Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of pre-emptive analgesia on self-reported and biological measures of pain after tonsillectomy.

This prospective, double-blind, randomized study assessed effect of pre-emptive peritonsillar block in 30 ASA-I children, aged 6-12 years, of both sexes, scheduled for tonsillectomy. Patients were divided into three groups: those in group I received a sham block, whereas peritonsillar blocks with bupivacaine 0.25% were given to the children before tonsillectomy (group II) or immediately after surgery had been completed (group III). Constant pain, pain on swallowing, blood glucose, serum epinephrine and norepinephrine concentrations were measured immediately after surgery and 4h after operation. Patients in group I experienced more pain (P< 0.05) than those in groups II and III, both in the immediate postoperative period and over the next 4 h. Patients in groups II and III experienced similar pain (P> 0.05). The pain experienced when water was swallowed was similar to that of the constant pain. The rise of serum norepinephrine concentration in group II was significantly less (P< 0.05) compared to groups I and III. We found both pre-emptive and postoperative block to be equally effective in treating postoperative pain, with pre-emptive block being more effective in preventing the rise in norepinephrine concentration.
Heat Shock Protein 70 Gene Polymorphisms in Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Background: Heat shock proteins protect cells and tissues against different types of damage. Previous studies have revealed that the serum level of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) increases in sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) patients. We hypothesized that genetic variants of the HSP70 gene are associated with susceptibility to SSNHL. Methods: We conducted a case-control study with 160 SSNHL cases and 178 controls. Three tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected. The genotypes were determined using TaqMan technology. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was tested for each SNP, and genetic effects were evaluated according to three inheritance modes. A haplotype analysis was also performed. Results: All three SNPs were in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. The CT genotype of rs2075800 exhibited an adjusted odds ratio of 0.59 (95% confidence interval 0.37–0.94; p = 0.027). The T allele of SNP rs2075800 was associated with SSNHL under the dominant model (p = 0.019; odds ratio 0.59). Haplotype analysis of the three SNPs demonstrated that the haplotype TGC (rs2075800/rs1043618/rs2763979) was statistically significant (p = 0.0137). Conclusions: These results suggest that HSP70 gene polymorphisms influence the susceptibility to the development of SSNHL in the Taiwanese population.
Factors Related to Coital Frequency of Women in Their Thirties

This cross-sectional study aimed to identify factors related to coital frequency (CF) among 254 women in their 30s using a semistructured interview to collect sociodemographic, anthropometric, reproductive, clinical, and relationship data. CF was characterized as (a) never, (b) rarely (≤1 times/month), (c) occasionally (≤1 times /week), (d) regularly (2–3 times/week), or (e) frequently (>3 times/week). The mean age was 34.38 ± 0.43 years, mean body mass index (BMI) was 27.86 ± 6.52 kg, mean family income was US$1,044.18 ± 796.19, mean number of children was 1.71 ± 0.89, and mean relationship duration was 8.87 ± 5.11 years. Eighty-seven women (35.2%) were taking hormonal contraceptives, 143 (98.0%) were employed, 239 (96.48%) had a secondary or higher education, and 9 (3.62%) had primary schooling. CF was classified as >3 times/week in 22 (8.66%), 2–3 times/week for 98 (38.58%), ≤1 times/week in 40 (15.75%), ≤1 times/month in 14 (5.51%), and never in 5 (1.97%). Women who reported having coitus >3 times/week a week had significantly higher body mass index (BMI; 32.72 ± 7.42 kg/m2) than those who had coitus 2–3 times/week (28.45 ± 6.76 kg/m2) and ≤1 times /week (26.81 ± 5.39 kg/m2) (p < 0.01 for both comparisons). Thus, coital frequency varies in women in their 30s. Obese women had a higher CF than normal-weight and overweight women.
Evidence based decisions in nursing and their effect on quality of care

Evidence-based practice is net als continue kwaliteitsverbetering en klinisch onderzoek een methode om de kwaliteit van zorg te verbeteren. Marja Storm-Versloot concentreerde zich in op evidence-based besluitvorming bij vier verschillende (verpleegkundige) beslissingen. Ze onderzocht triagesystemen op de spoedeisende hulp, de effectiviteit van een programma om te stoppen met roken, de effectiviteit van zilververbanden en de klinische waarde van routinematige controles. Elk van de vier studies beschreef het effect op de kwaliteit van zorg en een aantal mogelijke problemen bij het implementeren van de resultaten.
The Development and Evaluation of the Psychometric Properties of the Negative Beliefs about Post-Event Processing Scale

