Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of consecutive open surgeries for varicose vein at Dhulikhel hospital.

BACKGROUND Varicose veins are prominent dilated veins in the lower limb primarily due to disease in the junction between superficial and deep venous system. Operative treatment of such condition significantly improves quality of life and also demonstrably decreases the potential complications. We present with analysis of fifty one consecutive open surgeries for varicose vein at Dhulikhel Hospital. OBJECTIVE To analyze consecutive open surgeries for varicose vein in terms of gender, age, presenting complaints, findings and post operative outcomes. METHOD All the cases posted for open surgeries for varicose vein at Dhulikhel Hospital during September 2012 - July 2013 were included. If great saphenous vein in thigh was more than 3 mm, segmental stripping was done. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 13.0. RESULT There were 51 cases with 47% male and 53% female. Mean age was 48.9 years. Prominent dilated vein was the most common presenting complaints. Incompetent saphenofemoral junction was present in 68.6% cases. Segmental stripping was done in 51% cases. Mean days of admission was 2.6 days. Mean pain free day was on 3.2 days. In an average, patient were able to walk normally in 4.1 days. Analysis of hospital admission days, ability to walk normally and pain free day attained in between stripping required and stripping not required group showed significant difference with higher values in stripping required group. CONCLUSION Although conventional stripping surgery has long been performed for varicose vein, this is associated with prolonged hospital admission, prolonged time required for ability to walk normally, and prolonged time taken for pain free status. Hence newer modalities of treatment like radiofrequency ablation is warranted in our setup too.
The Fire Resistance Performance of Recycled Aggregate Concrete Columns with Different Concrete Compressive Strengths

In order to ascertain the fire resistance performance of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) components with different concrete compressive strengths, four full-scaled concrete columns were designed and tested under high temperature. Two of the four specimens were constructed by normal concrete with compressive strength ratings of C20 and C30, respectively, while the others were made from recycled coarse aggregate (RCA) concrete of C30 and C40, respectively. Identical constant axial forces were applied to specimens while being subjected to simulated building fire conditions in a laboratory furnace. Several parameters from the experimental results were comparatively analyzed, including the temperature change, vertical displacement, lateral deflection, fire endurance, and failure characteristics of specimens. The temperature field of specimens was simulated with ABAQUS Software (ABAQUS Inc., Provindence, RI, USA) and the results agreed quite well with those from the experiments. Results show that the rate of heat transfer from the surface to the interior of the column increases with the increase of the concrete’s compressive strength for both RAC columns and normal concrete columns. Under the same initial axial force ratio, for columns with the same cross section, those with lower concrete compressive strengths demonstrate better fire resistance performance. The fire resistance performance of RAC columns is better than that of normal concrete columns, with the same concrete compressive strength.
Correlation of clot imaging with endovascular recanalization in internal carotid artery terminus occlusion

Background and purpose In a swine stroke model we have previously demonstrated a high-intensity fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) signal representing the erythrocyte component of the clot. We hypothesized that the intensity of the FLAIR clot signal in patients with acute stroke may predict the efficacy of recanalization by thrombectomy devices. In this study we compared the pretreatment FLAIR signal intensity of the clots in the distal internal carotid artery (ICA) and the degree of angiographic recanalization rate after mechanical thrombectomy. Methods 25 consecutive acute stroke patients with ICA terminus (ICA-T) occlusion diagnosed with MRI at the UCLA Medical Center between 2002 and 2013 were retrospectively reviewed. The intensity of the FLAIR clot signal at the distal ICA was blindly compared with the angiographic recanalization status (successful recanalization defined as Thrombolysis In Cerebral Infarction (TICI) score of 2b–3) and non-successful recanalization as TICI score 0–2a) after endovascular treatment. Multivariate logistic regression analysis for successful recanalization was performed. Results Successful recanalization was achieved in 40% of patients (10/25) and showed a significantly higher FLAIR intensity (p=0.014). The cut-off value for clot intensity on the FLAIR sequence to predict recanalization was 0.7952, with 70% sensitivity and 80% specificity (95% CI 0.59 to 0.96) using a receiver operating characteristic curve. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, only a high FLAIR clot intensity (>0.7952) was associated with successful recanalization (OR 16.79; 95% CI 1.29 to 218.92; p=0.031). Conclusions High signal intensity on FLAIR clot imaging may predict successful recanalization after endovascular therapy for ICA-T occlusion.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Participation of Ezrin in Bacterial Uptake by Trophoblast Giant Cells

