow is commonly represented as a directed acyclic graph (DAG) without loops. However, none of the existing workflow engines can support workflow containing loops, which is not unusual in modern scientific applications. To address the above limitation, we propose two methods including loop unrolling and recursive DAG to transform loopy workflows into DAGs without loops. In addition, we develop L-DAG, a tool that can automatically transform a loopy workflow defined in Extensible Markup Language (XML) into DAG running on HTCondor DAGMan. We evaluate our methods for supporting loopy workflows from various aspects such as performance and storage overhead. We also provide a case study with real-world workflow in aviation application.
Screen for Potential Candidate Alternatives of Sargentodoxa cuneata from Its Six Adulterants Based on Their Phenolic Compositions and Antioxidant Activities

Daxueteng, the liana stem of Sargentodoxa cuneata, is a widely used Traditional Chinese Medicine facing the overflow of its commercial adulterants. A method for discriminating adulterants and screening potential candidate alternatives of S. cuneata was thus established. Total phenols and flavonoids of S. cuneata and its six adulterants and their abilities to scavenge DPPH• and ABTS•+, to absorb peroxyl radicals (ORAC), and to inhibit AAPH-induced supercoiled plasmid DNA strand scission were comprehensively assessed. Polygonum cuspidatum and Bauhinia championii, two of the six adulterants of S. cuneate, shared considerably higher antioxidant activities as well as phenolic contents and, therefore, were considered as potential candidate alternatives. Phenolic compositions of the two potential candidate alternatives and S. cuneata itself were further determined by UPLC-QTOF-MS/MS. Totally 38 phenolics, including four hydroxybenzoic acids, two tyrosols, two caffeoylquinic acids, seven flavanol or its oligomers, two lignans, three hydroxycinnamic acids, six stilbenes, seven anthraquinones, and five flavanones were determined from three species. Furthermore, contents of different phenolic categories were semi-quantified and the major antioxidant contributors of S. cuneata and the two potential candidate alternatives were subsequently determined. It is concluded that tyrosols and caffeoylquinic acids were unique categories making great antioxidant contributions in S. cuneata and thus were considered as effective biomarkers in distinguishing its potential candidate alternatives.
Awareness on Breast Self Examination among Reproductive Age Women

Background & Objectives: Breast self-examination (BSE) is an inspection by a woman of her breasts to detect breast problem and cancer. The objective of the study was to identify awareness on breast self-examination among the reproductive age women. Materials & Methods: A descriptive study was carried out to find out the awareness on Breast Self-Examination among Reproductive Age Group Women in Kusunti, Lalitpur. 50 women (20 to 45 years) were selected by using purposive sampling technique. Semi structured interview questionnaire was used for data collection. Results: This study showed that more than three fourth respondents (78%) said breast cancer is growth of extra lump in breast. More than three fourth respondents (82%) said diagnosis of breast cancer in early stage by BSE and only 10% of respondents had knowledge about diagnosing by mammogram. Nearly three fourth (72%) of the respondents had knowledge about meaning of BSE. More than half of the respondents (60%) got the information from health workers. One fourth of the respondents (32%) said that they don’t know about palpation in circular motion. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is concluded women have awareness on BSE but least only know how to perform it in step wise and majority of women neglects in practicing in period basis. It is recommended that further awareness program should be conducted to fulfill the gap on BSE.