Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pressure ulcer prevalence and barriers to treatment after spinal cord injury: comparisons of four groups based on race-ethnicity.

OBJECTIVE To compare the prevalence of pressure ulcer (PU) and barriers to treatment in the event of PU development as a function of race-ethnicity in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI). METHODS Interview data were collected from three rehabilitation hospitals each of which was designated as a model SCI system of care by the United States Department of Education. There were 475 participants with similar portions of each racial-ethnic group (African-American n = 121, American-Indian n = 105, Caucasians n = 127, Hispanics n = 122). RESULTS The lowest prevalence rates for pressure ulcers were reported by Hispanics followed by Caucasians. Logistic regression revealed racial-ethnic differences in the odds of developing a PU within the past 12 months. Social support and injury severity were also associated with risk of PU while age, gender, years since injury, and education were not. Significant racial-ethnic differences were also observed in 5 of 9 barriers to the treatment of PUs. CONCLUSION Results suggest that variability in social support and barriers to treatment may contribute to the racial-ethnic differences in prevalence rates for PU that were observed. Future research in this area could lead to the development of strategies to enhance prevention and treatment targeted at the elimination of any racial-ethnic disparities.
A 3-D $hp$  Finite/Infinite Element Method to Calculate Power Deposition in the Human Head

The electromagnetic power deposition and transfer properties of a G1 continuous head model reconstructed from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data are investigated by using the coupled hp finite/infinite element (FE/IE) method. The discretization error is controlled by a self-adaptive process driven by an explicit a posteriori error estimate. Based on the benchmark problem of reproducing the Mie series solution, the scattering of a plane wave on the curvilinear head model is used to evaluate the hp FE/IE approach and calibrate the error bound. The radiation pattern from a short dipole antenna modeling a cell phone, is analyzed in terms of the level and distribution of the specific absorption rates (SAR). The numerical experiments show that the hybrid hp FE/IE implementation is a competitive tool for accurate assessment of human electromagnetic exposure
Influence of Aggregate Coated with Modified Sulfur on the Properties of Cement Concrete

This paper proposes the mixing design of concrete having modified sulfur-coated aggregate (MSCA) to enhance the durability of Portland cement concrete. The mechanical properties and durability of the proposed MSCA concrete were evaluated experimentally. Melting-modified sulfur was mixed with aggregate in order to coat the aggregate surface at a speed of 20 rpm for 120 s. The MSCA with modified sulfur corresponding to 5% of the cement weight did not significantly affect the flexural strength in a prism concrete beam specimen, regardless of the water-cement ratio (W/C). However, a dosage of more than 7.5% decreased the flexural strength. On the other hand, the MSCA considerably improved the resistance to the sulfuric acid and the freezing-thawing, regardless of the sulfur dosage in the MSCA. The coating modified sulfur of 5% dosage consequently led to good results for the mechanical properties and durability of MSCA concrete.
Emotional words can be embodied or disembodied: the role of superficial vs. deep types of processing

Emotional words are processed rapidly and automatically in the left hemisphere (LH) and slowly, with the involvement of attention, in the right hemisphere (RH). This review aims to find the reason for this difference and suggests that emotional words can be processed superficially or deeply due to the involvement of the linguistic and imagery systems, respectively. During superficial processing, emotional words likely make connections only with semantically associated words in the LH. This part of the process is automatic and may be sufficient for the purpose of language processing. Deep processing, in contrast, seems to involve conceptual information and imagery of a word’s perceptual and emotional properties using autobiographical memory contents. Imagery and the involvement of autobiographical memory likely differentiate between emotional and neutral word processing and explain the salient role of the RH in emotional word processing. It is concluded that the level of emotional word processing in the RH should be deeper than in the LH and, thus, it is conceivable that the slow mode of processing adds certain qualities to the output.
Effect of organophilic clay addition on properties of SAN/EPDM blends

ABSTRACT In rubber-toughened mixtures, the rubber is intended to dissipate the stress so that the blend shows ductility and plastic deformation. But poor interfacial adhesions, high interfacial tension, differences in polarity and structure between rubber and thermoplastic phases are the main reasons for incompatibility of these systems. The present work deals with the study of nanocomposites based on poly(styrene–acrylonitrile) (SAN) and ethylene–propylene–diene monomer (EPDM) blends with and without an organically modified montmorillonite (O-Mmt) filler as a compatibilizer. These blends are prepared by melt compounding using an internal mixer (Brabender). The dispersion of O-Mmt layers and the morphology of the nanocomposites, were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. The effects of EPDM amount and O-Mmt on the rheological, mechanical properties and thermal stability of the nanocomposites were also investigated. All molten blends containing nanoclay particles exhibit higher viscosity than those of neat SAN/EPDM binary blends. XRD patterns and SEM examination revealed that silicate layers were exfoliated and well dispersed in the blend and the presence of nanoclay has reduced the domain size of EPDM phase. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed that the incorporation both of EPDM and O-Mmt increased the thermal stability of SAN material. In binary blends, addition of EPDM has reduced the stiffness and tensile strength; however it improved the impact toughness and ductility of SAN. But, on adding nanoclay, results display the reverse trend: the stiffness of SAN/EPDM/O-Mmt nanocomposites increases in comparison to neat SAN and SAN/EPDM blends. Graphical Abstract
A clinical score to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use in patients with sore throat.

