Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
MORBIDITY AND MORTALITY

Results: The majority (89.1%) but not all of participants were aware of their diagnosis of CKD. Almost a third (31.5%) of patients that were aware of a diagnosis of CKD did not know their serum creatinine level compared to only 15.4% of participants with diabetes who did not know their last serum glucose level. Most participants identified hypertension (92.1%) and diabetes (86%) as risk factors for CKD, but male sex (59%) and African American race (71.6%) were selected less frequently. While glucose, proteinuria and blood pressure control were commonly associated by participants as known methods to slow progression of CKD, smoking control (79.5%) and use of reninangiotensin system inhibitors (63.8%) were less known. After adjustment for sociodemographic factors, younger age and presence of a college degree were the only independent predictors of knowledge of CKD risk factors. Conclusions: Access to CKD education needs to be tailored to the health literacy status of each patient. Educational interventional research studies are needed in early-stage CKD to determine impact on clinical outcomes. (Ethn Dis. 2010;20:106–110)
Using poultry litter biochars as soil amendments

Despite the recent interest in biochars as soil amendments for improving soil quality and increasing soil carbon sequestration, there is inadequate knowledge on the soil amendment properties of these materials produced from different feed stocks and under different pyrolysis conditions. This is particularly true for biochars produced from animal origins. Two biochars produced from poultry litter under different conditions were tested in a pot trial by assessing the yield of radish (Raphanus sativus var. Long Scarlet) as well as the soil quality of a hardsetting Chromosol (Alfisol). Four rates of biochar (0, 10, 25, and 50 t/ha), with and without nitrogen application (100 kg N/ha) were investigated. Both biochars, without N fertiliser, produced similar increases in dry matter yield of radish, which were detectable at the lowest application rate, 10 t/ha. The yield increase (%), compared with the unamended control rose from 42% at 10 t/ha to 96% at 50 t/ha of biochar application. The yield increases can be attributed largely to the ability of these biochars to increase N availability. Significant additional yield increases, in excess of that due to N fertiliser alone, were observed when N fertiliser was applied together with the biochars, highlighting the other beneficial effects of these biochars. In this regard, the non activated poultry litter biochar produced at lower temperature (450°C) was more effective than the activated biochar produced at higher temperature (550°C), probably due to higher available P content. Biochar addition to the hardsetting soil resulted in significant but different changes in soil chemical and physical properties, including increases in C, N, pH, and available P, but reduction in soil strength. These different effects of the 2 different biochars can be related to their different characteristics. Significantly different changes in soil biology in terms of microbial biomass and earthworm preference properties were also observed between the 2 biochars, but the underlying mechanisms require further research. Our research highlights the importance of feedstock and process conditions during pyrolysis on the properties and, hence, soil amendment values of biochars.
Issues in Child and Adolescent Inpatient Assessment and Evaluation After Discharge: Protocol for App Development and a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background New methods are needed for collecting data of in- and outpatients and for improving outpatient compliance after discharge. Mobile technologies, such as smartphone apps, have shown promising results, (eg, helping unwell people by offering support and resources). Screening for the condition, including comorbidities, is a vital part of psychiatric care. Comorbid conditions, especially in emergency evaluation, are often missed, leading to inaccurate diagnosis and treatment. One way of improving diagnostic accuracy is to use a structured diagnostic process. Digitalized screening and follow-up have the advantage of making administration and scoring easier and less time consuming, thereby increasing response rate. To address these problems, we decided to create a smartphone app called The Blue App. The Blue App was developed through 6 steps, described in the manuscript. Objective The aim of this paper is to describe (1) the development of The Blue App and (2) 2 planned research studies to evaluate the app. Methods Two studies will be performed. Study 1 has a descriptive design, mapping comorbidities before and after the introduction of The Blue App. Study 2 has a randomized controlled design, measuring compliance with outpatient treatments as well as depressive symptoms, rated as changes in Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Scale scores during a 1-year follow-up. Results We have described app development. Data collection for Study 1 started in autumn 2017. Study 2 will start in autumn 2018. We expect to have enrolled the 150 patients in Study 2 by December 2019. Final results will be published in a scientific journal. Conclusions A technically advanced and easy-to-use Web-based mobile phone app corresponding to the unit’s needs was developed, and 2 studies are planned to evaluate its usefulness. International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) RR1-10.2196/10121
Dosaging Patterns in Schizophrenia with Depot, Oral and Combined Neuroleptic Therapy

