Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intermittent pneumatic compression is a cost-effective method of orthopedic postsurgical venous thromboembolism prophylaxis

Background Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major complication after lower-limb arthroplasty that increases costs and reduces patient’s quality of life. Using anticoagulants for 10–35 days following arthroplasty is the standard prophylaxis, but its cost-effectiveness after accounting for bleeding complications remains unproven. Methods A comprehensive, clinical model of VTE was created using the incidences, clinical effects (including bleeding), and costs of VTE and prophylaxis from randomized controlled trials, meta-analyses, and large observational studies. Over 50 years, the total health care costs and clinical impact of three prophylaxis strategies, that are as follows, were compared: low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) alone, intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC), and IPC with LMWH (IPC+LMWH). The cost per VTE event that was avoided and cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained in both the US and Australian health care settings were calculated. Results For every 2,000 patients, the expected number of VTE and major bleeding events with LMWH were 151 and 6 in the USA and 160 and 46 in Australia, resulting in a mean of 11.3 and 9.1 QALYs per patient, respectively. IPC reduced the expected VTE events by 11 and 8 in the USA and Australia, respectively, compared to using LMWH alone. IPC reduced major bleeding events compared to LMWH, preventing 1 event in the US and 7 in Australia. IPC+LMWH only reduced VTE events. Neither intervention substantially impacted QALYs but both increased QALYs versus LMWH. IPC was cost-effective followed by IPC+LMWH. Conclusion IPC and IPC+LMWH are cost-effective versus LMWH after lower-limb arthroplasty in the USA and Australia. The choice between IPC and IPC+LMWH depends on expected bleeding risks.
The comparison of early gestational complications and perinatal outcomes of the pregnant women who used metoclopramide and dimenhydrinate

Objective: Metoclopramide and dimenhydrinate are used commonly in the treatment of nausea-emesis and hyperemesis gravidarum during the first trimester. Methods: This retrospective study included 233 pregnant women who were diagnosed as hyperemesis gravidarum during first trimester between July 4, 2005 and May 27, 2009 at the Clinic of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Simav State Hospital (Simav, Kütahya, Turkey). The pregnant women were separated into groups according to their metoclopramide or dimenhydrinate use. The pregnant women included in the study were chosen from the pregnant women who were healthy and had singleton pregnancy. Results: While 113 pregnant women were treated by metoclopramide and 120 pregnant women by dimenhydrinate. Spontaneous abortion was found as 6.2% in the pregnant women who used metoclopramide and as 4.2% who used dimenhydrinate, and stillbirth rate was 1.8 and 0.8%, respectively. Low birth weight rates were 8.0% in metoclopramide group and 5.8% in dimenhydrinate group, and preterm labor rates were 5.3% and 5.0%, respectively. Conclusion: We have found that there was no difference between the pregnant women who used metoclopramide and dimenhydrinate in terms of early period complications and perinatal outcomes.
Study on the object and process of public participatory technology based on the case of genetically modified technology

As some scholars said,the emergence of the thought of "science and technology democracy" has broken the boundary between the experts and laymen.Based on the viewpoint,the public should have the power to participate the ST decision and the advices of experts would be only the reference to social decision.Public participatory technology assessment has been considered as a means for reconstructing trust in risk management with modern technologies.The paper analyzes the object and the process of this kind of technology assessment on the basis of the dispute on the genetically modified technology.
Distribution of Helicity, CAPE, and Shear in Tropical Cyclones

Abstract The previous study of helicity, CAPE, and shear in Hurricane Bonnie (1998) was extended to all eight tropical cyclones sampled by NASA during the Convection and Moisture Experiments (CAMEX). Storms were categorized as having large or small ambient vertical wind shear, with 10 m s−1 as the dividing line. In strongly sheared storms, the downshear mean helicity exceeded the upshear mean by a factor of 4. As in the previous study, the helicity differences resulted directly from the tropical cyclone response to ambient shear, with enhanced in-up-out flow and veering of the wind with height present downshear. CAPE in strongly sheared storms was 60% larger downshear. Mean inflow near the surface and the depth of the inflow layer each were 4 times larger downshear. At more than 30% of observation points outside the 100-km radius in the downshear right quadrant, midlatitude empirical parameters indicated a strong likelihood of supercells. No such points existed upshear in highly sheared storms. Much small.
The association of sport and violence, aggression and aggressiveness – prospects for education about non-aggression and reduction of aggressiveness,

