LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Green synthesis of copper oxide nanoparticles using gum karaya as a biotemplate and their antibacterial application

BACKGROUND
Copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles have attracted huge attention due to catalytic, electric, optical, photonic, textile, nanofluid, and antibacterial activity depending on the size, shape, and neighboring medium. In the present paper, we synthesized CuO nanoparticles using gum karaya, a natural nontoxic hydrocolloid, by green technology and explored its potential antibacterial application.


METHODS
The CuO nanoparticles were synthesized by a colloid-thermal synthesis process. The mixture contained various concentrations of CuCl2 • 2H2O (1 mM, 2 mM, and 3 mM) and gum karaya (10 mg/mL) and was kept at 75°C at 250 rpm for 1 hour in an orbital shaker. The synthesized CuO was purified and dried to obtain different sizes of the CuO nanoparticles. The well diffusion method was used to study the antibacterial activity of the synthesized CuO nanoparticles. The zone of inhibition, minimum inhibitory concentration, and minimum bactericidal concentration were determined by the broth microdilution method recommended by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute.


RESULTS
Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed CuO nanoparticles evenly distributed on the surface of the gum matrix. X-ray diffraction of the synthesized nanoparticles indicates the formation of single-phase CuO with a monoclinic structure. The Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy peak at 525 cm(-1) should be a stretching of CuO, which matches up to the B2u mode. The peaks at 525 cm(-1) and 580 cm(-1) indicated the formation of CuO nanostructure. Transmission electron microscope analyses revealed CuO nanoparticles of 4.8 ± 1.6 nm, 5.5 ± 2.5 nm, and 7.8 ± 2.3 nm sizes were synthesized with various concentrations of CuCl2 • 2H2O (1 mM, 2 mM, and 3 mM). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy profiles indicated that the O 1s and Cu 2p peak corresponding to the CuO nanoparticles were observed. The antibacterial activity of the synthesized nanoparticles was tested against Gram-negative and positive cultures.


CONCLUSION
The formed CuO nanoparticles are small in size (4.8 ± 1.6 nm), highly stable, and have significant antibacterial action on both the Gram classes of bacteria compared to larger sizes of synthesized CuO (7.8 ± 2.3 nm) nanoparticles. The smaller size of the CuO nanoparticles (4.8 ± 1.6 nm) was found to be yielding a maximum zone of inhibition compared to the larger size of synthesized CuO nanoparticles (7.8 ± 2.3 nm). The results also indicate that increase in precursor concentration enhances an increase in particle size, as well as the morphology of synthesized CuO nanoparticles.
Cancellation of elective operations on the day of intended surgery in a Hong Kong hospital: point prevalence and reasons.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the point prevalence of elective surgical case cancellations and the reasons.


DESIGN
Cross-sectional study.


SETTING
Teaching hospital, Hong Kong. PATIENTS; Operating theatre records of elective surgery cancellations from 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2009 were retrospectively reviewed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES. Cancellation of scheduled elective surgery on the day of surgery and the corresponding reasons.


RESULTS
Of 6234 cases scheduled, 476 were cancelled, which yielded a point prevalence of 7.6%, with a 95% confidence interval of 7.0-8.3%. The highest number of cancellations occurred in patients scheduled for major general surgical procedures (n=94, 20%), major urological procedures (n=64, 13%), major orthopaedic surgery (n=38, 8%), and ultra-major cardiothoracic surgery (n=29, 6%). The most common category for cancellation was facility (73%), followed by work-up (17%), patient (10%), and surgeon (1%). No available operating room time due to overrun of the previous surgery was the most common reason for case cancellation (n=310). Compared to general surgery, the odds of no available operating time was significantly less in orthopaedics (odds ratio=0.26; 95% confidence interval, 0.17-0.39), otolaryngology (0.25; 0.13-0.46), neurosurgery (0.36; 0.16-0.70), paediatrics (0.53; 0.31-0.87), gynaecology (0.18; 0.11-0.29), ophthalmology (0.19; 0.07-0.41), and dentistry (0.10; 0.00-0.60). CONCLUSIONS. Case cancellations were mainly due to facility factors, such as no operating room time being available. The odds of having no operating room time available varied between surgical specialties.
Parental stress in mothers of children and adolescents with cerebral
palsy

OBJECTIVES
to evaluate parental stress of mothers of children and adolescents with cerebral palsy; to verify whether parental stress undergoes variations according to the level of motor compromise, the child's phase of life, and sociodemographic variables.


METHOD
a cross-sectional, descriptive study, with 223 mothers of children and adolescents with cerebral palsy.


RESULTS
45.3% of the mothers presented high levels of stress; there were differences in stress between mothers of children with mild and severe motor impairment; mothers of older children were more stressed than mothers of younger children and of adolescents; paid work and leisure activities reduced the stress.


