Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of hand massage on anxiety in patients undergoing ophthalmology surgery using local anesthesia.

INTRODUCTION Anxiety is a common disorder in patients before surgery. Inappropriately managed anxiety can cause psychological and physiological reactions and will affect the process of surgery and recovery. Therefore, this study examined the effects of hand massage on anxiety in patients undergoing ophthalmology surgery using local anesthesia. METHODS In this interventional study, 52 patients who were supposed to undergo ophthalmology surgery using local anesthesia were studied. Patients were randomly assigned to two groups of intervention, who received hand massage before surgery (n = 27) and control (n = 25). Massaging lasted for 5 minutes (2.5 minutes on each hand) before surgery. Stroking and scrubbing methods were performed by 2 trained researchers. Anxiety level, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate were measured before and after the intervention in both groups. Anxiety was evaluated using Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Data was analyzed by chi-square, independent samples t-test, and paired t-test. RESULTS There were no significant differences in mean anxiety, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate between the two groups before the intervention (p > 0.05). However, there was a significant differenc in the mean stress level between the two groups after the intervention (p < 0.05). The two groups did not differ significantly in terms of physiological variables (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION Our findings suggested that 5 minutes of hand massage before ophthalmology surgery (under local anesthesia) could reduce anxiety. Therefore, this method can be used to increase patient comfort and reduce anxiety before surgical interventions.
Can all neonatal resuscitation be managed by nurse practitioners?

Aim: To assess the ability of nurse practitioners to manage the care of all babies requiring resuscitation at birth in a unit without on site medical assistance. Method: A prospective review, and selective external audit, of the case records of all 14 572 babies born in a maternity unit in the north of England during the first eight years after nurse practitioners replaced resident paediatric staff in 1996. Results: Every non-malformed baby with an audible heart beat at the start of delivery was successfully resuscitated. Twenty term babies and 41 preterm babies were intubated at birth. Eight term babies only responded after acidosis or hypovolaemia was corrected following umbilical vein catheterisation; in each case the catheter was in place within six minutes of birth. Early grade 2–3 neonatal encephalopathy occurred with much the same frequency (0.12%) as in other recent studies. Independent external cross validated review found no case of substandard care during the first hour of life. Conclusion: The practitioners successfully managed all the problems coming their way from the time of appointment. There was no evidence that their skill decreased over time even though, on average, they only found themselves undertaking laryngeal intubation once a year. It remains to be shown that this level of competence can be replicated in other settings.
Mood and memory.

This article describes experiments in which happy or sad moods were induced in subjects by hyp- notic suggestion to investigate the influence of emo- tions on memory and thinking. One result was that subjects exhibited mood-state-dependent memory in recall of word lists, personal experiences recorded in a daily diary, and childhood experiences; people recalled a greater percentage of those experiences that were affectively congruent with the mood they were in dur- ing recall. Second, emotion powerfully influenced such cognitive processes as free associations, imaginative fantasies, social perceptions, and snap judgments about others' personalities (e.g., angry subjects generated an- gry associates, told hostile stories, and were prone to find fault with others). Third, when the feeling-tone of a narrative agreed with the reader's emotion, the salience and memorability of events in that narrative were increased. Thus, sad readers attended more to sad material, identified with a sad character from a story, and recalled more about that character. An associative network theory is proposed to account for these several results. In this theory, an emotion serves as a memory unit that can enter into associations with coincident events. Activation of this emotion unit aids retrieval of events associated with it; it also primes emotional themata for use in free association, fantasies, and per- ceptual categorization.
Ecological Divergence, Adaptive Diversification, and the Evolution of Social Signaling Traits: An Empirical Study in Arid Australian Lizards

Species diversification often results from divergent evolution of ecological or social signaling traits. Theoretically, a combination of the two may promote speciation, however, empirical examples studying how social signal and ecological divergence might be involved in diversification are rare in general and typically do not consider range overlap as a contributing factor. We show that ecologically distinct lineages within the Australian sand dragon species complex (including Ctenophorus maculatus, Ctenophorus fordi, and Ctenophorus femoralis) have diversified recently, diverging in ecologically relevant and social signaling phenotypic traits as arid habitats expanded and differentiated. Diversification has resulted in repeated and independent invasion of distinct habitat types, driving convergent evolution of similar phenotypes. Our results suggest that parapatry facilitates diversification in visual signals through reinforcement as a hybridization-avoidance mechanism. We show that particularly striking variation in visual social signaling traits is better explained by the extent of lineage parapatry relative to ecological or phylogenetic divergence, suggesting that these traits reinforce divergence among lineages initiated by ecologically adaptive evolution. This study provides a rare empirical example of a repeated, intricate relationship between ecological and social signal evolution during diversification driven by ecological divergence and the evolution of new habitats, thereby supporting emergent theories regarding the importance of both ecological and social trait evolution throughout speciation.
Neuroimaging in aging: brain maintenance

