Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pain assessment in the Emergency Department. Correlation between pain rated by the patient and by the nurse. An observational study

Background and aim of the study: Pain is always present in the Emergency Department (ED), but is often underestimated. The primary purpose of this study is to analyze the degree to which the intensity of pain is underestimated or overestimated in the perception of the nurse and the patient in the ED. The secondary objective of this research is to study possible factors that lead to these discrepancies in assessment. Methods: The observational study was carried out in two Hospitals in Central Italy. The sample population was based on 130 patients and 26 nurses. A questionnaire was given to the patients who provided personal data followed by information regarding their pain, including an assessment of the intensity of pain on a scale from 0 to 10. A similar questionnaire was given to the nurses. Results: The average score based on the numeric rating scale (NRS) to assess the intensity of pain perceived by the patients is 6.16, while the numerical average estimated by the nurses based on their assessment is 5. Using the t test we found that the average between nurse and patient assessments was very significant. The analysis of the nurses’ characteristics and professional experiences, age, years of employment and years of service in the ED are all significant variables affecting the discrepancy between the nurses’ and patients’ assessments of pain. As previous studies have shown, nurses tend to underestimate the degree of pain. In fact, in only 55.5% of the cases was there a correspondence in the evaluations of the intensity of pain done by nurses and patients, and in no case did the nurses’ evaluation exceed that of the patients. Conclusions: This study reveals the persistent difficulty in pain management, while attempting contemporaneously to communicate the importance of the assessment, since adequate understanding of pain renders it possible to recognize and treat it.
Stochastic interacting particle systems and nonlinear kinetic equations

We present the stochastic approach to nonlinear kinetic equations (without gradient terms) in a unifying general framework, which covers many interactions important in applications, like coagulation, fragmentation, inelastic collisions, as well as source and e ux terms. We provide conditions for the existence of corresponding stochastic particle systems in the sense of regularity (non-explosion) of a jump process with unbounded intensity. Using an appropriate space of measure-valued functions, we prove relative compactness of the sequence of processes and characterize the weak limits in terms of solutions to the nonlinear equation. As a particular application, we derive existence theorems for Smoluchowski's coagulation equation with fragmentation, e ux and source terms, and for the Boltzmann equation with dissipative collisions.
Surface Finite Elements for Parabolic Equations

In this article we define a surface finite element method (SFEM) for the numerical solution of parabolic partial differential equations on hypersurfaces Γ in R. The key idea is based on the approximation of Γ by a polyhedral surface Γh consisting of a union of simplices (triangles for n = 2, intervals for n = 1) with vertices on Γ. A finite element space of functions is then defined by taking the continuous functions on Γh which are linear affine on each simplex of the polygonal surface. We use surface gradients to define weak forms of elliptic operators and naturally generate weak formulations of elliptic and parabolic equations on Γ. Our finite element method is applied to weak forms of the equations. The computation of the mass and element stiffness matrices are simple and straightforward. We give an example of error bounds in the case of semi-discretization in space for a fourth order linear problem. Numerical experiments are described for several linear and nonlinear partial differential equations. In particular the power of the method is demonstrated by employing it to solve highly nonlinear second and fourth order problems such as surface Allen-Cahn and Cahn-Hilliard equations and surface level set equations for geodesic mean curvature flow. Mathematics subject classification: 65M60, 65M30, 65M12, 65Z05, 58J35, 53A05, 74S05, 80M10, 76M10.
Long-Term Contracting with Markovian Consumers

To study how a firm can capitalize on a long-term customer relationship, we characterize the optimal contract between a monopolist and a consumer whose preferences follow a Markov process. The optimal contract is nonstationary and has infinite memory, but is described by a simple state variable. Under general conditions, supply converges to the efficient level for any degree of persistence of the types and along any history, though convergence is history-dependent. In contrast, as with constant types, the optimal contract can be renegotiation-proof, even with highly persistent types. These properties provide insights into the optimal ownership structure of the production technology.
Molecular insights into the irreversible mechanical behavior of sickle hemoglobin

