Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use in Minority and Medically Underserved Oncology Patients: Assessment and Implications

Introduction: Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use in minority and medically underserved oncology patients is not well documented. We assessed knowledge and utilization of CAM in a sample of these patients receiving treatment at an urban community hospital. Methods: Patients with cancer were interviewed using an electronic application that depicted specific CAM therapies. Patients were questioned on their knowledge and utilization of therapies, deterrents to use, and interest in using these therapies if they were made available. Results: Patients (n = 165) reported a high awareness and use of CAM therapies. CAM use was highest for prayer (85%), relaxation (54%), special diet (29%), meditation (19%), and massage (18%). Patients’ interest in using CAM was high for nearly all therapies. Lack of adequate knowledge and cost of use were reported as deterrents to use. Female patients reported higher use of aromatherapy relative to males (37.1% vs 19.4%, P = .02); those with higher education reported greater use of relaxation (60.8% vs 28.6%, P = .02); non-Hispanics reported higher use of relaxation relative to Hispanics (63.5% vs 44.2%, P = .03), and African American patients reported higher use of relaxation relative to White patients (69.2% vs 50%, P = .03). Conclusions: CAM use in minority and medically underserved cancer patients is common, but not professionally guided; thus, concerns remain regarding its safe use. Our data underscore the importance of patient-physician dialogue regarding CAM use in this patient population, and interest in access to the medically guided integration of evidence-based CAM therapies.
The impact of cloud vertical profile on liquid water path retrieval based on the bispectral method: A theoretical study based on large‐eddy simulations of shallow marine boundary layer clouds

Passive optical retrievals of cloud liquid water path (LWP), like those implemented for Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), rely on cloud vertical profile assumptions to relate optical thickness (τ) and effective radius (re) retrievals to LWP. These techniques typically assume that shallow clouds are vertically homogeneous; however, an adiabatic cloud model is plausibly more realistic for shallow marine boundary layer cloud regimes. In this study a satellite retrieval simulator is used to perform MODIS‐like satellite retrievals, which in turn are compared directly to the large‐eddy simulation (LES) output. This satellite simulator creates a framework for rigorous quantification of the impact that vertical profile features have on LWP retrievals, and it accomplishes this while also avoiding sources of bias present in previous observational studies. The cloud vertical profiles from the LES are often more complex than either of the two standard assumptions, and the favored assumption was found to be sensitive to cloud regime (cumuliform/stratiform). Confirming previous studies, drizzle and cloud top entrainment of dry air are identified as physical features that bias LWP retrievals away from adiabatic and toward homogeneous assumptions. The mean bias induced by drizzle‐influenced profiles was shown to be on the order of 5–10 g/m2. In contrast, the influence of cloud top entrainment was found to be smaller by about a factor of 2. A theoretical framework is developed to explain variability in LWP retrievals by introducing modifications to the adiabatic re profile. In addition to analyzing bispectral retrievals, we also compare results with the vertical profile sensitivity of passive polarimetric retrieval techniques.
Understanding How Bereaved Parents Cope With Their Grief to Inform the Services Provided to Them

Our objective was to develop a rich description of how parents experience their grief in the first year after the death of their child, and how various bereavement follow-up and support services helped them during this time, with the aim of informing follow-up and support services offered to bereaved parents. Our findings situated parents’ individual experiences of coping within the social and institutional contexts in which they grieved. In the first year after the death of their child, parents regulated their intense feelings of grief through loss-oriented, restoration-oriented, and/or meaning reconstruction strategies. Often, parents’ relationships with others and many of the bereavement follow-up and support services helped them in this regard. This article also explores how the results may aid service providers in accompanying parents in a way that optimizes outcomes for these parents.
Dual inhibition of PI3K and mTOR by VS-5584 suppresses thrombus formation

