Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcomes in Patients With Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Devices and Bacteremia Caused by Gram-Positive Cocci Other Than Staphylococcus Aureus

Background—Infection is a serious complication of cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) placement and requires device removal for attempted cure. Methods and Results—We studied the rate, risk factors, and outcomes of CIED infection in 74 consecutive patients with bacteremia caused by Gram-positive cocci (GPC) other than Staphylococcus aureus between 2001 and 2007. CIED infection was defined as the presence of signs of infection at the generator site, lead vegetations seen on echocardiography, or microbiological growth from device cultures. Twenty-two (30%) of 74 patients with non–S aureus GPC bacteremia had CIED infections. Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) accounted for 73% of CIED infections. The rate of CIED infection in patients with CoNS bacteremia was almost 2-fold that of non-CoNS GPC bacteremia (36% versus 20%, P=0.13). The number of leads, the presence of abandoned leads, and prior generator replacement were associated with CIED infection. Among 33 patients without identifiable CIED infection at initial evaluation who did not undergo device removal, 5 (15%) had relapsing bacteremia within 12 weeks of completing antibiotic therapy. CoNS accounted for all relapses, and none had evidence of CIED infection at relapse. Conclusions—Patients with a CIED and bacteremia caused by GPC other than S aureus frequently had evidence of underlying CIED infection on clinical evaluation that included transesophageal echocardiography. This was particularly true among those with CoNS bacteremia. No evidence of underlying CIED infections was identified in the subgroup of patients who did not have manifestations of CIED infection on initial evaluation but subsequently had relapsing bacteremia caused by CoNS.
Effects of Honghua preserved amniotic membrane on scar healing in experimental glaucoma surgery.

AIM To investigate the efficacy and safety of Honghua preserved amniotic membrane (AM) for preventing scar formation of the filtering bleb in a rabbit model of glaucoma trabeculectomy surgery. METHODS Totally 36 rabbits (36 eyes) were randomly divided into 3 groups: the experimental group (ocular trabeculectomy in combination with Honghua preserved AM transplantation), the control group (ocular trabeculectomy surgery in combination with AM implantation), and the blank group (single trabeculectomy). Clinical observations [including intraocular pressure (IOP), filtering blebs and complications], Masson-Trichrome staining, real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR), Western blot were performed on different time points (D1, D7, D14, D21 and D56) after the surgery. RESULTS After operated for 14d, there were statistically significant differences in the filtering blebs compared to the situation before operation (P<0.05), whereas no statistically difference on that among three groups (P>0.05). After 21d, the IOP of experimental group was lowest (P<0.05). There was significant difference between control group and blank group (P<0.05). On postoperative D14, the mean number of fibroblasts in the experimental group was significantly lower (40.6±10.2) compared to those in the control group (54.4±10.8) and blank group (68.2±11.6) (P<0.05, respectively). The mean numbers of the macrophage in the experimental and control groups were respcitively significantly lower versus the blank group (P<0.05, P<0.05, respectively). Compared to that in blank group, the level of transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β1) expression in sclera and conjunctival areas was reduced in the experimental and control groups on protein and mRNA level (P<0.05), but not significant difference between these two groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION The trabeculectory surgery with Honghua preserved AM can control IOP, sustain the functional filtration bleb, inhibit the proliferation of fibroblasts and open the filtrating pathway on the rabbit glaucoma models.
Demographics, Individual Value Structures, and Diversity Attitudes in the United Kingdom

Abstract This study explores relationships between race, gender, values-types (openness to change, self-transcendence, conservation and self-enhancement) and diversity attitudes (universal-diverse orientation) in a sample of 153 respondents from the United Kingdom. UDO consists of three attitudinal components: realistic appreciation (cognition), comfort with difference (feeling), and diversity of contact (behavior). All predictors related significantly with universal-diverse orientation (UDO) attitudes in the expected direction. Women and non-white people more open to change and motivated to transcend selfish concerns and promote the welfare of others (self-transcendence), had more positive attitudes. People who held conservative values and were motivated to pursue their own success and dominate others (self-enhancers) had less positive attitudes. Self-transcendence and race interacted to predict UDO overall, realistic appreciation and diversity of contact such that higher scores on self-transcendence for whites led to more positive attitudes but not for nonwhites, whose scores on UDO were consistent and positive. Gender interacted with self-transcendence to predict realistic appreciation such that higher scores on self-transcendence led to more positive appreciation of difference for men – the reverse was true for women. Self-enhancement and self-transcendence were the two value-types found to relate to all subcomponents of UDO. Diversity of contact (the behavioral component) related to all predictors but gender. The results of this study have implications for change management in organizations especially as they relate to the provision of training to manage and change peoples' attitudes.
Design and Operational Performance of Double Crossover Intersection and Diverging Diamond Interchange