Sickle cell disease is caused by the amino acid substitution of glutamic acid to valine, which leads to the polymerization of deoxygenated sickle hemoglobin (HbS) into long strands. These strands are responsible for the sickling of red blood cells (RBCs), making blood hyper-coagulable leading to an increased chance of vaso-occlusive crisis. The conformational changes in sickled RBCs traveling through narrow blood vessels in a highly viscous fluid are critical in understanding; however, there are few studies that investigate the origins of the molecular mechanical behavior of sickled RBCs. In this work, we investigate the molecular mechanical properties of HbS molecules. A mechanical model was used to estimate the directional stiffness of an HbS molecule and the results were compared to adult human hemoglobin (HbA). The comparison shows a significant difference in strength between HbS and HbA, as well as anisotropic behavior of the hemoglobin molecules. The results also indicated that the HbS molecule experienced more irreversible mechanical behavior than HbA under compression. Further, we have characterized the elastic and compressive properties of a double stranded sickle fiber using six HbS molecules, and it shows that the HbS molecules are bound to each other through strong inter-molecular forces.
Effect of maternal origin on the association between maternal height and risk of preterm birth in Belgium: a retrospective observational cohort study

Objectives To investigate the effect of maternal origin on the association between maternal height and the risk of preterm birth (PTB). Design Retrospective observational cohort study. Setting Two of the three Belgian regions, including Brussels-Capital and Walloon regions. Participants A total of 245 204 women spontaneously delivered live singletons between 2009 and 2013. Maternal nationality at the time of birth included Belgium, Congo, French, Italy, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Turkey. Outcomes measures The outcome variable was spontaneous PTB, defined as childbirth occurring at less than 37 weeks’ gestation. Results Average height, demographic characteristics and the spontaneous PTB rate differed according to maternal origin, defined as maternal nationality at birth. The pattern of association between maternal height and the risk of PTB was not uniform by maternal nationality at birth. The low maternal height category was associated with a statistically significant increased risk of spontaneous PTB for Belgian (adjusted OR (aOR) 1.23, 95% CI 1.16 to 1.32), Italian (aOR 1.48, 95% CI 1.12 to 1.96) and Polish (aOR 1.76, 95% CI 1.11 to 2.78), respectively. However, this association was not observed for the women from Congo, France, Morocco, Romania and Turkey. Conclusions The association between height and the risk of PTB was modified by maternal nationality, even for mothers from the same region of the world. For example, there was a significant inverse association for the Belgians and Italians but not for French women. Our data suggest that PTB risk assessment should take into account the specific height of maternal origin.
Letter on “Pregnancy after bariatric surgery: Maternal and fetal outcomes of 39 pregnancies and a literature review”

Dear Editor, We have read the interesting paper by M.M. Costa and coworkers entitled "Pregnancy after bariatric surgery: maternal and fetal outcomes of 39 pregnancies and a literature review", recently published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research. The authors aimed to assess the impact of bariatric surgery (BS) on maternal and fetal outcomes by evaluating a sample of 39 women who became pregnant after BS. The authors’ conclusion is that pregnancy after BS is safe and well tolerated, although close monitoring by a multidisciplinary team is required to evaluate complications, especially a deficit of micronutrients. In the section Conclusion, the authors stated that "pregnancy after BS is safe", advocating that women should be followed up frequently by a multidisciplinary team. The authors based their assertion on the evaluation of 29 women who had undergone Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB), 7 who had had gastric banding and 3 who had had sleeve gastrectomy. No congenital malformation was reported in the offsprings. In the literature, the number of reports of severe nutritional problems during pregnancy is higher for biliopancreatic diversion (BPD) than for the other types of BS, and this is consistent with the greater degree of malabsorption caused by BPD relative to the other procedures. Severe neonatal adverse outcome with devastating sequelae affecting the entire lifetime has been reported in the offspring of mothers who underwent BPD. Cools et al. reported adverse neonatal outcomes after maternal BPD, despite high compliance with vitamin supplementation, due to a malabsorption of prescribed supplements. Our group previously reported a preterm-presenting bilateral microphtalmia, aortic dilatation, severe respiratory distress and necrotizing enterocolitis associated with vitamin A deficiency after maternal BPD. In conclusion, we suggest that neonatal outcome may vary depending on the BS technique used. Fortunately, the majority of BS performed today is the RYGB, which bypasses a much shorter length of proximal small intestine and lessens the risk of severe protein–calorie malnutrition compared to BPD. Most BS is performed on women of reproductive age. Taking into account the fact that nutritional needs increase considerably during pregnancy, an optimal nutritional status in pregnant woman after BPD might be illusory, with devastating sequelae on neonatal outcome. We recommend that surgical procedures other than BPD be preferred in young fertile woman.
Palatal Patterns Based RGB Technique for Personal Identification

