Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of Life and Clinical Indicators for Chronic Pancreatitis Patients in a 2-Year Follow-Up Study

Objectives: There are no data available that evaluate the possible modifications of the quality of life during the clinical course of chronic pancreatitis. To evaluate the outcome for patients with chronic pancreatitis in a 2-year follow-up study. Methods: The Short Form 12 Health Survey Italian version questionnaire was used for the purpose of the study. The questionnaire generates 2 summary scores: the physical component summary (PCS-12) and the mental component summary (MCS-12). Eighty-three patients with chronic pancreatitis were studied with a mean (±SD) interval time of 2.3 ± 0.2 years between the first and the second evaluation. Results: There was a significant increase in the frequency of diabetes mellitus (P = 0.008), nonpancreatic surgery (P = 0.016), and comorbidities (P = 0.004). The PCS-12 (44.7 ± 10.7) and MCS-12 (44.1 ± 13.3) were not significantly different in comparison with the baseline evaluation (PCS-12, 43.7 ± 9.8; MCS-12, 44.3 ± 11.4). The PCS-12 score worsened in 17 (20.5%) patients, 44 (53.0%) had a stable PCS-12 score, and the remaining 22 (26.5%) improved their PCS-12 score. Regarding the mental score, 15 (18.1%) patients worsened, 52 (62.7%) had a stable MCS-12 score, and the remaining 16 (19.3%) improved their MCS-12 score. Only age at diagnosis was significantly related to the change of the MCS-12 score (P = 0.028, positive relationship). Conclusions: The information given by quality-of-life assessment should be routinely included in the work-up of patients affected by chronic pancreatitis to select those patients with severely impaired physical and mental scores, and to plan an intensive program of medical and psychological follow-up.Abbreviations: BMI - body mass index, MCS - mental component summary, SF-12 - SF-12 Health Survey, PCS - physical component summary
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCHOOLED NARRATIVE COMPETENCE AMONG SECOND GRADERS

The ability to produce schooled narrative is closely related to students' literacy development and school success. This study examined young children's communicative competence in schooled narrative and the nature of its development. Participants were 21 second graders in a literature-based classroom. Four stories were collected from each child at equal intervals of the school year through a dictation procedure that taps their discursive knowledge of schooled narrative. These stories were analyzed for inclusion of a variety of linguistic markers that embody three essential features of schooled narrative - autonomy, conventionality, and specialized grammar. Results showed that participants demonstrated more familiarity with conventionality than with the other two features of schooled narrative. Their understanding of specialized grammar was particularly nascent. There was also considerable variation in their discursive competence in schooled narrative. Further, significant changes were observed during the school year in the children's knowledge of autonomy, but not conventionality or specialized grammar. Taken together, these findings suggest that the development of schooled narrative competence is non-uniform, feature-specific, unstable, and complex.
The Incidence of the Medicare Prescription Drug Bene fi t : Using Asset Prices to Assess its Impact on Drug Makers ∗ JOB MARKET PAPER

In 2003, Congress introduced new legislation to subsidize prescription drug insurance for Medicare recipients; Medicare “Part D” will cost nearly $1 trillion over the next ten years. In this paper, I analyze the incidence of this subsidy by inferring producer surplus from the stock market returns to pharmaceutical firms. I first obtain a measure of the profitability of each brand-name drug from a stock market event study around FDA approval of that drug. Then, extending the event study methodology, I estimate the impact of Part D on profits by comparing the profitability of drugs with high and low Medicare market shares, before and after the passage of the law. I find that expected profitability increases sharply for those drugs with a high Medicare market share in 2003. Structural estimates also imply that Medicare Part D significantly expanded the profits from the Medicare-eligible prescription drug market. Combining these results with other studies implies that the market estimated that pharmaceutical firms would, in expectation, receive 36% of total surplus over the next ten years, or $205B, relative to 56% for consumers.
Rapid Optical Degradation of GaN-Based Light-Emitting Diodes by a Current-Crowding-Induced Self-Accelerating Thermal Process

GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) rapidly degraded by a current-crowding-induced self-accelerating thermal process were investigated. The LEDs stressed at a dc current of 200 mA and a temperature of 100 °C exhibited a rapid degradation rate of 2.7×10-3 h-1, while those stressed at 100 mA showed a relatively slow degradation rate of 3.0×10-4 h-1, in which the degradation rate corresponds to a slope of optical output power versus time plots. The corresponding degradation kinetics were also different depending on the stress current, i.e., the generation of nonradiative recombination defects was mainly responsible for the degradation of the 100-mA stressed LEDs, while multiple degradation kinetics including a drastic increase of defects, contact failure, and chip detachment from the lead frame were responsible for the rapid optical degradation of the 200-mA stressed LEDs. The origin of the multiple degradation kinetics could be the current-crowding effect, which causes local heating of the device and hence a self-accelerating thermal process. The rapidly degraded LEDs consistently showed a very large junction temperature from 36 °C (pristine) to 74 °C (failed). These results show that the LEDs should be avoided when current crowding occurs under harsh conditions in reliable lifetime testing and/or for practical use.
Suspected Lyme borreliosis in sheep

Two cases of suspected Lyme borreliosis in lambs are described. The clinical signs observed resemble those described for Lyme borreliosis in dogs and horses. The lambs were approximately six months old and came from two different flocks in a district heavily infested with Ixodes ricinus ticks. The lambs had pronounced lameness in one leg, generally bad condition and poor appetite. They had high serum levels of IgG antibodies to Borrelia burgdorferi when tested in an ELISA. The other lambs in the flocks were negative to B burgdorferi antibodies. Attempts were made to isolate spirochaetes from one of the lambs, but were unsuccessful.
PicoServer: Using 3D stacking technology to build energy efficient servers

This article extends our prior work to show that a straightforward use of 3D stacking technology enables the design of compact energy-efficient servers. Our proposed architecture, called PicoServer, employs 3D technology to bond one die containing several simple, slow processing cores to multiple memory dies sufficient for a primary memory. The multiple memory dies are composed of DRAM. This use of 3D stacks readily facilitates wide low-latency buses between processors and memory. These remove the need for an L2 cache allowing its area to be re-allocated to additional simple cores. The additional cores allow the clock frequency to be lowered without impairing throughput. Lower clock frequency means that thermal constraints, a concern with 3D stacking, are easily satisfied. We extend our original analysis on PicoServer to include: (1) a wider set of server workloads, (2) the impact of multithreading, and (3) the on-chip DRAM architecture and system memory usage. PicoServer is intentionally simple, requiring only the simplest form of 3D technology where die are stacked on top of one another. Our intent is to minimize risk of introducing a new technology (3D) to implement a class of low-cost, low-power compact server architectures.
Drug consumption and additional risk factors associated with microscopic colitis: Case-control study.

BACKGROUND Microscopic colitis has now emerged as a common cause of chronic diarrhoea, but its aetiology remains unknown. Some studies suggest that commonly prescribed drugs and other additional risk factors may be triggers. AIMS To evaluate the effects of drug intake and other risk factors on microscopic colitis patients. METHODS A prospective, case-control study with all consecutive adult patients referred to the Hospital General de Tomelloso (Ciudad Real, Spain) for chronic watery diarrhoea (from 2008 to 2011) was performed. Microscopic colitis was diagnosed following the commonly accepted histopathological criteria. RESULTS 46 consecutive new cases of microscopic colitis and 317 chronic diarrhoea controls were recruited. Five independent risk factors significantly associated with microscopic colitis were identified: Abdominal pain (OR 3.25; 95%CI, 1.49-7.08), weight loss (OR 2.67; 95%CI, 1.16-6.15), celiac disease (OR 15.3; 95%CI, 3.70-63.5), topiramate intake (OR 13.6; 95%CI, 1.84- 100.8), and older age at diagnosis (OR 1 year increase 1.022; 95%CI, 1.002-1.042). Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs was associated with microscopic colitis in the subgroup of patients who fulfilled irritable bowel syndrome criteria (38.5% vs. 10.8%; p < 0.017). CONCLUSIONS Microscopic colitis is associated with autoimmune disease, an increased age at diagnosis, topiramate intake and only in a sub-group of irritable bowel disease patients with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Slack Channels Expressed in Sensory Neurons Control Neuropathic Pain in Mice