OBJECTIVE To validate a score based on clinical symptoms and signs for the identification of group A Streptococcus (GAS) infection in general practice patients with score throat. DESIGN A single throat swab was used as the gold standard for diagnosing GAS infection. Clinical information was recorded by experienced family physicians on standardized encounter forms. Score criteria were identified by means of logistic regression modelling of data from patients enrolled in the first half of the study. The score was then validated among the remaining patients. SETTING University-affiliated family medicine centre in Toronto. PATIENTS A total of 521 patients aged 3 to 76 years presenting with a new upper respiratory tract infection from December 1995 to February 1997. OUTCOME MEASURES Sensitivity, specificity and likelihood ratios for identification of GAS infection with the score approach compared with throat culture. Proportion of patients prescribed antibiotics, throat culture use, and sensitivity and specificity with usual physician care and with score-based recommendations were compared. RESULTS A score was developed ranging in value from 0 to 4. The sensitivity of the score for identifying GAS infection was 83.1%, compared with 69.4% for usual physician care (p = 0.06); the specificity values of the 2 approaches were similar. Among patients aged 3 to 14 years, the sensitivity of the score approach was higher than that of usual physician care (96.9% v. 70.6%) (p < 0.05). The proportion of patients receiving initial antibiotic prescriptions would have been reduced 48% by following score-based recommendations compared with observed physician prescribing (p < 0.001), without any increase in throat culture use. CONCLUSIONS An age-appropriate sore throat score identified GAS infection in children and adults with sore throat better than usual care by family physicians, with significant reductions in unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics. A randomized trial comparing the 2 approaches is recommended to determine the ability of the score approach to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics during routine clinical encounters.
Dehn Twists in Heegaard Floer Homology

We derive a new exact sequence in the hat-version of Heegaard Floer homology. As a consequence we see a functorial connection between the invariant of Legendrian knots and the contact element. As an application we derive two vanishing results of the contact element making it possible to easily read off its vanishing out of a surgery presentation in suitable situations.
Impact of All-Day Physical Activity on Ventilatory Perfusion Coupling in Patients Undergoing Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy

Objectives: There is still little information about the cardiorespiratory effects of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients undergoing all-day physical activity. This study aimed to assess the effects of CRT on ventilatory perfusion coupling during submaximal exercise. Methods: Metabolic and hemodynamic parameters were obtained during treadmill exercise testing as well as during rest for each single-right (RV), -left (LV) and biventricular (BiV) pacing mode as well as during intrinsic conduction (VVI 30) in 37 patients. Only responders to CRT (>10% increase in cardiac output (CO) during BiV pacing; n = 27) were included into the evaluation. Results: LV and BiV pacing increased systolic (144 ± 25 and 142 ± 28 vs. 118 ± 29 mm Hg, p < 0.05) and mean blood pressure (108 ± 19 and 109 ± 19 vs. 94 ± 25 mm Hg, p < 0.05) as well as CO (7.0 ± 0.6 and 7.2 ± 0.8 vs. 6.0 ± 0.6 l/min, p < 0.05 and p < 0.01) during exercise as compared to VVI 30. Simultaneously, LV and BiV pacing decreased dead space ventilation (18 ± 3 and 17 ± 3 vs. 20 ± 4, p < 0.01) and the ventilatory equivalent for oxygen (31 ± 4 and 31 ± 5 vs. 36 ± 6; p < 0.05) compared to intrinsic conduction. Conclusion: The improvement in ventilatory efficacy during CRT, which is demonstrated by the decrease in the ventilatory equivalent for oxygen, results from an increase in CO and thus from a reduction in the ventilatory perfusion mismatch.
Seroprevalence of human papillomavirus types 6, 11, 16, and 18 in the United States: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004.

