Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hospitalists and the quality of care in hospitals.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the link between hospitalists and performance on hospital-level quality indicators. METHODS From October 1, 2005, through September 31, 2006, we linked the Hospital Quality Alliance (HQA) data to the American Hospital Association data on the presence of hospitalists. Main outcome measures included composite measurements of hospital-level quality of care for 3 conditions (acute myocardial infarction [AMI], congestive heart failure [CHF], and pneumonia) and 2 dimensions of care (treatment and diagnosis, as well as counseling and prevention). We fitted a series of logistic regression models to examine the relationship between hospitalists and overall quality of care for each condition, controlling for all other hospital characteristics. RESULTS Of 3619 hospitals reporting HQA data, 1461 (40.4%) had hospitalists. Hospitals with hospitalists tended to be large, private, not-for-profit, teaching institutions located in the southern United States. The mean unadjusted composite scores were higher for hospitals with hospitalists vs those with no hospitalists for all 3 conditions (93% vs 86% for AMI, 82% vs 72% for CHF, and 75% vs 71% for pneumonia) and both dimensions of care (87% vs 77% for treatment and diagnosis and 75% vs 66% for counseling and prevention) (P < .001 for all comparisons). After multivariable adjustment, hospitals with hospitalists continued to perform significantly better than those without hospitalists across all composite scores except for CHF. CONCLUSION Hospitals with hospitalists were associated with better performance on HQA indicators for AMI, pneumonia, and the domains of overall disease treatment and diagnosis, as well as counseling and prevention.
Frontiers in Research Reviews: Adult Neurogenesis in the Healthy and Dysfunctional Brain REGULATORS OF ADULT NEUROGENESIS IN THE HEALTHY AND DISEASED BRAIN

SUMMARY 1. In recent decades evidence has accumulated demonstrating the birth and functional integration of new neurons in specific regions of the adult mammalian brain, including the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and the subventricular zone. 2. Studies in a variety of models have revealed genetic, environmental and pharmacological factors that regulate adult neurogenesis. The present review examines some of the molecular and cellular mechanisms that could be mediating these regulatory effects in both the normal and dysfunctional brain. 3. The dysregulation of adult neurogenesis may contribute to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, as well as psychiatric disorders such as depresssion. Recent evidence supports this idea and, furthermore, also indicates that factors promoting
Anatomical variations of the lumbar plexus in fetus

The lumbar plexus is formed within the psoas major muscle and is one of the main nervous pathways supplying the lower limb. Although we came across literature concerning the variations in lumbar plexus in adults, there is dearth of the same in foetuses. Aim of the study was to study the variations in lumbar plexus in foetus. The study was done bilaterally in 25 formalin-fixed fetuses (10 females, 15 males), age ranging from 20 to 37 weeks of gestation. The formation of lumbar plexus and their branching pattern were observed. The findings were noted and tabulated. Multiple variations were observed in the formation and branching pattern of lumbar plexus. Anatomical variations found in the present case may be injured during certain surgical procedures in infants and children, particularly in the lower abdominal region, e.g. appendectomy, inguinal hernia repair, iliac crest bone graft harvesting etc. As a consequence to such operations, several clinical conditions may be encountered such as meralgia paresthetica, groin pain and testicular pain in which the lateral femoral cutaneous, ilioinguinal and the genitofemoral nerves are mostly involved. Thus, awareness about the regional anatomy and its variations is essential for preventing intra-operative complications.
Extended music cognition

