Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of a safety climate questionnaire in UK health care: factor structure, reliability and usability

Aim: To explore the factor structure, reliability, and potential usefulness of a patient safety climate questionnaire in UK health care. Setting: Four acute hospital trusts and nine primary care trusts in England. Methods: The questionnaire used was the 27 item Teamwork and Safety Climate Survey. Thirty three healthcare staff commented on the wording and relevance. The questionnaire was then sent to 3650 staff within the 13 NHS trusts, seeking to achieve at least 600 responses as the basis for the factor analysis. 1307 questionnaires were returned (36% response). Factor analyses and reliability analyses were carried out on 897 responses from staff involved in direct patient care, to explore how consistently the questions measured the underlying constructs of safety climate and teamwork. Results: Some questionnaire items related to multiple factors or did not relate strongly to any factor. Five items were discarded. Two teamwork factors were derived from the remaining 11 teamwork items and three safety climate factors were derived from the remaining 11 safety items. Internal consistency reliabilities were satisfactory to good (Cronbach’s alpha ⩾0.69 for all five factors). Conclusions: This is one of the few studies to undertake a detailed evaluation of a patient safety climate questionnaire in UK health care and possibly the first to do so in primary as well as secondary care. The results indicate that a 22 item version of this safety climate questionnaire is useable as a research instrument in both settings, but also demonstrates a more general need for thorough validation of safety climate questionnaires before widespread usage.
Theta/Gamma EEG Frequency Ratio is Associated to Grey Matter Changes in Basal Ganglia in Subjects with Mild Cognitive Impairment

Background : grey matter (GM) changes of thalamus and basal ganglia have been demonstrated to be involved in dementia. Moreover, the increase of the EEG marker, theta/gamma ratio, has been associated with non-AD converters subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Objective : to study the association of prognostic EEG markers with specific GM changes of thalamus and basal ganglia in subjects with MCI to detect biomarkers (morpho-physiological) early predictive non-AD dementia. Methods : 74 adult subjects with mild cognitive impairment underwent EEG recording and high resolution 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The theta/gamma ratio was computed for each subject. Three groups were obtained according to increasing tertiles values of theta/gamma ratio. Grey matter density differences between groups were investigated using a Voxel Based Morphometry technique. Results : subjects with higher theta/gamma ratio showed minor atrophy in putamina nuclei bilaterally than subjects with middle ratio. Conclusion : The integrated analysis of EEG and morpho-structural markers could be useful in the comprehension of anatomo-physiological underpinning of the MCI entity.
Comparison and distribution of copper oxide nanoparticles and copper ions in activated sludge reactors

ABSTRACT Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) are being increasingly applied in the industry which results inevitably in the release of these materials into the hydrosphere. In this study, simulated waste-activated sludge experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of Copper Oxide NPs at concentrations of 0.1, 1, 10 and 50 mg/L and to compare it with its ionic counterpart (CuSO4). It was found that 0.1 mg/L of CuO NPs had negligible effects on Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and ammonia removal. However, the presence of 1, 10 and 50 mg/L of CuO NPs decreased COD removal from 78.7% to 77%, 52.1% and 39.2%, respectively (P < 0.05). The corresponding effluent ammonium (NH4-N) concentration increased from 14.9 mg/L to 18, 25.1 and 30.8 mg/L, respectively. Under equal Cu concentration, copper ions were more toxic towards microorganisms compared to CuO NPs. CuO NPs were removed effectively (72–93.2%) from wastewater due to a greater biosorption capacity of CuO NPs onto activated sludge, compared to the copper ions (55.1–83.4%). The SEM images clearly showed the accumulation and adsorption of CuO NPs onto activated sludge. The decrease in Live/dead ratio after 5 h of exposure of CuO NPs and Cu2+ indicated the loss of cell viability in sludge flocs.
The Power to be Lenient: Examining New York Governors’ Capital Case Clemency Decisions

