Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How High Should Boys Sing?: Gender, Authenticity and Credibility in the Young Male Voice

'A boy sings.a beautiful thing' (www.boychoirs.org), but is it? What kinds of boy, singing what kinds of music and to whom? Martin Ashley presents a unique consideration of boys' singing that shows the high voice to be historically, culturally and physiologically more problematic even than is commonly assumed. Through Ashley's extensive conversations with young performers and analysis of their reception by 'peer audiences', the research reveals that the common supposition that 'boys don't want to sound like girls' is far from adequate in explaining the 'missing males' syndrome that can perplex choir directors. The book intertwines the study of singing with the study of identity to create a rich resource for musicians, scholars, teachers and all those concerned with young male involvement in music through singing. The conclusions of the book will challenge many attitudes and unconsidered positions through its argument that many boys actually want to sing but are discouraged by a failure of the adult world to understand the boy mind. Ashley intends the book to stand as an indictment of much complacency and myopia with regard to the young male voice. A substantial grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council has enabled the production of a multi-media resource for schools, choirs and youth organizations called Boys Keep Singing. Based on the contents of this book, the resource shows how, once the interest of boys is captured in primary schools, their singing can be sustained and developed through the difficult but vital early secondary years of ages 11 - 14, about which this book says so much. The resource is lavishly illustrated by short films of boys singing, supported by interviews with boys and their teachers, and a wealth of of animated diagrams and cartoons. It is available to schools and organizations involved in musical education through registration at www.boys-keep-singing.com.
The Opposite of Denial: Social Learning at the Onset of the Ebola Emergency in Liberia

This study analyzes findings from a rapid-response community-based qualitative research initiative to study the content of Ebola-related communications and the transmission of Ebola-related behaviors and practices through mass media communications and social learning in Monrovia, Liberia during August–September 2014. Thirteen neighborhoods in the common Monrovia media market were studied to appraise the reach of health communications and outreach regarding Ebola prevention and response measures. A World Health Organization (WHO) research team collected data on social learning and Ebola knowledge, attitudes, and practices through focus group–based discussions and key informant interviews over a 14-day period to assess the spread of information during a period of rapidly escalating crisis. Findings show that during a 2-week period, Monrovia neighborhood residents demonstrated rapid changes in beliefs about the source of Ebola, modes of contagion, and infection prevention and control (IPC) practices, discarding incorrect information. Changes in practices tended to lag behind the acquisition of learning. Findings also show that many continued to support conspiracy theories even as correct information was acquired. The implications for community engagement are substantial: (1) Under conditions of accelerating mortality, communities rapidly assimilate health information and abandon incorrect information; (2) Behavior change is likely to lag behind changes in beliefs due to local physical, structural, sociocultural, and institutional constraints; (3) Reports of “resistance” in Monrovia during the Ebola response were overstated and based on a limited number of incidents, and failed to account for specific local conditions and constraints.
Knapsack in graph groups, HNN-extensions and amalgamated products

It is shown that the knapsack problem, which was introduced by Myasnikov et al. for arbitrary finitely generated groups, can be solved in NP for graph groups. This result even holds if the group elements are represented in a compressed form by SLPs, which generalizes the classical NP-completeness result of the integer knapsack problem. We also prove general transfer results: NP-membership of the knapsack problem is passed on to finite extensions, HNN-extensions over finite associated subgroups, and amalgamated products with finite identified subgroups.
Age still matters: Prognosticating short- and long-term mortality for critically ill patients with pneumonia

