Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of Solifenacin on Symptom Bother and Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Acute, Early Chronic, and Late Chronic Overactive Bladder: Secondary Analysis of Data From the VOLT Study

Objectives: In many clinical trials of pharmacotherapy for overactive bladder (OAB), the duration of symptoms is reported as a baseline characteristic; none has investigated this as a prognostic variable. We evaluated the efficacy of solifenacin by patient-reported OAB duration. Methods: In this post hoc analysis, patients from a 12-week, open-label study of solifenacin were grouped into 3 OAB duration categories: 3 months to 1 year, 1 to 5 years, and more than 5 years. Changes from baseline to end point on the Patient Perception of Bladder Condition (PPBC), Overactive Bladder Questionnaire (OAB-q), and visual analog scale (VAS) are summarized for each duration cohort. In addition, analysis of covariance was used to compare baseline characteristics and treatment-related changes from baseline among the 3 duration cohorts. Results: After 12 weeks, all 3 duration cohorts showed numeric improvements in the PPBC, VAS, and OAB-q. Approximately 75% of patients in each group showed improvement on the PPBC. All 3 cohorts showed a 36- to 45-point improvement in the level of bother on the symptom-specific VAS. The magnitude of score improvements (14-31 points) on the OAB-q exceeded the minimally important within group difference of 10 points in all 3 groups. Although results from the analysis of covariance model indicated statistically significant differences between the 3 cohorts for some end points, these differences were numerically small and may not be clinically relevant. Tolerability was similar among the cohorts and compared with the safety population. The most frequently reported adverse events were dry mouth, constipation, headache, and blurred vision. Conclusions: These findings showed that irrespective of OAB symptom duration, patients who received 12 weeks of solifenacin perceived meaningful improvements in symptom-specific bother, health-related quality of life, and their overall bladder condition.
Spontaneous pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis in nondrug users.

OBJECTIVE To analyze the clinical, microbiological, and radiologic features of patients without drug addiction suffering from spontaneous pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis. METHODS We collected all microbiologically proved cases of pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis seen between January 1980 and December 1999 in a teaching hospital. Patients with prior spinal instrumentation or surgery and injection drug users were excluded. RESULTS Sixty-four patients, with a mean age of 59 +/- 17 years, were identified. In 29 (45%) patients, 1 or more underlying medical illnesses were found. The mean duration of symptoms before hospital admission was 48 +/- 40 days. Neurologic impairment was present in 18 (28%) patients. Staphylococcus aureus and gram-negative bacilli, mainly Escherichia coli, were the predominant etiologic agents. Blood cultures were positive in 72% (46/64) of cases. The cultures of spinal specimens obtained by x-ray-guided biopsy were positive in 52% (11/21) of cases, and those obtained by open biopsy in 75% (15/20) of cases. Plain radiography showed abnormalities in all but 7 patients. Fifty-one of 53 (96%) technetium Tc 99m diphosphonate bone scans and 40 of 44 (91%) gallium citrate Ga 67 bone scans showed increased uptake of tracers in the involved area. Paraspinal and epidural extension was found on computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging in 74% (39/53) of cases; the presence of an extra-vertebral extension was not associated with the development of neurologic findings in many patients. Two patients died in relation to the infectious process and 3 relapsed; functional sequelae often were found. CONCLUSIONS Spontaneous pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis in nondrug users is a disease that affects mainly older patients suffering underlying medical illnesses. S aureus and E coli are the main causative microorganisms. Positive blood cultures frequently aided the diagnosis. Extra-vertebral extension is frequent but does not indicate a worse prognosis. Although life outcome is good, functional sequelae are common. Diagnostic delay before admission is a concern, and the physician should be alert to the possibility of this condition in patients with back or neck pain.
In vitro inhibitory activity of probiotic spore‐forming bacilli against genotoxins

Aims: To investigate the ability of bacilli of various species (Bacillus clausii, Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus lentus, Bacillus pumilus. Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus firmus, Bacillus sp.) and origins (probiotic and collection strains) to counteract the activity of some representative DNA‐reactive agents.
Association of genital adenovirus infection with urethritis in men

Adenoviruses were isolated from the urethral swabs of 129 male patients in an STD clinic. After exclusion of patients with Chlamydia trachomatis or Neisseria gonorrhoea infections, 85 of the remaining 120 patients had urethritis, compared with 28 men with urethritis detected in a control group which was closely matched for age, sex, and date of specimen collection. This statistically significant difference suggests that genital adenovirus infection may be a cause of urethritis in some male patients.
Block sparsity and sampling over a union of subspaces

