Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Degree of Observance of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist

Background: One of the most important goals of health care organizations is measuring and improving the quality of health care and reduction of adverse events. Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the degree of observance of the WHO surgical safety checklist at two hospitals in Tehran. Materials and Methods: During this analytic cross-sectional study the degree of observance and the effects of the checklist on patient outcomes were studied. The checklist was implemented at two teaching hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Results: One hundred patients (40 ± 15 years, 44 (44%) male and 56 (56%) female) were enrolled in our study. Determination of patients diagnoses, anesthesia safety check before anesthesia, patient connection to pulse oximetry, allergic airway disturbance check and aspiration risk, confirmation of patient identity, location of surgery and surgical method by surgeon and nurse, correct numbering of materials by nurse and correct ticketing by nurse were carried out in more than 90% of cases. Conclusions: In conclusion, our study demonstrated that surgery team members comply moderately to the WHO surgery safety checklist in Iran. Iranian health care providers need to show more adherence to some items of the checklist compared to their previous routine.
Comparison of home oximetry monitoring with laboratory polysomnography in children.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To measure the accuracy and reliability of a portable home oximetry monitor with an automated analysis for the diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING Alberta Lung Association Sleep Center, Alberta Children's Hospital Sleep Clinic. STUDY SUBJECTS Consecutive, otherwise healthy children, aged 4 to 18 years, presenting to the Pediatric Sleep Service at the Alberta Children's Hospital for assessment of possible OSA. INTERVENTIONS All subjects underwent 2 nights of monitoring in the home with an oximetry-based portable monitor with an automatic internal scoring algorithm. A third night of monitoring was done simultaneously with computerized laboratory polysomnography according to American Thoracic Society guidelines. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Both test-retest reliability of the portable monitor-based desaturation index (DI) between 2 nights at home and between laboratory and home were high using the Bland and Altman analysis (mean agreement, 0.32 and 0.64; limits of agreement, - 8.00 to 8.64 and - 0.75 to 6.50, respectively). The polysomnographic apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) agreed poorly with the portable monitor DI (mean difference, 1.27; limits of agreement, - 12.02 to 15.02). The sensitivity and specificity of the monitor for the identification of moderate sleep apnea (polysomnography AHI > 5/h) were 67% and 60%, respectively. CONCLUSION Portable monitoring based only on oximetry alone is not adequate for the identification of OSA in otherwise healthy children.
EFFECTS OF CHRONIC EXCESS SALT INGESTION

Two strains of selectively inbred rats were demonstrated previously to have opposite genetic predisposition to develop hypertension from NaCl ingestion (1, 2), DOCA-NaCl (3), and unilateral renal artery compression without NaCl (3). Using these same strains, similar disparate responses were elicited with two other models for inducing experimental hypertension, namely cortisone and adrenal regeneration. On the basis of these experiences, it is proposed that the genetic substrate will be found to modify significantly the influence of all non-genetic factors considered to play a primary role in the etiology of experimental hypertension. Furthermore, it is suggested that similar genetic and non-genetic factors interact to produce hypertension in man. An hypothesis has been elaborated that is compatible with the experimental data and there is some clinical evidence to support this hypothesis.
TCP Performance in Coded Wireless Mesh Networks

This paper investigates the benefit of network coding for TCP traffic in a wireless mesh network. We implement network coding in a real 802.11a wireless mesh network and measure TCP throughput in such a network. Unlike previous implementations of network coding in mesh networks, we use off-the-shelf hardware and software and do not modify TCP or the underlying MAC protocol. Therefore, our implementation can be easily exported to any operational wireless mesh network with minimal modifications. Furthermore, the TCP throughput improvement reported in this paper is due solely to network coding and is orthogonal to other improvements that can be achieved by optimizing other system components such as the MAC protocol. We conduct extensive measurements to understand the relation between TCP throughput and network coding in different mesh topologies. We show that network coding not only reduces the number of transmissions by sending multiple packets via a single transmission but also results in a smaller loss probability due to reduced contention on the wireless medium. Unfortunately, due to asynchronous packet transmissions, there is often little opportunity to code resulting in small throughput gains. Coding opportunity can be increased by inducing small delays at intermediate nodes. However, this extra delay at intermediate nodes results in longer round-trip-times that adversely affect TCP throughput. Through experimentation, we find a delay in the range of 1 ms to 2 ms to maximize TCP throughput. For the topologies considered in this paper, network coding improves TCP throughput by 10% to 85%.
The effect of filled pauses and speaking rate on speech comprehension in natural, vocoded and synthetic speech

