Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Newborn Infant Pain Assessment Using Heart Rate Variability Analysis

ObjectivesSystems controlling cardiovascular function are closely coupled with the perception of pain. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a well-established noninvasive measure of cardiac autonomic control. We hypothesized that pain may alter HRV in the newborn infant and that HRV analysis could be used as an indicator of prolonged pain in the newborn infant. MethodsTo test the hypothesis, we measured the magnitude of the heart rate high-frequency variations using an innovative High Frequency Variability Index (HFVI) in newborn infants at risk of postoperative pain. We investigated newborn infants with a gestational age (GA) more than 34 weeks, and who were admitted after a major surgical procedure. Inclusions ranged from 2 to 72 hours after the surgery. The postoperative pain was scored using EDIN scale (neonatal pain and discomfort scale) at the end of the 2 hours recording period. The infants were separated in: (1) Group “Low EDIN,” when EDIN<5; and (2) Group “High EDIN,” when EDIN ≥5. Predictive positive and negative values of a threshold value of HFVI in assessing pain have been studied. ResultsTwenty-eight newborn infants were enrolled in the study (mean GA=37.8±1.5 wk) at a median delay between the surgery and the recording of 5 hours. Mean EDIN were 2±1 and 7±2 in respectively the groups “Low EDIN” and “High EDIN. ” The 2 groups were similar for GA, basal heart and respiratory rates, SpO2, mean arterial blood pressure, and morphine infusion rate. HFVI was significantly lower in the group “High EDIN” than in the group “Low EDIN” (0.7±0.2 vs. 1.2±0.3, respectively; P<0.01). An HFVI <0.9 was able to predict an EDIN score ≥5, with a sensitivity of 90%, and a specificity of 75%. DiscussionThe results of this study indicate that postoperative pain is associated with a decreased high-frequency HRV in full-term newborn infants. Our findings suggest that HRV could be used as an indicator to assess prolonged pain in the newborn infants.
The Effects of Cooperative Learning in Enhancing Writing Performance

Writing is one of the four language skills which is given emphasis in second language learning. In the Malaysian secondary educational scene, students learn different genres of writing like descriptive, expository, recount and narrative based on the prescribed syllabus of the Ministry of Education. The mastery of the writing skills is crucial since constant evaluation either formative or summative is conducted to gauge students‟ acquisition of their writing skills based on their writing performances. Hence teachers adopt and adapt various methods in the writing classrooms to ensure that the students excel in writing. One of the methods recommended in teaching writing is the incorporation of cooperative learning (Kagan 2002). This study investigates the effects of cooperative learning in enhancing the writing performance of form one students in an urban school. The research instrument used is the pre-test and post-test of the narrative essay. The data are analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The students‟ writing performance is evaluated using analytical scoring on the composite scores and the five components of writing which are content, vocabulary, organization, grammatical accuracy and mechanics. The findings indicate that the students perform better in the post-test compared to the pre-test after the inclusion of cooperative learning in the writing classes. The findings lend credence to the positive effects of cooperative learning in enhancing writing performance.
Serum Opacity Factor (SOF) of Streptococcus pyogenes Evokes Antibodies That Opsonize Homologous and Heterologous SOF-Positive Serotypes of Group A Streptococci

ABSTRACT Serum opacity factor (SOF) is a protein expressed by Streptococcus pyogenes that opacifies mammalian serum. SOF is also a virulence factor of S. pyogenes, but it has not been previously shown to elicit a protective immune response. Herein, we report that SOF evokes bactericidal antibodies against S. pyogenes in humans, rabbits, and mice. Rabbit antiserum against purified recombinant SOF2 opsonized SOF-positive M type 2, 4, and 28 S. pyogenes in human blood but had no effect on SOF-negative M type 5 S. pyogenes. Furthermore, affinity-purified human antibodies against SOF2 also opsonized SOF-positive streptococci. A combination of antisera against M2 and SOF2 proteins was dramatically more effective in killing streptococci than either antiserum alone, indicating that antibodies against SOF2 enhance the opsonic efficiency of M protein antibodies. Mice tolerated an intravenous injection of 100 μg of SOF without overt signs of toxicity, and immunization with SOF protected mice against challenge infections with M type 2 S. pyogenes. These data indicate that SOF evokes opsonic antibodies that may protect against infections by SOF-positive serotypes of group A streptococci and suggest that different serotypes of SOF have common epitopes that may be useful vaccine candidates to protect against group A streptococcal infections.
Hospital admissions of HIV-infected patients from 1988 to 1992 in Maryland.