BACKGROUND Human papillomavirus (HPV) seroprevalence data can help define the epidemiology of this common sexually transmitted pathogen. METHODS We determined the seroprevalence of HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 (HPV types in the quadrivalent vaccine) among 4303 persons aged 14-59 years who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2003-2004. RESULTS The seroprevalences of HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 among female subjects were 17.0%, 7.1%, 15.6%, and 6.5%, respectively. Among males, the seroprevalences were lower for each type, with 6.3% observed for HPV-6, 2.0% for HPV-11, 5.1% for HPV-16, and 1.5% for HPV-18 (P < .001 for all comparisons). For any HPV vaccine type, the seroprevalence was 32.5% among females and 12.2% among males; the seroprevalence of any HPV vaccine type increased with age, reaching 42.0% among women aged 30-39 years and 18.0% among men aged 50-59 years. Antibodies to all 4 vaccine types were detected in 0.4% of females and 0% of males. Non-Hispanic blacks had a higher seroprevalence of any HPV vaccine type than that observed for non-Hispanic whites or Mexican Americans. Age and lifetime number of sex partners were factors independently associated with seroprevalence of any HPV vaccine type among both females and males, and poverty level was also a factor among females. CONCLUSIONS This is the first population-based seroprevalence study in the United States of all 4 HPV types targeted by the quadrivalent vaccine, and its findings can inform vaccine policy.
Effects of neuregulin‐1 genetic variation and depression symptom severity on longitudinal patterns of psychotic symptoms in primary care attendees

A better understanding of the factors associated with psychotic symptoms could aid early identification and treatment of psychotic disorders. Previous studies have typically utilized cross‐sectional study designs and have focused on individuals with psychotic disorders. Thus, examination of promising correlates of psychotic symptoms using longitudinal designs among more broadly defined populations is warranted. Two such correlates are neuregulin‐1 (NRG1) genotypic variation and depression symptom severity. Both NRG1 and depression symptom severity have cross‐sectional evidence for an association with psychosis but their affect on longitudinal patterns of psychotic symptoms and their potential interaction effects are less clear. Using repeated measures analysis of variance and covariance we modeled the main and interaction effects of NRG1 genotypic variation and depressive symptom severity on longitudinal psychotic symptom patterns in 301 primary care attendees assessed annually over 4 years. One‐fifth (19.9%) of the participants reported one or more psychotic symptoms over the 4‐year assessment period. We observed a curvilinear (i.e., cubic) association between depression symptom severity at baseline and longitudinal patterns of psychotic symptoms but did not observe a main effect for NRG1 genotypic variation on psychotic symptom patterns. However, NRG1 rs6994992 genotype moderated the curvilinear association between depression symptom severity and psychotic symptom patterns. Specifically, depression symptom severity had less of an effect on longitudinal psychotic symptoms among carriers of the rs6994992 TT genotype compared to CC and CT carriers. Our findings suggest a curvilinear association between depression symptom severity and longitudinal patterns of psychotic symptoms that is moderated by NRG1 genotype. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Role of serum free light chains in predicting HIV‐associated non‐Hodgkin lymphoma and Hodgkin's lymphoma and its correlation with antiretroviral therapy

A nested case‐control study was performed within the Italian cohort of naïve to antiretroviral human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients (ICONA) cohort to evaluate the role of serum free light chains (sFLC) in predicting non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) in HIV‐infected individuals. Of 6513 participants, 86 patients developed lymphoma and 46 of these (NHL, 30; HL, 16) were included in this analysis having stored prediagnostic blood. A total of 46 serum case samples matched 1:1 to lymphoma‐free serum control samples were assayed for κ and λ sFLC levels and compared by using conditional logistic regression. Because the polyclonal nature of free light chains (FLCs) was the focus of our study, we introduced the k + λ sum as the measurement of choice and as the primary variable studied. κ + λ sFLC values were significantly higher in patient with lymphoma than in controls, especially when considering samples stored 0–2‐year period before the lymphoma diagnosis. In the multivariable analysis, the elevation of sFLC predicted the risk of lymphoma independently of CD4 count, (odd ratio of 16.85 for k + λ sFLC >2‐fold upper normal limit (UNL) vs. normal value). A significant reduction in the risk of lymphoma (odd ratio of 0.07 in model with k + λ sFLC) was found in people with low sFLC and undetectable HIV viremia lasting more than 6 months. Our analysis indicates that an elevated polyclonal sFLC is a strong and sensitive predictor of the risk of developing lymphomas, and it is an easy to measure biomarker that merits consideration for introduction in routine clinical practice in people with HIV. Am. J. Hematol. 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The microvasculature: a target for nutritional programming and later risk of cardio‐metabolic disease

There is compelling evidence that microvascular deficits affecting multiple tissues and organs play an important role in the aetiopathogenesis of cardio‐metabolic disease. Furthermore, both in humans and animal models, deficits in small vessel structure and function can be detected early, often before the onset of macrovascular disease and the development of end‐organ damage that is common to hypertension and obesity‐associated clinical disorders. This article considers the growing evidence for the negative impact of an adverse maternal diet on the long‐term health of her child, and how this can result in a disadvantageous vascular phenotype that extends to the microvascular bed. We describe how structural and functional modifications in the offspring microcirculation during development may represent an important and additional risk determinant to increase susceptibility to the development of cardio‐metabolic disease in adult life and consider the cell‐signalling pathways associated with endothelial dysfunction that may be ‘primed’ by the maternal environment. Published studies were identified that reported outcomes related to the microcirculation, endothelium, maternal diet and vascular programming using NCBI PubMed.gov, MEDLINE and ISI Web of Science databases from 1980 until April 2013 using pre‐specified search terms. Information extracted from over 230 original reports and review articles was critically evaluated by the authors for inclusion in this review.
A General, Yet Useful Theory of Information Systems