Abstract Discussions of extended cognition have increasingly engaged with the empirical and methodological practices of cognitive science and psychology. One topic that has received increased attention from those interested in the extended mind is music cognition. A number of authors have argued that music not only shapes emotional and cognitive processes, but also that it extends those processes beyond the bodily envelope. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the case for extended music cognition. Two accounts are examined in detail: Joel Krueger’s “musically extended emotional mind” and Tom Cochrane’s “expression and extended cognition. ” Each account is evaluated using three “anti-extension” arguments. I argue that Krueger and Cochrane’s accounts offer important steps toward extended music cognition, but that each account remains underdeveloped in various ways. To supplement existing approaches, I propose a complementary extended computational approach to music cognition (ECMC). The claim is that music cognition forms part of an extended system in virtue of involving computational processes that range across environmental and in-the-head elements. The paper concludes by showing how the ECMC deals with each of the three anti-extension challenges and responds to objections.
Kinetics of Anti-Phlebotomus perniciosus Saliva Antibodies in Experimentally Bitten Mice and Rabbits

Background Sand flies are hematophagous arthropods that act as vectors of Leishmania parasites. When hosts are bitten they develop cellular and humoral responses against sand fly saliva. A positive correlation has been observed between the number of bites and antibody levels indicating that anti-saliva antibody response can be used as marker of exposure to sand flies. Little is known about kinetics of antibodies against Phlebotomus perniciosus salivary gland homogenate (SGH) or recombinant salivary proteins (rSP). This work focused on the study of anti-P. perniciosus saliva antibodies in sera of mice and rabbits that were experimentally exposed to the bites of uninfected sand flies. Methodology/Principal Findings Anti-saliva antibodies were evaluated by ELISA and Western blot. In addition, antibody levels against two P. perniciosus rSP, apyrase rSP01B and D7 related protein rSP04 were determined in mice sera. Anti-saliva antibody levels increased along the immunizations and correlated with the number of sand fly bites. Anti-SGH antibody levels were detected in sera of mice five weeks after exposure, and persisted for at least three months. Anti-apyrase rSP01B antibodies followed similar kinetic responses than anti-SGH antibodies while rSP04 showed a delayed response and exhibited a greater variability among sera of immunized mice. In rabbits, anti-saliva antibodies appeared after the second week of exposure and IgG antibodies persisted at high levels, even 7 months post-exposure. Conclusions/Significance Our results contributed to increase the knowledge on the type of immune response P. perniciosus saliva and individual proteins elicited highlighting the use of rSP01B as an epidemiological marker of exposure. Anti-saliva kinetics in sera of experimentally bitten rabbits were studied for the first time. Results with rabbit model provided useful information for a better understanding of the anti-saliva antibody levels found in wild leporids in the human leishmaniasis focus in the Madrid region, Spain.
Utility of adjuvant systemic therapy in melanoma

The lack of effective drugs in stage IV melanoma has impacted the effectiveness of adjuvant therapies in stage II/III disease. To date, chemotherapy, immunostimulants and vaccines have been used with minimal success. Interferon (IFN) has shown an effect on relapse-free survival (RFS) in several clinical trials; however, without a clinically significant effect on overall survival (OS). A recently conducted meta-analysis demonstrated prolongation of disease-free survival (DFS) in 7% and OS benefit in 3% of IFN-treated patients when compared with observation-only patients. There were no clear differences for the dose and duration of treatment observed. Observation is still an appropriate control arm in adjuvant clinical trials. Regional differences exist in Europe in the adjuvant use of IFN. In Northwest Europe, IFN is infrequently prescribed. In Central and Mediterranean Europe, dermatologists commonly prescribe low-dose IFN therapy for AJCC stage II and III disease. High-dose IFN regimens are not commonly used. The population of patients that may benefit from IFN needs to be further characterised, potentially by finding biomarkers that can predict response. Such studies are ongoing.
Towards a psychology of ritual: A theoretical framework of ritual transformation in a globalising world

Rituals are argued to be transformative in the literature. However, a psychological understanding of transformative ritual has been lacking. Moreover, in contemporary society, meaning-making processes are more complex and uncertain, and the practice of ritualising leads to more individualised and dynamic rituals. This article explores the question how to understand ritual transformation from a psychological perspective. In this theoretical review, insights from ritual studies are combined with psychological theories to build a theoretical framework on ritual transformation. Ritual is found to be transformative in terms of (1) aesthetic distance, (2) structured performance and (3) social collaboration. Ritual is considered in this article to be a culturally scripted event that cultivates emotions and thoughts through symbolic action in a social setting. The article ends with suggestions on how to study this framework in future empirical research.
Radius Stabilization and Anomaly-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking

We analyze in detail a specific 5-dimensional realization of a "brane-universe" scenario where the visible and hidden sectors are localized on spatially separated 3-branes coupled only by supergravity, with supersymmetry breaking originating in the hidden sector. Although general power counting allows order 1/M_{Planck}^2 contact terms between the two sectors in the 4-dimensional theory from exchange of supergravity Kaluza-Klein modes, we show that they are not present by carefully matching to the 5-dimensional theory. We also find that the radius modulus corresponding to the size of the compactified dimension must be stabilized by additional dynamics in order to avoid run-away behavior after supersymmetry breaking and to understand the communication of supersymmetry breaking. We stabilize the radius by adding two pure Yang--Mills sectors, one in the bulk and the other localized on a brane. Gaugino condensation in the 4-dimensional effective theory generates a superpotential that can naturally fix the radius at a sufficiently large value that supersymmetry breaking is communicated dominantly by the recently-discovered mechanism of anomaly mediation. The mass of the radius modulus is large compared to m_{3/2}. The stabilization mechanism requires only parameters of order one at the fundamental scale, with no fine-tuning except for the cosmological constant.
A mechanism for building Ad-hoc social network based on user's interest

In social networks, user profile can be used as an important factor to define the character of a user and divide users in many social groups and provide suitable services to each social group. Recently, launched mobile devices can perform many functions, such as taking pictures, listening to music, web browsing etc. So, a mobile device can collect a user's data in his/her daily life and create his/her profile. In this paper, we propose a novel system, which can create a user profile automatically based on collected data from a mobile device and build an Ad-hoc social network.
Spacetimes characterized by their scalar curvature invariants

In this paper, we determine the class of four-dimensional Lorentzian manifolds that can be completely characterized by the scalar polynomial curvature invariants constructed from the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives. We introduce the notion of an -non-degenerate spacetime metric, which implies that the spacetime metric is locally determined by its curvature invariants. By determining an appropriate set of projection operators from the Riemann tensor and its covariant derivatives, we are able to prove a number of results (both in the algebraically general and in algebraically special cases) of when a spacetime metric is -non-degenerate. This enables us to prove our main theorem that a spacetime metric is either -non-degenerate or a Kundt metric. Therefore, a metric that is not characterized by its curvature invariants must be of degenerate Kundt form. We then discuss the inverse question of what properties of the underlying spacetime can be determined from a given a set of scalar polynomial invariants, and some partial results are presented. We also discuss the notions of strong and weak non-degeneracy.
Genomic Characteristics of Genetic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Patients with V180I Mutation and Associations with Other Neurodegenerative Disorders

Inherited prion diseases (IPDs), including genetic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (gCJD), account for 10–15% of cases of prion diseases and are associated with several pathogenic mutations, including P102L, V180I, and E200K, in the prion protein gene (PRNP). The valine to isoleucine substitution at codon 180 (V180I) of PRNP is the most common pathogenic mutation causing gCJD in East Asian patients. In this study, we conducted follow-up analyses to identify candidate factors and their associations with disease onset. Whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data of five gCJD patients with V180I mutation and 145 healthy individuals were used to identify genomic differences. A total of 18,648,850 candidate variants were observed in only the patient group, 29 of them were validated as variants. Four of these validated variants were nonsense mutations, six were observed in genes directly or indirectly related to neurodegenerative disorders (NDs), such as LPA, LRRK2, and FGF20. More than half of validated variants were categorized in Gene Ontology (GO) terms of binding and/or catalytic activity. Moreover, we found differential genome variants in gCJD patients with V180I mutation, including one uniquely surviving 10 years after diagnosis of the disease. Elucidation of the relationships between gCJD and Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease at the genomic level will facilitate further advances in our understanding of the specific mechanisms mediating the pathogenesis of NDs and gold standard therapies for NDs.
Does Test Item Performance Increase with Test-to-Standards Alignment?