Sparse signal representations have gained wide popularity in recent years. In many applications the data can be expressed using only a few nonzero elements in an appropriate expansion. In this paper, we study a block-sparse model, in which the nonzero coefficients are arranged in blocks. To exploit this structure, we redefine the standard (NP-hard) sparse recovery problem, based on which we propose a convex relaxation in the form of a mixed ℓ2=ℓ1 program. Isometry-based analysis is used to prove equivalence of the solution to that of the optimal program, under certain mild conditions. We further establish the robustness of our algorithm to mismodeling and bounded noise. We then present theoretical arguments and numerical experiments demonstrating the improved recovery performance of our method in comparison with sparse reconstruction that does not incorporate a block structure. The results are then applied to two related problems. The first is that of simultaneous sparse approximation. Our results can be used to prove isometry-based equivalence properties for this setting. In addition, we propose an alternative approach to acquire the measurements, that leads to performance improvement over standard methods. Finally, we show how our results can be used to sample signals in a finite structured union of subspaces, leading to robust and efficient recovery algorithms.
Sustainable development and project stakeholder management: what standards say

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze how various approaches to stakeholder management, as well as sustainable development principles, are included in internationally‐used project management standards; and to consider the demands these approaches and principles place on project stakeholder management.Design/methodology/approach – An analytical framework was developed based on stakeholder theory within general management, as well as on sustainability research. Desk research was carried out by applying the analytical framework to three project management standards: ICB, PMBOK and PRINCE2.Findings – The research findings suggest that stakeholder issues are treated superficially in the project management standards, while putting stakeholder management in the context of sustainable development would ask for a paradigm shift in the underpinning values. The current project stakeholder practices represent mainly a management‐of‐stakeholders approach, i.e. making stakeholders comply to project needs, w.
Local and regional rarity in a diverse tropical fish assemblage

Because most species in an ecological assemblage are rare, much of the species richness we value is due to taxa with few individuals or a restricted distribution. It has been apparent since the time of ecological pioneers such as Bates and Darwin that tropical systems have disproportionately large numbers of rare species, yet the distribution and abundance patterns of these species remain largely unknown. Here, we examine the diversity of freshwater fish in a series of lakes in the Amazonian várzea, and relate relative abundance, both as numbers of individuals and as biomass, to the occurrence of species in space and time. We find a bimodal relationship of occurrence that distinguishes temporally and spatially persistent species from those that are infrequent in both space and time. Logistic regression reveals that information on occurrence helps distinguish those species that are rare in this locality but abundant elsewhere, from those that are rare throughout the region. These results form a link between different approaches used to evaluate commonness and rarity. In doing so, they provide a tool for identifying species of high conservation priority in poorly documented but species rich localities.
Asymmetry of Facial Mimicry and Emotion Perception in Patients With Unilateral Facial Paralysis.

IMPORTANCE The ability of patients with unilateral facial paralysis to recognize and appropriately judge facial expressions remains underexplored. OBJECTIVE To test the effects of unilateral facial paralysis on the recognition of and judgments about facial expressions of emotion and to evaluate the asymmetry of facial mimicry. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Patients with left or right unilateral facial paralysis at a university facial plastic surgery unit completed 2 computer tasks involving video facial expression recognition. Side of facial paralysis was used as a between-participant factor. Facial function and symmetry were verified electronically with the eFACE facial function scale. EXPOSURES Across 2 tasks, short videos were shown on which facial expressions of happiness and anger unfolded earlier on one side of the face or morphed into each other. Patients indicated the moment or side of change between facial expressions and judged their authenticity. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Type, time, and accuracy of responses on a keyboard were analyzed. RESULTS A total of 57 participants (36 women and 21 men) aged 20 to 76 years (mean age, 50.2 years) and with mild left or right unilateral facial paralysis were included in the study. Patients with right facial paralysis were faster (by about 150 milliseconds) and more accurate (mean number of errors, 1.9 vs 2.5) to detect expression onsets on the left side of the stimulus face, suggesting anatomical asymmetry of facial mimicry. Patients with left paralysis, however, showed more anomalous responses, which partly differed by emotion. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The findings favor the hypothesis of an anatomical asymmetry of facial mimicry and suggest that patients with a left hemiparalysis could be more at risk of developing a cluster of disabilities and psychological conditions including emotion-recognition impairments. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 3.
Socioeconomic Status, Medicaid Coverage, Clinical Comorbidity, and Rehospitalization or Death After an Incident Heart Failure Hospitalization: Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Cohort (1987 to 2004)

