Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management of penetrating cardiac injuries in the Department of surgery, Mohamed Thahar Maamouri Hospital, Tunisia: report of 19 cases

The goal of this paper is to discuss how to ameliorate the management of penetrating cardiac injuries in general surgery department. An algorithm for the initial assessment of penetrating injuries in cardiac box, based on our own experience, is presented. This was a retrospective study of 19 patients undergoing thoracotomy for penetrating cardiac injuries, managed in the department of general surgery of Nabeul-Tunisia, between 1994 and 2010. The mean age of patients was 25 years old. Sex ratio was 8,5. All patients had cardiac injury resulting from stab wounds inside of the pericardium. 42% of them were critically unstable, 21% had cardiac tamponnade. All these patients were quickly transferred to the operating room without any other investigations. 37% of patients were hemodynamically stable and underwent additional investigations. The management of penetrating cardiac injuries is possible in a general surgery department, but it requires a rapid prehospital transfer, a yet thorough physical examination along with efficient surgical management, all done in minimal time.
Information Information: a Personal Synthesis

This article is an attempt to capture, in a reasonable space, some of the major developments and currents of thought in information theory and the relations between them. I have particularly tried to include changes in the views of key authors in the field. The domains addressed range from mathematical-categorial, philosophical and computational approaches to systems, causal-compositional, biological and religious approaches and messaging theory. I have related key concepts in each domain to my non-standard extension of logic to real processes that I call Logic in Reality (LIR). The result is not another attempt at a General Theory of Information such as that of Burgin, or a Unified Theory of Information like that of Hofkirchner. It is not a compendium of papers presented at a conference, more or less unified around a particular theme. It is rather a highly personal, limited synthesis which nonetheless may facilitate comparison of insights, including contradictory ones, from different lines of inquiry. As such, it may be an example of the concept proposed by Marijuan, still little developed, of the recombination of knowledge. Like the best of the work to which it refers, the finality of this synthesis is the possible contribution that an improved understanding of the nature and dynamics of information may make to the ethical development of the information society.
Using Prosocial Schema and Beliefs about Gender Roles to Predict Alcohol Use for Engineering Majors

ABSTRACT This project examines the relationship between prosocial schema, beliefs about gender roles, and alcohol use among first-year engineering majors. I collected two waves of survey data from first-year engineering students at a large Midwestern university in the fall of 2014 (n = 359). Prosocial schema captures the belief systems of individuals in terms of how they identify themselves with positive, socially approved characteristics. I assessed patterns in the use of alcohol as they vary by prosocial schema and whether students use alcohol to cope with discrepancies between prosocial self-schemas and the prosocial characteristics attributed to typical engineers. Findings show that higher scores on prosocial self-schemas result in lower reported binge drinking. This relationship is further clarified by the mediating effects of progressive ideas about women in the workplace. Results suggest that these engineering students do not engage in the traditional style of college “life as a party” and that there is a type of “progressive teetotaler” that emerges as a means of impression management and framed by professionalism tensions in engineering.
First-episode schizophrenia : characterization and clinical correlates

Neuropsychological impairments are well documented in schizophrenia and are important targets of treatment. Information about the severity and pattern of deficits after treatment for the first psychotic episode and about relationships between these deficits and syndromal characteristics remains limited. Comprehensive neuropsychological assessments including 41 individual tests were given to 94 patients with first-episode schizophrenia after initial stabilization of psychosis and to a comparison group of 36 healthy volunteers. Profiles of neuropsychological deficits and the relationship of deficits to sex and handedness were examined. Correlations of neuropsychological deficit with a broad range of historical and clinical characteristics, including outcome, were explored. Patients had a large generalized neuropsychological deficit. Patients also had, superimposed on the generalized deficit, subtle relative deficits in memory and executive functions. Learning/memory dysfunction best distinguished patients from healthy individuals; after accounting for this difference, only motor deficits further distinguished the groups. Patients with higher neuropsychological ability had only memory deficits, and patients with lower ability had both memory and executive deficits. Dextral patients had less severe generalized deficit. Severity of residual symptoms was associated with greater generalized deficit. Executive and attentional deficits were most linked to global functional impairment and poor outcome. The results document a large generalized deficit, and more subtle differential deficits, in clinically stabilized first-episode patients. Learning/memory deficits were observed even in patients with less severe generalized deficit, but the pattern was unlike the amnestic syndrome and probably reflects different mechanisms. Executive and attentional deficits marked the more severeRobert M. Bilder et al. Neuropsychological Trends – 2/2007 http://www.ledonline. it/neuropsychologicaltrends/ 8 ly disabled patients, and may portend relatively poor outcome. Failure to develop typical patterns of cerebral dominance may increase the risk for greater generalized deficit.
Beyond Colonial Dichotomies: The deficits of Spain and the peripheral powers in treaty-port China