This article examines the factors explaining New York governors’ clemency decisions in capital cases between 1900 and 1963. It relies on a statistical analysis of 130 cases in which death sentences were commuted and a comparison sample of 146 cases resulting in execution. The analysis suggests that governors were more inclined to grant clemency to offenders younger than 21, when appellate court decisions included dissenting opinions, when mitigating factors outnumbered aggravating factors, and when death sentences were imposed pursuant to mandatory capital punishment provisions. The study failed to produce evidence that racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic variables were related to clemency decisions. The statistical analysis is complemented by discussion of the results of a qualitative study of New York capital clemency decisions. The article concludes by urging that a similar combined approach involving quantitative and qualitative techniques be employed to gain further insights into the exercise of clemency discretion in contemporary capital cases.
Caste, Class, and Deference in the Research Interview

To test the influence of the defence norm on low-status respondent when questioned by middleclass interviewers, a cross-section of Detroiters were asked their views concerning two mutually contradictory propositions used at widely separated points in the interview. As predicted, the norm led in nearly 8 per cent to agree with both statements despite their highly contradictory character. This raises serious questions concerning the validity of the A-scale and concerning the interpretation of the F-scale. This study serves as yet another reminder that the research interview invariably creates a social relationship with consequences of importance forthe interpretation of data.
Long-Term Consequences of Subtle Stimuli during the First Twenty-Four Hours of Seizure-Induced Brain Injury

Chronically epileptic (induced by a single systemic injection of lithium and pilocarpine about 30 days before the experiment began) male rats were trained within a radial maze while they were administered either GABA-pentin (Neuron-tin), or prednisolone or given no treatment. There was no significant improvement in learning or memory between the groups. Numbers of trials per day were positively correlated with the time required to display the overt stereotyped forelimb clonus after the single pilocarpine injection. The numbers of correct trials completed during the first few days of acquisition were significantly greater for the rats that had received weak (1 μT) complex, pulsed magnetic fields over the right hemisphere during the first 24 hr. after seizure induction than for those who received the same field over the left hemisphere or that had been exposed to reference conditions. Implications of the enhanced sensitivity of limbic neurons to subtle electromagnetic interaction during electrical lability are discussed.
Optimizing deep bottleneck feature extraction

We investigate several optimizations to a recently published architecture for extracting bottleneck features for large-vocabulary speech recognition with deep neural networks. We are able to improve recognition performance of first-pass systems from a 12% relative word error rate reduction reported previously to 21%, compared to MFCC baselines on a Tagalog conversational telephone speech corpus. This is achieved by using different input features, training the network to predict context-dependent targets, employing an efficient learning rate schedule and varying several architectural details. Evaluations on two larger German and French speech transcription tasks show that the optimizations proposed are universally applicable and yield comparable gains on other corpora (19.9% and 22.8%, respectively).
Observations on the Action of Acetone

Ever since it has been shown that diabetic coma is associated with a marked acetonuria and acetonaemia, it has been suggested that the presence of acetone is the fons et origo of the symptoms of coma. Kussmaul(l) first investigated the pharmacological action of acetone experimentally on man, but with oral doses amounting to six grams he obtained no results. Using rabbits he found that the subcutaneous injections of acetone led to symptoms of intoxication and stupor, the action being less than that of chloroform or ether but stronger than alcohol. The symptoms were even more marked if the acetone was inhaled, and resembled clinically the coma of diabetes. Kussmaul accordingly concluded with the earlier workers that acetone was the direct cause of diabetic coma. Frerichs(2) gave large doses to men and dogs but without any special results and decided that acetone per se was not the cause of the coma. Penzoldt( 3), however, as the result of his experiments on rabbits maintained that the acetone played an important role though it was not the only cause. Tappeiner( 4)studied the effect of acetone inhalations on dogs and rabbits, and described two stages of acetone poisoning: first, a stage in which the blood pressure is raised with an increase in the pulse and respiration rates, and secondly, a stage of depression associated with a lowering of blood pressure, a decrease in the pulse and respiration rates and a gradual abolition of reflex activity. The second stage was marked by a steady fall in the temperature of the body until death ensued from respiratory failure. Prolonged inhalation of large'amounts of acetone was required to produce the second stage. Albertoni (5) in a long series of experiments on dogs found that oral administration of acetone in doses amounting to 5 grams per kilo produced at most a slight fall in the systolic blood pressure, while on man the only effect to be observed was a slight narcosis. He also produced albuminuria in dogs with these large doses. Rhamy(6) stated that subcutaneous injections of acetone in guinea-pigs were more toxic than those of methyl alcohol. Hewlett), on the other hand, maintained that the toxicity of acetone was very low. Salant and Kleitman8), as a result of their experimental work concluded that acetone possesses a double action causing both depression and stimulation, but chiefly the former. They drew attention to the fact that although the amount of acetone present in the blood in acidosis is comparatively small, yet the tissues and the organs are exposed to its action for a relatively long period, and they inclined to the view that acetone per se is the cause of the symptoms in diabetic coma. Allen and Wishart(9) have shown that young fasting animals and animals that have been phlorhizinised or depancreatised (in other words, suffering from
Coreceptor usage of primary human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates varies according to biological phenotype

