Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity, reliability, and feasibility of the German version of the Caregiver Reaction Assessment scale (G-CRA): a validation study

ABSTRACT Background: Instruments measuring caregiver reactions usually disregard positive aspects, and focus predominately on home care. The Caregiver Reaction Assessment (CRA) scale is an exception. Until now, no German version has been available. We translated the instrument to German (G-CRA) and evaluated its psychometric properties and feasibility. Methods: Face-to-face interviews with 234 informal caregivers of persons with dementia were performed. Half of the persons with dementia (n = 118) had been recently admitted to institutional long-term care (iLTC); the remainder (n = 116) lived at home. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed. Subscales were inter-correlated and further correlated with the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), and the EuroQuol (EQ-5D). Internal consistency was measured (Cronbach's α), and interviewers (n = 9) appraised feasibility. The time needed to apply the scale was measured in 20 interviews. Results: The EFA yielded six factors (Kaiser criterion), but a scree plot supported the five dimensions of the original version that explained 56.2% of variance. Low-to-moderate subscales’ inter-correlation was revealed. Highest correlation (r = 0.5) was found between impact on health and impact on daily schedule, indicating slight overlap. Criterion validity was supported by reasonable correlations between subscales and ZBI and GHQ-12 (r = −0.21–0.71). Subscale impact on health was negatively correlated with the EQ-5D. The internal consistency was sufficient (α = 0.67 − 0.78). Interviewers judged the G-CRA to be appropriate. Completion took 6.50 min (median value). Conclusions: Our results suggest that the G-CRA is sufficiently valid and internally reliable. The instrument is applicable in home care and iLTC as well as in the transitional phase.
Adherence to hepatitis B virus vaccination at syringe exchange sites

Injection drug users (IDUs) are at high risk for hepatitis B virus (HBV); however, they often do not receive preventive vaccination. ‘IDUs who use mobile health care services linked to a syring exchange program in New Haven were routinely screened for HBV, hepatitis C virus, and syphilis. Individuals without prior exposure to HBV were offered three-part vaccination series. Of the 212 IDUs screened for HBV infection, 134 (63%) were eligible (negative for HBV surface and core antibodies) for vaccination and 10 (4.7%) had evidence of chronic HBV infection. Compared to those with previous exposure to HBV, vaccine-eligible patients were significantly more likely to be younger and use heroin and less likely to be black, homeless, daily injectors, and cocaine users. Of the 134 vaccine-eligible subjects, 103 (77%) and 89 (66%) completed two and three vaccinations, respectively. Correlates of completing all three vaccinations included older age (OR=1.06, 95% CI=1.04–1.07). injecting daily (OR=2.12,95% CI=1.36–6.73), and being homeless (OR=1.98,95% CI=1.14–12.27). These results suggest that IDUs remain at high risk for acquiring HBV infection. Programs that link health care to a syringe exchange program are effective ways to provide preventive health care services to IDUs, particularly HBV vaccination. Trust engendered by and mutual respect afforded by such programs result in repeated encounters by active IDUs over time.
Validation of TICS for detection of dementia and mild cognitive impairment among individuals characterized by low levels of education or illiteracy: a population-based study in rural Greece

Abstract Objective: The efficacy of the most widely used tests for dementia screening is limited in populations characterized by low levels of education. This study aimed to validate the face-to-face administered Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) for detection of dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in a population-based sample of community dwelling individuals characterized by low levels of education or illiteracy in rural Greece. Methods: The translated Greek version of TICS was administered through face-to-face interview in 133 elderly residents of Velestino of low educational level (<12 years). We assessed its internal consistency and test–retest reliability, its correlation with sociodemographic parameters, and its discriminant ability for cognitive impairment and dementia, as defined by a brief neurological evaluation, including assessment of cognitive status and level of independence. Results: TICS was characterized by adequate internal consistency (Cronbach’s α: .72) and very high test–retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficient: .93); it was positively correlated with age and educational years. MCI and dementia were diagnosed in 18 and 10.5% of the population, respectively. Its discriminant ability for detection of dementia was high (Area under the curve, AUC: .85), with a sensitivity and specificity of 86 and 82%, respectively, at a cut-off point of 24/25. TICS did not perform well in differentiating MCI from cognitively normal individuals though (AUC: .67). Conclusion: The directly administered TICS questionnaire provides an easily applicable and brief option for detection of dementia in populations of low educational level and might be useful in the context of both clinical and research purposes.
Psychometric Evaluation of the English Language Person-Centered Climate Questionnaire—Patient Version