To determine how the patterns of inpatient hospital care for HIV-infected patients have evolved in recent years, we analyzed data obtained from a statewide hospital discharge database from Maryland for the years 1988, 1990, and 1992. For each of these years, we compared demography, diagnoses, lengths of stay, use of the intensive care unit, third-party payer, and hospital charges (inflation-adjusted to 1992 dollars). HIV-infected patients accounted for 0.42% of all Maryland's hospital admissions in 1988, 0.68% in 1990, and 1.1% in 1992, with progressively more women and African-Americans hospitalized. Average lengths of stay fell from 11.7 days (1988) to 10.7 days (1990) and 9.5 days (1992) (p < 0.0001). Average charges per admission fell from $11,634 (1988) to $9,938 (1990) and $8,618 (1992) (p < 0.0001). Medicare or Medicaid paid for 50.9% of hospital admissions in 1988, 56.8% in 1990, and 66.8% in 1992 (p < 0.001). In-hospital mortality rates (7.8% in 1988, 7.9% in 1990, and 7.7% in 1992; p = 0.783) were stable, as was severity of illness. P. carinii pneumonia (PCP) was the most common principal diagnosis, but it declined in prevalence from 13.6% in 1988 to 9.1% in 1992 (p < 0.0001). Principal diagnoses of other opportunistic infections remained stable (8.0% in 1988, 9.9% in 1990, 8.6% in 1992; p = 0.90), as did other nonopportunistic infections (32.8% in 1988, 27.2% in 1990, and 30.0% in 1992; p = 0.16). Non-PCP pneumonias increased from 7.6% (1988) to 10.2% (1992) (p < 0.0001). Substance abuse as a principal or secondary diagnosis increased from 30.9% (1988) to 34.3% (1992) (p < 0.001). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Low Profile Pelvic Fixation With the Sacral Alar Iliac Technique in the Pediatric Population Improves Results at Two-Year Minimum Follow-up

Study Design. Retrospective review. Objective. Anchor stability and prominence are problems with pelvic fixation in pediatric spinal deformity surgery. We compared the new sacral alar iliac (SAI) fixation technique (with a starting point in the sacral ala and in-line anchors deep under the midline muscle flap) with other methods of screw fixation. Summary of Background Data. Iliac anchors have been shown to provide the best form of pelvic fixation. A trajectory from the posterior sacral surface to the iliac wings has recently been described. To our knowledge, no clinical series has compared this method of pelvic fixation in children to others. Methods. Of 32 consecutive pediatric patients who underwent SAI fixation, 2 died and 26 returned for follow-up (>2 years). Mean age at surgery was 14 years. Average screw size was 67 mm long and 7 to 9 mm in diameter. Clinical examinations, radiographs, and computed tomography scans were analyzed. Outcomes included pain over the implants, screw placement, implant prominence, radiographic lucency, need for revision, and infection. SAI patients were compared with 27 previous patients who had pelvic fixation via other screw techniques. Results. For SAI fixation, correction of pelvic obliquity and Cobb angles were 20° ± 11° (70%) and 42° ± 25° (67%), respectively. For other pelvic fixation methods, those values were 10° ± 9° (50%), and 46° ± 16° (60%), respectively. Compared with other screws, SAI screws provided significantly better pelvic obliquity correction (P = 0.002) but no difference in Cobb correction. There were 2 lucencies adjacent to screws in both groups. Computed tomography scans of 18 SAI patients showed no intrapelvic protrusion, but 1 screw extended laterally (<5 mm). One early SAI patient required revision with larger screws, which relieved pain; there was 1 revision in the comparison group. SAI patients had no deep infections, implant prominence, late skin breakdown, or anchor migration; traditional patients had 3 deep infections (P = 0.09) and 3 instances of implant prominence, skin breakdown, or anchor migration. Conclusion. SAI pelvic fixation produces better correction of pelvic obliquity than do previous techniques. Radiographic and clinical anchor stability is satisfactory at 2-year follow-up.
Linking Northern Hemisphere blocking and storm track biases in the CMIP5 climate models