The biological phenotype of primary human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) isolates varies according to the severity of the HIV infection. Here we show that the two previously described groups of rapid/high, syncytium-inducing (SI) and slow/low, non-syncytium-inducing (NSI) isolates are distinguished by their ability to utilize different chemokine receptors for entry into target cells. Recent studies have identified the C-X-C chemokine receptor CXCR4 (also named fusin or Lestr) and the C-C chemokine receptor CCR5 as the principal entry cofactors for T-cell-line-tropic and non-T-cell-line-tropic HIV-1, respectively. Using U87.CD4 glioma cell lines, stably expressing the chemokine receptor CCR1, CCR2b, CCR3, CCR5, or CXCR4, we have tested chemokine receptor specificity for a panel of genetically diverse envelope glycoprotein genes cloned from primary HIV-1 isolates and have found that receptor usage was closely associated with the biological phenotype of the virus isolate but not the genetic subtype. We have also analyzed a panel of 36 well-characterized primary HIV-1 isolates for syncytium induction and replication in the same series of cell lines. Infection by slow/low viruses was restricted to cells expressing CCR5, whereas rapid/high viruses could use a variety of chemokine receptors. In addition to the regular use of CXCR4, many rapid/high viruses used CCR5 and some also used CCR3 and CCR2b. Progressive HIV-1 infection is characterized by the emergence of viruses resistant to inhibition by beta-chemokines, which corresponded to changes in coreceptor usage. The broadening of the host range may even enable the use of uncharacterized coreceptors, in that two isolates from immunodeficient patients infected the parental U87.CD4 cell line lacking any engineered coreceptor. Two primary isolates with multiple coreceptor usage were shown to consist of mixed populations, one with a narrow host range using CCR5 only and the other with a broad host range using CCR3, CCR5, or CXCR4, similar to the original population. The results show that all 36 primary HIV-1 isolates induce syncytia, provided that target cells carry the particular coreceptor required by the virus.
Novel inhibitors of the early steps of the HIV-1 life cycle