Transportation planners and traffic engineers are facing the challenge of inventing ways to mitigate congestion during the peak hours. Alleviating delays and improving safety for passengers and pedestrians are the primary motives. One way of achieving these objectives is to search for alternative intersection and interchange designs. This paper presents the results of a study on two new alternate designs: double crossover intersection and diverging diamond interchange. These designs were studied for different traffic scenarios with the use of traffic simulation, and the results showed better performance during peak hours than that of similar corresponding conventional designs. Better performance includes better level of service, shorter delays, smaller queues, and higher throughput.
Database Creation and Statistical Analysis: Finding Connections Between Two or More Secondary Storage Device

We have created a database to analyze digital data to find connections between two or more different secondary storage devices. We used MongoDB and created a document for each secondary-storage image and each unique sector. Ingesting the secondary-storage images took so much time that we had to carefully consider all the reasons for the slow down and experiment on different ways to insert the data. Using a partial database, we found the fraction of space that is empty (contains NULLS), per secondary-storage image and for the entire database. We found duplicate images. Future students may continue to grow the database. Rather then make the goal a completed database, the students will analyze the current data and add to the database.
The Psychedelic State, The Hypnotic Trance, And the Creative Act

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF, the gifted Russian conductor, pianist, and composer, plunged into morbid brooding at the age of 21 because of the unfavorable reception accorded his first piano concerto. No amount of success as a conductor or pianist could revive his morale. Extremes of emotion were characteristic of Russian composers and depression was especially fashionable at the turn of the century, but Rachmaninoff's misery was so relentless that his friends became alarmed. They eventually persuaded him to visit Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who specialized in hypnotic treatments. During their first session together, the spare, gothic Rachmaninoff recoiled in distaste as he eased his slender frame into the doctor's chair. Following some preliminary instructions, Dahl repeatedover and oversuch statements as, "You will begin to write another concerto; you will work with great facility. " Rachmaninoff continued in treatment for three months, visiting Dr. Dahl daily for half-hour sessions. In this instance, hypnotic suggestion was remarkably effective. Rachmaninoff's gloom evaporated and he began composing again, working with speed and inspiration. Musical ideas flowed from his pen, were expanded, and became unforgettable melodies. The finished work, Rachmaninoff's Concerto Number Two in C minor for Piano and Orchestra, was first performed in 1901 by the Moscow Philharmonic. Rachmaninoff openly acknowledged his debt to Dr. Dahl and dedicated the concerto to him; the composition was a critical success and is still a favorite with concert audiences. Psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs have also been used for creative purposes. In 1966, Navy Captain John Busby reported using LSD to solve an elusive problem in pattern recognition while developing equipment for a Navy research project. He stated, "With LSD, the normal limiting mechanisms of the brain are released and entirely new patterns of perception emerge" (Life, March 25, 1965). In 1965, psychiatrist Humphry Osmond and architect Kyo Izumi announced that they had utilized psychedelic drugs in the designing of a mental hospital. Izumi took LSD during visits to traditionallydesigned mental hospitals to determine their effect upon persons in altered conscious states. He found the long corridors and pale colors
Effects of Telephone Canvassing on Turnout and Preferences: A Field Experiment

IN DECIDING how to allocate campaign resources, strategists have remarkably little scholarly research available on the effects of particular kinds of campaign activities. The large volume of electionrelated research includes few attempts to isolate and examine the impact of specific tactics. As grass-roots party organizations atrophy, efforts to get out the vote are increasingly conducted over the telephone, rather than house-to-house, and are often run by paid workers rather than by volunteers. Despite the large sums of money invested in these telephone operations, clear tests of their effectiveness have not been published. Instead, most research in this area concerns the effects of party activity, broadly construed, on elections in the 1950s (Eldersveld, 1956; Wolfinger, 1963; Crotty, 1971). Aside from Eldersveld's finding that personal contact was somewhat more effective than letters in increasing turnout, the effects of particular tactics were not examined. One study that did specifically address the impact of door-to-door canvassing was that of Gerald Kramer (1970-71). Using 1952 through 1964 SRC election surveys and controlling for a variety of sociodemographic characteristics, Kramer used maximum-likelihood methods to estimate the consequences of such canvassing. ' Aside
Detecting Causality by Combined Use of Multiple Methods: Climate and Brain Examples