The aim of this study was to evaluate psychometric properties of a questionnaire measuring to what extent the climate of health care settings are perceived as being person-centered. The English Person-Centered Climate Questionnaire—Patient version (PCQ-P) was distributed to a sample of hospital patients (n = 108) and data were subjected to psychometric evaluation using statistical estimates of validity and reliability. Content and construct validity of the PCQ-P was satisfactory in literature reviews and factor and item analysis. Cronbach's alpha was satisfactory for the total scale (0.90) and also for sub-scales: safety = 0.96 and hospitality = 0.89. The intraclass correlation coefficient indicating test-retest reliability was 0.70 with a 95% confidence interval ranging between 0.63 and 0.77. Even though the sample should be considered, the results indicate that the PCQ is a valid and reliable contribution for assessing to what extent the climate of health care settings are perceived to be person-centered by patients.
Role of Brain Corticosterone and Aldosterone in Central Angiotensin II–Induced Hypertension

Circulating angiotensin II (Ang II) activates a central aldosterone–mineralocorticoid receptor neuromodulatory pathway, which mediates most of the Ang II–induced hypertension. This study examined whether specific central infusion of Ang II also activates this central aldosterone–mineralocorticoid receptor pathway. Intracerebroventricular infusion of Ang II at 1.0, 2.5, and 12.5 ng/min for 2 weeks caused dose-related increases in water intake, Ang II concentration in the cerebrospinal fluid, and blood pressure. Intracerebroventricular Ang II, at 2.5 and 12.5 ng/min, increased hypothalamic aldosterone and corticosterone, as well as plasma aldosterone and corticosterone without affecting plasma Ang II levels. Intracerebroventricular infusion of the aldosterone synthase inhibitor FAD286—but not the mineralocorticoid receptor blocker eplerenone—inhibited by ≈60% the Ang II–induced increase in hypothalamic aldosterone. Both blockers attenuated by ≈50% the increase in plasma aldosterone and corticosterone with only minimal effects on hypothalamic corticosterone. By telemetry, intracerebroventricular infusion of Ang II maximally increased blood pressure within the first day with no further increase over the next 2 weeks. Intracerebroventricular infusion of FAD286 or eplerenone did not affect the initial pressor responses but similarly prevented 60% to 70% of the chronic pressor responses to intracerebroventricular infusion of Ang II. These results indicate distinctly different patterns of blood pressure increase by circulating versus central Ang II and support the involvement of a brain aldosterone–mineralocorticoid receptor–activated neuromodulatory pathway in the chronic hypertension caused by both circulating and central Ang II.
HIM: a framework for haptic instant messaging

Instant Messaging (IM) is a popular chatting platform on the internet and increasingly permeates teenage life. Even intimate and emotional content is discussed. As touch is a powerful signal for emotional content, haptic signals, and especially hapticons can contribute to overcome the inevi-table loss of subtle non-verbal communication cues. Audio-visual extensions of IM to share emotions, in particular emoticons, have been received enthusiastically by IM users. This indicates a realistic user-need for hapticons in IM.The Haptic Instant Messaging (HIM) framework introduced in this paper combines communication of textual messages with haptic effects and hapticons. The application is build as an open framework and supports small chatting communities to explore the design and use of hapticons and haptic IO devices. Researchers can use the HIM framework to monitor the use of haptics in communication and how haptics contribute to the fun and meaning of instant messaging.
The use of Virtual Reality for upper limb rehabilitation of hemiparetic Stroke patients