ABSTRACT Variation in test performance among examinees from different regions or national jurisdictions is often partially attributed to differences in the degree of content correspondence between local school or training program curricula, and the test of interest. This posited relationship between test-curriculum correspondence, or “alignment,” and test performance is usually inferred from highly distal evidence, rather than directly examined. Utilizing mathematics standards content analysis data and achievement test item data from ten U.S. states, we examine the relationship between topic-specific alignment and test item performance. When a particular item’s content type is emphasized by the standards, we find evidence of a positive relationship between the alignment measure and proportion-correct test item difficulty, although this effect is not consistent across samples. Implications of the results for curricular achievement test development and score interpretation are discussed.
Long‐Term Stability of Primary Rat Hepatocytes in Micropatterned Cocultures

Primary hepatocytes display functional and structural instability in standard monoculture systems. We have previously developed a model in which primary hepatocytes are organized in domains of empirically optimized dimensions and surrounded by murine embryonic fibroblasts (HepatoPac™). Here, we assess the long‐term phenotype of freshly isolated and cryopreserved rat hepatocytes in a 96‐well HepatoPac format. The viability, cell polarity (actin microfilaments, bile canaliculi), and functions (albumin, urea, Phase I/II enzymes, transporters) of fresh and cryopreserved rat hepatocytes were retained in HepatoPac at similar levels for at least 4 weeks as opposed to rapidly declining over 5 days in collagen/Matrigel™ sandwich cultures. Pulse or continuous exposure of rat HepatoPac to GW‐7647, a selective agonist of PPARα, caused reproducible induction of CYP4A1 and 3‐hydroxy‐3‐methylglutaryl‐CoA synthase over 4 weeks. In conclusion, rat HepatoPac in a 96‐well format can be used for chronic dosing of highly functional hepatocytes and assessment of perturbed hepatocellular pathways. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J BiochemMol Toxicol 27:204‐212, 2013; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/jbt.21469
The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation and the Maser Distance to NGC 4258

In a recent paper describing Hubble Space Telescope observations of Cepheids in the spiral galaxy NGC 4258, Newman et al. report that the revised calibrations and methods for the Key Project on the Extragalactic Distance Scale yield that the true distance modulus of this galaxy is μ0, 4258 = 29.40 ± 0.09 mag, corresponding to a metric distance of 7.6 ± 0.3 Mpc. This Cepheid distance, which holds for 18.50 mag as the true distance modulus of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), is not significantly larger than 7.2 ± 0.5 Mpc, the value determined by Herrnstein et al. from purely geometric considerations on the orbital motions of water maser sources. However, if the metallicity difference Δ[O/H] ~ 0.35 between NGC 4258 and the LMC is taken into account, then the Key Project methods lead to a metallicity-corrected value of μ0, 4258 = 29.47 ± 0.09 mag, with μ0, LMC = 18.50 mag, namely, to a Cepheid distance of 7.8 ± 0.3 Mpc, which is 1.2 σ from the maser determination. One might argue that these results are suggesting that a smaller distance to the LMC, μ0, LMC ~ 18.3 mag, should be used to calibrate the Cepheid brightness. However, even though the well-known controversy between short and long distance scale is far from being settled and current determinations of the LMC distance modulus span ~0.4 mag, it seems that the various empirical methods converge on the value adopted by the Key Project (see Carretta et al.). In this paper we show that the metallicity correction on Cepheid distance determinations, as suggested by pulsation models with three different chemical abundances (Y = 0.25, Z = 0.004; Y = 0.25, Z = 0.008; Y = 0.28, Z = 0.02), might provide a natural way of reaching a close agreement between Cepheid and maser distances to NGC 4258 for a wide variety of LMC distance determinations. In fact, by adopting μ0, LMC = 18.50 ± 0.10 mag we derive a Cepheid distance of 7.3 ± 0.6 Mpc, which is only 0.2 σ from the maser determination, while using μ0, LMC = 18.60 ± 0.10 or 18.40 ± 0.10 mag, the Cepheid and maser distances are 0.8 σ and 0.4 σ apart, respectively.
Privacy-Preserving Multi-Keyword Search in Information Networks