Biometric system is an alternative way to the traditional identity verification methods. This research article provides an overview of recently / currently used single and multiple biometrics based personal identification systems which are based on human physiological (such as fingerprint, hand geometry, head recognition, iris, retina, face recognition, DNA recognition, palm prints, heartbeat, finger veins, footprints and palates) and behavioral (such as body language, facial expression, signature verification and speech recognition) characteristics. This paper focuses on RGB based palatal pattern analysis of persons and the proposed technique uses RGB values with silhouette computes of palatal patterns for identifying a person. We have tested our proposed technique for palatal patterns of 50 persons including males & females and it is observed that RGB values based silhouette technique are accurately identifying the persons on the basis of their palatal patterns. For each person seven palatal images were taken. Out of these seven palatal images, four images were used for training dataset and last three palatal patterns were used for identifying the persons. The proposed technique is reliable & secure and it is a foolproof method which is clearly differentiating the persons on the basis of their palatal patterns.
Query Expansion Based on Crowd Knowledge for Code Search

As code search is a frequent developer activity in software development practices, improving the performance of code search is a critical task. In the text retrieval based search techniques employed in the code search, the term mismatch problem is a critical language issue for retrieval effectiveness. By reformulating the queries, query expansion provides effective ways to solve the term mismatch problem. In this paper, we propose Query Expansion based on Crowd Knowledge (QECK), a novel technique to improve the performance of code search algorithms. QECK identifies software-specific expansion words from the high quality pseudo relevance feedback question and answer pairs on Stack Overflow to automatically generate the expansion queries. Furthermore, we incorporate QECK in the classic Rocchio's model, and propose QECK based code search method QECKRocchio. We conduct three experiments to evaluate our QECK technique and investigate QECKRocchio in a large-scale corpus containing real-world code snippets and a question and answer pair collection. The results show that QECK improves the performance of three code search algorithms by up to 64 percent in Precision, and 35 percent in NDCG. Meanwhile, compared with the state-of-the-art query expansion method, the improvement of QECK Rocchio is 22 percent in Precision, and 16 percent in NDCG.
A Beneficial Role of Rooibos in Diabetes Mellitus: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

In a rapid increase in cases of diabetes mellitus worldwide, there has been interested in the use of plant-derived polyphenols as nutraceuticals to prevent the onset and progression of diabetes mellitus and its associated complications. Aspalathus linearis, commonly known as rooibos, is a rich source of uncommon glycosylated plant polyphenols with various critical health-promoting properties, including the prevention and treatment of diabetes mellitus (DM). This study aimed to examine these effects by meta-analyzing the current evidence in diabetic rodent models. Peer-reviewed studies written in English from two databases, PubMed and Embase, were searched up to 28 February 2018. Studies reporting blood glucose levels in diabetic rodents with and without receiving rooibos extracts or their major phenolic compounds are included. Twelve studies enrolling 88 diabetic rodents treated with rooibos extracts or their polyphenols and 85 diabetic control males reported blood glucose levels. The pooled effect size was −0.89 (95% CI: −1.44 to −0.35) with a substantial heterogeneity (I2 = 67.0%). This effect was likely to be modified by type of rooibos extracts and their polyphenols and treatment period. Blood glucose levels were significantly lower in diabetic rodent models treated with the phenolic compound rich in rooibos extracts, PPAG.
A Single Dose of Atorvastatin Applied Acutely after Spinal Cord Injury Suppresses Inflammation, Apoptosis, and Promotes Axon Outgrowth, Which Might Be Essential for Favorable Functional Outcome