Neuroimaging studies of the aging brain provide support that the strongest predictor of preserved memory and cognition in older age is brain maintenance, or relative lack of brain pathology. Evidence for brain maintenance comes from different levels of examination, but up to now relatively few studies have used a longitudinal design. Examining factors that promote brain maintenance in aging is a critical task for the future and may be combined with the use of new techniques for multimodal imaging.
Development of a Universal Anti–Polyethylene Glycol Reporter Gene for Noninvasive Imaging of PEGylated Probes

A reporter gene can provide important information regarding the specificity and efficacy of gene or cell therapies. Although reporter genes are increasingly used in experimental and clinical studies, a highly specific yet nonimmunogenic reporter that can track genes and cells in vivo by multiple imaging technologies still awaits development. In this study, we constructed a versatile and nonimmunogenic reporter gene to noninvasively image gene expression or cell delivery by optical imaging, MRI, and small-animal PET. Methods: We cloned and expressed a membrane-anchored anti–polyethylene glycol (PEG) reporter that consists of the Fab fragment of a mouse anti-PEG monoclonal antibody, AGP3, fused to the C-like extracellular-transmembrane-cytosolic domains of the mouse B7-1 receptor. Binding of PEGylated probes (PEG-NIR797 for optical imaging, PEG–superparamagnetic iron oxide for MRI, and 124I-PEG for small-animal PET) were examined in vitro and in vivo. In addition, we compared the specificity, immunogenicity, and probe toxicity of the anti-PEG reporter with the gold standard reporter gene, type 1 herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk). Finally, we derived a humanized anti-PEG reporter and evaluated its imaging function in vivo with subcutaneous and metastatic tumor models in mice. Results: The cells or tumors that stably expressed anti-PEG reporters selectively accumulated various PEGylated imaging probes and could be detected by optical imaging, MRI, and small-animal PET. Importantly, the anti-PEG reporter displayed an imaging specificity comparable to the HSV-tk reporter but did not provoke immune responses or cause toxicity to the host. Furthermore, the humanized anti-PEG reporter retained high imaging specificity in vivo. Conclusion: The highly specific and nonimmunogenic anti-PEG reporter may be paired with PEGylated probes to provide a valuable system to image gene expression or cell delivery in experimental and clinical studies.
Automatic web spreadsheet data extraction

Spreadsheets contain a huge amount of high-value data but do not observe a standard data model and thus are difficult to integrate. A large number of data integration tools exist, but they generally can only work on relational data. Existing systems for extracting relational data from spreadsheets are too labor intensive to support ad-hoc integration tasks, in which the correct extraction target is only learned during the course of user interaction. This paper introduces a system that automatically extracts relational data from spreadsheets, thereby enabling relational spreadsheet integration. The resulting integrated relational data can be queried directly or can be translated into RDF triples. When compared to standard techniques for spreadsheet data extraction on a set of 100 random Web spreadsheets, the system reduces the amount of human labor by 72% to 92%. In addition to the system design, we present the results of a general survey of more than 400,000 spreadsheets we downloaded from the Web, giving a novel view of how users organize their data in spreadsheets.
Studies on auditory processing of spatial sound and speech by neuromagnetic measurements and computational modeling

Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science in Technology to be presented with due permission for public examination and debate in Auditorium S4, ABSTRACT OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION Author Name of the dissertation Date of manuscript Date of the dissertation Monograph Article dissertation (summary + original articles) Abstract Keywords Number of pages ISBN (printed)
HS 0943+1404, a true intermediate polar

We have identified a new intermediate polar, HS 0943+1404, as part of our ongoing search for cataclysmic variables in the Hamburg Quasar Survey. The orbital and white dwarf spin periods determined from time-resolved photometry and spectroscopy are P orb 250 min and P spin = 69.171 ± 0.001 min, respectively. The combination of a large ratio P spin /P orb 0.3 and a long orbital period is very unusual compared to the other known intermediate polars. The magnetic moment of the white dwarf is estimated to be µ 1 ∼ 10 34 Gcm 3, which is in the typical range of polars. Our extensive photometry shows that HS 0943+1404 enters into deep (∼3 mag) low states, which are also a characteristic feature of polars. We therefore suggest that the system is a true “intermediate” polar that will eventually synchronise, that is, a transitional object between intermediate polars and polars. The optical spectrum of HS 0943+1404 also exhibits a number of unusual emission lines, most noticeably N II λ5680, which is likely to reflect enhanced nitrogen abundances in the envelope of the secondary.
Transmural Extent of Acute Myocardial Infarction Predicts Long-Term Improvement in Contractile Function