A group of patients with chronic schizophrenia were evaluated according to the form of neuroleptic treatment they were receiving: depot, oral or combined (depot/oral or oral/oral). The patients treated with the combined therapy received significantly higher dosages of neuroleptic than those treated with either depot or oral therapy, which did not differ from each other. Daily maintenance dosages were generally well above recent guidelines.
HIV in the United States: At A Glance

CDC estimates that 1,144,500 persons aged 13 years and older are living with HIV infection, including 180,900 (15.8%) who are unaware of their infection [1]. Over the past decade, the number of people living with HIV has increased, while the annual number of new HIV infections has remained relatively stable. Still, the pace of new infections continues at far too high a level— particularly among certain groups.
Real-time observations of the atmospheric boundary layer using a continuously operated portable automated lidar (PAL)

The main objective of this study is to describe the dynamic and optical characteristics of aerosols. In order to achieve this, a compact and continuously operated lidar system used for environmental monitoring is introduced. The effectiveness of the portable automated lidar (PAL) to gather data is added on a new procedure: the implementation of automatic lidar alignment every 15 minutes. On the basis of the data taken during December 2002 to December 2003, the oscillatory behavior of the aerosol layer height, the updraft and downdraft movement of the aerosol layer, and a new method of estimating the relation between size and speed of raindrops are discussed. It was found out that the amplitude of the atmospheric backscatter within the boundary layer and the amount of suspended particulate matter on the ground exhibit a good correlation when measured simultaneously. These simultaneous measurements lead to a novel approach in calculating for the mass extinction efficiency (MEE) of the aerosols in the boundary layer. It is found that within the ground layer, the daytime and nighttime MEE mean values are 3.3 and 11.1 m/g, respectively. The small MEE values can be attributed to the existence of coarse particles. On the other hand, the high MEE values may be ascribed to the following: (1) the presence of fine aerosols, (2) the increased aerosol absorption when the aerosols are internally mixed, and (3) the growth of fine particles in an increasing relative humidity environment.
MALAYSIAN ONLINE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT (MOJEM)

This research aimed at exploring and identifying the strategic trends and challenges that have emerged in higher education in Malaysia. A qualitative research approach was used to identify these trends and challenges using documentation and semi-structured interviews as the main data collection methods. The documents were books, newspaper articles, journals, and education blueprints. The interview samples were four education scholars who are leading figures from the Ministry of Education and public universities. To analyse the data, document examination and content analysis were carried out to identify emerging trends which involved several cycles of coding. These trends were found to be parallel to the changes in the Malaysian higher education system in an attempt to upgrade its quality and sustainability, and to keep abreast with the current waves of globalisation, internationalisation and societal change. They are part of processes adopted by the Malaysian Education Ministry in ensuring that the country is not left behind in providing quality tertiary education for the nation. The ramifications of these trends and their associated challenges were discussed within the Malaysia Higher Education Blueprint framework. The implications for improving the quality of higher education are also included.
Biology Direct

Biology Direct serves the life science research community as an open access and author driven open peer-review journal, providing authors and readers with an alternative to the traditional model of peer review. Biology Direct publishes in the following sections: • Bioinformatics • Evolutionary Biology • Genomics • Mathematical Biology • Non-coding DNA & RNA • Structural & Molecular biology • Systems Biology
Numerical Simulation of Two-phase Laminar Flow for CO 2 and Microalgae Suspension in the HLTP