The aim of our study was to limit the inflammatory response after a spinal cord injury (SCI) using Atorvastatin (ATR), a potent inhibitor of cholesterol biosynthesis. Adult Wistar rats were divided into five experimental groups: one control group, two Th9 compression (40 g/15 min) groups, and two Th9 compression + ATR (5 mg/kg, i.p.) groups. The animals survived one day and six weeks. ATR applied in a single dose immediately post-SCI strongly reduced IL-1β release at 4 and 24 h and considerably reduced the activation of resident cells at one day post-injury. Acute ATR treatment effectively prevented the excessive infiltration of destructive M1 macrophages cranially, at the lesion site, and caudally (by 66%, 62%, and 52%, respectively) one day post-injury, whereas the infiltration of beneficial M2 macrophages was less affected (by 27%, 41%, and 16%). In addition, at the same time point, ATR visibly decreased caspase-3 cleavage in neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Six weeks post-SCI, ATR increased the expression of neurofilaments in the dorsolateral columns and Gap43-positive fibers in the lateral columns around the epicenter, and from day 30 to 42, significantly improved the motor activity of the hindlimbs. We suggest that early modulation of the inflammatory response via effects on the M1/M2 macrophages and the inhibition of caspase-3 expression could be crucial for the functional outcome.
Renormalization for a Scalar Field in an External Scalar Potential

The Pauli--Villars regularization procedure confirms and sharpens the conclusions reached previously by covariant point splitting. The divergences in the stress tensor of a quantized scalar field interacting with a static scalar potential are isolated into a three-parameter local, covariant functional of the background potential. These divergences can be naturally absorbed into coupling constants of the potential, regarded as a dynamical object in its own right; here this is demonstrated in detail for two different models of the field-potential coupling. here is a residual dependence on the logarithm of the potential, reminiscent of the renormalization group in fully interacting quantum field theories; these terms are finite but numerically dependent on an arbitrary mass or length parameter, which is purely a matter of convention. This work is one step in a program to elucidate boundary divergences by replacing a sharp boundary by a steeply rising smooth potential.
Relationships among mortality, performance, and disorder traits in broiler chickens: a genetic and genomic approach

&NA; Four performance‐related traits [growth trait (GROW), feed efficiency trait 1 (FE1) and trait 2 (FE2), and dissection trait (DT)] and 4 categorical traits [mortality (MORT) and 3 disorder traits (DIS1, DIS2, and DIS3)] were analyzed using linear and threshold single‐ and multi‐trait models. Field data included 186,596 records of commercial broilers from Cobb‐Vantress, Inc. Average‐information restricted maximum likelihood and Gibbs sampling‐based methods were used to obtain estimates of the (co)variance components, heritabilities, and genetic correlations in a traditional approach using best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP). The ability to predict future breeding values (measured as realized accuracy) was checked in the last generation when traditional BLUP and single‐step genomic BLUP were used. Heritability estimates for GROW, FE1, and FE2 in single‐ and multi‐trait models were similar and moderate (0.22 to 0.26) but high for DT (0.48 to 0.50). For MORT, DIS1, and DIS2, heritabilities were 0.13, 0.24, and 0.34, respectively. Estimates from single‐ and multi‐trait models were also very similar. However, heritability for DIS3 was higher from the single‐trait threshold model than for the multi‐trait linear‐threshold model (0.29 vs. 0.19). Genetic correlations between growth traits and MORT were weak, except for maternal GROW, which had a moderate negative correlation (−0.50) with MORT. The genetic correlation between MORT and DIS1 was strong and positive (0.77). Feed efficiency 1, which was moderately heritable (0.25) and is highly selected for, was not genetically related to MORT of broilers and other disorders. Broiler MORT also had moderate heritability (0.13), which suggests that MORT and FE1 can be improved through selection without negatively impacting other important traits. Selection of heavier maternal GROW also may decrease offspring MORT.
Impact of written information on control and adherence in type 2 diabetes.