The relationship between biases in Northern Hemisphere (NH) atmospheric blocking frequency and extratropical cyclone track density is investigated in 12 CMIP5 climate models to identify mechanisms underlying climate model biases and inform future model development. Biases in the Greenland blocking and summer Pacific blocking frequencies are associated with biases in the storm track latitudes, while biases in winter European blocking frequency are related to the North Atlantic storm track tilt and Mediterranean cyclone density. However, biases in summer European and winter Pacific blocking appear less related with cyclone track density. Furthermore, the models with smaller biases in winter European blocking frequency have smaller biases in the cyclone density in Europe, which suggests that they are different aspects of the same bias. This is not found elsewhere in the NH. The summer North Atlantic and the North Pacific mean CMIP5 track density and blocking biases might therefore have different origins.
Competing Openly or Blindly in Crowdsourcing Contests ?

Organizations are increasingly outsourcing tasks once performed in-house to wider participants on the Internet by hosting online contests. In practice, two types of mechanisms are used to organize these contests: simultaneous (blind) and sequential (open). In a simultaneous contest, contestants submit their solutions independently without access to one another’s submissions, while in a sequential contest, contestants submit their solutions sequentially and each can view all prior submissions before making their decisions. Most prior theoretical and experimental research has focused on simultaneous contests, with only a handful that have studied sequential ones. In this paper, under the condition of incomplete information, we analytically show that simultaneous contests produce higher quality best solutions than sequential contests. Using a laboratory experiment, we test this theoretical prediction as well as the prediction that simultaneous contests are more efficient than sequential contests. Our data support both predictions. We also discover that as the number of contestants increases, the efficiency of sequential contests drops significantly, further reducing their performance relative to simultaneous contests.
Cheap and Fast – But is it Good? Evaluating Non-Expert Annotations for Natural Language Tasks

Human linguistic annotation is crucial for many natural language processing tasks but can be expensive and time-consuming. We explore the use of Amazon's Mechanical Turk system, a significantly cheaper and faster method for collecting annotations from a broad base of paid non-expert contributors over the Web. We investigate five tasks: affect recognition, word similarity, recognizing textual entailment, event temporal ordering, and word sense disambiguation. For all five, we show high agreement between Mechanical Turk non-expert annotations and existing gold standard labels provided by expert labelers. For the task of affect recognition, we also show that using non-expert labels for training machine learning algorithms can be as effective as using gold standard annotations from experts. We propose a technique for bias correction that significantly improves annotation quality on two tasks. We conclude that many large labeling tasks can be effectively designed and carried out in this method at a fraction of the usual expense.
Inter-carrier interference reduction in Broadband Wireless Access technology using extended Kalman Filter

OFDM technology in Broadband Wireless Access has some disadvantages, one of which is Intercarrier Interference (ICI) caused by carrier frequency offset (CFO). Moreover, in high-mobility communication, Doppler effect from user shift causes CFO that affects the impairment of orthogonality among subcarriers, and obviously degrades OFDM performance. This research used Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) as scheme of ICI reduction by deploying CFO estimation and making CFO correction using estimation value in earlier iteration. This method requires preamble in every beginning of frame for estimation purpose prior to the delivery of the information. This method works optimally in slow time varying channel. Differing from other researches, this research sets CFO dynamically using certain stretches of CFO value in order to approach real condition. The result of the research shows that OFDM with EKF is able to improve OFDM system performance significantly by reducing ICI coefficient value in the system and maintain the stability of system, even under dynamic CFO condition. For instance, in condition CFO = 15% with QPSK mapper, the system gain improves as high as 2 dB for BER performance 10-5. Whereas, under worse condition (i.e. CFO = 30%) and with similar parameters, OFDM system is able to produce almost 6 dB gain. Besides, EKF scheme can deliver reliable performance in different mappers.
Combustion modelling of an industrial municipal waste combustor in Malaysia