This paper proposes a general, yet useful theory of information systems. It is a response to repeated lamentations and debates about whether it is possible to find a set of core concepts for the IS field. Business and IT professionals can apply this theory for understanding and analyzing information systems. Academic researchers can apply it for gaining a deeper appreciation of past research and for developing future research projects. This theory tries to be equally applicable to all information systems, and not just to a particular type of application such as TPS, MIS, DSS, EIS, GSS, or ERP. It also tries to be equally applicable to information systems of today, of 20 years ago, and of the near term
Postpartum depression in adolescent mothers

Abstract Background: Postpartum depression has been extensively studied in adults but is less understood in adolescent mothers, despite a prevalence that is double that observed in adult mothers. The purpose of this review was to describe the epidemiology, risk factors, treatment and prognosis for adolescents with postpartum depression. We also sought to identify limitations of the available literature and propose areas for future study targeting postpartum depression in this vulnerable population. Methods: A Medline literature search was conducted for articles published between 1996 and 2015. We identified relevant studies by combining the indexed search terms ‘pregnancy in adolescence or teenage pregnancy’ and ‘depression or postpartum depression’. Additional studies were identified from references of selected articles. We limited our search results to adolescents (18 years or younger) and English language publications. Case studies/series and editorials were excluded. Results: The Medline database search identified 134 articles of which 57 met inclusion criteria. Ten additional articles were identified from reference lists yielding a total of n = 67 articles for review. Among the articles selected, 10 described epidemiology, 27 identified risk factors, nine measured long-term outcome and 21 proposed treatment strategies for postpartum depression in adolescent mothers. Conclusions: There is limited literature addressing adolescent postpartum depression, but there has been a significant growth of interest in recent years. There is a need for more randomized control trials to establish gold standards for assessing postpartum depression in adolescent mothers and standards for treatment in these patients.
Bribery as a Measure of Candidate Success: Complexity Results for Approval-Based Multiwinner Rules

We study the problem of bribery in multiwinner elections, for the case where the voters cast approval ballots (i.e., sets of candidates they approve) and the bribery actions are limited to: adding an approval to a vote, deleting an approval from a vote, or moving an approval within a vote from one candidate to the other. We consider a number of approval-based multiwinner rules (AV, SAV, GAV, RAV, approval-based Chamberlin--Courant, and PAV). We find the landscape of complexity results quite rich, going from polynomial-time algorithms through NP-hardness with constant-factor approximations, to outright inapproximability. Moreover, in general, our problems tend to be easier when we limit out bribery actions on increasing the number of approvals of the candidate that we want to be in a winning committee (i.e., adding approvals only for this preferred candidate, or moving approvals only to him or her). We also study parameterized complexity of our problems, with a focus on parameterizations by the numbers of voters or candidates.
Generalized industrial color-difference space based on multi-stage color vision and line-element integration

A generalized color-difference space was introduced based on theories of multi-stage color vision, for example, the zone theory, and extended by integrating line elements. This space had the following features: chromatic adaptation, a linear transformation from CIE tristimulus values to cone fundamentals, a nonlinear compression stage, a second linear transformation to opponent signals, and line-element integration that was a function of chroma. Variants of this generalized color-difference space were derived using the RIT-DuPont and Qiao et al. datasets of equal perceived color differences. These spaces had improved performance compared with CIELAB and resulted in a Euclidean distance metric with statistically equivalent or superior performance to the current CIE recommended color-difference formula, CIEDE2000.
Dominating sets in planar graphs: branch-width and exponential speed-up

Graph minors theory, developed by Robertson & Seymour, provides a list of powerful theoretical results and tools. However, the wide spread opinion in Graph Algorithms community about this theory is that it is mainly of theoretical importance. The main purpose of this paper is to show how very deep min-max and duality theorems from Graph Minors can be used to obtain essential speed-up to many known algorithms on different domination problems.
Earnings Dynamics and Inequality among Canadian Men, 1976–1992: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Records

Using an extraordinary database drawn from longitudinal income tax records, we decompose Canada’s growth in earnings inequality into its persistent and transitory components. We find that the growth in earnings inequality reflects both an increase in long‐run inequality and an increase in earnings instability. The Canadian data strongly reject several restrictions commonly imposed in the U.S. literature, and they also suggest that imposing these evidently false restrictions may lead to distorted inferences about earnings dynamics and inequality trends.