Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-Risk Residual Gastric Content in Fasted Patients Undergoing Gastrointestinal Endoscopy: A Prospective Cohort Study of Prevalence and Predictors

In this prospective cohort study, we examined the residual gastric contents of 255 fasted patients undergoing gastrointestinal endoscopy. The volume and pH of residual gastric contents collected by suction under direct visualisation during gastroscopy were accurately quantified. All patients completed the minimum two-hour fast for clear fluids and 97.2% of patients completed the minimum six-hour fast for solids. High-risk residual gastric content, defined as volume >25 ml and pH <2.5, was present in 12.2% (95% CI 8.7% to 16.7%) of patients. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to identify demographic and clinical factors associated with high-risk residual gastric content. The odds of having high-risk residual gastric content were reduced with increase in age (adjusted odds ratio 0.77, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.96, P=0.0230), and use of a proton pump inhibitor or histamine type 2 receptor antagonist (adjusted odds ratio 0.24, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.55, P=0.0013), and were increased in male patients (adjusted odds ratio 2.36, 95% CI 1.06 to 5.28, P=0.0348). Notably, residual gastric content was classified as high-risk in 20.4% of patients who did not take a proton pump inhibitor or histamine type 2 receptor antagonist versus only 5.6% of those who did. Our findings suggest that, despite currently recommended fasting, males presenting for endoscopy are more likely to have high-risk gastric content than females, and that the incidence appears to be reduced with increasing age, and by the use of proton pump inhibitors or histamine type 2 receptor antagonists, we were unable to confirm or exclude an effect of body mass index, peptic pathology, diabetes or other clinical or demographic factors in our study population.
Mechanism of ligand binding to alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (orosomucoid): correlated thermodynamic factors and molecular parameters of polarity.

Eight ligands were used in this study, four basic, three neutral and one acidic. Their binding to serum alpha 1-acid glycoprotein (orosomucoid) was measured at several temperatures, and the data were analysed together by a general model with three unknowns, number of binding sites, delta H0 and delta S0. The partition coefficients of the ligands were measured in octanol/water and heptane/water systems (log Poct. and log Phep.), and their molecular volumes were calculated by molecular modelling techniques. These structural properties allow determination of polarity parameters (delta log Poct.-hep., lambda oct. and lambda hep.) which encode in different proportions the various polar interactions between the solute and the aqueous and organic phases, i.e. hydrogen-bonding capacity and dipolarity/polarizability. This study shows that good correlations exist between delta H0 or delta S0 and polarity parameters, such that the enthalpic contribution to binding increases with increasing polarity of the ligands, mainly hydrogen-bond-donor acidity, whereas their entropic contribution to binding decreases.
The Failure of a Clearinghouse: Empirical Evidence

We provide the first empirical description of the failure of a derivatives clearinghouse. We use novel, hand-collected, archive data to study risk management incentives by the Paris commodity futures clearinghouse around its failure in 1974. We do not find evidence of lenient risk management during the commodity price boom of 1973-1974. However, we show strong distortions of risk management incentives, akin to risk-shifting, as soon as prices collapsed and a large clearing member approached distress. Distortions persist during the recovery/resolution phase. Theoretically, these distortions suggest that capitalization and governance were weak, but do not imply that moral hazard was significant before the failure. Our findings have implications for the design of clearing institutions, including their default management schemes.
Automatic Acquisition of Semantics-Extraction Patterns

This paper examines the use of parallel and comparable corpora for automatic acquisition of semantics-extraction patterns. It presents a new method of the pattern extraction which takes advantage of parallel texts to "port" text mining solutions from a source language to a target language. It is shown thatthe technique can help in situations when the extraction procedure is to beapplied in a language (languages) with a limited set of available resources,e.g. domain-specific thesauri. The primary motivation of our work lies in a particular multilingual e-learning system. For testing purposes, other applications of the given approach were implemented. They include pattern extraction from general texts (tested on wordnet relations), acquisition of domain-specific patterns from large parallel corpus of legal EU documents, and mining of subjectivity expressions for multilingual opinion extraction system.
Macrophage‐released interleukin‐1 in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus

There is considerable evidence consistent with the hypothesis that an autoimmune component is involved in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes mellitus (IDDM) ( I ) . It was recently demonstrated that patients with IDDM have deficient production of T-cell growth factor interleukin-2 (IL-2). A modification of T-cell mediated immunity has also been found in several patients with IDDM (3). Since macrophages play an essential role in T-cell mediated immunity (4), it is possible that this Tcell defect is related to the macrophage/monocyte release mediator interleukin-1 (IL-1). IL-1 acts as a maturational signal, preparing T cells to induce synthesis and secretion of the T-cell derived mitogenic lymphokine IL-2 (4). Therefore, we focused our studies on macrophages and their ability to produce IL-1 in patients with IDDM. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of our hospital. Twenty-eight children and young adults with both new-onset and long-standing IDDM were studied. The mean & SD age of patients was 16.7 & 6.0 years (range 527 years). Five patients were less than 10 years of age, 13 10-20 years of age and 10 more than 20 years of age. The duration of IDDM varied from a few days to 15 years (mean 6.4 years). Seven children had had IDDM for less than 1 year, 7 for 1 to 5 years and 14 for more than 5 years. All patients with IDDM were receiving either one or two injections of insulin daily at a dose of 0.6-1.3 IU/ kg body weight. None of the patients was acidotic or ketotic at the time of the study. The patients were consuming a regular diet consisting of approximately 52% carbohydrate, 34% fat and 14% protein. All patients had a body weight for height within 25%. There was no history of infection or allergy in the period preceding sampling. Control of IDDM was assessed by measurements of glycosylated hemoglobins using standard electrophoresis. Values obtained within the two months of the study were used for analysis. Six patients had glycosylated hemoglobins within the range of the non-diabetic population, whereas the other 22 patients had increased concentrations of glycosylated hemoglobins, ranging from 9 to 97% above the upper limit (2 SD) of the non-diabetic population (mean f SD 9.3 + 2.9%). HLA typing was determined by a microcytotoxicity method in 14 patients: 3 patients were DR3 positive, 3 patients were both DR3 and DR4 positive, 3 patients were B8 and DR3/DR4 positive, 4 patients were DR4 positive and 1 patient was DR5 positive. Islet cell antibodies were measured by a complement-fixing and anti-IgG cytoplasmic antibody method in 17 patients. They were negative in 15 patients and slightly positive (1:s anti-IgG) in 2 patients (both patients with a duration of IDDM of less than 1 year). Anti-thyroid antibodies, both antimicrosomal and anti-thyroid, were determined in 26 patients using a chromogenic substance method. They were negative in 17 patients and positive in 9 patients, in whom the predominantly antimicrosomal antibodies with a titer up to 1 :6400 were observed. Twenty-five healthy age-matched individuals were used as controls.
Alpha thalassemia and stroke risk in sickle cell anemia

In an effort to identify possible risk factors for stroke in Sickle Cell Anemia (Hb SS), we analyzed the distribution of alpha‐globin gene deletions in a group of Hb SS patients with and without stroke. The group with stroke consisted of 44 patients, (27 male, 17 female) with a mean of 7.5 years at time of stroke. The control group (non‐stroke) had 256 Hb SS patients (126 male, 130 female) with a mean age of 7.7 years. There were 9 patients with heterozygous α‐thalassemia in the stroke group (20.5%). In the control group, there were 93 patients with heterozygous α‐thalassemia and 5 with homozygous α‐thalassemia. The incidence of α‐thalassemia in Hb SS patients without stroke (38%) was comparable to that reported for the African‐American population in general. The incidence in the stroke population (20.5%) was significantly lower (P = 0.02) These results indicate that α‐thalassemia is associated with a lower risk of stroke in Hb SS. This observation should be confirmed in studies involving larger numbers of patients. Possible protective effects of α‐thaiassemia are unknown but may be related to decreased hemolysis and more favorable rheologlc properties of red blood cells. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Time interval of increased risk for Clostridium difficile infection after exposure to antibiotics.

BACKGROUND Clostridium difficile infections (CDIs) are common in developed countries and affect >250,000 hospitalized patients annually in the USA. The most important risk factor for the disease is antibiotic therapy. METHODS To determine the period at risk for CDI after cessation of antibiotics, we performed a multicentre case-control study in the Netherlands between March 2006 and May 2009. Three hundred and thirty-seven hospitalized patients with diarrhoea and a positive toxin test were compared with 337 patients without diarrhoea. Additionally, a control group of patients with diarrhoea due to a cause other than CDI (n=227) was included. RESULTS In the month prior to the date of inclusion, CDI patients more frequently used an antibiotic compared with non-diarrhoeal patients (77% versus 49%). During antibiotic therapy and in the first month after cessation of the therapy, patients had a 7-10-fold increased risk for CDI (OR 6.7-10.4). This risk declined in the period between 1 and 3 months after the antibiotic was stopped (OR 2.7). Similar results were observed when the second control group was used. All antibiotic classes, except first-generation cephalosporins and macrolides, were associated with CDI. Second- and third-generation cephalosporins (OR 3.3 and 5.3, respectively) and carbapenems (OR 4.7) were the strongest risk factors for CDI. Patients with CDI used more antibiotic classes and more defined daily doses, compared with non-diarrhoeal patients. CONCLUSIONS Antibiotic use increases the risk for CDI during therapy and in the period of 3 months after cessation of antibiotic therapy. The highest risk for CDI was found during and in the first month after antibiotic use. Our study will aid clinicians to identify high-risk patients.
Fisher consistency for prior probability shift