Background: Trophoblast giant (TG) cells are involved in systematic removal of bacterial pathogens from the maternal-fetal interface of the placenta. In particular, TG cells have the ability to take up extracellular antigens by active phagocytosis induced by interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma). We previously reported that heat shock cognate protein 70 (Hsc70) present on the surface of TG cells mediated the uptake of Brucella abortus. However, the mechanism of bacterial uptake by TG cells is not completely understood. Here we identified ezrin, a member of ezrin-radixin-moesin (ERM) protein family, as a molecule associated with Hsc70.
Growth-inhibitory and bactericidal effects of human parotid salivary histidine-rich polypeptides on Streptococcus mutans

Growth inhibition and cell viability assays demonstrate that the histidine-rich polypeptides isolated from human parotid saliva are bacteriostatic and bactericidal for strains of Streptococcus mutans belonging to the serotype b and c classifications. Both inhibition of growth and cell division are enhanced by preincubation of bacteria with these polypeptides in low-ionic-strength buffers of acidic and neutral pH before dilution into enriched growth media. With prior exposure at pH 6.8, inhibition by these polypeptides of the serotype c strains, S. mutans GS5 and SB, as well as the serotype b strain, S. mutans BHT, is reversible over time under the experimental conditions selected. With similar exposure at pH 5.2, however, irreversible damage is manifested by complete inhibition of both growth and cell viability. At concentrations of 250 micrograms of the mixture of histidine-rich polypeptides per 5 X 10(5) bacterial cells per ml in the acidic preincubation buffer, bacterial lethality is maintained for a period of 48 h in the enriched growth media. At a 50-micrograms/ml concentration of these salivary agents, approximately 80% killing of S. mutans SB is noted after a 24-h incubation; however, surviving bacteria multiply and reach turbidities of untreated control cells when examined at the 48-h growth point. Similarly, hen egg white lysozyme is also found to be bactericidal for these microorganisms when preincubation is carried out under acidic conditions. However, in contrast to the histidine-rich polypeptides, lysozyme under these experimental conditions does not inhibit growth of S. mutans SB at neutral pH, although it does inhibit growth of both S. mutans BHT and S. mutans GS5 at this pH. Preexposure of S. mutans SB to the peptides in buffer at ionic strengths of 0.025 to 0.125, followed by either viability assays under nongrowing conditions or growth inhibition studies, suggests that there is very little effect of ionic strength on the antibacterial function of these peptides. In contrast to the inhibition of viability noted under growing conditions, lower concentrations of the histidine-rich polypeptides were required to elicit immediate cell death under nongrowing conditions.
A Psychophysiological Examination of Cognitive Processing of and Affective Responses to Social Expectancy Violations

Several models of person perception predict that expectancy violations have both affective and cognitive consequences for the perceiver. Although extant evidence generally supports these claims, the temporal resolution of traditional self-report measures has limited researchers' ability to convincingly link underlying physiological processes with observed outcomes. In this study, we examined these issues by measuring brain (event-related brain potentials) and peripheral (facial electromyogram) electrophysiological activity while participants read positive and negative expectancy-consistent, expectancy-violating, expectancy-irrelevant, and semantically incongruent behavioral sentences about fictitious characters. The electromyogram results indicated that negative (but not positive) expectancy-violating behaviors elicited enhanced negative affect as early as 100 to 300 ms poststimulus. The event-related potentials showed enhanced positivities with latency exceeding 300 ms in response to expectancy violations and negative behaviors. Semantically incongruent sentence endings influenced a separate negative component (N400), suggesting fundamental differences between semantic- and behavior-consistency processing. This difference also was evident in participants' recall. Implications for theoretical models of expectancy violation are discussed.
Recruitment-Related Information Sources and Organizational Attractiveness: Can Something be Done about Negative Publicity?

The present study begins to fill a gap in the recruitment literature by investigating whether the effects of negative publicity on organizational attractiveness can be mitigated by recruitment advertising and positive word-of-mouth. The accessibility-diagnosticity model was used as a theoretical framework to formulate predictions about the effects of these recruitment-related information sources. A mixed 2 x 2 experimental design was applied to examine whether initial assessments of organizational attractiveness based on negative publicity would improve at a second evaluation after exposure to a second, more positive information source. We found that both recruitment advertising and word-of-mouth improved organizational attractiveness, but word-of-mouth was perceived as a more credible information source. Self-monitoring did not moderate the impact of information source on organizational attractiveness.
Effects of Training and Supervision on the Self-Efficacy of Psychology Graduate Teaching Assistants

We surveyed psychology graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) to obtain information about their training and supervision and examined their sense of self-efficacy toward teaching as a function of these experiences. Results indicated that formal training has a positive, statistically significant effect on GTAs' sense of self-efficacy toward teaching. However, departments of psychology appear to offer GTAs formal training and supervision in an inconsistent manner.
Between Reality and Illusion: Re-Examining the Diversity of Media and Online Professional Journalism in the Baltic States