It has been shown that in natural speech filled pauses can be beneficial to a listener. In this paper, we attempt to discover whether listeners react in a similar way to filled pauses in synthetic and vocoded speech compared to natural speech. We present two experiments focusing on reaction time to a target word. In the first, we replicate earlier work in natural speech, namely that listeners respond faster to a target word following a filled pause than following a silent pause. This is replicated in vocoded but not in synthetic speech. Our second experiment investigates the effect of speaking rate on reaction times as this was potentially a confounding factor in the first experiment. Evidence suggests that slower speech rates lead to slower reaction times in synthetic and in natural speech. Moreover, in synthetic speech the response to a target word after a filled pause is slower than after a silent pause. This finding, combined with an overall slower reaction time, demonstrates a shortfall in current synthesis techniques. Remedying this could help make synthesis less demanding and more pleasant for the listener, and reaction time experiments could thus provide a measure of improvement in synthesis techniques. Index Terms: HMM-synthesis, speech synthesis, reaction time, filled pause, disfluency, speaking rate, speech perception
Association between Sleep and Body Weight: A Panel Data Model Based on a Retrospective Longitudinal Cohort of Chinese Infants

The focus of this article is on sleep duration and sleep problems in infants and their association with body weight. A retrospective birth cohort of 519 infants was enrolled in a community-based study conducted in Changsha, China. Infant weight and other health-related information were collected during regular standard checkups at the Community Health Service Centers when infants were 1, 3, 6, 8, and 12 months old. The sleep duration and sleep problems of infants were assessed by maternal self-reports. Panel data model was used to evaluate the association of sleep duration and sleep problems with infant body weight. Significant relevance between self-reported sleep duration and weight of infants has been reported in the literature tested by the fixed effects model (p < 0.01). However, this study indicated that sleep problems of infants had no effect on their weight (p = 0.151), after adjusting feeding patterns and socioeconomic factors of their families. This paper argues that, as a potentially modifiable risk factor, infant sleep duration deserves more attention from their parents and families in order to prevent and control overweight or obesity in infants as well as reducing the incidence of obesity in adults.
Notch signaling regulates cardiomyocyte proliferation during zebrafish heart regeneration

Significance Heart failure is a term used to describe the heart’s inability to pump sufficient oxygen-rich blood throughout the body. This condition is commonly caused by the loss of heart muscle cells termed cardiomyocytes that results from a heart attack. As one of the least regenerative organs in the human body, the heart fails to regenerate damaged cardiomyocytes, forms a noncontractile scar instead, and progressively fails. Unlike mammals, adult zebrafish robustly regenerate their hearts following injury through division of uninjured cardiomyocytes, thus providing an opportunity to dissect innate cardiac regenerative mechanisms. Here, we provide evidence that Notch signaling is required for cardiomyocyte division and heart regeneration in zebrafish and, therefore, highlight a genetic determinant of natural heart renewal. The human heart’s failure to replace ischemia-damaged myocardium with regenerated muscle contributes significantly to the worldwide morbidity and mortality associated with coronary artery disease. Remarkably, certain vertebrate species, including the zebrafish, achieve complete regeneration of amputated or injured myocardium through the proliferation of spared cardiomyocytes. Nonetheless, the genetic and cellular determinants of natural cardiac regeneration remain incompletely characterized. Here, we report that cardiac regeneration in zebrafish relies on Notch signaling. Following amputation of the zebrafish ventricular apex, Notch receptor expression becomes activated specifically in the endocardium and epicardium, but not the myocardium. Using a dominant negative approach, we discovered that suppression of Notch signaling profoundly impairs cardiac regeneration and induces scar formation at the amputation site. We ruled out defects in endocardial activation, epicardial activation, and dedifferentiation of compact myocardial cells as causative for the regenerative failure. Furthermore, coronary endothelial tubes, which we lineage traced from preexisting endothelium in wild-type hearts, formed in the wound despite the myocardial regenerative failure. Quantification of myocardial proliferation in Notch-suppressed hearts revealed a significant decrease in cycling cardiomyocytes, an observation consistent with a noncell autonomous requirement for Notch signaling in cardiomyocyte proliferation. Unexpectedly, hyperactivation of Notch signaling also suppressed cardiomyocyte proliferation and heart regeneration. Taken together, our data uncover the exquisite sensitivity of regenerative cardiomyocyte proliferation to perturbations in Notch signaling.
Female genital-tract HIV load correlates inversely with Lactobacillus species but positively with bacterial vaginosis and Mycoplasma hominis.