Background—Previous animal studies have demonstrated that the transmural extent of acute myocardial infarction defined by contrast-enhanced MRI (ceMRI) relates to early restoration of flow and future improvements in contractile function. We tested the hypothesis that ceMRI would have similar predictive value in humans. Methods and Results—Twenty-four patients who presented with their first myocardial infarction and were successfully revascularized underwent cine and ceMRI of their heart within 7 days (scan 1) of the peak MB band of creatine kinase. Cine MRI was repeated 8 to 12 weeks later (scan 2). The transmural extent of infarction on scan 1 and wall thickening on both scans were determined using a 72-segment model. A total of 524 of 1571 segments (33%) were dysfunctional on scan 1. Improvement in segmental contractile function on scan 2 was inversely related to the transmural extent of infarction on scan 1 (P =0.001). Improvement in global contractile function, as assessed by ejection fraction and mean wall thickening score, was not predicted by peak creatine kinase-MB (P =0.66) or by total infarct size, as defined by MRI (P =0.70). The best predictor of global improvement was the extent of dysfunctional myocardium that was not infarcted or had infarction comprising <25% of left ventricular wall thickness (P <0.005 for ejection fraction, P <0.001 for mean wall thickening score). Conclusion—In patients with acute myocardial infarction, the transmural extent of infarction defined by ceMRI predicts improvement in contractile function.
Pathogens Assessment in Reclaimed Effluent Used for Industrial Crops Irrigation

Reuse of treated effluent is a highly valued water source in Palestine, however with limited success due to public health concerns. This paper assesses the potential pathogens in raw, treated and reclaimed wastewater at Albireh urban wastewater treatment facility, and provides scientific knowledge to update the Palestinian reuse guidelines. Laboratory analyses of collected samples over a period of 4 months have indicated that the raw wastewater from Albireh city contained high numbers of fecal coliforms and worm eggs while 31% of the samples were Salmonella positive. Treated effluent suitable for restricted irrigation demonstrated that the plant was efficient in removing indicator bacteria, where fecal coliforms and fecal streptococci removal averaged 99.64% and 93.44%, respectively. Although not disinfected, treated effluent was free of Salmonella and parasites, hence safe for restricted agricultural purposes. All samples of the reclaimed effluent and three samples of irrigated grass were devoid of microbial pathogens indicating a safe use in unrestricted agricultural utilization. Adequate operation of wastewater treatment facilities, scientific updating of reuse guidelines and launching public awareness campaigns are core factors for successful and sustainable large-scale wastewater reuse schemes in Palestine.
Linpack evaluation on a supercomputer with heterogeneous accelerators

We report Linpack benchmark results on the TSUBAME supercomputer, a large scale heterogeneous system equipped with NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and ClearSpeed SIMD accelerators. With all of 10,480 Opteron cores, 640 Xeon cores, 648 ClearSpeed accelerators and 624 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, we have achieved 87.01TFlops, which is the third record as a heterogeneous system in the world. This paper describes careful tuning and load balancing method required to achieve this performance. On the other hand, since the peak speed is 163 TFlops, the efficiency is 53%, which is lower than other systems. This paper also analyses this gap from the aspect of system architecture.
Epigallocatechin-3-gallate, a DYRK1A inhibitor, rescues cognitive deficits in Down syndrome mouse models and in humans.

SCOPE Trisomy for human chromosome 21 results in Down syndrome (DS), which is among the most complex genetic perturbations leading to intellectual disability. Accumulating data suggest that overexpression of the dual-specificity tyrosine-(Y)-phosphorylation regulated kinase 1A (DYRK1A), is a critical pathogenic mechanisms in the intellectual deficit. METHODS AND RESULTS Here we show that the green tea flavonol epigallocatechin-gallate (EGCG), a DYRK1A inhibitor, rescues the cognitive deficits of both segmental trisomy 16 (Ts65Dn) and transgenic mice overexpressing Dyrk1A in a trisomic or disomic genetic background, respectively. It also significantly reverses cognitive deficits in a pilot study in DS individuals with effects on memory recognition, working memory and quality of life. We used the mouse models to ensure that EGCG was able to reduce DYRK1A kinase activity in the hippocampus and found that it also induced significant changes in plasma homocysteine levels, which were correlated with Dyrk1A expression levels. Thus, we could use plasma homocysteine levels as an efficacy biomarker in our human study. CONCLUSION We conclude that EGCG is a promising therapeutic tool for cognitive enhancement in DS, and its efficacy may depend of Dyrk1A inhibition.
Dietary Supplementation of Ginger and Turmeric Rhizomes Modulates Platelets Ectonucleotidase and Adenosine Deaminase Activities in Normotensive and Hypertensive Rats

