Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Coronary Artery Aneurysms in Kawasaki Disease: Risk Factors for Progressive Disease and Adverse Cardiac Events in the US Population

Background The natural history of coronary artery aneurysms (CAA) after intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment in the United States is not well described. We describe the natural history of CAA in US Kawasaki disease (KD) patients and identify factors associated with major adverse cardiac events (MACE) and CAA regression. Methods and Results We evaluated all KD patients with CAA at 2 centers from 1979 to 2014. Factors associated with CAA regression, maximum CA z‐score over time (zMax), and MACE were analyzed. We performed a matched analysis of treatment effect on likelihood of CAA regression. Of 2860 KD patients, 500 (17%) had CAA, including 90 with CAA z‐score >10. Most (91%) received IVIG within 10 days of illness, 32% received >1 IVIG, and 27% received adjunctive anti‐inflammatory medications. CAA regression occurred in 75%. Lack of CAA regression and higher CAA zMax were associated with earlier era, larger CAA z‐score at diagnosis, and bilateral CAA in univariate and multivariable analyses. MACE occurred in 24 (5%) patients and was associated with higher CAA z‐score at diagnosis and lack of IVIG treatment. In a subset of patients (n=132) matched by age at KD and baseline CAA z‐score, those receiving IVIG plus adjunctive medication had a CAA regression rate of 91% compared with 68% for the 3 other groups (IVIG alone, IVIG ≥2 doses, or IVIG ≥2 doses plus adjunctive medication). Conclusions CAA regression occurred in 75% of patients. CAA z‐score at diagnosis was highly predictive of outcomes, which may be improved by early IVIG treatment and adjunctive therapies.
The Critical Surface Tension of Wool

A rapid method for the measurement of the critical surface tension γ c values of individual wool fibers is described. Using this method, a comprehensive study of the wettability of untreated wool fibers has been carried out, and subsequent changes in γ c after various chemical treatments have been monitored. It is shown that the value of γ c obtained depends on the liquid series used for the measurement; the use of aqueous alkanol solutions for such measurements is criticized. The value of γ c for Hcrcosset-57 has been measured, and the spreading coefficient S and work of adhesion WA for this polymer on wool have been re-evaluated.
The Dopamine Transporter Gene, a Spectrum of Most Common Risky Behaviors, and the Legal Status of the Behaviors

This study tests the specific hypothesis that the 9R/9R genotype in the VNTR of the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) exerts a general protective effect against a spectrum of risky behaviors in comparison to the 10R/9R and 10R/10R genotypes, drawing on three-time repeated measures of risky behaviors in adolescence and young adulthood on about 822 non-Hispanic white males from the Add Health study. Our data have established two empirical findings. The first is a protective main effect in the DAT1 gene against risky behaviors. The second finding is that the protective effect varies over age, with the effect prominent at ages when a behavior is illegal and the effect largely vanished at ages when the behavior becomes legal or more socially tolerated. Both the protective main effect and the gene-lifecourse interaction effect are replicated across a spectrum of most common risky behaviors: delinquency, variety of sexual partners, binge drinking, drinking quantity, smoking quantity, smoking frequency, marijuana use, cocaine use, other illegal drug use, and seatbelt non-wearing. We also compared individuals with the protective genotype and individuals without it in terms of age, physical maturity, verbal IQ, GPA, received popularity, sent popularity, church attendance, two biological parents, and parental education. These comparisons indicate that the protective effect of DAT1*9R/9R cannot be explained away by these background characteristics. Our work demonstrates how legal/social contexts can enhance or reduce a genetic effect on risky behaviors.
THE COLLIMATED JET SOURCE IN IRAS 16547-4247: TIME VARIATION, POSSIBLE PRECESSION, AND UPPER LIMITS TO THE PROPER MOTIONS ALONG THE JET AXIS

The triple radio source detected in association with the luminous infrared source IRAS 16547-4247 has previously been studied with high angular resolution and high sensitivity with the Very Large Array at 3.6 cm wavelength. In this paper, we present new 3.6 cm observations taken 2.68 years after the first epoch that allow a search for variability and proper motions, as well as the detection of additional faint sources in the region. We do not detect proper motions along the axis of the outflow in the outer lobes of this source at a 4σ upper limit of ∼160 km s−1. This suggests that these lobes are probably working surfaces where the jet is interacting with a denser medium. However, the brightest components of the lobes show evidence of precession, at a rate of 0. °08 yr−1 clockwise in the plane of the sky. It may be possible to understand the distribution of almost all the identified sources as the result of ejecta from a precessing jet. The core of the thermal jet shows significant variations in flux density and morphology. We compare this source with other jets in low- and high-mass young stars and suggest that the latter can be understood as a scaled-up version of the former.
[Autism and pervasive developmental disorders].