Identifying causal relations from time series is the first step to understanding the behavior of complex systems. Although many methods have been proposed, few papers have applied multiple methods together to detect causal relations based on time series generated from coupled nonlinear systems with some unobserved parts. Here we propose the combined use of three methods and a majority vote to infer causality under such circumstances. Two of these methods are proposed here for the first time, and all of the three methods can be applied even if the underlying dynamics is nonlinear and there are hidden common causes. We test our methods with coupled logistic maps, coupled Rössler models, and coupled Lorenz models. In addition, we show from ice core data how the causal relations among the temperature, the CH4 level, and the CO2 level in the atmosphere changed in the last 800,000 years, a conclusion also supported by irregularly sampled data analysis. Moreover, these methods show how three regions of the brain interact with each other during the visually cued, two-choice arm reaching task. Especially, we demonstrate that this is due to bottom up influences at the beginning of the task, while there exist mutual influences between the posterior medial prefrontal cortex and the presupplementary motor area. Based on our results, we conclude that identifying causality with an appropriate ensemble of multiple methods ensures the validity of the obtained results more firmly.
Neonatal vitamin K.

battering ram for injuries to the cervical spine. 17 The aim of registers for rugby injuries would be to achieve complete case ascertainment, which would require the number of players and the duration of play to be recorded. Also required are a universally acceptable definition of rugby injury and a standard format for recording injury, which could be completed by non-medical people. What advantages would accrue from such registers? Firstly, they would provide the estimates of rates of different kinds of injury occurring during matches. iThe frequency, distribution, and nature of injuries could be followed over time. Secondly, they would allow associations with time, place, and person to be described. This information is essential in finding out more about the circumstances leading to injury. Case-control studies could then be carried out to provide estimates of the relative importance of other factors to injury, leading to a better understanding of the causes of injury and the ways to prevent them. Registers would also allow the effects of changes in the laws of the game on players' safety and the patterns of injury to be monitored over time. Establishing recurrence rates and the duration of incapacity would also be possible. A picture of the "rugby playing population" could therefore be assembled, giving participating clubs or schools a summary of their players' injury profile in comparison with that of similar clubs or the rest of the region or country. This could directly contribute to coaching plans and the selection of players and ultimately lead to a fall in the number of rugby injuries. W M GARRAWAY Professor of Public Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9AG D A D MACLEOD J C M SHARP Honorary Medical Advisers, Scottish Rugby Union, Murrayfield, Edinburgh EH12 5PJ
High school students' emotional experiences in mathematics classes

The aim of this qualitative research is to identify Mexican high school students' emotional experiences in mathematics classes. In order to obtain the data, focus group interviews were carried out with 22 students. The data analysis is based on the theory of the cognitive structure of emotions, which specifies the eliciting conditions for each emotion and the variables that affect the intensity of each emotion. The participant students' emotional experiences in mathematics classes are composed of: (1) satisfaction and disappointment while solving a problem; (2) joy or distress when taking a test; (3) fear and relief during classes; (4) pride and self-reproach during classes; and (5) boredom and interest during classes. Finally, we discuss how the theory of the cognitive structure of emotions and our analysis contribute to emotion research in mathematics education.
Personal and Professional Aspects of Being a Pregnant Therapist

The current paper presents a model of pregnancy and positive coping utilizing literature related to the impact of pregnancy on a therapist's inner life and role as a clinician. The author documents her own experiences and presents these in the context of this model. Therapist pregnancy is a complex event and stimulates a variety of reactions, which evolve as the pregnancy progresses. Pregnant therapists often describe conflict between being a competent professional and a nurturing mother. The integration of one's mother and therapist roles may be difficult to negotiate and may relate in part to a lack of cultural and professional role models. Despite this difficulty, there is often consensus that as the therapist deepens her acceptance and understanding of herself and clients, pregnancy and motherhood can be used to enhance treatment and add to the therapist's personal and professional growth.
Reinforcement Learning in Multi-Party Trading Dialog

In this paper, we apply reinforcement learning (RL) to a multi-party trading scenario where the dialog system (learner) trades with one, two, or three other agents. We experiment with different RL algorithms and reward functions. The negotiation strategy of the learner is learned through simulated dialog with trader simulators. In our experiments, we evaluate how the performance of the learner varies depending on the RL algorithm used and the number of traders. Our results show that (1) even in simple multi-party trading dialog tasks, learning an effective negotiation policy is a very hard problem; and (2) the use of neural fitted Q iteration combined with an incremental reward function produces negotiation policies as effective or even better than the policies of two strong hand-crafted baselines.
Intra-articular therapy in osteoarthritis