This paper proposes a mathematical model of two-phase flow for carbon-dioxide and microalgae suspension in an Horizontal Loop Tubular Photo-bioreactor (HLTP) taking into account the light irradiance. The model with no-slip condition on the wall and zero outward normal stress at the outlet of the HLTP is used to simulate the fluid phenomena inside the HLTP. The viscosity of the algal suspension is considered as a function of relative viscosity related to concentration and growth rate of the microalgae. The simulation is carried out on the seventh day of the culture. The effect of average irradiance in a day on the viscosity is investigated. The results show that the two-phase flow model can capture the real behavior of the microalgae culture in the HLTP. Key–Words: Microalgae, HLTP, Growth rate, Light irradiance, Simulation, Scale up.
Fire as an important factor for the genesis of boreal Picea abies swamp forests in Fennoscandia

The initial establishment of Picea abies in Sweden and Norway on a landscape level, between 3000 and 1000 years ago, was often preceded by recurrent fire and thereafter the influence of fire decreased. However, in some swamp forests, the absence of fire over the last 3500 years has promoted the continuous presence of deciduous trees, i.e. Picea has not established although it has been present regionally for over 3000 years. Our objective was to study long-term vegetation development and fire history in a Picea swamp forest located close (c. 600 m) to a deciduous swamp forest with a documented fire-free history in northernmost Sweden. The study included analyses of charred particles, pollen and ignition residues. Principal component analysis was applied to identify major changes in the pollen spectra. Our results showed that the current Picea swamp forest has developed from a deciduous fen and that fires affected the fen between 6700 and 2300 cal. yr BP. Picea abies established on the fen around 2200 cal. yr BP, following the last local on-site fire. The main factors responsible for the local vegetation development have been: fire (6700 to 2300 cal. yr BP); autogenous processes and climate (2300 to 1000 cal. yr BP); autogenous processes or anthropogenic impact (1000 to 300 cal. yr BP); anthropogenic impact through selective cutting and grazing (300 to 100 cal. yr BP); and autogenous processes and grazing (100 cal. yr BP to present). We conclude that fire facilitated the initial Picea abies establishment. Once established, Picea abies created local conditions that in combination with a colder and wetter climate prevented fire and the establishment of other tree species.
Knowledge Representation : How far we have come ?

The theory of Knowledge Representation has been one of the central focuses in Artificial Intelligence research over the past 60 years which has seen numerous proposals and debates ranging from very philosophical and theoretical level to practical issues. Although a lot of work has been done in this area, we believe currently, it does not receive enough attention from the research community, except in very limited perspectives. The goal of this work is to give a unified overview of a set of select works on the foundations of knowledge representation and exemplar practical advancements.
Brave Spirits on New Paths: Toward a Globally Relevant Paradigm of Indigenous Entrepreneurship Research

Abstract This is the first study in a series aimed at strengthening research in the emerging field of Indigenous entrepreneurship. A literature survey revealed two dominant themes: the need to reconcile tradition with innovation and the need to understand how Indigenous world-views and values impact upon enterprise. Four relevant theoretical contexts guided an empirical investigation employing depth interviews with 40 selected opinion leaders representing two cultures: Indigenous Australian and American Indian. Data evaluation culminated in the formal articulation of a paradigm for Indigenous entrepreneurship research. Discussion focused on utility of the paradigm and future research directions.
Applying Uses and Gratifications Theory to Acceptance of ERP Systems