Abstract The semi-colonial character of China during the treaty-port era brings into question the dichotomy between the colonizer and the colonized. China's foreign trade had an overall negative balance, and Great Britain, Japan, and the United States of America benefited from it. However, dozens of minor powers suffered a negative balance with China, despite the favourable conditions set in the treaty ports. This article examines the presence of Spain in China during the first decades of the twentieth century, focusing on trade, population, and issues of self-representation. Through a comparative analysis of the Sino-Spanish trade with that of other smaller powers in China, this article shows both the diversity of colonial formations in China and the existence of colonial relations that, although peripheral and complementary, pose a doubt on the adequacy, not only of the colonizer/colonized dichotomy, but also of the representation of colonialism in China.
Coping and Post-traumatic Stress after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: Racial Disparities in Social Work Student-Practitioners

ABSTRACT Recent hurricanes have focused on lives and properties lost, however, additional mental health concerns may emerge in these post-disaster settings. Post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are particularly problematic for minorities due to pre-disaster disparities. Scholars must thus examine the antecedents of PTSS to support these and other vulnerable individuals and communities. This study examined racial disparities regarding active and avoidant coping, prayer, and subsequent relative contribution of each to PTSS following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita among social work student-practitioners. Using secondary data, results revealed that minority students (n = 233) used coping via prayer more often than their non-minority peers (n = 124; t = 7.18, p < .000; d = 0.76). Moderate, positive relationships emerged between avoidant coping and PTSS for both groups (r = .58–.63, p<.01), though prayer did not emerge as inversely related to PTSS as anticipated. Avoidant coping accounted for the largest variation in PTSS for both groups (β = .35–.51, p<.001). Sampling, survey methods, and PTSS measures limit generalizability and temper findings. Directions for future research include use of PTSS measures that account for severity and cultural context and examination of coping measure psychometrics. Practice implications include enhanced publicity regarding social services available to student-practitioners on college campuses and within the community.
Variación morfosintáctica e interacción social : análisis del paradigma de los clíticos verbales españoles en los medios de comunicación

[ES]Esta investigacion combina el analisis variacionista de la estructura morfosintactica y el estudio sociolinguistico del estilo verbal como instrumento para la interaccion en sociedad. El objetivo es dilucidar si los fenomenos variables que se dan en la estructura gramatical de las lenguas pueden actuar, en la comunicacion real, como recursos expresivos de valor socioestilistico; y, en caso afirmativo, descubrir si es posible relacionar este potencial con los propios factores de la variacion interna, sobre la base de principios generales de naturaleza discursiva y cognitiva. En otras palabras, pretendemos avanzar hacia una explicacion global del fenomeno de la variacion linguistica, que pueda subsumir el sistema y el uso, asi como la sincronia y la diacronia. Se toma como ambito de estudio sociolinguistico la comunicacion de masas oral y escrita de la ciudad espanola de Salamanca. Los medios de comunicacion resultan de gran utilidad para un analisis de estas caracteristicas, ya que nos ofrecen una notable variedad de interacciones entre diversas categorias psicosociales de hablantes. Por lo que se refiere al plano especificamente linguistico, la investigacion se centra en un sector importante de variacion en la gramatica espanola, el paradigma de los cliticos verbales, elementos de etimologia pronominal latina que hoy funcionan a la manera de afijos concordanciales con valor deictico-anaforico. Partiendo de la hipotesis de que el estilo linguistico es un fenomeno de agrupacion de variantes formales que propician la construccion de significados, y de que, en consecuencia, la variacion de estilo debera analizarse teniendo en cuenta una multiplicidad de fenomenos, se estudian cuatro variables principales relacionadas con el mencionado paradigma: a) La concordancia verbal de los complementos, principalmente el indirecto de tercera persona, a traves de cliticos correferenciales opcionales en la misma clausula: (Le / O) entregue los documentos al secretario. b) La eleccion entre los cliticos objetivos de tercera persona le(s), la(s), lo(s) para hacer concordar un supuesto complemento directo: A mis primos no (los / les) avise. c) Las pautas de colocacion de los cliticos en los complejos pluriverbales sometidos a reduccion clausal o gramaticalizacion: Puedo hacerlo / Lo puedo hacer. d) Como caso especial de la variable anterior, la colocacion del clitico se en dichas estructuras, puesta en relacion con los diversos valores sintactico-semanticos de este morfema: Puede hacerse / Se puede hacer. Se ha analizado la relevancia cuantitativa y cualitativa de diversos factores intralinguisticos, sociolectales y situacionales en el funcionamiento de estas variables. Los resultados indican, ante todo, que la mayor parte de las pautas de variacion interna pueden explicarse de acuerdo con factores cognitivos, relacionados con la topicalidad o prominencia que adquiere el referente de un clitico en la escena descrita por la clausula y por su contexto discursivo. La topicalidad intraclausal del…
BaSyRE : A Lightweight Combination of Proven RE Techniques