OBJECTIVE To review the current knowledge on neurobiological aspects of autism and pervasive developmental disorders, as well as to provide pediatricians with up to date information on diagnosis and treatment of autism. SOURCES OF DATA Review of MEDLINE and Internet. SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS Autism is the 3rd developmental disorder, with an incidence of 40 to 130/100,000 individuals. Diagnosis is based on clinical findings, following DSM IV criteria. Neuroimaging, investigation of fetal neurological status, and genetic investigation contribute towards a better understanding of the neurobiology of autism. CONCLUSION Pediatricians are the first health professional to come in contact with patients with autism. Thus, they should be able to diagnose and to coordinate the multidisciplinary treatment of these patients.
Using Incompletely Cooperative Game Theory in Wireless Mesh Networks

Recently, game theory has become a useful and powerful tool in research on wireless mesh networks. In this article the authors present a novel concept of incompletely cooperative game theory and use it to improve the performance of MAC protocols in WMNs. In this game, first, each node estimates the current game state (e.g., the number of competing nodes). Second, the node adjusts its equilibrium strategy by tuning its local contention parameters (e.g., the minimum contention window) to the estimated game state. Finally, the game is repeated several times to get the optimal performance. To use the game effectively in WMNs, the authors present a hybrid CSMA/CA protocol by integrating a proposed virtual CSMA/CA and the standard CSMA/CA protocol. When a node has no packet to send, it contends for the channel in virtual CSMA/CA mode. In this way the node can estimate the game state and obtain the optimal strategy. When a node has packets to send, it contends for the channel in standard CSMA/CA mode with the optimal strategy obtained in virtual CSMA/CA mode, switching smoothly from virtual to standard CSMA/CA mode. At the same time, the node keeps adjusting its strategy to the variable game state. In addition, the authors propose a simplified game-theoretic MAC protocol (G-CSMA/CA) by designing an auto degressive backoff mechanism based on the incompletely cooperative game. G-CSMA/CA can easily be implemented in mesh nodes. Finally, simulation results show that the incompletely cooperative game can increase system throughput, decrease delay, jitter, and packet loss rate, and support the game effectively.
Detailed comparison of two popular variant calling packages for exome and targeted exon studies

The Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) is commonly used for variant calling of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and small insertions and deletions (indels) from short-read sequencing data aligned against a reference genome. There have been a number of variant calling comparisons against GATK, but an equally comprehensive comparison for VarScan not yet been performed. More specifically, we compare (1) the effects of different pre-processing steps prior to variant calling with both GATK and VarScan, (2) VarScan variants called with increasingly conservative parameters, and (3) filtered and unfiltered GATK variant calls (for both the UnifiedGenotyper and the HaplotypeCaller). Variant calling was performed on three datasets (1 targeted exon dataset and 2 exome datasets), each with approximately a dozen subjects. In most cases, pre-processing steps (e.g., indel realignment and quality score base recalibration using GATK) had only a modest impact on the variant calls, but the importance of the pre-processing steps varied between datasets and variant callers. Based upon concordance statistics presented in this study, we recommend GATK users focus on “high-quality” GATK variants by filtering out variants flagged as low-quality. We also found that running VarScan with a conservative set of parameters (referred to as “VarScan-Cons”) resulted in a reproducible list of variants, with high concordance (>97%) to high-quality variants called by the GATK UnifiedGenotyper and HaplotypeCaller. These conservative parameters result in decreased sensitivity, but the VarScan-Cons variant list could still recover 84–88% of the high-quality GATK SNPs in the exome datasets. This study also provides limited evidence that VarScan-Cons has a decreased false positive rate among novel variants (relative to high-quality GATK SNPs) and that the GATK HaplotypeCaller has an increased false positive rate for indels (relative to VarScan-Cons and high-quality GATK UnifiedGenotyper indels). More broadly, we believe the metrics used for comparison in this study can be useful in assessing the quality of variant calls in the context of a specific experimental design. As an example, a limited number of variant calling comparisons are also performed on two additional variant callers.
Age-associated increase in arterial stiffness measured according to the cardio-ankle vascular index without blood pressure changes in healthy adults.