Considerable advances have been made on compounds that are active as inhibitors of HIV entry and fusion. The discovery of chemokines a few years ago focused the attention on coreceptor inhibitors in addition to fusion and attachment blockers. During the last 5 years, there has been an intense research activity from both private companies and academic institutions to find effective compounds that are capable of inhibiting the initial steps in the HIV life cycle. Some of the presented compounds demonstrated in vitro synergism, thus there is the rationale of their combined use in HIV-infected individuals. Many entry and fusion inhibitors of HIV are being investigated in controlled clinical trials and there are a number of them that are bioavailable as oral formulations. This is an essential feature for an extended use of these compounds with the purpose of ameliorating patients’ adherence to medications; therefore, preventing the development of drug resistance. Among the many compounds that are being investigated, some are in the preclinical arena and others are more advanced in development stages. Overall, the main aim is to establish the action of these compounds on the immune system (e.g., the balance of the system after shutting off CCR5 or CXCR4 coreceptors) and the possible burden of unexplained side effects. This review focuses on the recent developments in this field with a particular attention on promising compounds in preclinical and clinical trials.
Post-diagnosis soy food intake and breast cancer survival: a meta-analysis of cohort studies.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Data on associations between soy food intake after cancer diagnosis with breast cancer survival are conflicting, so we conducted this meta-analysis for more accurate evaluation. METHODS Comprehensive searches were conducted to find cohort studies of the relationship between soy food intake after cancer diagnosis and breast cancer survival. Data were analyzed with comprehensive meta-analysis software. RESULTS Five cohort studies (11,206 patients) were included. Pooling all comparisons, soy food intake after diagnosis was associated with reduced mortality (HR 0.85, 95%CI 0.77 0.93) and recurrence (HR 0.79, 95%CI 0.72 0.87). Pooling the comparisons of highest vs. lowest dose, soy food intake after diagnosis was again associated with reduced mortality (HR 0.84, 95%CI 0.71 0.99) and recurrence (HR 0.74, 95%CI 0.64 0.85). Subgroup analysis of ER status showed that soy food intake was associated with reduced mortality in both ER negative (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.75, 95%CI 0.64 0.88) and ER positive patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.72, 95%CI 0.61 0.84), and both premenopausal (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.78, 95%CI 0.69 0.88) and postmenopausal patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.81, 95%CI 0.73 0.91). In additioin, soy food intake was associated with reduced recurrence in ER negative (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.64, 95%CI 0.44 0.94) and ER+/PR+ (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.65, 95%CI 0.49 0.86), and postmenopausal patients (highest vs. lowest: HR 0.67, 95%CI 0.56 0.80). CONCLUSION Our meta- analysis showed that soy food intake might be associated with better survival, especially for ER negative, ER+/ PR+, and postmenopausal patients.
C. elegans: model host and tool for antimicrobial drug discovery

For almost four decades, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has been of great value in many fields of biological research. It is now used extensively in studies of microbial pathogenesis and innate immunity. The worm lacks an adaptive immune system and relies solely on its innate immune defences to cope with pathogen attack. Infectious microbes, many of which are of clinical interest, trigger specific mechanisms of innate immunity, and provoke the expression of antifungal or antibacterial polypeptides. In this review, we highlight some of these families of antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and proteins that are candidates for the development of novel antibiotics. In addition, we describe how systems of C. elegans infection provide an increasing number of possibilities for large-scale in vivo screens for the discovery of new antimicrobial drugs. These systems open promising perspectives for innovative human therapies.
Training and transfer effects of N-back training for brain-injured and healthy subjects

ABSTRACT Working memory impairments are prevalent among patients with acquired brain injury (ABI). Computerised training targeting working memory has been researched extensively using samples from healthy populations but this field remains isolated from similar research in ABI patients. We report the results of an actively controlled randomised controlled trial in which 17 patients and 18 healthy subjects completed training on an N-back task. The healthy group had superior improvements on both training tasks (SMD = 6.1 and 3.3) whereas the ABI group improved much less (SMD = 0.5 and 1.1). Neither group demonstrated transfer to untrained tasks. We conclude that computerised training facilitates improvement of specific skills rather than high-level cognition in healthy and ABI subjects alike. The acquisition of these specific skills seems to be impaired by brain injury. The most effective use of computer-based cognitive training may be to make the task resemble the targeted behaviour(s) closely in order to exploit the stimulus-specificity of learning.
Representation of Butchulla cultural heritage values in communication of K'gari (Fraser Island) as a tourism destination