Abstract VS-5584 is a highly selective dual kinase inhibitor which suppresses phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activity. Because these kinases are crucially involved in primary hemostasis, we herein investigated the effect of this compound on thrombus formation in vitro and in vivo. Pretreatment of washed platelets (WP) or platelet-rich plasma (PRP) with VS-5584 inhibited the agonist-induced activation of surface glycoprotein complex (GP)IIb/IIIa and the upregulation of P-selectin. This was associated with a significantly reduced formation of platelet-leukocyte aggregates (PLA). VS-5584 further attenuated platelet aggregation and adhesion after agonist stimulation. In contrast, endothelial expression of intercellular adhesion molecule (ICAM)-1 and vascular cellular adhesion molecule (VCAM)-1 and secretion of von Willebrand Factor (vWF) were not affected by the dual kinase inhibitor. In vivo, VS-5584 inhibited photochemically induced thrombus formation as shown by a significantly prolonged time to complete vessel occlusion when compared to vehicle-treated controls. This was associated with an elevated tail vein bleeding time, indicating a potential hemorrhagic risk in VS-5584-treated mice. Taken together, these novel findings demonstrate that VS-5584 is a potent inhibitor of primary hemostasis targeting multiple platelet functions.
Chemical Composition of Cacti Wood and Comparison with the Wood of Other Taxonomic Groups

The aims of this study were to determine the wood chemical composition of 25 species of Cactaceae and to relate the composition to their anatomical diversity. The hypothesis was that wood chemical components differ in relationship to their wood features. The results showed significant differences in wood chemical compounds across species and genera (P < 0.05). Pereskia had the highest percentage of lignin, whereas species of Coryphantha had the lowest; extractive compounds in water were highest for Echinocereus, Mammillaria, and Opuntia. Principal component analysis showed that lignin proportion separated the fibrous, dimorphic, and non‐fibrous groups; additionally, the differences within each type of wood occurred because of the lignification of the vascular tissue and the type of wall thickening. Compared with other groups of species, the Cactaceae species with fibrous and dimorphic wood had a higher lignin percentage than did gymnosperms and Acer species. Lignin may confer special rigidity to tracheary elements to withstand desiccation without damage during adverse climatic conditions.
Allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis is associated with pet ownership in cystic fibrosis

Late diagnosis of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) is associated with significant lung function decline and morbidity in cystic fibrosis (CF). The association of ABPA and domestic pet ownership in patients with CF has not been elucidated yet. Our objective was to determine the association of ABPA with pet ownership in patients with CF.
Antibiotics promote the sampling of luminal antigens and bacteria via colonic goblet cell associated antigen passages

ABSTRACT Bacterial translocation is defined as the passage of live bacteria from the gut lumen to distant sites. Gut commensal bacteria translocation has been attributed to ‘leakiness’, or ‘barrier breach’ of the intestinal epithelium, allowing live bacteria to cross an inappropriately permeable barrier and disseminate to distant sites. Alternatively, studies suggest dendritic cells directly capture luminal commensal bacteria and transport them to distant sites in the steady-state by extending dendrites between epithelial cells into the lumen. Recently we identified translocation of commensal gut bacteria following antibiotics was associated with the formation of goblet cell associated antigen passages (GAPs) in the colon and dependent upon goblet cells (GCs). The translocation of native gut commensal bacteria resulted in low-level inflammatory responses and potentiated mucosal damage in response to concurrent epithelial injury. Here we extend these observations and demonstrate properties of colonic GAPs and observations supporting their priority in the translocation of colonic commensal bacteria.
Mechanisms linking T‐wave alternans to spontaneous initiation of ventricular arrhythmias in rabbit models of long QT syndrome