Background: Although negative beliefs have been found to be associated with worry symptoms and depressive rumination, negative beliefs have yet to be examined in relation to post-event processing and social anxiety symptoms. Aims: The purpose of the current study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Negative Beliefs about Post-Event Processing Questionnaire (NB-PEPQ). Method: A large, non-referred undergraduate sample completed the NB-PEPQ along with validation measures, including a measure of post-event processing and social anxiety symptoms. Results: Based on factor analysis, a single-factor model was obtained, and the NB-PEPQ was found to exhibit good validity, including positive associations with measures of post-event processing and social anxiety symptoms. Conclusions: These findings add to the literature on the metacognitive variables that may lead to the development and maintenance of post-event processing and social anxiety symptoms, and have relevant clinical applications.
Identity and Civil Society in Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine

This research tests the hypothesis that social identities play a key role in the success or failure of democracy, since individuals often hold ethnic and regional identities in particular in a mutually exclusive fashion, resisting calls to act politically on other identities that cut across them. Activists in women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were interviewed in Latvia, Poland, and Ukraine, in order to examine the policy process in an area that cuts across ethnic and regional lines. In newer democracies, the effects of identities should be strongest, since institutions are new, and have less ability to constrain political behavior. The hypothesis that ethnic and regional divisions inhibit cooperation within and between NGOs was tested against alternative hypotheses that attribute cooperation, or the lack of it, to outside funding. The results support the argument that ethnic and regional divisions harm cooperation on women's issues, though the other hypotheses cannot be ruled out.
Detection of drug resistance mutations as a predictor of subsequent virological failure in patients with HIV‐1 viral rebounds of less than 1,000 RNA copies/ml

In order to evaluate the usefulness of resistance testing after a viral rebound with plasma HIV RNA levels of less than 1,000 copies (c)/ml, genotyping was performed on 39 samples from patients on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) showing a viremia of over 50 c/ml up to a maximum of 1,000 c/ml after at least one undetectable viral load result. Protease and reverse transcriptase (RT) sequences were obtained for all 39 samples. In 10 (25.6%) of the samples, mutations not seen before the initiation of the regimen were observed. The M184V/I mutation was the most prevalent but in several patients a combination of multiple mutations was detected. Follow‐up samples were available for 34 patients. In six (85.71%) out of seven patients with new mutations, the viral load on the follow‐up visit remained detectable, indicating true failure, compared to 6 (31.6%) true failures out of 19 patients in whom only wild type virus was detected (P = 0.02) and three (37.5%) out of eight patients in whom only the mutations already present at the initiation of HAART were seen (P = 0.08). The results indicate that reliable resistance testing can be performed on samples with a viral burden of less than 1,000 c/ml and demonstrate that multiple drug resistance mutations can be selected at low viral load rebounds. Most importantly, detection of resistance mutations in viral rebound samples was predictive of subsequent virological failure. J. Med. Virol. 79:1254–1260, 2007. © Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Helping Behavior: Effects of Sex and Sex-Typing.

Two male and two female experimenters asked 178 adult shoppers to fill out a questionnaire. Refusal data showed a cross-sex effect, with individuals helping other-sex experimenters more than same-sex experimenters. The effects of helper sex, helper sex-typing, helpee sex, and situation sex-typing were examined by means of questionnaires administered to the final sample of 120 adults. A non-sex-typed helping behavior was used. Results showed a significant three-way interaction among helper sex, helpee sex, and situation sex-type. Helper sex-typing did not have any significant effects. Results are discussed in terms of the different social norms governing female and male prosocial behaviors.
Network Model of the CPE

Analysis of fractal systems (i.e. systems described by fractional differential equations) necessitates to create an electrical analog model of a crucial subsystem called Constant Phase Element (CPE). The paper describes a possible realization of such a model that is quite simple and in spite of its simplicity makes it possible to simulate the properties of ideal CPEs. The paper also deals with the effect of component tolerances on the resultant responses of the model and describes several typical model applica- tions.
The perceived credibility of quality labels: a scale validation with refinement

In this paper, we present quality labels as signals that reduce problems that arise under asymmetric information. We propose to closely scrutinize the concept of signal credibility, which is a key determinant of signalling effectiveness. In order to assess the perceived credibility of a quality label, we offer a revisited version of a scale originally proposed by Larceneux. The data used in this paper involve three different labels and were collected using self-report surveys administered to 602 respondents. Based on findings from a variety of reliability and validity tests, the scale demonstrates good psychometric properties. Both theoretical and managerial implications are discussed, along with limitations and future research directions.
M4: A Visualization-Oriented Time Series Data Aggregation