Objective:To determine the association between age and mortality in critically ill patients with pneumonia. We hypothesized that increasing age would be independently associated with both short- and long-term mortality. Design:Prospective population-based cohort study examining the association between age and 30-day (short-term) and 1-yr (long-term) mortality using Cox proportional hazards regression, adjusting for pneumonia severity, mechanical ventilation, sex, functional status, nursing home residence, and having a living will. Setting:Five intensive care units in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Patients:Critically ill adult patients with pneumonia. Measurements and Main Results:The cohort included 351 intensive care unit patients; mean age 61 yrs, 59% male, 16% from nursing homes. Mean Pneumonia Severity Index was 115 (73% Pneumonia Severity Index class IV or V), mean Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score 17, and 83% received invasive mechanical ventilation. Overall, 151 (43%) were <60 yrs old, 64 (18%) were 60–69 yrs old, 82 (23%) were 70–79 yrs old, and 54 (15%) were ≥80 yrs old. By 30 days, 58 of 351 (17%) had died; by 1 yr, 112 of 351 (32%) had died. Mortality increased with age, 28 of 151 (19%) in those <60 yrs, 14 of 64 (22%) in those 60–69 yrs, 39 of 82 (48%) in those 70–79 yrs, and 31 of 54 (57%) in those ≥80 yrs. Independent of pneumonia severity and other factors, age (per 10-yr increase) was associated with 30-day mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 1.24, 95% confidence interval 1.03–1.49, p = .026) and 1-yr mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 1.39, 95% confidence interval 1.21–1.60, p < .001). Having a living will was similarly associated with increased mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 3.08, 95% confidence interval 1.61–5.90, p < .001 at 30 days; adjusted hazard ratio 2.00, 95% confidence interval 1.21–3.32, p = .007 at 1 yr). Conclusions:Increasing age was independently associated with risk-adjusted short- and long-term mortality in critically ill patients with pneumonia. These findings may help elderly patients, their families, and physicians better understand what intensive care unit admission can offer and help them to make more informed decisions.
Why laterality matters in trauma: sinister aspects of memory and emotion

This thesis presents an eclectic mix of studies which consider laterality in the context of previous findings of increased prevalence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in male combat veterans with non-consistent right hand preference. Two studies extend these findings not just to civilian populations and women, but to left handers and find that left, rather than mixed, handedness is associated with increased prevalence of PTSD in both general population and clinical samples, and to severity of symptoms in the former. To examine issues relevant to the fear response in healthy populations, a movie excerpt is shown to be theoretically likely to target the emotion of fear and to generate subjective and physiological (skin conductance) responses of fear. The film is used as a laboratory analogue of fear to examine possible differences in left and right handers in memory (for events of the film) and in an emotional Stroop paradigm known to produce a robust and large effect specifically in PTSD. According to predictions based on lateralisation of functions in the brain relevant to the fear response, left handers show a pattern of enhanced memory for visual items and poorer memory for verbal material compared to right handers. Immediately after viewing the film, left handers show an interference effect on the Stroop paradigm to general threat and film words and increased response latency compared to right handers, approaching performance of previously reported clinical samples with PTSD. A novel non-word Stroop task fails to show these effects, consistent both with accounts of interference as language processing effects and compromised verbal processing in PTSD. Unexpected inferior performance of females in memory for the film, contrary to previous literature, may also be amenable to explanations invoking compromised left hemisphere language functions in fear situations. In testing one theory of left handedness as due to increased levels of in utero testosterone, the 2D:4D (second to fourth digit ratio) provides mixed evidence in two samples. A possible association of more female-like digit ratios in males with PTSD is a tentative finding possibly relevant to sex differences in prevalence of PTSD. A critique of existing and inadequate theoretical accounts of handedness concludes the thesis and proposes a modification of the birth stress hypothesis to one specifically considering peri-natal trauma to account for the above findings. This hypothesis remains to be empirically tested.
Altered hepatic gluconeogenesis during L-alanine infusion in weight-losing lung cancer patients as observed by phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy and turnover measurements.