T‐wave alternans (TWA) and T‐wave lability (TWL) are precursors of ventricular arrhythmias in long QT syndrome; however, the mechanistic link remains to be clarified. Computer simulations show that action potential duration (APD) prolongation and slowed heart rates promote APD alternans and chaos, manifesting as TWA and TWL, respectively. Regional APD alternans and chaos can exacerbate pre‐existing or induce de novo APD dispersion, which combines with enhanced ICa,L to result in premature ventricular complexes (PVCs) originating from the APD gradient region. These PVCs can directly degenerate into re‐entrant arrhythmias without the need for an additional tissue substrate or further exacerbate the APD dispersion to cause spontaneous initiation of ventricular arrhythmias. Experiments conducted in transgenic long QT rabbits show that PVC alternans occurs at slow heart rates, preceding spontaneous intuition of ventricular arrhythmias.
Management of Appendicitis Presenting with Abscess or Mass

Purpose Management strategy in acute appendicitis patients initially presenting with abscess or mass is surrounded with controversy. This study was performed to identify the outcomes of management for this condition. Methods We retrospectively analyzed prospectively registered 76 patients (male:female = 39:37; mean age, 50.8 years) with appendicitis presenting with abscess or mass over a 9-year period at the Seoul National University Hospital. Patients were divided into three groups (emergency operation group, delayed operation group, and follow-up group), and clinical characteristics and outcomes of treatment were investigated. Results Twenty-eight patients (36.8%) underwent an emergency operation. Of the remaining 48 patients, 20 (41.7%) were initially treated with conservative management through the use of antibiotics only; the other 28 (58.3%) with and additional ultrasound-guided percutaneous drainage of the abscess. Twenty-six (54.2%) patients underwent planned operations after conservative management, and 22 (45.8%) were followed without surgery (median duration, 37.8 month), of which 3 (13%) underwent an appendectomy due to recurrent appendicitis (mean of 56.7 days after initial attack). There were no statistical differences in types of operation performed (appendectomy or ileocecectomy), postoperative complications, and postoperative hospital stay among the patients who underwent emergency operations, delayed operations and operations for recurrence during follow-up. Conclusion Although the recurrence rate was relatively low after conservative management for appendicitis patients presenting with abscess or mass, there was no difference in surgical outcome between the emergent, elective, or recurrent groups. Our results indicate that proper management of appendicitis with abscess or mass can be selected according to surgeon's preference.
Diarrheal Diseases and Climate Change in Cambodia

The DRIP-SWICCH (Developing Research and Innovative Policies Specific to the Water-related Impacts of Climate Change on Health) project aimed to increase the resilience of Cambodian communities to the health risks posed by climate change–related impacts on water. This article follows a review of climate change and water-related diseases in Cambodia and presents the results of a time series analysis of monthly weather and diarrheal disease data for 11 provinces. In addition, correlations of diarrheal disease incidence with selected demographic, socioeconomic, and water and sanitation indicators are described, with results suggesting education and literacy may be most protective against disease. The potential impact of climate change on the burden of diarrheal disease in Cambodia is considered, along with the implications of these findings for health systems adaptation.
Sensitivity of treatment recommendations to bias in network meta‐analysis

Network meta‐analysis (NMA) pools evidence on multiple treatments to estimate relative treatment effects. Included studies are typically assessed for risk of bias; however, this provides no indication of the impact of potential bias on a decision based on the NMA. We propose methods to derive bias adjustment thresholds which measure the smallest changes to the data that result in a change of treatment decision. The methods use efficient matrix operations and can be applied to explore the consequences of bias in individual studies or aggregate treatment contrasts, in both fixed and random‐effects NMA models. Complex models with multiple types of data input are handled by using an approximation to the hypothetical aggregate likelihood. The methods are illustrated with a simple NMA of thrombolytic treatments and a more complex example comparing social anxiety interventions. An accompanying R package is provided.
Balancing Convergence and Diversity in Decomposition-Based Many-Objective Optimizers