BACKGROUND Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) acquisition. We examined the association between BV and BV-associated bacteria and expression of HIV in the female genital tract. METHODS HIV RNA, lactobacilli, Gardnerella vaginalis, and Mycoplasma hominis in cervicovaginal lavage (CVL) samples were quantified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Gynecologic evaluation included Nugent score assessment, Amsel criteria assessment, detection of other genital-tract infections, and dysplasia grading. CD4 cell count, plasma HIV RNA level, and antiretroviral history were obtained. RESULTS A total of 203 CVL samples from women with Nugent scores of 7-10 (BV group) and 203 samples from women with Nugent scores of 0-3 (no-BV group) were matched by plasma HIV RNA level and analyzed. After controlling for plasma HIV RNA level and Nugent score in univariate analyses, we found that G. vaginalis and M. hominis bacterial counts, Candida vaginitis, and herpes simplex virus (HSV) were positively associated with CVL HIV RNA levels. In multivariate analysis, only lactobacilli bacterial counts (P=.006; inverse association), M. hominis bacterial counts (P=.0001; positive association), Candida vaginitis (P=.007), and HSV (P=.03) were significantly associated with CVL HIV RNA levels. CONCLUSION Bacteria associated with BV increase genital-tract HIV RNA levels. Quantitative bacterial counts for lactobacilli and M. hominis are better correlates of CVL HIV RNA than are Nugent score or Amsel criteria. Since plasma virus and CD4 cell levels did not differ between the BV and no-BV groups, these data suggest that the bacterial flora associated with BV influence genital-tract HIV shedding.
Role of mononuclear phagocytes in expression of resistance and susceptibility to Mycobacterium avium infections in mice

The growth of Mycobacterium avium 702 in the spleens and livers of four inbred strains of mice varied such that the mice could be separated into naturally susceptible (BALB/c and C57BL/6) and naturally resistant (A/Tru and DBA/2) strains. This phenomenon was independent of the size of the infecting inoculum of bacteria in that both low (10(4))- and high (10(7))-dose inocula of M. avium grew progressively in susceptible strains and were eliminated from the target organs of resistant strains. Resistance and susceptibility were also demonstrated in in vitro preparations of macrophages from these strains of mice. Over a 7-day period, replication of M. avium in susceptible mouse macrophages was far greater than that in resistant macrophages. Evidence was obtained to suggest that toxic oxygen metabolites were not responsible for this difference. Though no difference was found in the rate of clearance of M. avium from the blood of susceptible or resistant mice, resident macrophages from susceptible mice ingested more M. avium in vitro than did resident macrophages from resistant animals. Growth of M. avium in spleens of susceptible mice induced a large influx of phagocytes, whereas this was not observed in resistant mice. In contrast to this it was found that, after injection of a variety of inflammatory agents, influx of leukocytes into the peritoneal cavity could not be used to distinguish susceptible and resistant strains of mice.
Iliopsoas and Gluteal Muscles Are Asymmetric in Tennis Players but Not in Soccer Players