Slack (Slo2.2) is a sodium-activated potassium channel that regulates neuronal firing activities and patterns. Previous studies identified Slack in sensory neurons, but its contribution to acute and chronic pain in vivo remains elusive. Here we generated global and sensory neuron-specific Slack mutant mice and analyzed their behavior in various animal models of pain. Global ablation of Slack led to increased hypersensitivity in models of neuropathic pain, whereas the behavior in models of inflammatory and acute nociceptive pain was normal. Neuropathic pain behaviors were also exaggerated after ablation of Slack selectively in sensory neurons. Notably, the Slack opener loxapine ameliorated persisting neuropathic pain behaviors. In conclusion, Slack selectively controls the sensory input in neuropathic pain states, suggesting that modulating its activity might represent a novel strategy for management of neuropathic pain.
Università di Milano – Bicocca Quaderni di Matematica Uniform Hölder bounds for nonlinear Schrödinger systems with strong competition

For the positive solutions of the Gross–Pitaevskii system { −∆uβ + λβuβ = ω1u3β − βuβv2 β −∆vβ + μβvβ = ω2v3 β − βu2βvβ we prove that L∞–boundedness implies C–boundedness, uniformly as β → +∞, for every α ∈ (0, 1). Moreover we prove that the limiting profile, as β → +∞, is Lipschitz continuous. The proof relies upon the blow–up technique and the monotonicity formulae by Almgren and Alt–Caffarelli–Friedman. This system arises in the Hartree-Fock approximation theory for binary mixtures of Bose–Einstein condensates in different hyperfine states. Extensions to systems with k > 2 densities are given. MSC : 35B40, 35B45, 35J55.
Sexuality and relationships education in the Greek primary schools—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Although sexuality and relationships education is recommended as one of the targets of school health education projects in Greece, implementation seems to be problematic. This article discusses findings from a survey on Greek primary school teachers, particularly their opinion on the suitability of primary schools for sexuality education, whether sexuality‐related issues are topics for discussion in their classes at present and respondents' perceptions on obstacles that inhibit teaching this subject. The results indicate that most teachers subscribe to the suitability of primary schools for developing sexuality education programs. Moreover, it seems that such teaching is part of a hidden curriculum at the moment since particular students' behaviors and/or questions prompt teachers to discuss sexuality matters in the classroom. Teachers report obstacles to be found in the organization and structure of the school system such as a lack of training and appropriate material but also in the broader social environment outside the school. Lack of communication between school and family is stressed. The findings also suggest that, for the development and delivery of sexuality education, a clearer course of action is needed from the Ministry of Education.
The media, marketing, and single sex schooling

The Australian media’s interest in education, as in many Anglophone countries, is frequently dominated by concerns about boys in schools. In 2002, in a country region of the Australian State of Queensland, this concern was evident in a debate on the merits of single sex schooling that took place in a small local newspaper. The debate was fuelled by the inclusion in this newspaper of an advertising brochure for an elite private girls’ school. The advertisement utilized the current concerns about boys in schools to advocate the benefits of girls’ only schools. Drawing on research that suggests that boys are a problem in school, and utilising a peculiar mix of liberal feminism alongside a neo‐liberal class politics, it implicitly denigrated the education provided by government co‐educational schools. The local government high and primary school principals, incensed at this advertisement, contacted the paper to refute many of its claims and assumptions and to assert the benefits, to both boys and girls, of th.
Analysis and minimization of practical energy in 45nm subthreshold logic circuits