We introduce Fisher consistency in the sense of unbiasedness as a desirable property for estimators of class prior probabilities. Lack of Fisher consistency could be used as a criterion to dismiss estimators that are unlikely to deliver precise estimates in test datasets under prior probability and more general dataset shift. The usefulness of this unbiasedness concept is demonstrated with three examples of classifiers used for quantification: Adjusted Classify & Count, EM-algorithm and CDE-Iterate. We find that Adjusted Classify & Count and EM-algorithm are Fisher consistent. A counter-example shows that CDE-Iterate is not Fisher consistent and, therefore, cannot be trusted to deliver reliable estimates of class probabilities.
Exploring boundaries: optimising individual class boundaries for binary classification problem

This paper explores a range of class boundary determination techniques that can be used to improve performance of Genetic Programming (GP) on binary classification tasks. These techniques involve selecting an individualised boundary threshold in order to reduce implicit bias that may be introduced through employing arbitrarily chosen values. Individuals that can chose their own boundaries and the manner in which they are applied, are freed from having to learn to force their outputs into a particular range or polarity and can instead concentrate their efforts on seeking a problem solution. Our investigation suggests that while a particular boundary selection method may deliver better performance for a given problem, no single method performs best on all problems studied. We propose a new flexible combined technique which gives near optimal performance across each of the tasks undertaken. This method together with seven other techniques is tested on six benchmark binary classification data sets. Experimental results obtained suggest that the strategy can improve test fitness, produce smaller less complex individuals and reduce run times. Our approach is shown to deliver superior results when benchmarked against a standard GP system, and is very competitive when compared with a range of other machine learning algorithms.
Progress in Technology CAD for Power Devices, Circuits and Systems

Over the past decade, the utilization of technology CAD (TCAD) tools has become widespread in industry and academia. The enormous progress in computing hardware and software technology, together with significant advances in physical modelling accuracy, and speed and robustness of numerical algorithms, have made TCAD to a cost-effective albeit powerful technology that complements experimental approaches to wafer processing and metrology.
From Scapegoat to Working Mule : Views on the Beneficial Aspects of Video Games in Everyday Life, Education and Business

Tampereen ammattikorkeakoulu Tampere University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in Media ANNA TIKKANEN: From Scapegoat to Working Mule Views on the Beneficial Aspects of Video Games in Everyday Life, Education and Business Bachelor's thesis 70 pages November 2013 While this thesis explores both the negative and beneficial aspects of video games, it was mainly written to highlight the positive effects they have on us, whether we consciously realize it or not. The reader is first taken through definitions for various video gamer types. After this the thesis moves on to all the most common negative effects we often hear about in the media, following by an elaborate look into what we can actually learn and gain from video games. Since they have a broad range of advantages in different areas, everyday life, education, business and marketing have been taken into account as well as gamification and serious games. The hope is that this thesis provides the reader, despite only scratching the surface, with new information regarding video games and succeeds in showcasing them in a better light.
How Do Online Communities of Patients Aggregate on Twitter? An Affordance Perspective

This paper seeks to explore the key affordances influencing patients’ engagement with online communities on Twitter. Drawing on a socio-technical perspective of affordances, the paper presents the qualitative analysis of a sample of tweets from a patients’ community chat on Twitter. The paper makes the following contributions. First, it draws on the concept of composite affordances to show the influence of affordance relationships on patients’ engagement with online communities on Twitter. Second, it extends our knowledge about the implications of the attributes of Twitter digital objects for the realization of affordances that influence engagement in patients’ online communities. The paper furthers our understanding of the main factors that influence aggregation and interaction within communities of patients on Twitter.
Minocycline attenuates white matter damage in a rat model of chronic cerebral hypoperfusion