Purpose To determine the volume and degree of asymmetry of iliopsoas (IL) and gluteal muscles (GL) in tennis and soccer players. Methods IL and GL volumes were determined using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in male professional tennis (TP) and soccer players (SP), and in non-active control subjects (CG) (n = 8, 15 and 6, respectively). Results The dominant and non-dominant IL were hypertrophied in TP (24 and 36%, respectively, P<0.05) and SP (32 and 35%, respectively, P<0.05). In TP the asymmetric hypertrophy of IL (13% greater volume in the non-dominant than in the dominant IL, P<0.01) reversed the side-to-side relationship observed in CG (4% greater volume in the dominant than in the contralateral IL, P<0.01), whilst soccer players had similar volumes in both sides (P = 0.87). The degree of side-to-side asymmetry decreased linearly from the first lumbar disc to the pubic symphysis in TP (r = −0.97, P<0.001), SP (r = −0.85, P<0.01) and CG (r = −0.76, P<0.05). The slope of the relationship was lower in SP due to a greater hypertrophy of the proximal segments of the dominant IL. Soccer and CG had similar GL volumes in both sides (P = 0.11 and P = 0.19, for the dominant and contralateral GL, respectively). GL was asymmetrically hypertrophied in TP. The non-dominant GL volume was 20% greater in TP than in CG (P<0.05), whilst TP and CG had similar dominant GL volumes (P = 0.14). Conclusions Tennis elicits an asymmetric hypertrophy of IL and reverses the normal dominant-to-non-dominant balance observed in non-active controls, while soccer is associated to a symmetric hypertrophy of IL. Gluteal muscles are asymmetrically hypertrophied in TP, while SP display a similar size to that observed in controls. It remains to be determined whether the different patterns of IL and GL hypertrophy may influence the risk of injury.
Three-Dimensional Distribution of Sensory Stimulation-Evoked Neuronal Activity of Spinal Dorsal Horn Neurons Analyzed by In Vivo Calcium Imaging

The spinal dorsal horn comprises heterogeneous populations of interneurons and projection neurons, which form neuronal circuits crucial for processing of primary sensory information. Although electrophysiological analyses have uncovered sensory stimulation-evoked neuronal activity of various spinal dorsal horn neurons, monitoring these activities from large ensembles of neurons is needed to obtain a comprehensive view of the spinal dorsal horn circuitry. In the present study, we established in vivo calcium imaging of multiple spinal dorsal horn neurons by using a two-photon microscope and extracted three-dimensional neuronal activity maps of these neurons in response to cutaneous sensory stimulation. For calcium imaging, a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based calcium indicator protein, Yellow Cameleon, which is insensitive to motion artifacts of living animals was introduced into spinal dorsal horn neurons by in utero electroporation. In vivo calcium imaging following pinch, brush, and heat stimulation suggests that laminar distribution of sensory stimulation-evoked neuronal activity in the spinal dorsal horn largely corresponds to that of primary afferent inputs. In addition, cutaneous pinch stimulation elicited activities of neurons in the spinal cord at least until 2 spinal segments away from the central projection field of primary sensory neurons responsible for the stimulated skin point. These results provide a clue to understand neuronal processing of sensory information in the spinal dorsal horn.
Molecular Characterization of the Human Stomach Microbiota in Gastric Cancer Patients

Helicobacter pylori (Hp) is the primary cause of gastric cancer but we know little of its relative abundance and other microbes in the stomach, especially at the time of gastric cancer diagnosis. Here we characterized the taxonomic and derived functional profiles of gastric microbiota in two different sets of gastric cancer patients, and compared them with microbial profiles in other body sites. Paired non-malignant and tumor tissues were sampled from 160 gastric cancer patients with 80 from China and 80 from Mexico. The 16S rRNA gene V3–V4 region was sequenced using MiSeq platform for taxonomic profiles. PICRUSt was used to predict functional profiles. Human Microbiome Project was used for comparison. We showed that Hp is the most abundant member of gastric microbiota in both Chinese and Mexican samples (51 and 24%, respectively), followed by oral-associated bacteria. Taxonomic (phylum-level) profiles of stomach microbiota resembled oral microbiota, especially when the Helicobacter reads were removed. The functional profiles of stomach microbiota, however, were distinct from those found in other body sites and had higher inter-subject dissimilarity. Gastric microbiota composition did not differ by Hp colonization status or stomach anatomic sites, but did differ between paired non-malignant and tumor tissues in either Chinese or Mexican samples. Our study showed that Hp is the dominant member of the non-malignant gastric tissue microbiota in many gastric cancer patients. Our results provide insights on the gastric microbiota composition and function in gastric cancer patients, which may have important clinical implications.
Measuring Aid Flows: A New Approach