--This study draws on uses and gratification theory (UGT) to develop and empirically test a model for explaining enterprise resource planning (ERP) system acceptance and use. Accordingly, gratifications from the UGT such as enjoyment and informativeness are purported to have direct effects on attitudes toward using ERP and satisfaction with ERP. In turn, ERP attitude and satisfaction hypothesized to be direct determinants of ERP acceptance and use. The experimental results are expected to show that the UGT provides a sound theoretical basis for explaining users’ gratifications, attitudes, and behavioral intentions toward adopting and using an ERP. Based on its theoretical and empirical foundations, the proposed model offers greater capability to explain users’ intentions to use an ERP. Keywords---Enterprise Resource System (ERP), Uses & Gratification, Informativeness, Enjoyment, Attitude, Satisfaction.
GRADUATE SCHOOL QUERY REFORMULATION IN TREC A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY YUNJIANG LUO IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE

This is to certify that I have examined this copy of a master's thesis by YUNJIANG LUO and have found that it is completed and satisfactory in all respects, and that any and all revisions required by the final examining committee have been made. ABSTRACT An information retrieval system based on the vector space model selects documents from a database in response to a user's query and ranks these documents according to their correlation with the query. Query formulation is a significant factor in the successful search of a document collection. Relevance feedback, which is based on the automatic reformulation of the query after the user has evaluated a small subset of the returned documents for relevance, is a method known to provide significant improvement in terms of retrieval effectiveness. The purpose of this research is to study the effectiveness of query reformulation using different feedback methods on the TREC (Text Retrieval Conference) collection of some 1,000,000+ documents. All of this work is an attempt to verify the results produced by Singhal [9]. Singhal used the small, standard Smart collection for his experiments. This work uses the TREC collection and attempts to verify that the conclusions reached by Singhal are valid in this very large database environment.
What is the mechanism for persistent coexistence of drug-susceptible and drug-resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae?

The rise of antimicrobial resistance in many pathogens presents a major challenge to the treatment and control of infectious diseases. Furthermore, the observation that drug-resistant strains have risen to substantial prevalence but have not replaced drug-susceptible strains despite continuing (and even growing) selective pressure by antimicrobial use presents an important problem for those who study the dynamics of infectious diseases. While simple competition models predict the exclusion of one strain in favour of whichever is ‘fitter’, or has a higher reproduction number, we argue that in the case of Streptococcus pneumoniae there has been persistent coexistence of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant strains, with neither approaching 100 per cent prevalence. We have previously proposed that models seeking to understand the origins of coexistence should not incorporate implicit mechanisms that build in stable coexistence ‘for free’. Here, we construct a series of such ‘structurally neutral’ models that incorporate various features of bacterial spread and host heterogeneity that have been proposed as mechanisms that may promote coexistence. We ask to what extent coexistence is a typical outcome in each. We find that while coexistence is possible in each of the models we consider, it is relatively rare, with two exceptions: (i) allowing simultaneous dual transmission of sensitive and resistant strains lets coexistence become a typical outcome, as does (ii) modelling each strain as competing more strongly with itself than with the other strain, i.e. self-immunity greater than cross-immunity. We conclude that while treatment and contact heterogeneity can promote coexistence to some extent, the in-host interactions between strains, particularly the interplay between coinfection, multiple infection and immunity, play a crucial role in the long-term population dynamics of pathogens with drug resistance.
The Origin and Microevolution of Ainu as Viewed from Dentition: The Basic Populations in East Asia, VIII

Metric and non-metric dental variation among several Ainu samples was analyzed. Recent Ainu samples from Hokkaido and Sakhalin form a tight cluster. The sample from the people of the Okhotsk culture, or Omisaki sample, shows a quite dispersed arrangement. Extending the comparisons to include East and Southeast Asian and the Pacific samples validates the relatively homogeneous dental pattern of recent Ainu. The Omisaki sample has dental characteristics similar to those of sinodont populations. Discriminant function analyses based on metric and non-metric data indicate that some Omisaki individuals are classified as part of the members of sundadont populations, and others as those from sinodont populations. These findings suggest that the people of the Okhotsk culture were likely migrants from the north. However, they might have exerted little genetic influence on the formation of the physical characteristics of recent Ainu. The results obtained in the present study re-confirm that Ainu may be direct descendants of the Neolithic Jomon people. They share the ancestral ties with the generalized Asiatic populations, as represented by Negritos. It is quite likely that members of the late Pleistocene Sundaland populations could have colonized the continental shelf of East Asia, extending to Hokkaido and Sakhalin in the north and western Micronesia and Polynesia in the east.
Stratigraphic investigations at Los Buchillones, a coastal Taino site in north‐central Cuba