In emerging information networks, it is crucially important to provide efficient search on distributed documents while preserving their owners' privacy, for which privacy preserving indexes or PPI presents a possible solution. An understudied problem for the PPI techniques is how to provide differentiated privacy preservation in the presence of multi-keyword document search. The differentiation is necessary as terms and phrases bear innate differences in their semantic meanings. In this paper, we present ϵ-MPPI, the first work to provide the distributed document search with quantitatively differentiated privacy preservation. In the design of ϵ-MPPI, we identified a suite of challenging problems and proposed novel solutions. For one, we formulated the quantitative privacy computation as an optimization problem that strikes a balance between privacy preservation and search efficiency. We also addressed the challenging problem of secure ϵ-MPPI construction in the multi-domain information network which lacks mutual trusts between domains. Towards a secure ϵ-MPPIconstruction with practically acceptable performance, we proposed to optimize the performance of secure multi-party computations by making a novel use of secret sharing. We implemented the ϵ-MPPI construction protocol with a functioning prototype. We conducted extensive experiments to evaluate the prototype's effectiveness and efficiency based on a real-world dataset.
The weight of terminal actions in Volleyball. Contributions of the spike, serve and block for the teams’ rankings in the World League 2005

The purpose of this paper was to study performance levels in scoring skills in the Volleyball World League 2005, and to relate the results to the teams’ final ranking in the tournament. The sample consisted in 33745 actions, distributed by serve (n=12434), block (n=7200), and spike (n=14111), having been recorded during 72 World League 2005 matches. Both absolute (number of successful and unsuccessful executions) and relative (coefficient of performance, percentage of successful executions and percentage of unsuccessful executions) variables have been considered for the three dimensions (spike, serve, and block). Team ranking has been calculated for each variable. Also, each team’s final ranking in the tournament has been considered. The results permit us to conclude that the spike is the best indicator of success in high level volleyball, but only when considering relative measures. Simultaneously, the number of block points per game proved to be a good indicator of success in volleyball. Finally, the number of serve errors and the percentage of serve points are associated with the team’s tournament ranking. That is, the best teams fail a higher number of serves, but also win more points with this action.
UNVEIL: A large-scale, automated approach to detecting ransomware (keynote)

Although the concept of ransomware is not new (i.e., such attacks date back at least as far as the 1980s), this type of malware has recently experienced a resurgence in popularity. In fact, in the last few years, a number of high-profile ransomware attacks were reported, such as the large-scale attack against Sony that prompted the company to delay the release of the film "The Interview. " Ransomware typically operates by locking the desktop of the victim to render the system inaccessible to the user, or by encrypting, overwriting, or deleting the user's files. However, while many generic malware detection systems have been proposed, none of these systems have attempted to specifically address the ransomware detection problem. In this paper, we present a novel dynamic analysis system called UNVEIL that is specifically designed to detect ransomware. The key insight of the analysis is that in order to mount a successful attack, ransomware must tamper with a user's files or desktop. UNVEIL automatically generates an artificial user environment, and detects when ransomware interacts with user data. In parallel, the approach tracks changes to the system's desktop that indicate ransomware-like behavior. Our evaluation shows that UNVEIL significantly improves the state of the art, and is able to identify previously unknown evasive ransomware that was not detected by the antimalware industry.