White matter lesions are thought to result from chronic cerebral ischemia and constitute a core pathology of subcortical vascular dementia. This rarefaction has been known to be associated with microglial activation. We investigated whether minocycline, a microglial inhibitor, attenuates the white matter damage induced by chronic cerebral hypoperfusion that is used as a model of vascular dementia. Male Wistar rats were subjected to bilateral, permanent occlusion of the common carotid arteries (BCCAO) to induce chronic cerebral hypoperfusion. Minocycline or saline was injected daily for 2 weeks after BCCAO. In the corpus callosum and the optic tract, white matter damage observed with Klüver‐Barrera staining was significantly attenuated in the minocycline‐treated group compared to saline‐treated controls. In control rats, immunoreactivities of major basic protein (MBP), Ox‐42 as a microglial marker, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐2 were increased in the corpus callosum. Minocycline significantly reduced these changes. Co‐expression of Ox‐42 and MMP‐2 was confirmed by double immunofluorescence histochemistry. Our results suggest that chronic treatment with minocycline could be protective against at least some ischemic white matter damage, and its mechanism may be related to suppressing microglial activation. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Neural substrates of figurative language during natural speech perception: an fMRI study

Many figurative expressions are fully conventionalized in everyday speech. Regarding the neural basis of figurative language processing, research has predominantly focused on metaphoric expressions in minimal semantic context. It remains unclear in how far metaphoric expressions during continuous text comprehension activate similar neural networks as isolated metaphors. We therefore investigated the processing of similes (figurative language, e.g., “He smokes like a chimney! ”) occurring in a short story. Sixteen healthy, male, native German speakers listened to similes that came about naturally in a short story, while blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) responses were measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). For the event-related analysis, similes were contrasted with non-figurative control sentences (CS). The stimuli differed with respect to figurativeness, while they were matched for frequency of words, number of syllables, plausibility, and comprehensibility. Similes contrasted with CS resulted in enhanced BOLD responses in the left inferior (IFG) and adjacent middle frontal gyrus. Concrete CS as compared to similes activated the bilateral middle temporal gyri as well as the right precuneus and the left middle frontal gyrus (LMFG). Activation of the left IFG for similes in a short story is consistent with results on single sentence metaphor processing. The findings strengthen the importance of the left inferior frontal region in the processing of abstract figurative speech during continuous, ecologically-valid speech comprehension; the processing of concrete semantic contents goes along with a down-regulation of bilateral temporal regions.
Occurrence of Morphological and Anatomical Adaptive Traits in Young and Adult Plants of the Rare Mediterranean Cliff Species Primula palinuri Petagna

Cliffs worldwide are known to be reservoirs of relict biodiversity. Despite the presence of harsh abiotic conditions, large endemic floras live in such environments. Primula palinuri Petagna is a rare endemic plant species, surviving on cliff sites along a few kilometres of the Tyrrhenian coast in southern Italy. This species is declared at risk of extinction due to human impact on the coastal areas in question. Population surveys have shown that most of the plants are old individuals, while seedlings and plants at early stages of development are rare. We followed the growth of P. palinuri plants from seed germination to the adult phase and analysed the morphoanatomical traits of plants at all stages of development. Our results showed that the pressure of cliff environmental factors has been selected for seasonal habitus and structural adaptive traits in this species. The main morphoanatomical modifications are suberized cell layers and accumulation of phenolic compounds in cell structures. These features are strictly related to regulation of water uptake and storage as well as defence from predation. However, we found them well established only in adult plants and not in juvenile individuals. These findings contribute to explain the rare recruitment of the present relict populations, identifying some of the biological traits which result in species vulnerability.
Pulsatile ocular blood flow in diabetic retinopathy.

PURPOSE To assess circulatory properties of eyes with progressive stages of diabetic retinopathy. METHODS The intraocular pressure, pulse amplitude (PA) and pulsatile ocular blood flow (POBF) were measured with a pneumatonometer (OBF Labs UK Ltd). The eyes were grouped: (a) normal control, n = 26, (b) diabetes with no observable diabetic retinopathy (NDR), n = 18, (c) mild to moderate non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR), n = 20, and (d) very severe pre-proliferative and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PPDR/PDR), n = 12. RESULTS The PA and POBF values were lower than normal values in the earliest stage (NDR). The POBF increased but was still below normal levels at the NPDR stage, and then increased to an above normal level in the PPDR/PDR stage of diabetic retinopathy. The PA was at normal levels in these later two stages. CONCLUSION An initial decrease in pulsatile ocular blood flow is present with the onset of diabetes where no diabetic retinopathy has yet occurred. Subsequently, the pulsatile ocular blood flow increases with the severity of the retinopathy.