The authors present stratigraphic data from Los Buchillones, a now submerged Taino village on the north coast of central Cuba that was occupied from some time prior to A.D. 1220 until 1640 or later. Los Buchillones is one of the best‐preserved sites in the Caribbean, with material culture remains that include palm thatch and wooden structural elements from some of the more than 40 collapsed structures. The purpose of this study was to investigate the environment and site‐formation processes of the Taino settlement. Sediment cores were sampled from the site and its vicinity to permit integration of the geological and archaeological stratigraphies. The cores were analyzed for color, texture, mollusk content, elemental geochemistry, and mineralogy. The results of the stratigraphic work are consistent with regional sealevel data that shows relative sea level has risen gradually during the late Holocene, but has remained relatively stable since the time the Taino first occupied Los Buchillones. Of the two structures partially cleared, at least one appears to have been built over the water, supported on pilings. Site selection is likely to have resulted from a consideration of environmental factors, such as access to marine, terrestrial, and lagoonal resources, and proximity to freshwater springs. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Clustering around the Radio-galaxy Mrc0316-257 at Z=3.14

We report here the spectroscopic identification of galaxies in the neighborhood of the radio-galaxy MRC0316-257, at a redshift z ∼ 3.14. Candidate cluster galaxies were selected from deep V and I images combined with narrow band imaging at the wavelength of redshifted Lyα. Follow-up multi-slit spectroscopy has allowed confirmation of the redshift of the radio-galaxy, z = 3.1420 ± 0.0020, and identification of two associated galaxies at redshifts z = 3.
α-Hemoglobin Stabilizing Protein: A Modulating Factor in Thalassemias?

α-Hemoglobin stabilizing protein (AHSP) is a small protein of 102 residues induced by GATA-1, Oct-1- and EKLF. It is synthesized at a high level in the red blood cell precursors and acts as a chaperone protecting the α-hemoglobin (α-Hb) chains against precipitation. α-Hemoglobin stabilizing protein forms a heterodimer complex with α-Hb, then displaying modified oxygen binding kinetics. In the absence of AHSP, α-Hb oxidizes and precipitates within the erythrocyte precursors of bone marrow leading to apoptosis and defective erythropoiesis. Several α-Hb variants with a structural abnormality, frequently located in the contact area between α-Hb and AHSP, exhibit instability and a thalassemia-like syndrome when they are associated with another α-thalassemia (α-thal) determinant. We suggest that this disorder could result from a disturbed interaction between the abnormal α-Hb chains and AHSP. Hb Groene Hart (Pro119>Ser) was one of the first examples in which we observed this abnormality. We later verified this mechanism in a list of several variants, now considered as being nondeletional α-thalassemias. Conversely, it was hypothesized from studies on knock-out mice, that a defect affecting AHSP could cause a thalassemia-like syndrome. This was supported in man by studies showing that a decreased expression of AHSP linked to specific genetic clades could act as a modulating factor in some thalassemia phenotypes. It was also supported by our observation of a family from Southeast Asia, in which a child homozygous for an AHSP mutant (Val56>Gly) displayed, in his first year of life, a moderate thalassemia syndrome. This mutant AHSP was expressed in vitro and demonstrated by biochemical and biophysical studies to display a clear defective interaction with α-Hb, which could support the hypothesis that the reb blood cell (RBC) disorders of the child resulted from this abnormality. It therefore appears that AHSP is a factor with a key role in the formation of Hb tetramers and that structural abnormalities, either on the α-Hb or on the AHSP, may act as a thalassemia modulating factor.