CONCLUSION
mothers of children and adolescents with cerebral palsy, whose children present mild to severe motor impairment are vulnerable to parental stress. Paid work and leisure activities were the factors that contributed most to reducing the stress.
Confronting depression and suicide in physicians: a consensus statement.

OBJECTIVE
To encourage treatment of depression and prevention of suicide in physicians by calling for a shift in professional attitudes and institutional policies to support physicians seeking help.


PARTICIPANTS
An American Foundation for Suicide Prevention planning group invited 15 experts on the subject to evaluate the state of knowledge about physician depression and suicide and barriers to treatment. The group assembled for a workshop held October 6-7, 2002, in Philadelphia, Pa.


EVIDENCE
The planning group worked with each participant on a preworkshop literature review in an assigned area. Abstracts of presentations and key publications were distributed to participants before the workshop. After workshop presentations, participants were assigned to 1 of 2 breakout groups: (1) physicians in their role as patients and (2) medical institutions and professional organizations. The groups identified areas that required further research, barriers to treatment, and recommendations for reform.


CONSENSUS PROCESS
This consensus statement emerged from a plenary session during which each work group presented its recommendations. The consensus statement was circulated to and approved by all participants.


CONCLUSIONS
The culture of medicine accords low priority to physician mental health despite evidence of untreated mood disorders and an increased burden of suicide. Barriers to physicians' seeking help are often punitive, including discrimination in medical licensing, hospital privileges, and professional advancement. This consensus statement recommends transforming professional attitudes and changing institutional policies to encourage physicians to seek help. As barriers are removed and physicians confront depression and suicidality in their peers, they are more likely to recognize and treat these conditions in patients, including colleagues and medical students.
Connection between ordinary multinomials, Fibonacci numbers, Bell polynomials and discrete uniform distribution.

Using an explicit computable expression of ordinary multinomials, we establish three remarkable connections, with the q-generalized Fibonacci sequence, the exponential partial Bell partition polynomials and the density of convolution powers of the discrete uniform distribution. Identities and various combinatorial relations are derived.
DANN: a deep learning approach for annotating the pathogenicity of genetic variants

UNLABELLED
Annotating genetic variants, especially non-coding variants, for the purpose of identifying pathogenic variants remains a challenge. Combined annotation-dependent depletion (CADD) is an algorithm designed to annotate both coding and non-coding variants, and has been shown to outperform other annotation algorithms. CADD trains a linear kernel support vector machine (SVM) to differentiate evolutionarily derived, likely benign, alleles from simulated, likely deleterious, variants. However, SVMs cannot capture non-linear relationships among the features, which can limit performance. To address this issue, we have developed DANN. DANN uses the same feature set and training data as CADD to train a deep neural network (DNN). DNNs can capture non-linear relationships among features and are better suited than SVMs for problems with a large number of samples and features. We exploit Compute Unified Device Architecture-compatible graphics processing units and deep learning techniques such as dropout and momentum training to accelerate the DNN training. DANN achieves about a 19% relative reduction in the error rate and about a 14% relative increase in the area under the curve (AUC) metric over CADD's SVM methodology.


AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION
All data and source code are available at https://cbcl.ics.uci.edu/public_data/DANN/.
Real time trajectory prediction for collision risk estimation between vehicles

In this paper, we present our approach for collision risk estimation between vehicles. The vehicles are equipped with GPS receivers and communication devices. Our approach consists on using the knowledge given trough communication tool to predict the trajectories of the surrounding vehicles. Based on these trajectories, we identify the configurations of the collisions between vehicles. The risk is calculated using several indicators that are reflecting not only the possible collisions but also the dangerousness of these collisions. Our algorithm is tested on crossroads using scenarios involving real prototypes producing realistic scenarios.
Impact of pulmonary vein anatomy assessed by cardiac magnetic resonance imaging on endoscopic pulmonary vein isolation in consecutive patients.

AIMS
Recently, the novel endoscopic ablation system (EAS) was introduced and proved its potential for successful pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) in patients suffering from paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). The current study will investigate the impact of pulmonary vein (PV) anatomy assessed by pre-interventional cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI) on endoscopic PVI.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Fifty-one patients (23 females, age 57 ± 9 years) with a long history (5 ± 5 years) of drug-refractory PAF were included into our analysis. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging was performed in all patients before ablation. Each CMRI was evaluated for the number of PVs, for separate or common insertion of ipsilateral PVs, for the PV diameter and PV shape (round vs. oval), for the level of first PV branching, and for the level of insertion of the right inferior PV (RIPV) into the left atrium (LA), respectively. Pulmonary vein isolation was performed using exclusively the novel EAS. The CMRI findings were correlated with the ablation results. A total of 195 PVs were identified and targeted. In 192 of 195 (98%) PVs successful isolation was achieved using the novel EAS irrespective of the PV diameter, the PV shape, the level of PV branching, or the type of insertion of the PV into the LA. There was no statistical significance when correlating the CMRI findings with acute isolation success of the respective PVs or the number of laser applications needed until PVI (P> 0.05). A low level of insertion of the RIPV into the LA was not associated with PVI failure or a higher number of laser applications (P> 0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
The majority of PVs could have been targeted and successfully isolated using exclusively the novel EAS irrespective of their anatomy assessed by pre-interventional CMRI. Considering the economical impact of CMRI and its minor influence on ablation strategy, success, and safety it is not an essential pre-requisite for subsequent successful EAS-based PVI.
Multi-Armed Bandits for Intelligent Tutoring Systems