The debate on the effectiveness of foreign aid has intensified in recent years as aid has come under increasing budgetary pressures in donor countries. Whatever the merits of the opposing arguments, the fundamental issue arises of whether conventionally-used measures of aid such as ODA, which lump together grants and loans, accurately reflect true aid flows. This paper analyzes the methodological shortcomings of conventional aid measures, and proposes a new valuation approach that measures official aid flows as the sum of grants and the grant equivalents of official loans. This conceptually superior aid measure can diverge significantly from the conventional aggregates and provide a quite different view on major aid trends.
Evaluation of Proinflammatory Cytokine Production Induced by Linear and Branched Polyethylenimine/Plasmid DNA Complexes in Mice

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cytokine response induced by linear and branched polyethylenimine (PEI)/plasmid DNA (pDNA) complex (polyplex) in relation to the ratio of PEI nitrogen and DNA phosphate (N/P ratio) of the polyplex, dose of pDNA, and structure and molecular weight of PEI, which are important for transfection efficacy of PEI polyplex. As a control, a N-[1-(2, 3-dioleyloxy) propyl]-n,n,n-trimethylammonium chloride/cholesterol liposome/pDNA complex (lipoplex) was selected for its high transfection efficacy in vivo. The concentration of proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α were much lower after the administration of polyplex than lipoplex irrespective of the N/P ratio, dose of pDNA, or structure and molecular weight of PEI, although these factors affected the transfection efficacy in vivo. We demonstrated that the amount of activated nuclear factor-κB, which contributes substantially to the production of cytokines, was comparable with the control (no treatment) level, and significantly less than that obtained with lipoplex. Although the production of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, interferon-γ, and interleukin-12) was reduced on the administration of the linear PEI polyplex, serum alanine aminotransferase levels were significantly enhanced by pDNA in a dose-dependent manner, suggesting that such hepatic damage is not induced by proinflammatory cytokines.
GRAPH PROPERTIES OF GRAPH ASSOCIAHEDRA

A graph associahedron is a simple polytope whose face lattice encodes the nested structure of the connected subgraphs of a given graph. In this paper, we study certain graph properties of the $1$-skeleta of graph associahedra, such as their diameter and their Hamiltonicity. Our results extend known results for the classical associahedra (path associahedra) and permutahedra (complete graph associahedra). We also discuss partial extensions to the family of nestohedra.
Minimum movement matters: impact of robot-mounted cameras on social telepresence

Recently, various robots capable of having a video chat with distant people have become commercially available. This paper shows that movement of these robots enhances distant people's presence that the robot operator feels. We conducted an experiment to compare the degrees of social telepresence produced by fixed, rotatable, movable, and automatically moving cameras. In this experiment we found that forward-backward movement of the camera significantly contributed to social telepresence, while rotation did not. We also found that this effect disappeared when the camera moved automatically. We propose the user-controllable movement of cameras as a fundamental function for video-based communication systems.
Factored models for Deep Machine Translation

In this paper, we present some preliminary results on Statistical Machine Translation from Bulgarian-to-English and English-to-Bulgarian. Linguistic knowledge has been added gradually as factors in the MOSES system. The tests were performed on the QTLeap corpus data in IT domain for Pilot 1. The training was done on news parallel data as well as on IT domain data. The BLEU scores show that the addition of linguistic knowledge improves the Machine Translation