Visual analysis of high-volume time series data is ubiquitous in many industries, including finance, banking, and discrete manufacturing. Contemporary, RDBMS-based systems for visualization of high-volume time series data have difficulty to cope with the hard latency requirements and high ingestion rates of interactive visualizations. Existing solutions for lowering the volume of time series data disregard the semantics of visualizations and result in visualization errors. In this work, we introduce M4, an aggregation-based time series dimensionality reduction technique that provides error-free visualizations at high data reduction rates. Focusing on line charts, as the predominant form of time series visualization, we explain in detail the drawbacks of existing data reduction techniques and how our approach outperforms state of the art, by respecting the process of line rasterization. We describe how to incorporate aggregation-based dimensionality reduction at the query level in a visualization-driven query rewriting system. Our approach is generic and applicable to any visualization system that uses an RDBMS as data source. Using real world data sets from high tech manufacturing, stock markets, and sports analytics domains we demonstrate that our visualization-oriented data aggregation can reduce data volumes by up to two orders of magnitude, while preserving perfect visualizations.
Diabetic Goto Kakizaki rats as well as type 2 diabetic patients show a decreased diurnal serum melatonin level and an increased pancreatic melatonin‐receptor status

Abstract: There are functional inter‐relationships between the beta cells of the endocrine pancreas and the pineal gland, where the synchronizing circadian molecule melatonin originates. The aim of this study was to elucidate a putative interaction between insulin and melatonin in diabetic patients and a diabetic rat model. We analyzed glucose, insulin, and melatonin levels of type 2 patients, as well as type 2 diabetic Goto Kakizaki (GK) rats by radioimmunoassay. Expression of pancreatic melatonin and pineal insulin receptors, as well as arylalkylamine‐N‐acetyltransferase (AANAT), was determined by real‐time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR). The AANAT enzyme activity was measured in pineal homogenates. Diabetic patients showed a decrease in melatonin levels, while in the pancreas of GK rats an upregulation of the melatonin‐receptor mRNA was determined. The pancreatic islets of GK rats showed expression of the mRNA for the pancreatic melatonin (MT1) receptor, which had previously been identified in rats and insulinoma (INS1) cells. Besides their presence in animal cells, the MT1‐receptor transcript was also detected in human pancreas by RT‐PCR. Whereas the rat pancreatic mRNA expression of the MT1‐receptor was significantly increased, the activity of the pineal AANAT enzyme was reduced. The latter observation was in accordance with plasma melatonin levels. The insulin‐receptor mRNA of the pineal gland was found to be reduced in GK rats. Our observations suggest a functional inter‐relationship between melatonin and insulin, and may indicate a reduction of melatonin in the genesis of diabetes.
More than a shortage of early childhood teachers: looking beyond the recruitment of university qualified teachers to promote quality early childhood education and care

In Australia and internationally, government policies aim to increase the supply of early childhood teachers and thus improve the quality of early childhood education and care services. In this paper, we suggest that such a policy-quality trajectory in Australia is not as straightforward as policy discourses suggest. From industrial relations and broader policy contexts, we argue that the early childhood profession is a profession on the margins and that this marginalisation complicates efforts to enhance numbers of early childhood teachers. Mindful of this marginalisation, we draw upon preliminary findings from a study exploring the motivations, beliefs and expectations of mature age postgraduate students to highlight practical issues pertaining to students and early childhood teacher education programs that further complicate policy drives to increase the supply of early childhood teachers. We propose that the success of such policy drives is dependent on a comprehensive addressing of the complexities raised in this paper.
Just feeling a naked body close to you: Men, sexuality and intimacy in later life

Despite an increasing emphasis on sexuality as lifelong and part of healthy ageing, the voices of older men and women are seldom heard. Based on qualitative interviews with Swedish heterosexual men aged 67–87, this article discusses how men make sense of later life sexuality through narratives of intimacy. In the interviews, intimacy is described as something more or other than sexual intercourse, involving both touch and feelings of love and closeness in a committed relationship. Inspired by the work of Ahmed (The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2004) the article discusses how narratives of intimacy shape the sexual subjectivities and bodies of older men. Intimacy is discussed as making sexual subjectivities and bodies possible beyond a coital imperative. As such, intimacy is of potential use to anti-ageist and feminist theorizing. However, intimacy is also discussed as a possible reinforcement of respectable heterosexuality. The article concludes that intimacy may be a way for older heterosexual men to navigate between current binary discourses of asexual old age and ‘sexy seniors’.
Performance characterization of the NAS Parallel Benchmarks in OpenCL