Profound alterations in host metabolism in lung cancer patients with weight loss have been reported, including elevated phosphomonoesters (PMEs) as detected by 31P magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). In healthy subjects, infusion of L-alanine induced significant increases in hepatic PMEs and phosphodiesters (PDEs) due to rising concentrations of 3-phosphoglycerate and phosphoenolpyruvate, respectively. The aim of the present study was to monitor these changes in the tumor-free liver of lung cancer patients during L-alanine infusion by means of simultaneous 31P MRS and turnover measurements. Twenty-one lung cancer patients without liver metastases with (CaWL) or without weight loss (CaWS), and 12 healthy control subjects were studied during an i.v. L-alanine challenge of 1.4-2.8 mmol/kg followed by 2.8 mmol/kg/h for 90 min. Plasma L-alanine concentrations increased during alanine infusion, from 0.35-0.37 mM at baseline to 5.37 +/- 0.14 mM in the CaWL patients, 6.67 +/- 0.51 mM in the CaWS patients, and 8.47 +/- 0.88 mM in the controls (difference from baseline and between groups during alanine infusion, all P < 0.001). Glucose turnover and liver PME levels at baseline were significantly elevated in the CaWL patients. Alanine infusion increased whole-body glucose turnover by 8 +/- 3% in the CaWS patients (P = 0.03), whereas no significant change occurred in the CaWL and controls. PME levels increased by 50 +/- 16% in controls (area under the curve, P < 0.01) and by 87 +/- 31% in the CaWS patients (P < 0.05) after 45-90 min. In contrast, no significant changes in PME levels were observed in the CaWL patients. Plasma insulin concentrations increased during L-alanine infusion in all groups to levels that were lower in the CaWL patients than in the CaWS patients and controls (P < 0.05). In lung cancer patients, but not in controls, changes in PME and PDE levels during alanine infusion were inversely correlated with their respective baseline levels (r = -0.82 and -0.86, respectively; P < 0.001). In addition, changes in PMEs during alanine infusion in lung cancer patients were inversely correlated with the degree of weight loss (r = -0.54; P < 0.05). This study demonstrates the presence of major alterations in the pathway of hepatic gluconeogenesis in weight-losing lung cancer patients, as shown by elevated glucose flux before and during L-alanine infusion, and by the increased PME and PDE levels, which reflect accumulation of gluconeogenic intermediates in these patients. Weight-stable lung cancer patients show accelerated increases in PME and PDE levels during L-alanine infusion, suggesting enhanced induction of the gluconeogenic pathway. Our results suggest altered gluconeogenic enzyme activities and elevated alanine uptake within the livers of weight-losing/weight-stable lung cancer patients.
Consensus‐Validation Study Identifies Relevant Nursing Diagnoses, Nursing Interventions, and Health Outcomes for People with Traumatic Brain Injuries

&NA; A consensus‐validation study used action research methods to identify relevant nursing diagnoses, nursing interventions, and patient outcomes for a population of adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in long‐term care. In meetings totaling 159 hours to reach 100% consensus through group discussions, the three classifications of NANDA International's (NANDA‐I's) approved nursing diagnoses, the Nursing Interventions Classification (NIC), and the Nursing Outcomes Classification (NOC) were used as the basis for three nurses experienced in working with adults with TBI to select the elements of nursing care. Among almost 200 NANDA‐I nursing diagnoses, 29 were identified as relevant for comprehensive nursing care of this population. Each nursing diagnosis was associated with 3–11 of the more than 500 NIC interventions and 1–13 of more than 300 NOC outcomes. The nurses became aware of the complexity and the need for critical thinking. The findings were used to refine the facility's nursing standards of care, which were to be combined with the interdisciplinary plan of care and included in future electronic health records.
Detection of the blood glucose and haemoglobin A1C with palm perspiration by using artificial neural networks

The invasive measurement techniques that puncture the skin during the detection are generally used for blood glucose and haemoglobin A1C (HbA1C) detection. In this paper, artificial neural network structures were used for the detection of relationship between blood glucose, HbA1C and palm perspiration rate as a non-invasive measurement technique. For this purpose, a comparative study was realized by using feed forward multilayer, Elman and radial basis neural network structures. A data set for 221 volunteers is used for this study. Data of 148 volunteers are used for training of the neural networks and the remaining data were used as test data.
Detecting Compositionality of Multi-Word Expressions using Nearest Neighbours in Vector Space Models