The decomposition-based multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) generally make use of aggregation functions to decompose a multiobjective optimization problem into multiple single-objective optimization problems. However, due to the nature of contour lines for the adopted aggregation functions, they usually fail to preserve the diversity in high-dimensional objective space even by using diverse weight vectors. To address this problem, we propose to maintain the desired diversity of solutions in their evolutionary process explicitly by exploiting the perpendicular distance from the solution to the weight vector in the objective space, which achieves better balance between convergence and diversity in many-objective optimization. The idea is implemented to enhance two well-performing decomposition-based algorithms, i.e., MOEA, based on decomposition and ensemble fitness ranking. The two enhanced algorithms are compared to several state-of-the-art algorithms and a series of comparative experiments are conducted on a number of test problems from two well-known test suites. The experimental results show that the two proposed algorithms are generally more effective than their predecessors in balancing convergence and diversity, and they are also very competitive against other existing algorithms for solving many-objective optimization problems.
The Emergence of Two Functions for Spatial Devices in Nicaraguan Sign Language

The emergence of a new sign language since the late 1970s in Nicaragua enables us to capture the effects of successive cohorts of learners on an emerging grammar and to observe how elements are reshaped from one form and function to another. Here we document the contrastive use of a device that has been found to be central to the grammars of sign languages: the spatial modulation of signs. In Nicaraguan Sign Language, this device has two primary functions: expressing the participants of events (that is, indicating who), and describing locations and orientations of referents (that is, indicating where). We ask whether the two uses reduce to a single construction type, or if the more abstract who construction derived from the more iconic and concrete where construction. We compare the first two successive cohorts of deaf signers to acquire the language in its first decade. We find that as learners created new constructions to meet the new functions, they did not simply apply an already developed form more broadly, nor did they develop the more abstract application from the more iconic one. Instead, the more abstract who construction appears to have conventionalized first. Thus, the forms either emerged independently, or split very early in the 1980s, before either had developed as a consistently applied form.
Inductive pathways leading to rat tear IgA antibody responses.

PURPOSE To define the inductive pathways leading to rat tear IgA antibody responses. METHODS Fluoresceinated dinitrophenylated bovine serum albumin was encapsulated in poly(lactide-co-glycolide) microparticles and was administered by intranasal, ocular topical, or gastrointestinal routes. Histologic methods were used to determine the microparticles' ability to access tissues associated with mucosal inductive pathways. Rats were immunized with microencapsulated antigen by intranasal or ocular topical routes. Tear IgA and serum IgG antibody concentrations were assessed by radioimmunoassay. The frequency of antibody-secreting cells in tissues, postulated to function in tear IgA induction, was measured by enzyme-linked immunospot assay. RESULTS Although uptake of microencapsulated antigen was greatest at the site of delivery, ocular topical administration resulted in antigen uptake in the conjunctiva and in nasal-associated lymphoid tissue. Intranasal immunization resulted in earlier and significantly higher tear IgA and serum IgG antibody responses and in higher frequencies of antibody-secreting cells in corresponding draining cervical lymph nodes and lacrimal glands than did ocular topical immunization. CONCLUSIONS Nasal-associated lymphoid tissue functions as a primary inductive site for tear IgA antibody responses by contributing triggered IgA-committed B cells to the lacrimal gland.
Reinforced Concrete Coupling Beams—Part II: Modeling

ACI Structural Journal, V. 110, No. 6, November-December 2013. MS No. S-2012-011 received January 4, 2012, and reviewed under Institute publication policies. Copyright © 2013, American Concrete Institute. All rights reserved, including the making of copies unless permission is obtained from the copyright proprietors. Pertinent discussion including author’s closure, if any, will be published in the September-October 2014 ACI Structural Journal if the discussion is received by May 1, 2014. Reinforced Concrete Coupling Beams—Part II: Modeling
Kaempferol attenuates acute lung injury in caecal ligation and puncture model of sepsis in mice