Contrary to declared concept of Olympism, sport is often a carrier of unjustified violence and even extremely severe aggression. In a global scale, the media, especially the electronic one, is the main entity promoting aggressive behaviour. The aim of this survey article is to present three sets of issues, being basic premises for rational orientation of research and development so that regardless of promoting the concept of Olympism, sport could serve as a basic mean of permanent education about non-aggression and reduction of aggressiveness for current and future generations, especially children and the adolescents: 1. Lack of system countermeasures against the phenomenon of non-adequate use of the terms “violence”, “aggression”, “aggressiveness” directly in the field of sport and social activities remaining in close relationship with sport; 2. Real threat of increasing aggressiveness, especially of children and adolescents, by uncontrolled education about violence and aggression with the use of subjects mentioned in the first item; 3. The possibility to use sport to reduce interpersonal aggression and aggressiveness through competent use of methods and means specific to widely understood sports activity. The collection of papers analysed in this article has been mainly acquired from the electronic literature databases (Ebsco, Medline, PubMed, Scopus). They were issued until 2013 and in various contexts raise the question of aggression in relationship to widely understood sport. For this purpose, the following key words has been used: “aggression”, “sport”, “reduction of aggressiveness”. Among applied and recommended ways to reduce aggressiveness the most effective ones include cognitive-behavioural methods, which comprise certain exercises and specific martial arts (judo, taekwondo) as a key component.
Handling uncertainties of membership functions with Shadowed Fuzzy Sets

Type-2 fuzzy set, as an extension to ordinary fuzzy set, is defined as a fuzzy set with fuzzy membership function. Type-2 fuzzy set enables capturing the uncertainty of membership functions. However due to the three dimensional nature of type-2 fuzzy sets and the high computational complexity of their operations, in real applications, interval type-2 fuzzy sets are used. In interval type-2 fuzzy sets the distribution sitting on the top of the Footprint of Uncertainty that constitutes the third dimension of type-2 fuzzy set is ignored and hence the membership grades are intervals. This results in simpler operations and easier concept but causes loss of information. Shadowed fuzzy set discussed in this paper, provides a framework whose simplicity is comparable with interval type-2 fuzzy set but on the other hand preserves the fuzziness of the third dimension of type-2 fuzzy sets.
Minimal effects of latitude on present-day speciation rates in New World birds

The tropics contain far greater numbers of species than temperate regions, suggesting that rates of species formation might differ systematically between tropical and non-tropical areas. We tested this hypothesis by reconstructing the history of speciation in New World (NW) land birds using BAMM, a Bayesian framework for modelling complex evolutionary dynamics on phylogenetic trees. We estimated marginal distributions of present-day speciation rates for each of 2571 species of birds. The present-day rate of speciation varies approximately 30-fold across NW birds, but there is no difference in the rate distributions for tropical and temperate taxa. Using macroevolutionary cohort analysis, we demonstrate that clades with high tropical membership do not produce species more rapidly than temperate clades. For nearly any value of present-day speciation rate, there are far more species in the tropics than the temperate zone. Any effects of latitude on speciation rate are marginal in comparison to the dramatic variation in rates among clades.
Rapid rate of tubulin dissociation from microtubules in the mitotic spindle in vivo measured by blocking polymerization with colchicine