Disposal of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Malaysia by open incineration is increasingly becoming a problem. There is public concern about any pollutant emissions. Design requirements of high‐performance incinerators are sometimes summarized as the achievement of 3Ts (time, temperature, and turbulence). An adequate retention time in a hot environment is crucial to destroy the products of incomplete combustion and organic pollutants. Turbulent mixing enhances uniform distributions of temperature and oxygen availability. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling is now in the development phase of becoming a useful tool for 3D modelling of the complex geometry and flow conditions in incinerators. CFD flow simulations can already permit detailed parametric variations of design variables. CFD modelling of an industrial scale MSW incinerator was done using FLUENT. The 3D modelling was based on conservation equations for mass, momentum and energy. The differential equations were discretized by the Finite Volume Method and were solved by the SIMPLE algorithm. The k‐ϵ turbulence model was employed. The meshing was done using Gambit 2.0. The cold flow simulations were performed to develop the flow and velocity field. Numerical simulations of the flow field inside the primary and secondary combustion chambers have provided the temperature profiles and the concentration data at the nodal points of computational grids. Parametric study was also done to minimize the NOx emissions.
A Comparative Evaluation of the Effect of Bonding Agent on the Tensile Bond Strength of Two Pit and Fissure Sealants Using Invasive and Non-invasive Techniques: An in-vitro Study.

BACKGROUND Newer technologies and the development of pit and fissure sealants have shifted the treatment philosophy from 'drill and fill' to that of 'seal and heal'. AIMS The purpose of this in-vitro study was to evaluate the effects of bonding agents on the tensile bond strengths of two pit and fissure sealants by using invasive and non-invasive techniques. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS One hundred and twenty bicuspids were collected and teeth were divided into two groups: Group-I (Clinpro) and Group-II (Conseal f) with 60 teeth in each group. For evaluating tensile bond strengths, occlusal surfaces of all the teeth were flattened by reducing buccal and lingual cusps without disturbing fissures. Standardised polyvinyl tube was bonded to occlusal surfaces with respective materials. Sealants were applied, with or without bonding agents, in increments and they were light cured. Tensile bond strengths were determined by using Universal Testing Machine. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Data were then statistically analysed by using Student t-test for comparison. RESULTS A statistically significant difference was found in tensile bond strength in invasive with bonding agent group than in non-invasive with bonding agent group. CONCLUSION This study revealed that invasive techniques increase the tensile bond strengths of sealants as compared to non- invasive techniques and that the use of a bonding agent as an intermediate layer between the tooth and fissure sealant is beneficial for increasing the bond strength.
Do Basque- and Caucasian-Speaking Populations Share Non-Indo-European Ancestors?

Genetic evidence is consistent with the view that the Indo-European languages were propagated in Europe by the diffusion of early farmers. The existence of phylogenetic relationships between European populations speaking other languages has been proposed on linguistic and archaeological grounds, and is here tested by analyzing allele frequencies at ten polymorphic protein and blood group loci. Genetic distances between speakers of Basque and Caucasian languages are compared with those between controls, i.e. contiguous populations speaking Indo-European and Altaic. Although some statistical tests show an excess of genetic similarity between Basque and South Caucasian speakers, most results do not support their common origin. If the Basques and the Caucasian-speaking populations share common ancestors, recent evolutionary phenomena must have caused divergence between them, so that their gene frequencies do not appear more similar now than those of random pairs of populations separated by the same geographic distance.
The interpretation of non-hyperbolic rate curves for two-substrate enzymes. A possible mechanism for phosphofructokinase.