K'gari is a popular international tourism destination, having gained World Heritage (WH) status for its natural values. In spite of the local indigenous population, the Butchulla, having clear aspirations for its management, indigenous cultural heritage values have yet to be recognised in the listing. This project examined the degree to which indigenous values are visible in the promotion of K'gari as a tourism destination, through content and image analysis. The study found a lack of representation of indigenous culture in tourism marketing material. This acts to marginalise indigenous values and misses the opportunity to share a rich history, makes indigenous perspectives visible for visitors and provides a different perspective to the values for which WH status is nominated. The research provides recommendations about promoting indigenous cultural values in tourism and a future review of K'gari's WH status, as well as recommendations for further research.
PM 10 data assimilation over Europe with the optimal interpolation method

Abstract. This paper presents experiments of PM10 data assimilation with the optimal interpolation method. The observations are provided by BDQA (Base de Donnees sur la Qualite de l'Air), whose monitoring network covers France. Two other databases (EMEP and AirBase) are used to evaluate the improvements in the analyzed state over January 2001 and for several outputs (PM10, PM2.5 and chemical composition). The method is then applied in operational-forecast conditions. It is found that the assimilation of PM10 observations significantly improves the one-day forecast of total mass (PM10 and PM2.5), whereas the improvement is non significant for the two-day forecast. The errors on aerosol chemical composition are sometimes amplified by the assimilation procedure, which shows the need for chemical data. Since the observations cover a limited part of the domain (France versus Europe) and since the method used for assimilation is sequential, we focus on the horizontal and temporal impacts of the assimilation and we study how several parameters of the assimilation system modify these impacts. The strategy followed in this paper, with the optimal interpolation, could be useful for operational forecasts. Meanwhile, considering the weak temporal impact of the approach (about one day), the method has to be improved or other methods have to be considered.
Dephosphorylated cofilin expression is associated with poor prognosis in cases of human breast cancer: a tissue microarray analysis

Background Proteins in the cofilin pathway regulate actin dynamics and may be involved in cancer cell migration and invasion. However, there are no direct data that suggest that dephosphorylated cofilin can affect breast cancer prognosis. Methods We assessed the expressions of cofilin and phosphorylated cofilin (P-cofilin) in breast cancer tissue microarrays (290 patients, mean follow-up: 95.7±2.49 months) to evaluate dephosphorylated cofilin and its relationship with breast cancer prognosis. The associations of pathological characteristics with cumulative survival were evaluated using Kaplan–Meier analysis. Results Univariate analyses revealed that overall survival was associated with cofilin levels, N category, TNM stage, estrogen receptor status, progesterone receptor status, and molecular subtypes. Cofilin status and TNM stage independently affected overall survival, although P-cofilin expression was not associated with patient survival. In the P-cofilin-negative subgroup, cofilin expression was significantly associated with patient survival, although cofilin expression was not significantly associated with patient survival in the P-cofilin-positive subgroup. We further analyzed the P-cofilin-negative cases and found that Ki-67 expression was significantly elevated in the subgroup that was strongly positive for cofilin (P=0.002). Conclusion Among P-cofilin-negative patients with breast cancer, cofilin expression defines a population of patients with lower overall survival, which suggests that dephosphorylated cofilin expression might predict the prognosis in cases of P-cofilin-negative breast cancer. Furthermore, our results suggest that inhibitors of dephosphorylated cofilin expression may provide therapeutic benefits in patients with breast cancer.
Shape Mode Analysis Exposes Movement Patterns in Biology: Flagella and Flatworms as Case Studies

We illustrate shape mode analysis as a simple, yet powerful technique to concisely describe complex biological shapes and their dynamics. We characterize undulatory bending waves of beating flagella and reconstruct a limit cycle of flagellar oscillations, paying particular attention to the periodicity of angular data. As a second example, we analyze non-convex boundary outlines of gliding flatworms, which allows us to expose stereotypic body postures that can be related to two different locomotion mechanisms. Further, shape mode analysis based on principal component analysis allows to discriminate different flatworm species, despite large motion-associated shape variability. Thus, complex shape dynamics is characterized by a small number of shape scores that change in time. We present this method using descriptive examples, explaining abstract mathematics in a graphic way.