AIM The cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) reflects arterial stiffness from the aorta to the ankle, independent of blood pressure (BP). We investigated the age-stratified CAVI in healthy, normotensive individuals to evaluate the effects of age on arterial stiffness. METHODS The CAVI and peripheral BP were determined in healthy, normotensive Koreans 20 to 79 years of age. The subjects had no history of cardiovascular disease and did not take any medications for hypertension, diabetes mellitus or dyslipidemia (N = 1,380; 44.1% in men). RESULTS The mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and pulse pressure (PP) were 117, 75 and 42 mmHg, respectively. The CAVI increased linearly with age and was determined using the following equation: CAVI = 5.0 + 0.048 × age (year) in men (r(2) = 0.395, p < 0.001), CAVI = 4.8 + 0.045 × age (year) in women (r(2) = 0.450, p < 0.001). However, SBP, DBP and PP did not change progressively with age. Age emerged as the major determinant of the CAVI in a stepwise multiple regression analysis (r(2) change = 43.1%). CONCLUSIONS The CAVI scores increased with age in the healthy, normotensive individuals, whereas SBP, DBP and PP did not. Age was the dominant risk factor for the progression of arterial stiffness. These data suggest that the CAVI is a sensitive marker of the arterial aging process, above and beyond conventional upper arm BP.
Selective nonoperative management of blunt splenic injury: An Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma practice management guideline

BACKGROUND During the last century, the management of blunt force trauma to the spleen has changed from observation and expectant management in the early part of the 1900s to mainly operative intervention, to the current practice of selective operative and nonoperative management. These issues were first addressed by the Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) in the Practice Management Guidelines for Non-operative Management of Blunt Injury to the Liver and Spleen published online in 2003. Since that time, a large volume of literature on these topics has been published requiring a reevaluation of the current EAST guideline. METHODS The National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health MEDLINE database was searched using Pub Med (www.pubmed.gov). The search was designed to identify English-language citations published after 1996 (the last year included in the previous guideline) using the keywords splenic injury and blunt abdominal trauma. RESULTS One hundred seventy-six articles were reviewed, of which 125 were used to create the current practice management guideline for the selective nonoperative management of blunt splenic injury. CONCLUSION There has been a plethora of literature regarding nonoperative management of blunt splenic injuries published since the original EAST practice management guideline was written. Nonoperative management of blunt splenic injuries is now the treatment modality of choice in hemodynamically stable patients, irrespective of the grade of injury, patient age, or the presence of associated injuries. Its use is associated with a low overall morbidity and mortality when applied to an appropriate patient population. Nonoperative management of blunt splenic injuries should only be considered in an environment that provides capabilities for monitoring, serial clinical evaluations, and has an operating room available for urgent laparotomy. Patients presenting with hemodynamic instability and peritonitis still warrant emergent operative intervention. Intravenous contrast enhanced computed tomographic scan is the diagnostic modality of choice for evaluating blunt splenic injuries. Repeat imaging should be guided by a patient’s clinical status. Adjunctive therapies like angiography with embolization are increasingly important adjuncts to nonoperative management of splenic injuries. Despite the explosion of literature on this topic, many questions regarding nonoperative management of blunt splenic injuries remain without conclusive answers in the literature.
Gamma Power Is Phase-Locked to Posterior Alpha Activity

Neuronal oscillations in various frequency bands have been reported in numerous studies in both humans and animals. While it is obvious that these oscillations play an important role in cognitive processing, it remains unclear how oscillations in various frequency bands interact. In this study we have investigated phase to power locking in MEG activity of healthy human subjects at rest with their eyes closed. To examine cross-frequency coupling, we have computed coherence between the time course of the power in a given frequency band and the signal itself within every channel. The time-course of the power was calculated using a sliding tapered time window followed by a Fourier transform. Our findings show that high-frequency gamma power (30–70 Hz) is phase-locked to alpha oscillations (8–13 Hz) in the ongoing MEG signals. The topography of the coupling was similar to the topography of the alpha power and was strongest over occipital areas. Interestingly, gamma activity per se was not evident in the power spectra and only became detectable when studied in relation to the alpha phase. Intracranial data from an epileptic subject confirmed these findings albeit there was slowing in both the alpha and gamma band. A tentative explanation for this phenomenon is that the visual system is inhibited during most of the alpha cycle whereas a burst of gamma activity at a specific alpha phase (e.g. at troughs) reflects a window of excitability.
Risk and Protective Factors for Unprotected Intercourse among Rural African American Young Adults