Introduction The Stroke is a neurologic disturbs that leads to a serious impact to the functionality and the quality of life of the survivors. It is necessary to develop new tools with rehabilitation objectives, where the Virtual Reality (VR) is introduced as a useful therapeutic resource to the motor recovery, in an attractive and efficient way, restoring functions through adapted games. Objective Analyzing the therapeutic effects of the Virtual Reality (Serious Game) in the recovery of the upper limb in hemiparetic Stroke patients. Methods Quasi-experimental research type time series, there are three pre and three post-tests already accomplished around 20 VR sessions. In the assessments the following measurement instruments were used: Fugl-Meyer Scale – session of the upper limb (FMS - UL); Range of Motion (ROM) for flexion and abduction shoulder; Box and Block Test (BBT); Nine Holes and Peg Test (9HPT); the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP); and the Modified Ashworth Scale (MAS). Results Significant gains were observed in the FMS-UL tests, with increase of 25.6%; increase ROM of shoulder with 34.0% for abduction and 19% for flexion; BBT 25.0%; also reported improvement in quality of life by NHP; it did not occurred significant alterations for 9HPT nor in MAS. Conclusion Although the results found in this research are preliminary, they are indicative that the VR can contribute for the recovery of the upper limb in hemiparetic Stroke patients.
Knowledge discovery from users Web-page navigation

The authors propose to detect users' navigation paths to the advantage of Web site owners. First, they explain the design and implementation of a profiler which captures a client's selected links and page order, accurate page viewing time and cache references, using a Java based remote agent. The information captured by the profiler is then utilized by a knowledge discovery technique to cluster users with similar interests. They introduce a novel path clustering method based on the similarity of the history of user navigation. This approach is capable of capturing the interests of the user which could persist through several subsequent hypertext link selections. Finally, they evaluate their path clustering technique via a simulation study on a sample WWW site. They show that, depending on the level of inserted noise, they can recover the correct clusters by 10%-27% of average error margin.
High Temperature Induces Expression of Tobacco Transcription Factor NtMYC2a to Regulate Nicotine and JA Biosynthesis

Environmental stress elevates the level of jasmonic acid (JA) and activates the biosynthesis of nicotine and related pyridine alkaloids in tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) by up-regulating the expression of putrescine N-methyltransferase 1 (NtPMT1), which encodes a putrescine N-methyl transferase that catalyzes nicotine formation. The JA signal suppressor JASMONATE ZIM DOMAIN 1 (NtJAZ1) and its target protein, NtMYC2a, also regulate nicotine biosynthesis; however, how these proteins interact to regulate abiotic-induced nicotine biosynthesis is poorly understood. In this study, we found that high-temperature (HT) treatment activated transcription of NtMYC2a, which subsequently stimulated the transcription of genes associated with JA biosynthesis, including Lipoxygenase (LOX), Allene oxide synthase (AOS), Allene oxide cyclase (AOC), and 12-oxophytodienodate reductase (OPR). Overexpression of NtMYC2a increased nicotine biosynthesis by enhancing its binding to the promoter of NtPMT1. Overexpression of either NtJAZ1 or proteasome-resistant NtJAZ1ΔC suppressed nicotine production under normal conditions, but overexpression only of the former resulted in low levels of nicotine under HT treatment. These data suggest that HT induces NtMYC2a accumulation through increased transcription to activate nicotine synthesis; meanwhile, HT-induced NtMYC2a can activate JA synthesis to promote additional NtMYC2a activity by degrading NtJAZ1 at the post-transcriptional level.
Tradeoffs for reliable quantum information storage in 2D systems

We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n. It is shown that kd{2}=O(n) where the coefficient in O(n) depends only on the locality of the constraints and dimension of the Hilbert spaces describing individual particles. The analogous tradeoff for the classical information storage is k sqrt[d]=O(n).
Cognitive legacy networks via cooperative diversity