INTRODUCTION Diabetes therapeutic education and information by leaflets is important. This study aimed to understand the effectiveness of written information to diabetic patients, after six months, in the control of diabetes and medication adherence. METHOD Non-pharmacological clinical trial. Randomized sample of diabetic patients of 65 volunteer doctors, distributed among the five health regions in Portugal. At the first appointment, patients were randomized in four groups (three intervention with validated leaflets and one control), leaflet reading being reinforced at the follow-up appointments in a 6-months period. Variables collected: HbA1c, home blood glucose, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, cigarettes smoked, physical activity level, adherence to medication, medication, height, diabetes progression, age, sex and educational background. Descriptive and inferential statistics. RESULTS From the 709 patients recruited, 702 were studied in this 6-months period with no statistical differences in the baseline variables studied. After six months of intervention, the adherence to medication improved in the leaflet group (p=0.034). This was noticed in those under 65 years of age (p=0.027), with diabetes for ≤ 5 years (p=0.010), with educational background up to 4 years (p=0.030) and 9 years (p=0.006) and with HbA1c ≥ 7% at the beginning of the study. CONCLUSION Interventions with leaflets handed in primary healthcare to people with diabetes type 2 can bring benefits in what concerns adherence to therapeutics, namely in younger people with a less studies.
JOB TITLES AS IDENTITY BADGES: HOW SELF-REFLECTIVE TITLES CAN REDUCE EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION

Job titles help organizations manage their human capital and have far-reaching implications for employees’ identities. Because titles do not always reflect the unique value that employees bring to their jobs, some organizations have recently experimented with encouraging employees to create their own job titles. To explore the psychological implications of self-reflective job titles, we conducted field research combining inductive qualitative and deductive experimental methods. In Study 1, a qualitative study at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we were surprised to learn that employees experienced self-reflective job titles as reducing their emotional exhaustion. We triangulated interviews, observations, and archival documents to identify three explanatory mechanisms through which self-reflective job titles may operate: selfverification, psychological safety, and external rapport. In Study 2, a field quasiexperiment within a health care system, we found that employees who created selfreflective job titles experienced less emotional exhaustion five weeks later, whereas employees in two control groups did not. These effects were mediated by increases in self-verification and psychological safety, but not external rapport. Our research suggests that self-reflective job titles can be important vehicles for identity expression and stress reduction, offering meaningful implications for research on job titles, identity, and emotional exhaustion.
Reliability and Validity of a Scale-based Assessment for Translation Tests

Are assessment tools for machine-generated translations applicable to human translations? To address this question, the present study compares two assessments used in translation tests: the first is the error-analysis-based method applied by most schools and institutions, the other a scale-based method proposed by Liu, Chang et al. (2005). They have adapted Carroll’s scales developed for quality assessment of machine-generated translations. In the present study, twelve graders were invited to re-grade the test papers in Liu, Chang et al. (2005)’s experiment by different methods. Based on the results and graders’ feedback, a number of modifications of the measuring procedure as well as the scales were provided. The study showed that the scale method mostly used to assess machine-generated translations is also a reliable and valid tool to assess human translations. The measurement was accepted by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan and applied in the 2007 public translation proficiency test.