LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Motor skill learning in groups: Some proposals for applying implicit learning and self-controlled feedback

Contrary to researchers’ current focus on individual motor skill learning, in institutional settings such as physical education and sports motor skill learning is often taught in groups. In these settings, there is not only the interaction between teacher and learner (analogous to research), but also the many interactions between the learners in the group. In this paper, we discuss the pitfalls of applying research findings without taking into account the different dynamics that the interactions between group members bring about. To this end, we especially discuss implicit motor learning and self-controlled feedback, as these have recently been hailed as being particularly effective for increasing motor skill and self-efficacy. Proposals are provided to adopt these methods for motor skill learning in groups. This is not only relevant for practitioners in physical education and sports, but also establishes an agenda for research.
Preventing acute decrease in renal function induced by coronary angiography (PRECORD): a prospective randomized trial.

BACKGROUND
Infusion of saline attenuates the decrease in renal function induced by radiographic contrast agents among patients with chronic renal insufficiency.


AIM
The Preventing Renal alteration in Coronary Disease (PRECORD) trial was a randomized trial to assess the effect on renal function of saline infusion during and after coronary angiography in 201 patients without severe chronic renal insufficiency (serum creatinine<140micromol/L).


METHODS
All patients received standard oral hydration: 2000mL of tap water within the 24 hours after coronary angiography. Patients were randomized before the procedure to intravenous hydration (1000mL of 0.9% saline infusion) or no additional hydration. The infusion was started in the catheterization laboratory and continued for 24 hours. The primary endpoint was the change in calculated creatinine clearance between baseline and 24 hours after coronary angiography. The same ionic low osmolar radiographic contrast agent (ioxaglate) was used in all patients.


RESULTS
Both groups had similar baseline characteristics, including age, serum creatinine, volume of contrast and proportion of patients undergoing ad hoc coronary angioplasty. The overall decrease in serum creatinine clearance 24 hours after the procedure was -3.44 (0.68)mL/min. The change in serum creatinine clearance 24 hours after the procedure was -2.81 (1.07)mL/min in the infusion group vs -4.09 (0.91)mL/min in the control group (p=0.38).


CONCLUSION
Renal function is altered only slightly 24 hours after coronary angiography with standard oral hydration alone and is not affected by saline infusion started at the beginning of coronary angiography, even in patients with mild-to-moderate renal dysfunction.
Insulin-like Growth Factor 1 and Pressure Load in I-Iypertensive Patients

0tihW%iti3ZL Upii@t standing was characterized in hypertensive patients are related tci pressure both in normals and in hypertensive6 Iry load. Am J Hypertens 19%;9:607-609 significant higher rate-pressure product CRPP = systolic blood pressure (mm Hgl x heart rate
An exploration of factors affecting Hong Kong ICU nurses in providing oral care.

AIM AND OBJECTIVES
This paper aims to explore the factors that affect Hong Kong intensive care unit nurses in providing oral care.


BACKGROUND
The literature shows that evidence-based oral care prevents ventilator-associated pneumonia. Nevertheless, not all intensive care unit nurses provide such care. Although several studies have been undertaken to identify factors that affecting the provision of oral care, none of these studies looked at the situation in Hong Kong.


DESIGN
An exploratory qualitative design was adopted, with audio-taped interviews.


METHODS
A convenience sample of 10 registered nurses with 3-14 years of intensive care unit working experience was recruited from the intensive care unit of one regional hospital in Hong Kong. Transcribed interviews were analysed by means of content analysis.


RESULTS
The participants' descriptions of their oral care practices covered oral health assessment, cleansing the oral cavity and care of the surrounding areas. Findings revealed the following significant factors that influenced intensive care unit nurses in providing oral care: their perceptions of the purpose of oral care; their fears about providing it; the priority of oral care; and inadequate support for oral care.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings indicate that nurses' oral care practices were not evidence based. Factors that affected the provision of oral care were consistent with those found in previous studies.


RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Study findings indicate that present oral care training should be revised. The findings also highlight the influence of ward culture on nurses' priorities in providing oral care. Appropriate materials, adequate staffing levels and the establishment of an evidence-based oral care protocol may facilitate the provision of oral care in the intensive care unit.
Comparison of Medial-to-lateral versus Traditional Lateral-to-medial Laparoscopic Dissection Sequences for Resection of Rectosigmoid Cancers: Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial

Abstract This study aimed to compare medial-to-lateral versus lateral-to-medial laparoscopic dissection sequences for resecting rectosigmoid cancers. We hypothesized that the medial-to-lateral approach was a more efficient procedure and with potentially better oncologic results. Between January 1997 and June 1999, a total of 67 patients of rectosigmoid cancer treated by one surgeon using the laparoscopic approach were recruited for this prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trial. Using the blocked randomization method, 36 patients were allocated to a medial-to-lateral (M) group and the other 31 to a lateral-to-medial (L) group; the groups were well matched in age, gender, symptoms, body mass index, American Society of Anesthesiology (ASA) class, tumor location, tumor distance above the anal verge, tumor gross morphology, TNM stage of the tumor, and accuracy of preoperative TNM staging (p > 0.05). All patients were followed up until June 2001. We found that the M group had a significantly shorter operating time and lower overall costs than the L group (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between these two groups in terms of intraoperative complications, conversion rate, postoperative ileus, hospitalization, postoperative pain, postoperative complications, wound length, or disability (p > 0.05). The postoperative proinflammatory response, evaluated by the C-reactive protein level and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, was significantly lower in the M group (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between these two groups regarding postoperative immunosuppression, as evaluated by the alterations of total lymphocyte counts and the CD4+/CD8+ ratio (p > 0.05). The extent of dissection of these two dissection approaches was similar, as the harvested lymph nodes were equivalent (p > 0.05). During the whole follow-up period (median 32 months, range 24–54 months), the tumor recurrence rate was similar for these two groups of patients (5.6% in the M group vs. 6.5% in the L group; p > 0.05). These findings indicated that the medial-to-lateral approach was quicker, less expensive and possibly less invasive; moreover, it gave oncologic results similar to those achieved with the traditional lateral-to-medial dissection sequence. We thus concluded that the medial-to-lateral dissection sequence may currently be the most appropriate procedure for laparoscopic resection of rectosigmoid cancers.
Psychometric assessment of the Chinese version of the brief illness perception questionnaire in breast cancer survivors

OBJECTIVE
The eight-item Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (B-IPQ) supposedly evaluates cognitive and emotional representations of illness. This study examined the validity and reliability of a traditional Chinese version of the B-IPQ in Hong Kong Chinese breast cancer survivors.


METHODS
358 Chinese breast cancer survivors who had recently ended their primary treatment completed this B-IPQ Chinese version. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested the factor structure. The internal consistency, construct, predictive and convergent validities of the scale were assessed.


RESULTS
CFA revealed that the original three-factor (cognitive-emotional representations and illness comprehensibility) structure of the B-IPQ poorly fitted our sample. After deleting one item measuring illness coherence, seven-item gave an optimal two-factor (cognitive-emotional representations) structure for the B-IPQ (B-IPQ-7). Cronbach's alpha for the two subscales were 0.653 and 0.821, and for the overall seven-item scale of B-IPQ was 0.783. Correlations of illness perception and physical symptom distress, anxiety, depression and known-group comparison between different treatment status suggested acceptable construct validity. The association between baseline illness perception and psychological distress at 3-month follow up supported predictive validity.


CONCLUSIONS
B-IPQ-7 appears to be a moderately valid measure of illness perception in cancer population, potentially useful for assessing illness representations in Chinese women with breast cancer.
Superinflation and Quintessence in the Presence of an Extra Field

We discuss the implication of the introduction of an extra field to the dynamics of a scalar field conformally coupled to gravitation in a homogeneous isotropic spatially flat universe. We show that for some reasonable parameter values the dynamical effects are similar to those of our previous model with a single scalar field. Nevertheless, for other parameter values new dynamical effects are obtained.
Stripes: Bit-serial deep neural network computing

Motivated by the variance in the numerical precision requirements of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) [1], [2], Stripes (STR), a hardware accelerator is presented whose execution time scales almost proportionally with the length of the numerical representation used. STR relies on bit-serial compute units and on the parallelism that is naturally present within DNNs to improve performance and energy with no accuracy loss. In addition, STR provides a new degree of adaptivity enabling on-the-fly trade-offs among accuracy, performance, and energy. Experimental measurements over a set of DNNs for image classification show that STR improves performance over a state-of-the-art accelerator [3] from 1.30x to 4.51x and by 1.92x on average with no accuracy loss. STR is 57% more energy efficient than the baseline at a cost of 32% additional area. Additionally, by enabling configurable, per-layer and per-bit precision control, STR allows the user to trade accuracy for further speedup and energy efficiency.
Effect of eight months of inhaled beclomethasone dipropionate and budesonide on carbohydrate metabolism in adults with asthma.

BACKGROUND
The safety of high dose inhaled steroids has been a subject of debate. The efficacy and safety of beclomethasone dipropionate and budesonide inhalations were evaluated by measuring their effects on pulmonary function, on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis, and on carbohydrate metabolism in adults with unstable asthma.