We present an approach to Intelligent Tutoring Systems which adaptively personalizes sequences of learning activities to maximize skills acquired by students, taking into account the limited time and motivational resources. At a given point in time, the system proposes to the students the activity which makes them progress faster. We introduce two algorithms that rely on the empirical estimation of the learning progress, RiARiT that uses information about the difficulty of each exercise and ZPDES that uses much less knowledge about the problem. The system is based on the combination of three approaches. First, it leverages recent models of intrinsically motivated learning by transposing them to active teaching, relying on empirical estimation of learning progress provided by specific activities to particular students. Second, it uses state-of-the-art Multi-Arm Bandit (MAB) techniques to efficiently manage the exploration/exploitation challenge of this optimization process. Third, it leverages expert knowledge to constrain and bootstrap initial exploration of the MAB, while requiring only coarse guidance information of the expert and allowing the system to deal with didactic gaps in its knowledge. The system is evaluated in a scenario where 7-8 year old schoolchildren learn how to decompose numbers while manipulating money. Systematic experiments are presented with simulated students, followed by results of a user study across a population of 400 school children.
Soundings in Tibetan civilization

This is a collection of papers that are relatively new in Tibetan studies. It represent the dialogue going on today among a diverse selection of scholars who have much to offer one another as well as experts in their respective areas.
Subsymptomatic Aerobic Exercise for Patients With Postconcussion Syndrome: A Critically Appraised Topic.

Clinical Scenario: Patients who experience prolonged concussion symptoms can be diagnosed with postconcussion syndrome (PCS) when those symptoms persist longer than 4 weeks. Aerobic exercise protocols have been shown to be effective in improving physical and mental aspects of health. Emerging research suggests that aerobic exercise may be useful as a treatment for PCS, where exercise allows patients to feel less isolated and more active during the recovery process.


CLINICAL QUESTION
Is aerobic exercise more beneficial in reducing symptoms than current standard care in patients with prolonged symptoms or PCS lasting longer than 4 weeks? Summary of Key Findings: After a thorough literature search, 4 studies relevant to the clinical question were selected. Of the 4 studies, 1 study was a randomized control trial and 3 studies were case series. All 4 studies investigated aerobic exercise protocol as treatment for PCS. Three studies demonstrated a greater rate of symptom improvement from baseline assessment to follow-up after a controlled subsymptomatic aerobic exercise program. One study showed a decrease in symptoms in the aerobic exercise group compared with the full-body stretching group. Clinical Bottom Line: There is moderate evidence to support subsymptomatic aerobic exercise as a treatment of PCS; therefore, it should be considered as a clinical option for reducing PCS and prolonged concussion symptoms. A previously validated protocol, such as the Buffalo Concussion Treadmill test, Balke protocol, or rating of perceived exertion, as mentioned in this critically appraised topic, should be used to measure baseline values and treatment progression. Strength of Recommendation: Level C evidence exists that the aerobic exercise protocol is more effective than the current standard of care in treating PCS.
An adaptive hysteresis current control for a multilevel inverter used in an active power filter

In most high-performance application of voltage source pulse-width modulation inverters, current control is an essential part of the overall control system. In this paper a novel adaptive hysteresis current control technique based on time and magnitude error for a single phase five-level inverter with flying-capacitor topology used in an active power filter (APF) is proposed.
mlstdbNet – distributed multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) databases

Multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) is a method of typing that facilitates the discrimination of microbial isolates by comparing the sequences of housekeeping gene fragments. The mlstdbNet software enables the implementation of distributed web-accessible MLST databases that can be linked widely over the Internet. The software enables multiple isolate databases to query a single profiles database that contains allelic profile and sequence definitions. This separation enables isolate databases to be established by individual laboratories, each customised to the needs of the particular project and with appropriate access restrictions, while maintaining the benefits of a single definitive source of profile and sequence information. Databases are described by an XML file that is parsed by a Perl CGI script. The software offers a large number of ways to query the databases and to further break down and export the results generated. Additional features can be enabled by installing third-party (freely available) tools. Development of a distributed structure for MLST databases offers scalability and flexibility, allowing participating centres to maintain ownership of their own data, without introducing duplication and data integrity issues.
State Ranking in International Society and the Spread of Norms: Women’s Suffrage, National Women’s Bureaus, and Legislature Sex Quotas

Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society. By Ann E. Towns. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. 249 pp., $32.99 paperback (ISBN: 978-0-521-74591-8).