The medical literature was reviewed from 1968–2002 using Medline and the key words “intra-articular” and “osteoarthritis” to determine the various intra-articular therapies used in the treatment of osteoarthritis. Corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid are the most frequently used intra-articular therapies in osteoarthritis. Other intra-articular substances such as orgotein, radiation synovectomy, dextrose prolotherapy, silicone, saline lavage, saline injection without lavage, analgesic agents, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, glucosamine, somatostatin, sodium pentosan polysulfate, chloroquine, mucopolysaccharide polysulfuric acid ester, lactic acid solution, and thiotepa cytostatica have been investigated as potentially therapeutic in the treatment of arthritic joints. Despite the lack of strong, convincing, and reproducible evidence that any of the intra-articular therapies significantly alters the progression of osteoarthritis, corticosteroids and hyaluronic acid are widely used in patients who have failed other therapeutic modalities for lack of efficacy or toxicity. As a practical approach for a knee with effusion, steroid injections should be considered while the presence of symptomatic “dry” knees may favour the hyaluronic acid approach. The virtual absence of serious side effects, coupled with the perceived benefits, make these approaches attractive.
Who helps more? How self-other discrepancies influence decisions in helping situations

Research has shown that people perceive themselves as less biased than others, and as better than average in many favorable characteristics. We suggest that these types of biased perceptions regarding intentions and behavior of others may directly affect people’s decisions. In the current research we focus on possible influences in the context of helping behavior. In four experiments we found that, people believe that others, compared to themselves, are less inclined to help and cooperate, are less aware of the number of bystanders and more influenced by the “proportion dominance” bias and by the “identifiable victim effect. ” We demonstrate that these perceptions are naïve and unrealistic by showing that decisions from both self and others’ perspectives are equally biased. Finally, we show how the perspective from which a decision is made (self vs. others) may affect private as well as public decisions in ways that might not be in the best interest of the decision maker and the public.
Protection Mechanism of Clostridium butyricum against Salmonella Enteritidis Infection in Broilers

This study was designed to evaluate the protection mechanism of oral administration of Clostridium butyricum against Salmonella enteritidis (SE) colonization in broilers. In the current study, 180 one-day-old healthy Arbor Acres (AA) broilers were meanly grouped into three, with three replicates of 20 birds each. An negative control group was fed basal diet without SE challenge and a positive control (PC) group was fed the basal diet and challenged with SE [106 colony forming unit (CFU)/0.2 mL]. An experimental (EXP) group was fed the basal diet, orally administered with C. butyricum (106 CFU/mL) and challenged with SE (106 CFU/0.2 mL). The results showed that compared to the PC group, the SE loads in livers, spleens, and cecal contents of chickens in EXP group were significantly reduced (P < 0.05) except in spleens at the 2-day post-infection; the production of interferon-γ, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-α in the livers, spleens, and cecal tissues of chickens in EXP group were decreased to different extents. The results of quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction further revealed that the inflammation of chickens in EXP group was alleviated by C. butyricum via down-regulating TLR4, MyD88, and NF-κB-dependent pathways. Collectively, these findings indicated that oral administration of C. butyricum could be a suitable alternative for preventing SE infection in broilers.
Observing young children's creative thinking: engagement, involvement and persistence

Abstract This paper looks at young children's creative thinking as inferred through observations of their activities. A total of 52 episodes of child-initiated and adult-initiated activities in 3- to 4-year-olds in an English Children's Centre were analysed using the Analysing Children's Creative Thinking (ACCT) Framework. Results showed that activities such as gardening and construction were as valuable for supporting creative thinking as ones traditionally associated with creativity, for example, music and painting. Outdoor play of all kinds and socio-dramatic play were particularly effective contexts. All adults played a significant role in facilitating children's initial engagement in activities, and at supporting their speculative thinking and use of prior knowledge. Teachers were often more successful than other adults in supporting the acquisition of new knowledge. Child-initiated activities featured the highest levels of involvement, and were associated with trying out and analysing ideas, flexibility and originality, imagining and hypothesising. This was particularly evident in group or pair play. Children were also more persistent in child-initiated activities. Evidence of risk-taking behaviour was low, although more apparent in child-initiated activities than adult-initiated activities, or activities in which adults were present.
Holocaust Review and Bearing Witness as a Coping Mechanism of an Elderly Holocaust Survivor

Bar-Tur and Levy-Shiff present a case study of a survivor who is relatively mentally healthy. She maintains a high level of well-being via a frequent "witnessing" of her experiences. This active and public engagement serves as a kind of llfe review. The authors argue that although it may have started as the patient's attempt to justify her own survival, it has given her a sense of mastery and control which serves not only to find meaning in the past, but also helps her cope with the losses of aging, perhaps diminishing narcissism and sustaining an attachment to a wider circle of humanity as a kind of symbolic family. This case study sets us on the right track: most Holocaust survivors are amazing and inspirational pictures of mental health, rather than pictures of hopeless mental illness.