This article addresses the relationship between the size of media markets and content diversity online. In the Baltic countries, the Internet offers new channels with a greater diversity of information; at the same time, the increasing presence of hybrid discourses (PR-based news, promotional writing) on online media channels is creating an illusory impression of news diversity: the same sources and the same story frames are dominating online. The authors argue that new concepts (quality of information processing, media literacy) need to be taken into account to adequately assess online journalism professionalization (the changing identities and functions of journalists) in a small country.
Learning and incremental dynamic programming

; Optimization models have often been useful in attempting to understand the adaptive significance of behavioral traits. Originally such models were applied to isolated aspects of behavior, such as foraging, mating, or parental behavior. In reality, organisms live in complex, ever-changing environments, and are simultaneously concerned with many behavioral choices and their consequences. This target article describes a dynamic modeling technique that can be used to analyze behavior in a unified way. The technique has been widely used in behavioral studies of insects, fish, birds, mammals, and other organisms. The models use biologically meaningful parameters and variables, and lead to testable predictions. Limitations arise because nature's complexity always exceeds our modeling capacity.
Sex worker and mother: managing dual and threatened identities

This paper draws on a qualitative study that sought to understand and develop theory based upon 24 women’s subjective accounts of their childhood and adult experiences and involvement in sex work in the UK. It specifically examines the management of dual and threatened identities for the 17 women who were also mothers. To ensure the centrality of the women’s voices in the analysis and theory generation, a grounded theory approach was taken using a psychosocial framework that drew on concepts of resilience to explore how the meanings of those experiences were reflectively appraised by participants. The findings indicate that there is a need to cope with the threat to identity inherent in society’s diametrically opposed perceptions of sex worker and ‘good mother’ and simultaneously to manage the coexistence of the roles and identities of mother and sex worker. What appear significant in determining how these tensions are managed are the accumulated risk factors of early childhood, and the resources available to individuals in adulthood to manage both identities. Services must recognize not only individual but wider environmental and familial factors impacting on women with the dual identity of sex worker and mother in order to promote their resilience as mothers, whether living with or apart from their children.
Pulmonary hamartomas.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the clinical and pathologic features of biopsy-proven pulmonary hamartomas at a tertiary referral center. DESIGN We retrospectively reviewed institutional data on pulmonary hamartomas for a 17-year study period. MATERIAL AND METHODS The Mayo Clinic computerized medical records database was searched for patients who had biopsy, excision, or autopsy diagnosis of pulmonary hamartomas from 1976 through 1992. Medical records and all available histologic sections were reviewed. RESULTS Of the 215 patients with histologically confirmed pulmonary hamartoma, 141 were men and 74 were women (approximately a 2:1 ratio). Two hundred eight patients were asymptomatic, 54 of whom were undergoing assessment for a comorbid disease process. Only four patients had new onset of respiratory symptoms. The peak incidence of occurrence was in the seventh decade of life. The mean size of the hamartomas were 1.5 cm (range, 0.2 to 6.0); no lobe was predominantly involved. Most hamartomas were resected by simple or wedge excision. Sixty-three patients (29.3%) had a concurrent neoplasm (most commonly, lung carcinoma). Follow-up ranged from 2 to 192 months (mean, 61). Eight postoperative deaths occurred. No recurrent pulmonary hamartomas developed. In one patient, lung carcinoma developed 33 months after excision of a hamartoma. In a second patient, sputum cytologic findings were abnormal 9 years later. A third patient had biopsy-proven adenocarcinoma metastatic to bone and an indeterminate lung nodule 2 years after resection of a pulmonary hamartoma. CONCLUSIONS Pulmonary hamartomas are benign lung neoplasms that, in our referral population occurred most commonly in asymptomatic older men. A substantial number of our patients had concurrent neoplasms; however, many had been referred for cancer treatment. We found no evidence of either a malignant transformation or an unexplained association with other lung neoplasms.
Victorian Certificate of Education: Mathematics, Science and Gender

Gender differences in participation and performance at ‘high stakes’ examinations have received much public attention, which has often focused on mathematics and science subjects. This paper describes the innovative forms of assessment introduced into mathematics and science subjects within the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) system. Results from these subjects are examined for patterns of gender differences in participation and performance over the period 1994–1999. A larger proportion of males than females studied all the VCE science and mathematics subjects except Biology and Psychology over this period. Based on study scores, females, on average, out-performed males in almost all VCE science and mathematics subjects in nearly every year from 1994–1999. As exceptions to the patterns, males out-performed females in Chemistry and Mathematical Methods. Results from a general ability test are used to question the legitimacy of gender comparisons in subjects in which enrolment is no longer compulsory. The data do not support simplistic conclusions about gender differences in participation and performance.
An empirical analysis of zooplankton community size structure across lake trophic gradients1