We present a novel unsupervised approach to detecting the compositionality of multi-word expressions. We compute the compositionality of a phrase through substituting the constituent words with their “neighbours” in a semantic vector space and averaging over the distance between the original phrase and the substituted neighbour phrases. Several methods of obtaining neighbours are presented. The results are compared to existing supervised results and achieve state-of-the-art performance on a verb-object dataset of human compositionality ratings.
Flavors of protein disorder

Intrinsically disordered proteins are characterized by long regions lacking 3‐D structure in their native states, yet they have been so far associated with 28 distinguishable functions. Previous studies showed that protein predictors trained on disorder from one type of protein often achieve poor accuracy on disorder of proteins of a different type, thus indicating significant differences in sequence properties among disordered proteins. Important biological problems are identifying different types, or flavors, of disorder and examining their relationships with protein function. Innovative use of computational methods is needed in addressing these problems due to relative scarcity of experimental data and background knowledge related to protein disorder. We developed an algorithm that partitions protein disorder into flavors based on competition among increasing numbers of predictors, with prediction accuracy determining both the number of distinct predictors and the partitioning of the individual proteins. Using 145 variously characterized proteins with long (>30 amino acids) disordered regions, 3 flavors, called V, C, and S, were identified by this approach, with the V subset containing 52 segments and 7743 residues, C containing 39 segments and 3402 residues, and S containing 54 segments and 5752 residues. The V, C, and S flavors were distinguishable by amino acid compositions, sequence locations, and biological function. For the sequences in SwissProt and 28 genomes, their protein functions exhibit correlations with the commonness and usage of different disorder flavors, suggesting different flavor‐function sets across these protein groups. Overall, the results herein support the flavor‐function approach as a useful complement to structural genomics as a means for automatically assigning possible functions to sequences. Proteins 2003;52:573–584. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Use of amiodarone to prevent atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery.

Laura Brantman is an acute care nurse practitioner at the University of California, San Francisco. Jill Howie is an associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco and a nurse practitioner at Kaiser Permanente. including digoxin, β-adrenergic blockers, calcium channel blockers, and class I and class III antiarrhythmic agents, to prevent postoperative atrial fibrillation. The results of clinical trials have indicated that digoxin and verapamil are no more effective than placebo; however, β-blockers and antiarrhythmic agents are effective in reducing the likelihood of postoperative atrial fibrillation. Most recently, researchers have investigated amiodarone, a class III antiarrhythmic agent that can block αand β-adrenergic receptors and sodium, calcium, and potassium channels. Treatment with amiodarone can reduce the occurrence of postoperative atrial fibrillation by 50%. This discovery has promising implications for patients who undergo cardiac surgery and provides a unique opportunity to develop standard prophylactic therapy to prevent postoperative atrial fibrillation. The purpose of this article is to review studies on the use of amiodarone to prevent atrial fibrillation after cardiac surgery and discuss the various regimens for administration of amiodarone.
Comparative effects of sirolimus and cyclosporin on conduit arteries endothelial function in kidney recipients