How can we account for the emergence and spread of women's suffrage, national women's bureaus, and legislature sex quotas? How do these three areas relate to states' rankings and status in the international system? How can we understand the process of stratification and differentiation among states in the international system through the lens of women's rights? Ann E. Towns's book, Women and States: Norms and Hierarchies in International Society , provides the answers to these questions and others, offering an important contribution to the literature in international relations (IR) through the application of a constructivist approach and the use of a gender analysis.

As Towns asserts, in seeking “to understand and explain the spread of certain state practices towards women, this book points to the importance of the status of women as a standard of rank in international society” (p. 1). Its contribution to the field of IR, therefore, is through an examination of state behavior, particularly state behavior toward women within the state. Challenging the conventional wisdom “that the political empowerment of women is a practice stemming from Europe or North America,” her evidence shows that these practices have sometimes originated from countries in other regions (p. 9).

Towns explores the connection between a state's rank in the international hierarchy of states and the state's treatment of women, issues not well addressed by IR scholars (p. 4). She examines the changes and transformations in three areas that deal with states' treatment of women: women's suffrage, establishment of national women's bureaus (or NWM, national women's machinery), and legislature sex quotas. In looking at the development and evolution of the treatment of women within states, Towns argues that we can discern how states rank in the international hierarchy of states. She also …
Dynamic- and Static-priority Scheduling of Recurring Real-time Tasks

The recurring real-time task model for hard-real-time task is studied from a feasibility-analysis perspective. This model generalizes earlier models such as the sporadic task model and the generalized multiframe task model. Algorithms are presented for the static-priority and dynamic-priority feasibility-analysis of systems of independent recurring real-time tasks in a preemptive uniprocessor environment.
The intracerebral hemorrhage acutely decreasing arterial pressure trial II (ICH ADAPT II) protocol

BACKGROUND
Aggressively lowering blood pressure (BP) in acute intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) may improve outcome. Although there is no evidence that BP reduction changes cerebral blood flow, retrospective magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have demonstrated sub-acute ischemic lesions in ICH patients. The primary aim of this study is to assess ischemic lesion development in patients randomized to two different BP treatment strategies. We hypothesize aggressive BP reduction is not associated with ischemic injury after ICH.


METHODS
The Intracerebral Hemorrhage Acutely Decreasing Blood Pressure Trial II (ICH ADAPT II) is a phase II multi-centre randomized open-label, blinded-endpoint trial. Acute ICH patients (N = 270) are randomized to a systolic blood pressure (SBP) target of <140 or <180 mmHg. Acute ICH patients within 6 h of onset and two SBP measurements ≥140 mmHg recorded >2 mins apart qualify. SBP is managed with a pre-defined treatment protocol. Patients undergo MRI at 48 h, Days 7 and 30, with clinical assessment at Day 30 and 90. The primary outcome is diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) lesion frequency at 48 h. Secondary outcomes include cumulative DWI lesion rate frequency within 30 days, absolute hematoma growth, prediction of DWI lesion incidence, 30-day mortality rates, day 90 functional outcome, and cognitive status.


DISCUSSION
This trial will assess the impact of hypertensive therapies on physiological markers of ischemic injury. The findings of this study will provide evidence for the link, or lack thereof, between BP reduction and ischemic injury in ICH patients.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
This study is registered with clinicaltrials.gov  ( NCT02281838 , first received October 29, 2014).
HA/nylon 6,6 porous scaffolds fabricated by salt-leaching/solvent casting technique: effect of nano-sized filler content on scaffold properties

Nanohydroxyapatite (n-HA)/nylon 6,6 composite scaffolds were produced by means of the salt-leaching/solvent casting technique. NaCl with a distinct range size was used with the aim of optimizing the pore network. Composite powders with different n-HA contents (40%, 60%) for scaffold fabrication were synthesized and tested. The composite scaffolds thus obtained were characterized for their microstructure, mechanical stability and strength, and bioactivity. The microstructure of the composite scaffolds possessed a well-developed interconnected porosity with approximate optimal pore size ranging from 200 to 500 μm, ideal for bone regeneration and vascularization. The mechanical properties of the composite scaffolds were evaluated by compressive strength and modulus tests, and the results confirmed their similarity to cortical bone. To characterize bioactivity, the composite scaffolds were immersed in simulated body fluid for different lengths of time and results monitored by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis to determine formation of an apatite layer on the scaffold surface.