ABSTRACT Aim of the study: Kaempferol is a flavonoid and important part of the diet. Kaempferol has shown antioxidant, antiinflammatory and antidiabetic activities in various studies. However, protective potential of kaempferol in acute lung injury induced by sepsis and its mechanism remains unclear. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effect of kaempferol in sepsis-induced acute lung injury in mice and its possible mechanism of action. Materials and methods: Acute lung injury was induced by CLP surgery in mice. Kaempferol (100 mg/kg bw) was administered orally one hour before caecal ligation and puncture surgery in mice. Mice were divided into four groups sham, KEM+sham, sepsis (CLP), and KEM+sepsis. Assessment of lung injury was done by estimation of protein content in lung tissue, lung edema, proinflammatory cytokines in plasma and lung tissue, oxidative stress, antioxidant enzymes, nitrite production, and histopathology. Results: Kaempferol pretreated mice showed significant (P < 0.001) decrease in water content in lungs. Kaempferol pretreatment showed reduction in cytokines IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α in plasma as well as in lung tissue in comparison with septic mice without pretreatment. Pretreatment with kaempferol did not show any reduction in MDA level in comparison with septic mice. Antioxidant enzymes SOD and catalase and nonenzymatic antioxidant GSH activities were also increased with kaempferol pretreatment in septic mice. Further, kaempferol pretreatment reduced the lung tissue nitrite level (P < 0.01) and iNOS (P < 0.05) level in septic mice. A significant (P < 0.01) downregulation of mRNA expression of ICAM-1 and iNOS was observed with this pretreatment. Kaempferol pretreatment did not decrease bacterial load in septic mice. Mice pretreated with kaempferol followed by sepsis showed lesser infiltration of cells and more arranged alveolar structure in histopathological analysis. Conclusions: The study suggests that kaempferol showed attenuation in sepsis-induced acute lung injury in mice through suppression of oxidative stress, iNOS, and ICAM-1 pathways.
The comparative dynamics of bulk liquid flow and interpolymer diffusion during inkjet ink imbibition in porous coating structures

The focus of this thesis is to establish the timescale of interactions, physical and chemical, during dye-based inkjet ink imbibition into calcium carbonate (CaCO3) pigmented coatings. Comparison is made between conventional offset quality CaCO3 (GCC), and special inkjet qualities in the form of either modified (MCC) or precipitated (PCC) CaCO3 combined with swelling diffusion driving or non-swelling diffusion-inert binder. The selection of pigment is based on the control of pore volume, pore size distribution and connectivity of the coating layer. Pigments containing nano-size pores (intra-particle) are primarily exemplified. The final coating layers display discrete pore size bimodality in relation to the intra-particle and inter-particle pores, respectively. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) is used as the diffusion sensitive binder and styrene acrylate latex (SA) as the bulk diffusion-inert binder. By changing the coating layer structures and using the contrasting binders the roles of liquid diffusion, capillary pressure and permeation flow are clarified both in the short and long timescale imbibition. The wetting force within the finest coating layer capillaries drives the inkjet ink into the porous structure, whilst the viscous drag within the pore structure resists the movement. The nano-size capillaries initiate absorption of the ink vehicle, though typical impact pressure of an inkjet droplet is shown to provide forced wetting. During the subsequent flow, the hydrophilic binder swells, acting to close the smallest pores and reduce the remaining pore diameters. The total pore volume decrease competes with the initial capillarity, reducing absorption rate. The diffusion is shown to have a marked effect on the polar liquid absorption rate into the PVOH-containing coatings over different timescales. The swelling opens the polymer matrix so that the colorant of the ink fits into the binder structure and can either hydrogen bond or become mechanically trapped there on drying. The diffusion coefficient of water in PVOH and on SA latex films is shown to be very similar, despite the difference between bulk diffusion and surface diffusion, respectively. The colorant fixing is enhanced mainly by the ionic interactions between the colorant and coating surface adsorption sites. The anionic colorant fixes under chromatographic separation to the cationic components of the coating layer. There is seen to be an optimal absorption rate beyond which the colorant has insufficient time to translate under the Coulombic attraction potential toward the cationic adsorption sites or to respond to the binder interpolymer matrix diffusion potential. The final print density of a high-speed inkjet printed surface depends on the colorant location in the coating layer and the optical properties of the whole coated paper. Therefore the competing mechanisms of