In this letter, we deal with the cognitive radio (CR) concept for legacy primary links optimized for non-interference surroundings. In this type of network, primary destinations are not able to deal with possible interference and a missed cognitive detection significantly reduces the system performance. The enhancement of the primary network with cooperative diversity in addition to the well-known diversity gain for the primary link improves the sensing ability of the system and protects the primary user from possible interference. The proposed solution provides CR benefits without complicated network modifications and seems to be an attractive solution for future legacy networks.
Leader-follower consensus of upper-triangular nonlinear multi-agent systems

This paper is concerned with the leader-follower consensus problem by using both state and output feedback for a class of nonlinear multi-agent systems. The agents considered here are all identical upper-triangular nonlinear systems which satisfy the Lipschitz growth condition. First, it is shown that the leader-follower consensus problem is equivalent to the control design problem of a high-dimensional multi-variable system. Second, by introducing an appropriate state transformation, the control design problem can be converted into the problem of finding a constant parameter, which can be obtained by solving the Lyapunov equation and estimating the nonlinear terms of the given system. At last, an example is given to verify effectiveness of the proposed consensus algorithms.
Linear Subspace Learning for Facial Expression Analysis

Facial expression, resulting from movements of the facial muscles, is one of the most powerful, natural, and immediate means for human beings to communicate their emotions and intentions. Some examples of facial expressions are shown in Fig. 1. Darwin (1872) was the first to describe in detail the specific facial expressions associated with emotions in animals and humans; he argued that all mammals show emotions reliably in their faces. Psychological studies (Mehrabian, 1968; Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992) indicate that facial expressions, with other non-verbal cues, play a major and fundamental role in face-to-face communication.
Relationship of Oral Tumor Thickness with the rate of lymph node metastasis in Neck based on CT Scan

Objective: To determine the relationship of tumor thickness of oral lesions with metastasis in neck based on CT scan. Methods: A total of 58 oral squamous cell carcinoma patients having the median age of 46 (39-55) years. with either gender presented with malignant tumor of buccal mucosa and tongue were prospectively enrolled. A CT Scan with contrast was performed on all patients. Correlation of tumor thickness level with metastasis in neck was calculated using spearman’s rank correlation coefficient test. Results: Median age of the patients was 46 (39-55) years with preponderance of male gender, i.e. 48 (82.8%). Strong positive significant correlation was observed in between transverse dimension (TS) tumor size and stages of tumor (rho 0.673, p-value <0.001), Anterioposterior (AP) tumor size and stages of tumor (rho 0.675, p-value <0.001), and Craniocaudal (CC) tumor size and stages of tumor (rho 0.771, p-value <0.001). Conclusion: CT scan of neck with contrast can be used for predicting the positive presence of lymph node in neck with primary tumors having a size of more than 4 mm.
Electronic Alerts for Acute Kidney Injury.

imaging findings to mitigation of hazardous drug interactions, enhanced use of immunizations, venous thromboembolism prophylaxis, and antiplatelet therapy among hospitalized patients. However, alerts are not a panacea; excessive alerts may lead to “alert fatigue” or may have unintended consequences that undermine their utility. Thus, the effectiveness and burdens of individual alerts need to be carefully analyzed before widespread deployment. Acute kidney injury (AKI) has been fertile territory for the development of clinical alerts. Enhanced recognition of AKI can be provided based on automated calculation of changes in serum creatinine concentrations. However, prior efforts implementing AKI alerts to improve clinical outcomes have yielded variable results. During sequential 6-month periods in a hospital in the United Kingdom, implementation of an electronic AKI alert coupled with hospital-wide, intranet-hosted guidelines (including a care bundle of management recommendations for AKI) was associated with a progressive decline in 30-daymortality for patients with AKI. In contrast, at a teaching hospital in the United States, implementation of an electronic alert with a link to an internal website listing AKI practice guidelines was not associated with improved clinical outcomes. In this issue of AJKD, Park et al describe the effect of an electronic AKI alert system linked to an automated nephrology consultation on outcomes at a single university hospital in the Republic of Korea. The authors electronically identified AKI based on an increase in serum creatinine concentration of at least 1.5-fold or 0.3 mg/dL as compared to baseline (defined as the minimum serum creatinine value within 2 weeks of admission or the first value after admission if preadmission values were not available). The alerts were processed nightly and were delivered the following morning rather than being delivered in real time. In addition to providing notification of AKI, the alert provided a prompt to request a nephrology consultation. Results from the first year after the alert was introduced were compared with retrospective data from the prior year. A total of 1,884 patients with AKI were included in the prealert analytic cohort (period prevalence of 8.7%) as compared with 1,309 patients in the alert cohort (period prevalence of 5.1%).
Efficient, self-contained handling of identity in peer-to-peer systems