Background— Among patients with heart failure (HF), early readmission or death and repeat hospitalizations may be indicators of poor disease management or more severe disease. Methods and Results— We assessed the association of neighborhood median household income (nINC) and Medicaid status with rehospitalization or death in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities cohort study (1987 to 2004) after an incident HF hospitalization in the context of individual socioeconomic status and evaluated the relationship for modification by demographic and comorbidity factors. We used generalized linear Poisson mixed models to estimate rehospitalization rate ratios and 95% CIs and Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs of rehospitalization or death. In models controlling for race and study community, sex, age at HF diagnosis, body mass index, hypertension, educational attainment, alcohol use, and smoking, patients with a high burden of comorbidity who were living in low-nINC areas at baseline had an elevated hazard of all-cause rehospitalization (HR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.10 to 1.77), death (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.02 to 1.80), and rehospitalization or death (HR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.08 to 1.70) as well as increased rates of hospitalization compared to those with a high burden of comorbidity living in high-nINC areas. Medicaid recipients with a low level of comorbidity had an increased hazard of all-cause rehospitalization (HR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.05 to 1.36) and rehospitalization or death (HR, 1.21; 95% CI, 1.07 to 1.37) and a higher rate of repeat hospitalizations compared to non-Medicaid recipients. Conclusions— Comorbidity burden appears to influence the association among nINC, Medicaid status, and rehospitalization and death in patients with HF.
Development of a short-form version of the Physical Education Classroom Instrument: measuring secondary pupils' disruptive behaviours

Background: Effective classroom management is the cornerstone of successful teaching. Behavioural issues affect the classroom climate as well as the time available for learning. Pupil misbehaviours can also contribute to teacher stress and burn out resulting in teachers leaving the profession. It is important for us to understand more about pupil misbehaviours from teachers' and pupils' perspectives in order to help teachers and schools create effective learning environments. Purpose: This study was designed to shorten an existing survey instrument that addresses pupil misbehaviour patterns. The original instrument was created for pupils, teachers and researchers to describe the spectrum of pupil disruptive behaviours in physical education class settings that impact classroom management. The resulting more parsimonious instrument can be used by teachers to gain insight into pupils' perspectives of pupil misbehaviours and may lead to developing appropriate strategies to minimize disruptions to pupil learning. Participants and setting: Participants were 2309 secondary (junior high and high school boys and girls); along with 303 teachers (men and women) from three Midwestern states using secondary data sets. A new sample of 422 junior high and high school pupils also participated from two school districts in the Southwestern US with 55.2% male and 44.8% female participants, and reported ethnic backgrounds of European American/Caucasian (44.1%), African-American (7.8%), Latino/Hispanic (28.0%), multiracial or other (12.6.%), and 7.6% of non-identified ethnic background. Research design: This study had multiple phases including single and multiple group confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) including: (a) CFA with teacher, junior high, high school pupil secondary data sources; (b) CFA with junior high and high school pupil secondary data only; (c) the development of a shorter and friendlier instrument based on logic and factor loadings; and (d) CFAs with the new pupil sample (n = 422 secondary pupils) to assess the fit of the data to the shortened 20-item model. Data collection: Pupils completed the surveys using a predefined protocol during physical education class time in both the current and previous data collection procedures. Teachers in the previous study completed surveys during their preparation time. Data analysis: CFA conducted with LISREL version 8.8 and internal consistency reliability assessments using Cronbach's alpha. Findings: Results suggested that a more parsimonious 20-item instrument with five subscales (i.e. Aggressive, Low Engagement, Fails to Follow Directions, Harmful, Distracts) was developed for use with secondary pupils (i.e. junior high and high school) only. Internal consistency reliability was also high for secondary pupils. Conclusions: Future study with another sample of teachers is needed to develop a shortened instrument that can be used by teachers.
Reliable Data Transportation in Wireless Sensor Networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) consists of sensor nodes and base stations which are connected via wireless medium. A key functionality of WSNs consists in collecting information from sensor nodes & transporting the information of interest to the base stations required by the applications. Wireless connectivity, size and low cost of sensors in WSNs are its advantages which enable it to be deployed in hostile or inaccessible environments at a very low cost. However, WSNs suffer from high data loss due to error prone wireless transmission medium, transmission problems in hostile environments and node failures due to limited energy of sensor nodes. Hence reliable data transportation i.e. ensuring data delivery with minimum loss becomes the key issue in WSNs. The amount of loss tolerated is application dependent. This paper presents an artificial neural network based model for reliable data transportation in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This work increases the reliability of information transportation despite of corrupted signal sensed at the sensors and thus is an attempt to design a fault tolerant WSN.
Gambling Task Performance in Traumatic Brain Injury: Relationships to Injury Severity, Atrophy, Lesion Location, and Cognitive and Psychosocial Outcome