At metaphase, the amount of tubulin assembled into spindle microtubules is relatively constant; the rate of tubulin association equals the rate of dissociation. To measure the intrinsic rate of dissociation, we microinjected high concentrations of colchicine, or its derivative colcemid, into sea urchin embryos at metaphase to bind the free tubulin, thereby rapidly blocking polymerization. The rate of microtubule disassembly was measured from a calibrated video signal by the change in birefringent retardation (BR). After an initial delay after injection of colchicine or colcemid at final intracellular concentrations of 0.1-3.0 mM, BR decreased rapidly and simultaneously throughout the central spindle and aster. Measured BR in the central half-spindle decreased exponentially to 10% of its initial value within a characteristic period of approximately 20 s; the rate constant, k = 0.11 +/- 0.023 s-1, and the corresponding half-time, t 1/2, of BR decay was approximately 6.5 +/- 1.1 s in this concentration range. Below 0.1 mM colchicine or colcemid, the rate at which BR decreased was concentration dependent. Electron micrographs showed that the rapid decrease in BR corresponded to the disappearance of nonkinetochore microtubules; kinetochore fiber microtubules were differentially stable. As a control, lumicolchicine, which does not bind to tubulin with high affinity, was shown to have no effect on spindle BR at intracellular concentrations of 0.5 mM. If colchicine and colcemid block only polymerization, then the initial rate of tubulin dissociation from nonkinetochore spindle microtubules is in the range of 180-992 dimers per second. This range of rates is based on k = 11% of the initial polymer per second and an estimate from electron micrographs that the average length of a half-spindle microtubule is 1- 5.5 micron. Much slower rates of tubulin association are predicted from the characteristics of end-dependent microtubule assembly measured previously in vitro when the association rate constant is corrected for the lower rate of tubulin diffusion in the embryo cytoplasm. Various possibilities for this discrepancy are discussed.
Intrinsic motivation, external reward, and their effect on overall motivation and performance

ABSTRACT An unresolved debate lingers concerning the effect of performance-contingent rewards on motivation and performance. Behavioral psychology and economics suggest that performance-contingent rewards improve performance. In contrast, cognitive evaluation theory predicts that performance-contingent rewards undermine motivation and performance. We discuss the predictions of these two streams and develop an experiment that resolves the limitations of previous studies by using a new measure of intrinsic motivation: self-selection into a specific area of knowledge, as revealed by choice of academic major. Students from mathematics-related and literature-related areas were selected and randomly assigned to math and English language tests. Participants received a participation fee or a performance-contingent payment in addition to a fee. Both performance-contingent rewards and intrinsic motivation improved motivation and performance, in contrast with cognitive evaluation theory’s predictions.
White Matter Abnormalities in Patients with Focal Cortical Dysplasia Revealed by Diffusion Tensor Imaging Analysis in a Voxelwise Approach

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allows the analysis of changes in microstructure, through the quantification of the spread and direction of water molecules in tissues. We used fractional anisotropy (FA) maps to compare the integrity of WM between patients and controls. The objective of the present study was to investigate WM abnormalities in patients with frontal lobe epilepsy secondary to focal cortical dysplasia (FCD). Materials and Methods: We included 31 controls (12 women, 33.1 ± 9.6 years, mean ± SD) and 22 patients (11 women, 30.4 ± 10.0 years), recruited from our outpatient clinic. They had clinical and EEG diagnosis of frontal lobe epilepsy, secondary to FCD detected on MRI. Patients and controls underwent 3T MRI, including the DTI sequence, obtained in 32 directions and b value of 1000 s/mm2. To process the DTI we used the following softwares: MRIcroN and FSL/TBSS (tract-based spatial statistics). We used a threshold-free cluster enhancement with significance at p < 0.05, fully corrected for multiple comparisons across space. Results: Areas with FA reduction in patients were identified in both hemispheres, mainly in the frontal lobes, cingulum, and forceps minor (p = 0.014), caudate e anterior thalamic radiation (p = 0.034), superior longitudinal fasciculus (p = 0.044), uncinate fasciculus, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (p = 0.042). Conclusion: Our results showed a widespread pattern of WM microstructural abnormalities extending beyond the main lesion seen on MRI (frontal lobe), which may be related to frequent seizures or to the extent of MRI-invisible portion of FCD.
The strong Feller property for singular stochastic PDEs

We show that the Markov semigroups generated by a large class of singular stochastic PDEs satisfy the strong Feller property. These include for example the KPZ equation and the dynamical $\Phi^4_3$ model. As a corollary, we prove that the Brownian bridge measure is the unique invariant measure for the KPZ equation with periodic boundary conditions.
On Metrics for Comparing Non Dominated Sets