Identification is an essential building block for many services in distributed information systems. The quality and purpose of identification may differ, but the basic underlying problem is always to bind a set of attributes to an identifier in a unique and deterministic way. Name/directory services, such as DNS, X.500, or UDDI, are a well-established concept to address this problem in distributed information systems. However, none of these services addresses the specific requirements of peer-to-peer systems with respect to dynamism, decentralization, and maintenance. We propose the implementation of directories using a structured peer-to-peer overlay network and apply this approach to support self-contained maintenance of routing tables with dynamic IP addresses in structured P2P systems. Thus, we keep routing tables intact without affecting the organization of the overlay networks, making it logically independent of the underlying network infrastructure. Even though the directory is self-referential, since it uses its own service to maintain itself, we show that it is robust due to a self-healing capability. For security, we apply a combination of PGP-like public key distribution and a quorum-based query scheme. We describe the algorithm as implemented in the P-Grid P2P lookup system (http:// www.p-grid.org/) and give a detailed analysis and simulation results demonstrating the efficiency and robustness of our approach.
Evaluation of Temporomandibular Disorders before and after Orthognathic Surgery: Therapeutic Considerations on a Sample of 76 Patients

Objectives: Temporomandibular disorders may be associated with dental and facial malformations. The aim of this study is to record the prevalence of TMDs in patients scheduled for orthognathic surgery, reporting the development of TMDs and symptoms during the entire period of the treatment, and demonstrating the benefits of a team effort on this population. Materials and Methods: Assessment of temporomandibular status was performed using the RDC/TMD criteria at T0 (prior to orthodontic therapy), T1 (3 months after the surgery), and T2 post-therapeutic cycle (6 to 12 months postoperatively). A total of 76 participants were included in the study; all the patients underwent surgical treatment: 12 had bilateral sagittal split osteotomy, 6 with condylar position devices; 64 had Le Fort I + bilateral sagittal split osteotomy, and 15 with condylar position devices. Results were evaluated with a paired-sample t-test and segmentation analysis. Results: Forty-seven patients were affected by TMDs. At T0, 25 patients experienced TMJ pain, 27 had muscular pain, 31 suffered headaches, 42 had disc dislocation with reduction, and 5 were affected by disc dislocation without reduction. Thirty-five patients had occlusal signs of parafunctions, 8 reported tinnitus, and 7 dizziness. At T1, TMJ pain changed from 33.3% to 4.44%, muscular pain changed from 35.5% to 11.1%, headaches improved from 40% to 6.67%, and disc dislocation from 55.2% to 17.7%. Segmentation analysis highlighted improvement after therapy; 57 patients were considered recovered, 14 improved, none were considered stable, whereas 5 patients demonstrated some worsening, 3 of whom had not presented disc dislocation before surgery. At T2, 71 patients were considered completely recovered or improved. Conclusions: Our data indicates beyond any doubt that both functional status and pain levels related to TMDs can be significantly improved with a multi-disciplinary approach. We concluded that surgeon′s intervention need to be modified in the presence of presurgical TMDs.