The hypothesis was tested that zooplankton community size structure shifts toward an increased relative biomass of microzooplankton with increased lake trophy at 12 sites in Quebec, The seasonal mean abundance and biomass of ciliates, rotifers, nauplii, cladocerans, and cyclopoid copepods were significantly (P < 0.1) related to lake trophy, but Calanoid copepod abundance and biomass varied independently of lake trophy. Regressions of microzooplankton and macrozooplankton biomass with total phosphorus (TP) were highly significant (P < 0.000 l), and TP explained a large proportion of the total variation (microzooplankton: Y* = 0.72; macrozooplankton: r2 = 0.86). The regression models for microzooplankton and macrozooplankton were not significantly different, refuting the hypothesis that relative biomass changes with lake trophy. Further analysis with a community structure index (the slope of the log weight-log abundance relationship) and mean lengths of various taxa indicated that zooplankton community size structure was not correlated with either TP or chlorophyll. On average, about 40% of the total zooplankton biomass is accounted for by microzooplankton in the Quebec lakes. The inverse relationship between body size and specific flux rates suggests that microzooplankton account for the major portion of zooplankton community rates.
Creating ethical food consumers? Promoting organic foods in urban Southwest China

The article discusses recent attempts by an environmental NGO to promote the consumption of organic foods among residents in Kunming, Southwest China. Far from being elitist, activists engaged with popular environmental culture and with widespread concerns around health and food safety, and echoed advertisers' messages that associated the 'healthfulness' of organic foods with 'nature'. The article also discusses two private organic food enterprises. Like the NGO, these enterprises attempted to both engage with popular concerns and educate consumers, and it is argued that the study of environmentalism and ethical consumption in urban China should include both NGOs and profit-oriented enterprises.
Product-Form Solutions for Integrated Services Packet Networks

This paper is concerned with the computation of stationary distributions of priority multiclass queueing networks with multi-sever stations, which are associated with high-speed integrated services packet networks. General product-form solutions are iteratively derived for the networks under certain assumption related to interarrival and service time distributions and theory is established to justify the solutions in several cases. These solutions can be used to conduct performance analysis or as comparison criteria for approximation and simulation studies of large scale networks with multi-processor shared-memory switches. Numerical comparisons with existing Brownian approximating model are given to show the usage and effectiveness of our algorithm.
Integrin &agr;3&bgr;1 controls mRNA splicing that determines Cox-2 mRNA stability in breast cancer cells

ABSTRACT It is unknown how cues from the tumor microenvironment can regulate post-transcriptional mechanisms, such as alternative splicing, that control genes that drive malignant growth. The induction of cyclooxygenase 2 (Cox-2) by integrin &agr;3&bgr;1 in breast cancer cells can promote tumor progression. We have used RNAi to suppress &agr;3&bgr;1 in human MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells and then investigated changes in global gene expression. Numerous mRNAs, including Cox-2, show altered expression and/or alternative exon usage (AEU) in &agr;3&bgr;1-deficient cells. AEU included patterns predicted to render an mRNA susceptible to degradation, such as 3′-UTR variations or retention of elements that target an mRNA for nonsense-mediated decay (NMD). PCR-based analysis of &agr;3&bgr;1-deficient cells confirmed changes in Cox-2 mRNA that might target it for NMD, including retention of an intron that harbors premature termination codons and changes within the 3′-UTR. Moreover, Cox-2 mRNA has reduced stability in &agr;3&bgr;1-deficient cells, which is partially reversed by knockdown of the essential NMD factor UPF1. Our study identifies &agr;3&bgr;1-mediated AEU as a novel paradigm of integrin-dependent gene regulation that has potential for exploitation as a therapeutic target.
Speech rhythm in Akan oral praise poetry

Abstract This article reports a study of harmonic speech displayed in Akan oral praise poetry (apae). The study demonstrates that the recitation of Akan praise poetry—a fairly free verse form in terms of variable tempo and line length—is highly influenced by an isochronous rhythmic beat. Despite isolated occurrences of relatively long or short non-isochronous metrical accents, these poems are recited in a style that exploits tempo changes and ellipsis to maintain an oscillatory rhythm of beats at harmonic intervals, and this rhythm is found to remain constant through silent rest phases between individual poems as well as between lines. This research supports the notion that considerations of timing should be given more weight in linguistic theory and modeling.