Evolutionary multi objective optimisation EMO now boasts a proliferation of algorithms and bench mark problems We need principled ways to compare the performance of di erent EMO algorithms but this is com plicated by the fact that the result of an EMO run is not a single scalar value but a collection of vectors forming a non dominated set Various metrics for non dominated sets have been suggested Here we compare several using the framework of outperformance relations Hansen and Jaszkiewicz This enables us to criticise and contrast a variety of published metrics leading to some recommenda tions on which seem most useful in practice
6-Shogaol Inhibits Breast Cancer Cells and Stem Cell-Like Spheroids by Modulation of Notch Signaling Pathway and Induction of Autophagic Cell Death

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) pose a serious obstacle to cancer therapy as they can be responsible for poor prognosis and tumour relapse. In this study, we have investigated inhibitory activity of the ginger-derived compound 6-shogaol against breast cancer cells both in monolayer and in cancer-stem cell-like spheroid culture. The spheroids were generated from adherent breast cancer cells. 6-shogaol was effective in killing both breast cancer monolayer cells and spheroids at doses that were not toxic to noncancerous cells. The percentages of CD44+CD24-/low cells and the secondary sphere content were reduced drastically upon treatment with 6-shogaol confirming its action on CSCs. Treatment with 6-shogaol caused cytoplasmic vacuole formation and cleavage of microtubule associated protein Light Chain3 (LC3) in both monolayer and spheroid culture indicating that it induced autophagy. Kinetic analysis of the LC3 expression and a combination treatment with chloroquine revealed that the autophagic flux instigated cell death in 6-shogaol treated breast cancer cells in contrast to the autophagy inhibitor chloroquine. Furthermore, 6-shogaol-induced cell death got suppressed in the presence of chloroquine and a very low level of apoptosis was exhibited even after prolonged treatment of the compound, suggesting that autophagy is the major mode of cell death induced by 6-shogaol in breast cancer cells. 6-shogaol reduced the expression levels of Cleaved Notch1 and its target proteins Hes1 and Cyclin D1 in spheroids, and the reduction was further pronounced in the presence of a γ-secretase inhibitor. Secondary sphere formation in the presence of the inhibitor was also further reduced by 6-shogaol. Together, these results indicate that the inhibitory action of 6-shogaol on spheroid growth and sustainability is conferred through γ-secretase mediated down-regulation of Notch signaling. The efficacy of 6-shogaol in monolayer and cancer stem cell-like spheroids raise hope for its therapeutic benefit in breast cancer treatment.
View-invariant human activity recognition based on shape and motion features

Recognizing human activities from image sequences is an active area of research in computer vision. Most of the previous work on activity recognition focuses on recognition from a single view and ignores the issue of view invariance. In this paper, we present a view invariant human activity recognition approach that uses both motion and shape information for activity representation. For each frame in the video, a 128 dimensional optical flow vector of the region of interest is used to represent the motion of the human body, and a 90 dimensional eigen-shape vector is used to represent the shape. Each activity is represented by a set of hidden Markov models (HMMs), where each model represents the activity from a different viewing direction, to realize view-invariance recognition. Experiments on a database of video clips of different activities show that our method is robust.
Teaching Ethics For Design For Sustainable Behaviour: A pilot study

Design for sustainable behaviour is an emerging activityunder the banner of sustainable design which aims toreduce the environmental and social impacts of productsby moderating users’ interaction with them. The intendedoutcome of design for sustainable behaviour is to reducenegative environmental and societal impacts. However,designers’ ability to passively or actively influence userbehaviour and the resulting tension between choice andcontrol raises some interesting ethical issues. Whilstseveral viable strategies for designing sustainablebehaviour have been developed, the criterion for selectingappropriate strategies has yet to be defined and there isnot, as yet, a clear consensus as to what is an acceptablelevel of intervention, or how to rate the severity ofconsequences enacted by different behaviours. Exploration of the ethical dimensions of influencingbehaviour through design is limited and as such fewIndustrial Design programmes implicitly teach the ethics ofdesign for sustainable behaviour as part of the curriculum.The study reported on in this paper sought to address thisgap through the development and delivery of aneducational pilot study to test new teaching materialsconcerning ethics in design. Having outlined the keyprocesses which led to material selection and theidentification of appropriate techniques, a ‘best-in-class’student case study is presented to illustrate the outcomesof one student project emerging from the pilot study. Thepaper concludes by reflecting on the appropriateness ofthe teaching and learning methods, the suitability of thecontent based on the evaluation which was carried out;and considers the challenges for lecturers in deliveringcontent of this nature.
Examination of the estrogenicity of 2,4,6,2',6'-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 104), its hydroxylated metabolite 2,4,6,2',6'-pentachloro-4-biphenylol (HO-PCB 104), and a further chlorinated derivative, 2,4,6,2',4',6'-hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB 155).