This study attempted to establish whether a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI)‐free immunosuppressant regimen based on sirolimus (SRL) is associated with a preservation of conduit arteries endothelial function in kidney recipients or not. Twenty‐nine kidney recipients were randomized to receive since transplantation SRL (n = 15) or cyclosporin A (CsA, n = 14) associated with mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and steroids (6 months) in a parallel prospective study. Systolic, diastolic blood pressures, glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and radial artery flow‐mediated dilatation (FMD) induced by postischaemic hyperaemia were assessed in a blind manner at one (M1) and 7 months (M7) after transplantation. Endothelium‐independent dilatation was assessed by glyceryl trinitrate spray. There was no difference between the groups for all vascular parameters at M1. At M7, systolic blood pressure was lower (SRL: 119 ± 3 vs. CsA: 138 ± 4 mmHg, P < 0.05) and FMD was higher in SRL compared with CsA (SRL: 13.1 ± 0.9 vs. CsA: 9.9 ± 0.9%, P < 0.05) without any difference for hyperaemia, endothelium‐independent dilatation and GFR (SRL: 66.7 ± 1.05 vs. CsA: 67.5 ± 1.22 ml/min). Our results demonstrate that a CNI‐free regimen based on SRL and MMF prevents conduit artery endothelial dysfunction compared with CsA and MMF in kidney recipients suggesting a beneficial arterial wall effect that may also contribute to the decrease in systolic blood pressure.
Pyramiding and evaluation of three dominant brown planthopper resistance genes in the elite indica rice 9311 and its hybrids.

BACKGROUND Brown planthopper (BPH), Nilaparvata lugens Stål, is the most devastating insect pest in rice-producing areas. Three dominant BPH resistance genes (Bph14, Bph15, Bph18) were pyramided into elite indica rice 9311 and its hybrids using marker-assisted selection. Gene effectiveness was evaluated on the basis of seedling and adult rice resistance, honeydew weight and survival rate of BPH. RESULTS All three genes affected BPH growth and development and antibiotic factors, resulting in both seedling and adult resistance. Bph15 had the greatest effect on conferring resistance to BPH. The results showed an additive effect of pyramiding genes, the order of the gene effect being 14/15/18 ≥ 14/15 > 15/18 ≥ 15 > 14/18 ≥ 14 ≥ 18 > none. The pyramided or single-gene introgression hybrids showed greater resistance than conventional hybrids, although the heterozygous genotypes had weaker effects than the corresponding homozygous genotypes. Furthermore, field trial data demonstrated that yields of improved 9311 lines were higher than or similar to that of the control under natural field conditions. These improved versions can be immediately used in hybrid improvement and production. CONCLUSION Compared with controls, pyramided lines and hybrids with three genes showed the strongest resistance to BPH, without a yield decrease.
Virology, Epidemiology and Pathology of Glossina Hytrosavirus, and Its Control Prospects in Laboratory Colonies of the Tsetse Fly, Glossina pallidipes (Diptera; Glossinidae)

The Glossina hytrosavirus (family Hytrosaviridae) is a double-stranded DNA virus with rod-shaped, enveloped virions. Its 190 kbp genome encodes 160 putative open reading frames. The virus replicates in the nucleus, and acquires a fragile envelope in the cell cytoplasm. Glossina hytrosavirus was first isolated from hypertrophied salivary glands of the tsetse fly, Glossina pallidipes Austen (Diptera; Glossinidae) collected in Kenya in 1986. A certain proportion of laboratory G. pallidipes flies infected by Glossina hytrosavirus develop hypertrophied salivary glands and midgut epithelial cells, gonadal anomalies and distorted sex-ratios associated with reduced insemination rates, fecundity and lifespan. These symptoms are rare in wild tsetse populations. In East Africa, G. pallidipes is one of the most important vectors of African trypanosomosis, a debilitating zoonotic disease that afflicts 37 sub-Saharan African countries. There is a large arsenal of control tactics available to manage tsetse flies and the disease they transmit. The sterile insect technique (SIT) is a robust control tactic that has shown to be effective in eradicating tsetse populations when integrated with other control tactics in an area-wide integrated approach. The SIT requires production of sterile male flies in large production facilities. To supply sufficient numbers of sterile males for the SIT component against G. pallidipes, strategies have to be developed that enable the management of the Glossina hytrosavirus in the colonies. This review provides a historic chronology of the emergence and biogeography of Glossina hytrosavirus, and includes researches on the infectomics (defined here as the functional and structural genomics and proteomics) and pathobiology of the virus. Standard operation procedures for viral management in tsetse mass-rearing facilities are proposed and a future outlook is sketched.