1. A theoretical appraisal of the alternative pathway mechanism for a two-substrate enzyme shows that this mechanism is capable of giving rise to apparent substrate inhibition or substrate activation (Dalziel, 1958). It has now been shown that these phenomena may occur simultaneously in the following ways. With certain relationships between the kinetic parameters and the constant concentration of one substrate, A, the plot of initial rate, v, against the concentration of the other substrate, B, may show substrate ;activation' at low concentrations of B and substrate ;inhibition' at high concentrations of B. In other circumstances the plot of v against [B], with [A] constant, may be sigmoid (substrate activation), whereas the plot of v against [A], with [B] constant, may pass through a maximum (substrate inhibition). 2. Kinetic data for phosphofructokinase are of the latter type and it is suggested that the mechanism of this enzyme may involve a kinetically preferred pathway. It is emphasized that the phenomena of substrate inhibition and activation need not necessarily involve more than one binding site for each substrate on the enzyme molecule, nor more than one monomer per molecule.
Should Aid Reward Performance? Evidence from a Field Experiment on Health and Education in Indonesia

We report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives. Subdistricts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical program without incentives, or control. Incentives initially improved preventative health indicators, particularly in underdeveloped areas, and spending efficiency increased. While school enrollments improved overall, incentives had no differential impact on education, and incentive health effects diminished over time. Reductions in neonatal mortality in non-incentivized areas did not persist with incentives. We find no systematic scoring manipulation nor funding reallocation toward richer areas.
How to generate cryptographically strong sequences of pseudo random bits

Much effort has been devoted in the second half of this century to make precise the notion of Randomness. Let us informally recall one of these definitions due to Kolmogorov []. A sequence of bits A =all a2••. •• at is random if the length of the minimal program outputting A is at least k We remark that the above definition is highly non constructive and rules out the possibility of pseudo random number generators. Also. the length of a program, from a Complexity Theory point of view, is a rather unnatural measure. A more operative definition of Randomness should be pursued in the light of modern Complexity Theory.
Perivascular adipose tissue contains functional catecholamines

The sympathetic nervous system and its neurotransmitter effectors are undeniably important to blood pressure control. We made the novel discovery that perivascular adipose tissue (PVAT) contains significant concentrations of catecholamines. We hypothesized that PVAT contains sufficient releasable catecholamines to affect vascular function. High‐pressure liquid chromatography, isometric contractility, immunohistochemistry, whole animal approaches, and pharmacology were used to test this hypothesis. In normal rat thoracic aorta and superior mesenteric artery, the indirect sympathomimetic tyramine caused a concentration‐dependent contraction that was dependent on the presence of PVAT. Tyramine stimulated release of norepinephrine (NA), dopamine (DA) and the tryptamine serotonin (5‐hydroxytryptamine [5‐HT]) from PVAT isolated from both arteries. In both arteries, tyramine‐induced concentration‐dependent contraction was rightward‐shifted and reduced by the noradrenaline transporter inhibitor nisoxetine (1 μmol/L), the vesicular monoamine transporter inhibitor tetrabenazine (10 μmol/L), and abolished by the α adrenoreceptor antagonist prazosin (100 nmol/L). Inhibitors of the DA and 5‐HT transporter did not alter tyramine‐induced, PVAT‐dependent contraction. Removal of the celiac ganglion as a neuronal source of catecholamines for superior mesenteric artery PVAT did not significantly reduce the maximum or shift the concentration‐dependent contraction to tyramine. Electrical field stimulation of the isolated aorta was not affected by the presence of PVAT. These data suggest that PVAT components that are independent of sympathetic nerves can release NA in a tyramine‐sensitive manner to result in arterial contraction. Because PVAT is intimately apposed to the artery, this raises the possibility of local control of arterial function by PVAT catecholamines.