Over the last decade, the design of ultra-low-power digital circuits in subthreshold regime has been driven by the quest for minimum energy per operation. In this contribution, we observe that operating at minimum-energy point is not straightforward as design constraints from real-life applications have an important impact on energy. Therefore, we introduce the alternative concept of practical energy, taking functional-yield and throughput constraints on minimum Vdd into account. In this context, we demonstrate for the first time the detrimental impact of DIBL on minimum Vdd. Practical energy gives a useful analysis framework of circuit optimization to reach minimum-energy point, while considering the throughput as an input variable dictated by the application. From simulation of a benchmark multiplier in 45 nm technology, we find out that practical energy can be far higher than minimum energy point, in the case of low-throughput applications (ap 10-100 kOp/s) because of static leakage energy and robustness-limited minimum Vdd. With the proposed framework, we investigate the capability of conventional optimization techniques to make practical energy meet minimum energy point. Amongst these techniques, channel length upsize is shown to be more efficient than MTCMOS power gating, body biasing, Vt selection or device width upsize, as it increases robustness while simultaneously reducing static leakage energy. A small length upsize with low area overhead is shown to reduce practical energy at low throughput to less than 2.1 times the minimum energy level. At medium throughput, it even brings practical energy 30% lower than minimum energy level without optimization techniques.
Comparison of Two Probes for Testing Susceptibilities of Pathogenic Yeasts to Voriconazole, Itraconazole, and Caspofungin by Flow Cytometry

ABSTRACT A cytometric approach to determine the susceptibilities of Candida spp. and Cryptococcus neoformans to voriconazole, itraconazole, and caspofungin is described. A total of 63 clinical isolates with different susceptibility patterns were exposed for 1, 2, 4, and 6 h to serial concentrations of each antifungal agent, followed by staining with two fluorescent probes: propidium iodide (PI) and FUN-1. FUN-1 was able to identify the susceptibility patterns of the assayed strains to the three agents after 1 h. PI penetrated a maximum of 50% of the cells treated with PI, at the highest concentration of caspofungin, 16 μg/ml, after 6 h of incubation (this percentage varied with the strain and was drug concentration and time of incubation dependent) and did not stain cells treated with high concentrations of either azole after 6 h. The use of FUN-1 appears to be an excellent fast and reliable alternative to the classical dilution method for determining the susceptibility of Candida spp. and C. neoformans to these three antifungal agents.
I Do I Undo I Redo: The Textual Genesis of Modernist Selves in Hopkins, Yeats, Conrad, Forster, Joyce, and Woolf (review)

Manuscript studies began their escape from the fringes of literary criticism and scholarship after a group of critique génétique scholars in France used models that had been reserved for published works—linguistics, narrative theory, psychoanalysis, sociology, feminist and gender theory—to investigate manuscripts and, with no interest in establishing accurate texts of works, paid more attention to writing processes than to the works that resulted from those processes. In I Do I Undo I Redo: The Textual Genesis of Modernist Selves in Hopkins, Yeats, Conrad, Forster, Joyce, and Woolf Finn Fordham takes a major step towards securing genetic criticism’s place in the scholarly mainstream by looking at “processes of production and their relation to the making, unmaking, and remaking of identity. ” Fordham’s goals are extremely ambitious. He offers genetic analyses of works by two poets and four novelists and also considerations of the self in these writers as well as in modernism more generally, contemporary philosophy, and such earlier philosophers as Descartes and Heidegger. Because genetic studies use detailed quotations as illustrations and grow out of an overall understanding of an author’s works, an ability to read the author’s handwriting, and a good sense of how the author worked, they tend to be single-authored, but I Do I Undo I Redo (the title comes from a Louise Bourgeois sculpture) studies six writers with an overarching aim of demonstrating that “representations of the self and theories of the self issue from the processes behind textuality and they often take their form from processes of composition. ” Through his range of authors, texts, and methods of genetic analysis, Fordham aims to indicate the wide variety of (as he names his opening chapter) modernist “texts and selves in process. ” Three introductory chapters discuss various concepts of the self: general ideas in relation to writing processes; treatments in accounts of modernism and in recent philosophical considerations by Charles Taylor, Paul Ricoeur, Jerrold Seigel; and specific claims in Descartes and Heidegger, both of whom in different ways erased considerations of writing processes in depictions of the thinking self. The book’s core follows, with the six writers grouped into three pairs. First, Fordham looks at Gerard Manley Hopkins’ writing of “The Windhover” and “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” in relation to “self-compression”: rather than seeing the poetry as the expression of an individual mind and body, “the effect of writing may be . to cram some substance into an internal space that might previously have been thought to be empty. ” For William Butler Yeats, in contrast, Fordham moves outward from the writing, but, as with Hopkins, not
The next generation;: An ethnography of education in an urban neighborhood