Several studies have reported that polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) exhibit estrogenic activity; however, it is not clear if these responses are associated with the polychlorinated hydrocarbon or its hydroxylated metabolite. In order to further test this hypothesis, a battery of in vitro and in vivo assays were used to investigate the estrogenic and antiestrogenic activities of 2,4,6,2',6'-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 104), its para-hydroxylated derivative 2,4,6,2',6'-pentachloro-4-biphenylol (HO-PCB 104), and its para-chlorinated derivative 2,4,6,2',4',6'-hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB 155). PCB 104 was found to 1) compete with tritiated 17beta-estradiol (E2) for binding to the mouse uterine estrogen receptor (ER); 2) induce gene expression in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells transiently transfected with the Gal4-human ER chimeric construct (Gal4-HEGO) and the Gal4-regulated luciferase reporter gene (17m5-G-Luc); and 3) increase MCF-7 cell proliferation in a dose-dependent manner. HO-PCB 104 exhibited greater estrogenic activity than PCB 104 in the in vitro assays examined. However, gas chromatographic-mass spectrophotometric analysis of extracts prepared from MCF-7 cells incubated with PCB 104 failed to detect the presence of the expected major metabolite HO-PCB 104. The estrogenic activity of the para-chlorinated derivative, PCB 155, was minimal compared to PCB 104 and HO-PCB 104, but it did exhibit significant antiestrogenic activity following co-treatment with 1 nM E2. Co-treatment of PCB 104 with 1 nM E2 had no effect on reporter gene expression compared to E2 alone, while 10 microM HO-PCB 104 exhibited additivity with 1 nM E2. At a dose of 202 mg/kg,PCB 104 increased uterine wet weight in ovariectomized CD-1 mice and induced vaginal epithelial cell cornification at 202, 16, and 1.7 mg/kg in a dose-dependent manner. These studies demonstrate that in addition to the hydroxylated metabolites, selected parent PCB congeners may also exhibit estrogenic and antiestrogenic activities. ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2.Figure 3.Figure 4.Figure 5. AFigure 5. BFigure 6. AFigure 6. BFigure 7.
Proanthocyanidins in seed coat tegmen and endospermic cap inhibit seed germination in Sapium sebiferum

Sapium sebiferum, an ornamental and bio-energetic plant, is propagated by seed. Its seed coat contains germination inhibitors and takes a long time to stratify for germination. In this study, we discovered that the S. sebiferum seed coat (especially the tegmen) and endospermic cap (ESC) contained high levels of proanthocyanidins (PAs). Seed coat and ESC removal induced seed germination, whereas exogenous application with seed coat extract (SCE) or PAs significantly inhibited this process, suggesting that PAs in the seed coat played a major role in regulating seed germination in S. sebiferum. We further investigated how SCE affected the expression of the seed-germination-related genes. The results showed that treatment with SCE upregulated the transcription level of the dormancy-related gene, gibberellins (GAs) suppressing genes, abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis and signalling genes. SCE decreased the transcript levels of ABA catabolic genes, GAs biosynthesis genes, reactive oxygen species genes and nitrates-signalling genes. Exogenous application of nordihydroguaiaretic acid, gibberellic acid, hydrogen peroxide and potassium nitrate recovered seed germination in seed-coat-extract supplemented medium. In this study, we highlighted the role of PAs, and their interactions with the other germination regulators, in the regulation of seed dormancy in S. sebiferum.