Objectives. Despite increasing risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), few data are available concerning the factors associated with risky sexual behavior among African American young adults who do not attend college. Additionally, the possibility that different risk mechanisms affect men and women remains understudied. This article reports on the risk and protective factors associated with unprotected intercourse and gender differences in these factors' influence among this group. Predictors were derived from ecological and self-regulatory theories of risk behavior. Methods. African Americans aged 18–21 years were recruited via respondent-driven sampling (RDS) from seven contiguous rural counties. Risk and protective factors for unprotected intercourse were analyzed for 214 of 292 participants who reported sexual intercourse during the past three months. Results. Among sexually active participants, 62.6% used condoms inconsistently. The influence of leaving the parental home, perceived discrimination, risk-taking peers, family relationships, risk-taking propensity, and binge drinking on unprotected intercourse were moderated by gender. Positive attitudes toward condom use were associated with less unprotected intercourse controlling for the influence of risk variables for both men and women. Conclusions. Men and women have unique STI prevention needs. Additional research addressing these needs is necessary, particularly for rural African American men.
Personalizing Search Based on User Search Histories

User profiles, descriptions of user interests, can be used by search engines to provide personalized search results. Many approaches to creating user profiles capture user information through proxy servers (to capture browsing histories) or desktop bots (to capture all activities on a personal computer). These both require participation of the user to install the proxy server or the bot. In this study, we explore the use of a less-invasive means of gathering user information for personalized search. In particular, we build user profiles based on activity at the search site itself and study the use of these profiles to provide personalized search results. In our study, we implemented a wrapper for Google to examine different sources of information on which to base the user profiles: queries and snippets of examined search results. These user profiles were created by classifying the information into concepts from the Open Directory Project concept hierarchy and then used to re-rank the search results. User feedback was collected to compare Google’s original rank with our new rank for the results examined by users. We found that queries were as effective as snippets when used to create user profiles and that our personalized re-ranking resulted in a 37% improvement in the rank-order of the user-selected results.
Acute aerobic exercise: an intervention for the selective visual attention and reading comprehension of low-income adolescents

There is a need for feasible and research-based interventions that target the cognitive performance and academic achievement of low-income adolescents. In response, this study utilized a randomized experimental design and assessed the selective visual attention (SVA) and reading comprehension abilities of low-income adolescents and, for comparison purposes, high-income adolescents after they engaged in 12-min of aerobic exercise. The results suggest that 12-min of aerobic exercise improved the SVA of low- and high-income adolescents and that the benefit lasted for 45-min for both groups. The SVA improvement among the low-income adolescents was particularly large. In fact, the SVA improvement among the low-income adolescents was substantial enough to eliminate a pre-existing income gap in SVA. The mean reading comprehension score of low-income adolescents who engaged in 12-min of aerobic exercise was higher than the mean reading comprehension score of low-income adolescents in the control group. However, there was no difference between the mean reading comprehension scores of the high-income adolescents who did and did not engage in 12-min of aerobic exercise. Based on the results, schools serving low-income adolescents should consider implementing brief sessions of aerobic exercise during the school day.
Safety of Endovascular Thrombectomy in Patients Receiving Non–Vitamin K Antagonist Oral Anticoagulants

Background and Purpose— Prospective data on the safety of endovascular thrombectomy in acute stroke patients on non–vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants are lacking. Methods— Prospective multicenter observational study. Patients with ischemic stroke undergoing thrombectomy with or without preceding thrombolysis were enrolled into the Registry of Acute Ischemic Stroke Under New Oral Anticoagulants. Baseline characteristics and functional outcome at 3 months were assessed. Hemorrhagic transformation and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage were analyzed. Reperfusion was graded using the modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction score. Results— Of 28 patients treated with thrombectomy, 5 had received also systemic thrombolysis (18%). Intracranial hemorrhage was observed in 46%, but symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage occurred only in 1 patient. Successful reperfusion (Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction score, 2b–3) was achieved in 59%. At 3 months, 19% had a modified Rankin Scale score of 0 to 2, and mortality was 26%. Conclusions— Thrombectomy in non–vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant patients seems safe although a comparatively high rate of asymptomatic hemorrhagic transformation was noted. Confirmation in larger prospective controlled cohorts is necessary. Clinical Trial Registration— URL: http://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT01850797.
Engineering software design processes to guide process execution

Using systematic development processes is an important characteristic of any mature engineering discipline. In current software practice, software design methodologies (SDMs) are intended to be used to help design software more systematically. This paper explicitly shows, however, that one well-known example of such an SDM, Booch object-oriented design (BOOD), as described in the literature, is far too vague to provide specific guidance to designers, and is too imprecise and incomplete to be considered as a fully systematic process for specific projects. To provide more effective and appropriate guidance and control in software design processes, we applied the process programming concept to the design process. Given two different sets of plausible process requirements, we elaborated two more detailed and precise design processes that are responsive to these requirements. We have also implemented, experimented with, and evaluated a prototype (called Debus-Booch) that supports the execution of these detailed processes. <<ETX>>