Ogbu has written two relevant, interesting, and informative books on minority education in the United States, both of which constitute seminal and pioneering work in anthropology, especially in the subdisciplines of urban anthropology and anthropology of education. Ogbu is a black African-born anthropologist from the Ibo tribe in Nigeria. He received his early education in Nigeria and his postsecondary education in the United States. This background, unusual in many ways, has given Ogbu the advantage to see minority education in the United States from both the perspective of an outsider and that of an insider. His premises, arguments, analyses, and conclusions reflect this and are indeed impressive. Both books were written with the urban environment as a major context. The reason for this is that it is within the context of the city that the different ethnic groups described by Ogbu came into contact with one another. The density of the urban population creates a level of intensity in personal interaction that is often not possible in sparsely populated human settlements. The politics and economics of the urban context also played a significant role in the various situations that Ogbu describes. Without the influence of these urban factors, these situations, in terms of both their dynamics and their outcome, would obviously be different. The structure of urban schools and the urban educational system constitute the core of his thesis. Ogbu's first book, The Next Generation, is a study of the educational adjustment of children whose parents are primarily first-generation urban residents. Ogbu wanted to find out why minority children living in urban areas do badly in school. To answer this question, Ogbu went to Stockton, California, in 1968 to study Burgherside, a low-income urban neighborhood of Stockton that is within the Stockton Unified School District. Burghersiders are mostly blacks, Mexican-Americans, or Asian-Americans, many of whom immigrated to Stock-
DEVELOPMENT OF A SENSORY VOCABULARY FOR WARMED‐OVER FLAVOR: PART I. IN PORCINE MEAT

Pork patties from Musculus semimembranosus, were utilized by a sensory panel to develop a descriptive vocabulary for the sensory profiling of warmed-over flavor. Patties were derived from the meat of nonstressed and stressed animals and were stored at 4C for up to 5 days. An initial list containing 45 descriptive terms developed from the literature and a preliminary sample evaluation was presented to the panel. This list was modified over a 7 session period to 16 terms each with a corresponding reference material. Selection criteria were that terms should; have relevance to the product, discriminate clearly between samples, be nonredundant, and have cognitive clarity to the assessors. Criteria fulfillment was determined via representative sample and reference assessment, panel discussions and interpretation of Principal Component Analysis. During vocabulary development the panel showed dynamic changes in their use of the sensory vocabulary. Discriminative abilities were found to increase over the early sessions and appeared to stabilize in the final two sessions.
Extrinsic and Intrinsic Frequency Dispersion of High-k Materials in Capacitance-Voltage Measurements

In capacitance-voltage (C-V) measurements, frequency dispersion in high-k dielectrics is often observed. The frequency dependence of the dielectric constant (k-value), that is the intrinsic frequency dispersion, could not be assessed before suppressing the effects of extrinsic frequency dispersion, such as the effects of the lossy interfacial layer (between the high-k thin film and silicon substrate) and the parasitic effects. The effect of the lossy interfacial layer on frequency dispersion was investigated and modeled based on a dual frequency technique. The significance of parasitic effects (including series resistance and the back metal contact of the metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) capacitor) on frequency dispersion was also studied. The effect of surface roughness on frequency dispersion is also discussed. After taking extrinsic frequency dispersion into account, the relaxation behavior can be modeled using the Curie-von Schweidler (CS) law, the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) relationship and the Havriliak-Negami (HN) relationship. Dielectric relaxation mechanisms are also discussed.