Hypertension is associated with platelet alterations that could contribute to the development of cardiovascular complications. Several studies have reported antiplatelet aggregation properties of ginger (Zingiber officinale) and turmeric (Curcuma longa) with limited scientific basis. Hence, this study assessed the effect of dietary supplementation of these rhizomes on platelet ectonucleotidase and adenosine deaminase (ADA) activities in Nω‐nitro‐l‐arginine methyl ester hydrochloride (l‐NAME) induced hypertensive rats. Animals were divided into seven groups (n = 10): normotensive control rats; induced (l‐NAME hypertensive) rats; hypertensive rats treated with atenolol (10 mg/kg/day); normotensive and hypertensive rats treated with 4% supplementation of turmeric or ginger, respectively. After 14 days of pre‐treatment, the animals were induced with hypertension by oral administration of l‐NAME (40 mg/kg/day). The results revealed a significant (p < 0.05) increase in platelet ADA activity and ATP hydrolysis with a concomitant decrease in ADP and AMP hydrolysis of l‐NAME hypertensive rats when compared with the control. However, dietary supplementation with turmeric or ginger efficiently prevented these alterations by modulating the hydrolysis of ATP, ADP and AMP with a concomitant decrease in ADA activity. Thus, these activities could suggest some possible mechanism of the rhizomes against hypertension‐derived complications associated to platelet hyperactivity. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Wiener beamforming and the coherence factor in ultrasound imaging

The coherence factor (CF) is used for aberration correction and sidelobe suppression in ultrasound imaging. Unfortunately, it suffers from artifacts when the SNR is low. We show how the CF can be interpreted as an implementation of the Wiener postfilter for a delay-and-sum beamformer. In addition, we show that a minimum-variance, distortionless-response beamformer followed by CF weighting can be interpreted as an implementation of the Wiener beamformer. These interpretations provide us with a theoretical framework for analyzing and improving CF-based methods. We use this theory to develop more robust implementations for both the Wiener postfilter and beamformer. The performance of these implementations is shown on simulated and real data.
Estimation of selenium intake in Switzerland in relation to selected food groups

The selenium concentration in foods was analysed in order to identify principal sources of this trace element in Switzerland. Selenium intake estimations based on three different approaches were carried out. From the relationship between intake and serum/plasma concentration, the selenium intake was estimated to 66 µg day−1. The second approach based on measured food groups combined with consumption statistics; and the third approach consisted of duplicate meal samples. With the last two methods, over 75% of the serum/plasma based intake was confirmed. Swiss pasta made of North American durum wheat was the food with the highest contribution to the dietary intake, followed by meat. The strong decrease in imports of selenium-rich North American wheat of the last years was not reflected in the present intake estimations. It appears that this intake loss was compensated by a consumption increase of other foods. Compared with former intake estimations, selenium intake seems to be in Switzerland nearly constant for the last 25 years.
Multiobjective genetic algorithms for materialized view selection in OLAP data warehouses

On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) tools are frequently used in business, science and health to extract useful knowledgefrom massive databases. An important and hard optimization problem in OLAP data warehouses is the view selection problem, consisting of selecting a set of aggregate views of the data for speeding up future query processing. A common variant of the view selection problem addressed in the literature minimizes the sum of maintenance cost and query time on the view set. Converting what is inherently an optimization problem with multiple conflicting objectives into one with a single objective ignores the need and value of a variety of solutions offering various levels of trade-off between the objectives. We apply two non-elitist multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) to view selection under a size constraint. Our emphasis is to determine the suitability of the combination of MOEAs with constraint handling to the view selection problem, compared to a widely used greedy algorithm. We observe that the evolutionary process mimics that of the greedy in terms of the convergence process in the population. The MOEAs are competitive with the greedy on a variety of problem instances, often finding solutions dominating it in a reasonable amount of time.
Varieties of groups and the perception of group entitativity.

Three studies examined perceptions of the entitativity of groups. In Study 1 (U.S.) and Study 2 (Poland), participants rated a sample of 40 groups on 8 properties of groups (e.g., size, duration, group member similarity) and perceived entitativity. Participants also completed a sorting task in which they sorted the groups according to their subjective perceptions of group similarity. Correlational and regression analyses were used to determine the group properties most strongly related to entitativity. Clustering and multidimensional scaling analyses in both studies identified 4 general types of groups (intimacy groups, task groups, social categories, and loose associations). In Study 3, participants rated the properties of groups to which they personally belonged. Study 3 replicated the results of Studies 1 and 2 and demonstrated that participants most strongly valued membership in groups that were perceived as high in entitativity.