Many small companies do requirements engineering (RE) superficially or neglect it totally. However, according to software project risk studies a cursorily done RE is one of the biggest risks for software projects. So far RE research has focused on large and complex projects that cannot be managed without proper RE practices. At the same time smaller projects have suffered from basic RE problems. To alleviate this situation we have developed a basic systematic RE method – BaSyRE – that is targeted for small projects developing administrative and business information systems. The key design rationale for BaSyRE are (1) a systematic approach to RE, (2) a ready-to-hand solution, (3) simplicity, and (4) domain specificity. The method itself consists of a requirements document template with techniques and processes for both requirements development and management. All these elements have been adapted to the specific application domain to form a simple but systematic method to be taken in use even without adaptation.
The nexus between attribution theory and racial attitudes: a test of racial attribution and public opinion of capital punishment

ABSTRACT Research has shown that attribution theory and racial attitudes are among the most consistent attitudinal predictors of capital punishment opinion. This study explores the overlap of these two constructs, racial attribution, and its ability to account for support and opposition to the death penalty. Using data from the 1972–2016 cumulative data file of the General Social Survey, three logistic regression models were used to analyze the effect of internal and external racial attribution on capital punishment opinions for (a) the aggregate sample, (b) White respondents only, and (c) Black respondents only. Respondents were asked whether racial inequalities were due to structural disadvantages or personal deficiencies of Black Americans. Findings showed that respondents in all three models were more likely to support the death penalty when they attributed racial inequalities to personal deficiencies of Blacks and less likely to support the death penalty when they endorsed structural disadvantages, although the effects were somewhat muted for Black respondents. These findings suggest that ongoing public support for capital punishment in the United States is based at least in part on a fundamental attribution error in which Whites and some Blacks alike blame Blacks for their own deprivation.
Multiresolution Spatial and Temporal Coding in a Wireless Sensor Network for Long-Term Monitoring Applications

In many WSN (wireless sensor network) applications, such as [1], [2], [3], the targets are to provide long-term monitoring of environments. In such applications, energy is a primary concern because sensor nodes have to regularly report data to the sink and need to continuously work for a very long time so that users may periodically request a rough overview of the monitored environment. On the other hand, users may occasionally query more in-depth data of certain areas to analyze abnormal events. These requirements motivate us to propose a multiresolution compression and query (MRCQ) framework to support in-network data compression and data storage in WSNs from both space and time domains. Our MRCQ framework can organize sensor nodes hierarchically and establish multiresolution summaries of sensing data inside the network, through spatial and temporal compressions. In the space domain, only lower resolution summaries are sent to the sink; the other higher resolution summaries are stored in the network and can be obtained via queries. In the time domain, historical data stored in sensor nodes exhibit a finer resolution for more recent data, and a coarser resolution for older data. Our methods consider the hardware limitations of sensor nodes. So, the result is expected to save sensors' energy significantly, and thus, can support long-term monitoring WSN applications. A prototyping system is developed to verify its feasibility. Simulation results also show the efficiency of MRCQ compared to existing work.
Multi-objective reinforcement learning using sets of pareto dominating policies

Many real-world problems involve the optimization of multiple, possibly conicting objectives. Multi-objective reinforcement learning (MORL) is a generalization of standard reinforcement learning where the scalar reward signal is extended to multiple feedback signals, in essence, one for each objective. MORL is the process of learning policies that optimize multiple criteria simultaneously. In this paper, we present a novel temporal dierence learning algorithm that integrates the Pareto dominance relation into a reinforcement learning approach. This algorithm is a multi-policy algorithm that learns a set of Pareto dominating policies in a single run. We name this algorithm Pareto Q-learning and it is applicable in episodic environments with deterministic as well as stochastic transition functions. A crucial aspect of Pareto Q-learning is the updating mechanism that bootstraps sets of Q-vectors. One of our main contributions in this paper is a mechanism that separates the expected immediate reward vector from the set of expected future discounted reward vectors. This decomposition allows us to update the sets and to exploit the learned policies consistently throughout the state space. To balance exploration and exploitation during learning, we also propose three set evaluation mechanisms. These three mechanisms evaluate the sets of vectors to accommodate for standard action selection strategies, such as -greedy. More precisely, these mechanisms use multi-objective evaluation principles such as the hypervolume measure, the cardinality indicator and the Pareto dominance relation to select the most promising actions. We experimentally validate the algorithm on multiple environments with two and three objectives and we demonstrate that Pareto Q-learning outperforms current state-of-the-art MORL algorithms with respect to the hypervolume of the obtained policies. We note that (1) Pareto Q-learning is able to learn the entire Pareto front under the usual assumption that each state-action pair is suciently sampled, while (2) not being biased by the shape of the Pareto front. Furthermore, (3) the set evaluation mechanisms provide indicative measures for local action selection and (4) the learned policies can be retrieved throughout the state and action space.
Significance of nature in a clinical setting and its perceived therapeutic value from patients’ perspective