METHODS
Fifteen adults with unstable asthma and 15 healthy controls were studied. Eight patients were treated with beclomethasone dipropionate in initially high (2 mg/day for five months) and subsequently lower (1 mg/day for three months) doses. Seven patients were treated with budesonide at doses of 1.6 mg/day for five months followed by 0.8 mg/day for three months. Blood glucose and serum insulin were measured in an oral glucose tolerance test and plasma cortisol in an adrenocorticotrophic hormone test. The antiasthmatic effect of treatment was evaluated by measuring peak morning expiratory flow rates and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1).


RESULTS
The FEV1 increased significantly after one month of treatment (medians 88% v 96%, p < 0.01), and nocturnal symptoms disappeared within two weeks of treatment in both groups. At one month, the high dose significantly decreased serum insulin concentrations as calculated from the areas under the incremental two hours curves in the glucose tolerance test. The decrease was 59% for beclomethasone dipropionate (medians 76 v 31 mU/l/h, p < 0.005) and 42% for budesonide (medians 79 v 46 mU/l/h, p < 0.01). The median areas at five and eight months were intermediate for both drugs. No significant differences were found when the five and eight month values were compared either with the baseline or with one month values. The difference between the baseline values of both groups and the respective values in healthy controls was significant (medians 79 v 49 mU/l/h, p < 0.01). The one month values for the patients and control subjects were similar. Paralleling the changes for insulin, the area under the incremental two hour blood glucose curve decreased significantly (medians 1.4 v 0.4 mmol/l/h, p < 0.05) during the first month of treatment. The five and eight month values were intermediate (medians 0.8 and 0.7 mmol/l/h, respectively). These changes were not significant compared with the baseline or the one month areas. Similar changes were seen in both treatment groups. Neither treatment had any significant effect on plasma cortisol in the one hour adrenocorticotrophic hormone test.


CONCLUSIONS
In patients stressed by uncontrolled asthma, the antiasthmatic effect of high dose beclomethasone dipropionate and budesonide was accompanied by a significant initial decrease in insulin resistance with a parallel improvement in glucose tolerance. During prolonged treatment a small increase in insulin sensitivity was found. The overall effect of beclomethasone dipropionate and budesonide inhalations on carbohydrate metabolism may be beneficial in patients with uncontrolled asthma.
Ethical challenges in nursing homes--staff's opinions and experiences with systematic ethics meetings with participation of residents' relatives.

BACKGROUND
Many ethical problems exist in nursing homes. These include, for example, decision-making in end-of-life care, use of restraints and a lack of resources.


AIMS
The aim of the present study was to investigate nursing home staffs' opinions and experiences with ethical challenges and to find out which types of ethical challenges and dilemmas occur and are being discussed in nursing homes.


METHODS
The study used a two-tiered approach, using a questionnaire on ethical challenges and systematic ethics work, given to all employees of a Norwegian nursing home including nonmedical personnel, and a registration of systematic ethics discussions from an Austrian model of good clinical practice.


RESULTS
Ninety-one per cent of the nursing home staff described ethical problems as a burden. Ninety per cent experienced ethical problems in their daily work. The top three ethical challenges reported by the nursing home staff were as follows: lack of resources (79%), end-of-life issues (39%) and coercion (33%). To improve systematic ethics work, most employees suggested ethics education (86%) and time for ethics discussion (82%). Of 33 documented ethics meetings from Austria during a 1-year period, 29 were prospective resident ethics meetings where decisions for a resident had to be made. Agreement about a solution was reached in all 29 cases, and this consensus was put into practice in all cases. Residents did not participate in the meetings, while relatives participated in a majority of case discussions. In many cases, the main topic was end-of-life care and life-prolonging treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
Lack of resources, end-of-life issues and coercion were ethical challenges most often reported by nursing home staff. The staff would appreciate systematic ethics work to aid decision-making. Resident ethics meetings can help to reach consensus in decision-making for nursing home patients. In the future, residents' participation should be encouraged whenever possible.
Quality of life in swallowing of the elderly patients affected by stroke.

BACKGROUND
- The elderly population faces many difficulties as a result of the aging process. Conceptualize and evaluate their life quality is a challenge, being hard to characterize the impact on daily activities and on functional capacity. The stroke is one of the most disabling neurological diseases, becoming a public health problem. As an aggravating result, there is dysphagia, a disorder that compromises the progression of the food from the mouth to the stomach, causing clinical complications to the individual.


OBJECTIVE
- Characterize the life quality of the elderly swallowing affected by stroke.


METHODS
- Cross-sectional study conducted at the University Hospital, attended by 35 elderly with stroke, being 19 women and 16 men, with age between 60 and 90 years old, that self-reported satisfactory overall clinical picture. It was applied the Quality of Life Swallowing protocol. The data were statistically analyzed, by means of ANOVA tests, Spearman correlation, t test, with significance level of 5%.