Objective:To determine the sensitivity of the Gambling Test (GT) to the neurocognitive effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to examine the cognitive, neural, and psychosocial correlates of impaired GT performance in patients with TBI. Background:The GT is sensitive to behavioral deficits in patients with prefrontal brain damage, especially in ventral regions. Patients with TBI and behavioral deficits often have focal ventral prefrontal damage as well as diffuse damage. Analysis of the correlates of the GT in this population has implications for interpretation of the GT in other groups. Method:Seventy-one TBI patients were administered the GT, neuropsychological tests, and psychosocial outcome questionnaires. Patients also had high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging analyzed for both lesion location and tissue compartment volumes. Results:The GT was sensitive to TBI in general, but not to TBI severity or quantified chronic phase atrophy. Marked impairment was observed in (but not limited to) patients with large frontal lesions. There were modest correlations between the GT and tests of working memory and executive functioning as well as between self- and other-rated real-life memory, executive, and emotional problems. Conclusions:The GT can be a useful adjunct to assessment of patients with TBI. Interpretation of GT performance in patients with complex neuropsychological deficits such as TBI should consider the influence of domain-general resources in addition to specific ventral prefrontal function.
See the sport, not the disability: exploring the Paralympic paradox

The Paralympic Games, a quadrennial global multi-sports competition for individuals with certain impairments, has increasingly become the focus of social scientific research. The aim of this paper is to explore the coexistence and subsequent tension between social interpretations of disability and elite sport as articulated in the context of the Paralympic Games. This is achieved through exploring members’ of the Paralympic community social perceptions of athletes involved in this elite disability sport competition. Empirical evidence suggests that Paralympic stakeholders possess a variety of opinions regarding the way in which sport and disability have been and should be articulated at the Paralympic Games. We use Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital to focus on the individual sportsperson’s body and the meanings derived and ascribed to it within the Paralympic Movement. In doing so, the authors develop the concept of the Paralympic paradox, which is a tension created by the representation of a Paralympian as either an impaired athlete or an athlete (with a disability). This concept is a useful tool in actively critiquing the images perpetuated in both mainstream and disability sports. In doing so, we are hopeful there will be a greater appreciation of elite disability sport on its own merits.
The role of Virtual Laboratories in Science Education

Information technology has provided new innovations to sustain constructing an artificial educational environment by means of computers. Certain artificial environments sometimes go beyond natural environments, such as simulations and virtual reality, which is a sophisticated educational technology emerging for less than a decade (Hamit, 1993). Virtual reality is distinguished by unique sorts of interaction, that responds to users' behaviors and actions. Unlike traditional multi-media, virtual reality offers a distinctive level of interaction. Hence, virtual reality is considered to be a new model of computer-based learning, that provides the individual learner with a wider range of scientific vision (Chow & Andrews, 2007 ). This kind of educational technology provides an advanced individualized learning perfectly meets the educational needs and provides a high level of flexibility and freedom from constrains of time and place (Barbour & Reeves, 2009). One of the most important features of virtual reality is the easily and continuous material update aiming to attain learning objectivity and interest (Al-Shanak & Doumi, 2009). With the increasing popularity of virtual educational technology, globally and locally, the development of virtual learning environment became an important field of science which has its own basics and principles. On observing the reality of science education in Arab region today, the learner is constrained to the theoretical method in acquiring knowledge, rarely allowed to apply these knowledge practically. This is due to several reasons including; the lack of laboratory devices, the risks that may result from applying some scientific experiments, and the high cost of materials (Al-Raid, 2008). The above display demonstrates the need to apply virtual learning environment in teaching science. The current paper will tackle this issue, highlighting the following themes: What is meant by: virtual reality, virtual environment, and virtual learning? What are the characteristics and features of virtual learning systems? What are the characteristics and possibilities of virtual learning environment of science? What is a virtual lab? Why the need arises to virtual labs? The importance of the paper: The importance of the current study is demonstrated in its relevance and advantage to various aspects of educational process, which could be stated as follows: The current paper contributes to present definitions to the following terms: (virtual reality, virtual education, virtual laboratory, virtual instructor). Investigates the importance of scientific virtual environment. Presents recommendations and suggestions.