ABSTRACT The effect that nature can have on the development of mental health and the implications for recovery is important for understanding the impact nature has on humans, as well as delineating possible alternative venues for treating psychological problems. The present qualitative study examined how individuals understand the significance of nature in relation to their mental health and treatment. A total of 12 participants in residential treatment for varying nonpsychotic mental health issues were interviewed about previous and present experiences with nature and the meaning these experiences have for them in recovery. Thematic analysis resulted in the creation of two main themes: «being human in nature», which included three sub-themes ‘experience of nature’, ‘effects on focus and attention’ and ‘change and the transformative in nature’, and «nature, the patient and treatment», with two sub-themes ‘nature as therapy’ and ‘nature and therapy’. Participants describe a feeling of coming closer to themselves, to their problems and existential meanings when in nature. In addition, they report being able to make new relational experiences with other patients, and that some experiences in nature can function as symbolic tools in therapy. The study underlines the complex interrelationships between nature and humans and points to new lines for future research.
Examining Knowledge as a Motivation for Attention to Breast Cancer–Related Information Across Different Media

This study investigates motivations of attention to breast cancer–related information across different media, including factual knowledge, structural knowledge, and risk perception based on the cognitive learning process. Structural equation modeling is used to test the impacts of factual knowledge and structural knowledge on Singaporean women’s attention to media messages about breast cancer, with risk perception of the disease as a mediating factor. The results indicate that structural knowledge raises women’s perception of risk, which in turn is positively associated with their attention to reports about breast cancer in newspapers, on television, and on the Internet. Factual knowledge about breast cancer has no significant association with women’s perception of risk. In terms of theoretical and practical implications, this study highlights the role of knowledge in affecting individuals’ media attention rather than testing how media attention affects knowledge acquisition, and it suggests that practitioners should put more effort into cultivating women’s structural knowledge about breast cancer.
blobcat: software to catalogue flood‐filled blobs in radio images of total intensity and linear polarization

We present BLOBCAT, new source extraction software that utilises the flood fill algorithm to detect and catalogue blobs, or islands of pixels representing sources, in twodimensional astronomical images. The software is designed to process radio-wavelength images of both Stokes I intensity and linear polarization, the latter formed through the quadrature sum of Stokes Q and U intensities or as a byproduct of rotation measure synthesis. We discuss an objective, automated method by which estimates of positiondependent background root-mean-square noise may be obtained and incorporated into BLOBCAT’s analysis. We derive and implement within BLOBCAT corrections for two systematic biases to enable the flood fill algorithm to accurately measure flux densities for Gaussian sources. We discuss the treatment of non-Gaussian sources in light of these corrections. We perform simulations to validate the flux density and positional measurement performance of BLOBCAT, and we benchmark the results against those of a standard Gaussian fitting task. We demonstrate that BLOBCAT exhibits accurate measurement performance in total intensity and, in particular, linear polarization. BLOBCAT is particularly suited to the analysis of large survey data.
Good Volatility, Bad Volatility: Signed Jumps and The Persistence of Volatility

Abstract Using estimators of the variation of positive and negative returns (realized semivariances) and high-frequency data for the S&P 500 Index and 105 individual stocks, this paper sheds new light on the predictability of equity price volatility.We showthat future volatility is more strongly related to the volatility of past negative returns than to that of positive returns and that the impact of a price jump on volatility depends on the sign of the jump, with negative (positive) jumps leading to higher (lower) future volatility. We show that models exploiting these findings lead to significantly better out-of-sample forecast performance.
On Religion and the Politics of Security: How Religion’s Involvement in Domestic Politics Affects National Securitymaking

Abstract This article explores how national security policies are influenced by national religious politics. First, the state's religious policy greatly influences which security interests the government pursues, as national-security policy is in part a continuation of government religious policy by other means. Second, the desire of decisionmakers to win the political competition against elites which differ in their religious affinities and vision for the state-religion relations steers them toward three possible securitymaking dynamics. Third, the political need of decisionmakers to accommodate the opinions on religion of the groups that secure their hold on power delimits their security policies.