RESULTS
- The mean age was 69.5 years; as for the scores obtained by the 35 participants in the 11 domains of the protocol, it was observed a change in score indicating severe to moderate impact in quality of life related to self-reported swallowing (31.8% to 59.5%); the domain that most interfered was the feeding time (31.8%).


CONCLUSION
- Elderly affected by stroke that present dysphagia has low scores in quality of life related to swallowing.
In vitro functional characterization of 37 CYP2C9 allelic isoforms found in Chinese Han population

Aim:Cytochrome P450 2C9 (CYP2C9) is a polymorphic enzyme that is responsible for the metabolism of approximately 15% of clinically important drugs. The aim of this study was to assess the catalytic characteristics of 37 CYP2C9 allelic isoforms found in Chinese Han population on the metabolism of tolbutamide in vitro.Methods:The wild-type and 36 CYP2C9 variants were expressed in sf21 insect cells using a baculovirus-mediated expression system. Then the insect microsomes were prepared for assessing the metabolic characteristics of each variant toward the CYP2C9-specific drug substrate tolbutamide.Results:Of 36 allelic variants tested, the intrinsic clearance values of 2 allelic isoforms (CYP2C9.36 and CYP2C9.51) were much higher than the wild-type CYP2C9.1 protein, 3 allelic isoforms (CYP2C9.11, CYP2C9.56 and N418T) exhibited similar intrinsic clearance values as the wild-type enzyme, whereas the other 31 variants showed significantly reduced intrinsic clearance values, ranging from 0.08% to 66.88%, for tolbutamide.Conclusion:Our study provides the most comprehensive data concerning the enzymatic activity of the CYP2C9 variants that are present in the Chinese Han population, and our data suggest that most of the carriers of these alleles might be paid more attention when using CYP2C9 mediated drugs clinically.
Minimal invasive management of scaphoid fractures: from fresh to nonunion.

The peculiar shape of scaphoid hinders a precise evaluation of its fracture configuration, displacement and accuracy of screw placement. Its tenuous vascular supply risks the complications of delayed union, nonunion and avascular necrosis. Scaphoid is the focus of ligamentous attachment governing carpal kinematics. Preservation of its anatomy and vascularity is critical for normal wrist function. A new fracture classification clearly denoting every fracture type and guiding the management is introduced. The minimal invasive management of different scaphoid fracture conditions, including acute non-displaced and displaced fracture, delayed presentation, and nonunion are discussed. Role of arthroscopy is emphasized. Detailed surgical techniques are shared here.
Excellence in leadership : demands on the professional school principal

A professional school principal is the educational leader and manager of a school, and is therefore responsible for the work performance of all the people in the school (i.e. both staff and learners). People are the human resources of schools. They use material resources (such as finances, information equipment, and facilities) to produce a "product", namely, the educated learner. One of the principal's jobs (the so-called principalship) is to help the school achieve a high level of performance through the utilisation of all its human and material resources. This is done through effective, and ultimately excellence in, leadership. More simply stated: a principal's job is to get things done by working with and through other people. Studies of effective and excellent principals reveal that the major reason for principals' failure is an inability to deal with people. If the people perform well, the school performs well; if the people do not perform well, the school does not. In this sense, the leadership task of school principals is of the utmost importance and is probably the most important element of the principal's role and/or task. School principals are essential to the success of schools of all types and sizes. This philosophical review of the literature, which draws its conclusions from recent "best practices" with regard to excellence in school leadership and the so-called "new" principalship, is an attempt to raise and answer some questions concerning new demands on the professional principalship in a changing South Africa where educational reform is the norm rather than the exception.
A Novel Dual-Band Printed Diversity Antenna for Mobile Terminals

A novel dual-band printed diversity antenna is proposed and studied. The antenna, which consists of two back-to- back monopoles with symmetric configuration, is printed on a printed circuit board. The effects of some important parameters of the proposed antenna are deeply studied and the design methodology is given. A prototype of the proposed antenna operating at UMTS (1920-2170 MHz) and 2.4-GHz WLAN (2400-2484 MHz) bands is provided to demonstrate the usability of the methodology in dual-band diversity antenna for mobile terminals. In the above two bands, the isolations of the prototype are larger than 13 dB and 16 dB, respectively. The measured radiation patterns of the two monopoles in general cover complementary space regions. The diversity performance is also evaluated by calculating the envelope correlation coefficient, the mean effective gains of the antenna elements and the diversity gain. It is proved that the proposed antenna can provide spatial and pattern diversity to combat multipath fading.