Heterogeneous parallel computing platforms, which are composed of different processors (e.g., CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and DSPs), are widening their user base in all computing domains. With this trend, parallel programming models need to achieve portability across different processors as well as high performance with reasonable programming effort. OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is an open standard and emerging parallel programming model to write parallel applications for such heterogeneous platforms. In this paper, we characterize the performance of an OpenCL implementation of the NAS Parallel Benchmark suite (NPB) on a heterogeneous parallel platform that consists of general-purpose CPUs and a GPU. We believe that understanding the performance characteristics of conventional workloads, such as the NPB, with an emerging programming model (i.e., OpenCL) is important for developers and researchers to adopt the programming model. We also compare the performance of the NPB in OpenCL to that of the OpenMP version. We describe the process of implementing the NPB in OpenCL and optimizations applied in our implementation. Experimental results and analysis show that the OpenCL version has different characteristics from the OpenMP version on multicore CPUs and exhibits different performance characteristics depending on different OpenCL compute devices. The results also indicate that the application needs to be rewritten or re-optimized for better performance on a different compute device although OpenCL provides source-code portability.
Baseline Characteristics and Gender Differences in Prepubertal Children Treated with Growth Hormone in Europe, USA, and Japan: 25 Years' KIGS® Experience (1987-2012) and Review

Background: Information about disease-specific and gender-associated differences over longer time of short children treated with recombinant human growth hormone is missing. Methods: We analyzed data at growth hormone (GH) start in prepubertal children diagnosed with idiopathic GH deficiency (IGHD), congenital GHD, acquired GHD, idiopathic short stature (ISS), and born small for gestational age (SGA) enrolled (1987-2012) in the Pfizer International Growth Study (KIGS®) from Europe, USA, and Japan. Results: The demographic characteristics of patients in the three regions were similar. There was a diagnosis-specific pattern for age and height, and a universal pattern showing that girls were younger and smaller at GH start. There was a predominance of males with IGHD (n = 25,703; 70.1%), congenital GHD (n = 2,860; 63.9%), acquired GHD (n = 3,280; 63.9%), ISS (n = 4,327; 71.4%), and SGA (n = 5,848; 58.0%). Male prevalence in the USA population was more pronounced in IGHD, ISS, and SGA, but less so in congenital and acquired GHD. In IGHD (Europe and Japan) and ISS (Europe), there was a trend toward decreasing male prevalence. Conclusions: The male prevalence in prepubertal children treated with GH varies according to geographical region and is not explained by the underlying diagnoses. A global appreciation of gender biases is required for the proper care of short girls.
Testing the market maven concept

Market mavens are people who are more likely to advise others about a range of goods and services. This study explores the concept of the maven, which we test in three ways. First, we examine whether those who score highly on mavenism also score highly on self-reported advice about three disparate categories (testing the range of advice). Second, we examine whether the personality and motivational characteristics of male mavens are similar to those of female mavens (testing whether mavenism has the same bases in the two sexes). Finally, we test whether those who have a high score on mavenism have substantially different motivational characteristics compared with those with a low score. Our findings give indifferent support to the maven concept. We find only a modest association between self-reported advice giving and mavenism, we find that the personality characteristics of male mavens differ from those of female mavens, and we find that the motivational differences between mavens and non-mavens are not very substantial.
The relationship between acceptance and cognitive representations of pain in participants of a pain management programme

This study investigated the relationship between acceptance and cognitive representations of pain in participants on a pain management programme. Correlations between questionnaire measures of acceptance and five dimensions of health beliefs were examined in 116 participants attending for assessment for a pain management programme. Acceptance scores were inversely correlated with perceived severity and consequences of pain, and pain identity, but not correlated with beliefs about cause, expected duration of pain, or control and cure. Further research is needed to explore the nature of acceptance, and to identify the range and interplay of key dimensions of belief relevant to functioning and outcome of interventions in chronic pain populations.
Evolution Strategies for Constants Optimization in Genetic Programming

Evolutionary computation methods have been used to solve several optimization and learning problems. This paper describes an application of evolutionary computation methods to constants optimization in Genetic Programming. A general evolution strategy technique is proposed for approximating the optimal constants in a computer program representing the solution of a symbolic regression problem. The new algorithm has been compared with a recent linear genetic programming approach based on straight-line programs. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves such technique.
Perceived freedom in leisure and satisfaction: Exploring the factor structure of the perceived freedom components of the leisure diagnostic battery

Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the factor structure among the five component measures of perceived freedom in leisure within the Leisure Diagnostic Battery. Matrixes of correlations from three previous studies were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis procedures. The three studies included samples of adolescents, young adults, and mid‐life adults. Results provided support for the existence of a perceived freedom factor, as hypothesized, but they also pointed to the appropriateness of considering a second, correlated factor that may be interpreted as a global need approach to leisure satisfaction. On the basis of these results, a global need leisure satisfaction scale is proposed.