Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toughening and strengthening of ceramics composite through microstructural refinement

Silicon carbide with 50 mass% zirconia ceramic matrix composites were processed by mechanical milling (MM) followed by spark plasma sintering (SPS). By controlling the parameters of MM and SPS, an ultra-fine ZrO2 grain was homogeneously dispersed and refined on the surface of a fine SiC powder, forming a harmonic microstructure. The mechanical properties and the densification behavior of the SiC-ZrO2 composites were investigated. The effects of the milling time on the microstructure and on the mechanical properties of the composite are discussed. The results indicate that the composite mechanically milled for 144 ks and sintered at 1773 K had the highest relative density of 98 %, along with a fracture toughness of 10.7 MPa·m1/2 and a bending strength of 1128 MPa. These superior mechanical properties were influenced by the microstructure characteristics such as the homogeneous grain dispersion. Thus, the microstructural refinement forming harmonic dispersion can be considered a remarkable design tool for i.
Alignment of threat, effort, and perceived success in North American conservation translocations

The use of conservation translocations to mitigate human effects on biodiversity is increasing, but how these efforts are allocated remains unclear. Based on a comprehensive literature review and online author survey, we sought to determine the goals of translocation efforts, whether they focus on species and regions with high threat and likelihood of perceived success, and how success might be improved. We systematically searched the ISI Web of Knowledge and Academic Search Complete databases to determine the species and regions of conservation translocations and found 1863 articles on conservation translocations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and Caribbean published from 1974 to 2013. We questioned 330 relevant authors to determine the motivation for translocations, how translocations were evaluated, and obstacles encountered. Conservation translocations in North America were geographically widespread (in 21 countries), increased in frequency over time for all animal classes (from 1 in 1974 to 84 in 2013), and included 279 different species. Reintroductions and reinforcements were more common in the United States than in Canada and Mexico, Central America, or the Caribbean, and their prevalence was correlated with the number of species at risk at national and state or provincial levels. Translocated species had a higher threat status at state and provincial levels than globally (International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List categorization), suggesting that translocations may have been motivated by regional priorities rather than global risk. Our survey of authors was consistent with these results; most translocations were requested, supported, or funded by government agencies and downlisting species at national or state or provincial levels was the main goal. Nonetheless, downlisting was the least reported measure of success, whereas survival and reproduction of translocated individuals were the most reported. Reported barriers to success included biological factors such as animal mortality and nonbiological factors, such as financial constraints, which were less often considered in the selection of release sites. Our review thus highlights discrepancies between project goals and evaluation criteria and between risk factors considered and obstacles encountered, indicating room to further optimize translocation projects.
Developing Leadership in Managers to Facilitate the Implementation of National Guideline Recommendations: A Process Evaluation of Feasibility and Usefulness.

BACKGROUND Previous research supports the claim that managers are vital players in the implementation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), yet little is known about interventions aiming to develop managers' leadership in facilitating implementation. In this pilot study, process evaluation was employed to study the feasibility and usefulness of a leadership intervention by exploring the intervention's potential to support managers in the implementation of national guideline recommendations for stroke care in outpatient rehabilitation. METHODS Eleven senior and frontline managers from five outpatient stroke rehabilitation centers participated in a four-month leadership intervention that included workshops, seminars, and teleconferences. The focus was on developing knowledge and skills to enhance the implementation of CPG recommendations, with a particular focus on leadership behaviors. Each dyad of managers was assigned to develop a leadership plan with specific goals and leadership behaviors for implementing three rehabilitation recommendations. Feasibility and usefulness were explored through observations and interviews with the managers and staff members prior to the intervention, and then one month and one year after the intervention. RESULTS Managers considered the intervention beneficial, particularly the participation of both senior and frontline managers and the focus on leadership knowledge and skills for implementing CPG recommendations. All the managers developed a leadership plan, but only two units identified goals specific to implementing the three stroke rehabilitation recommendations. Of these, only one identified leadership behaviors that support implementation. CONCLUSION Managers found that the intervention was delivered in a feasible way and appreciated the focus on leadership to facilitate implementation. However, the intervention appeared to have limited impact on managers' behaviors or clinical practice at the units. Future interventions directed towards managers should have a stronger focus on developing leadership skills and behaviors to tailor implementation plans and support implementation of CPG recommendations.
Variation in carbon isotope values among chimpanzee foods at Ngogo, Kibale National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda

Stable isotope values in primate tissues can be used to reconstruct diet in the absence of direct observation. However, in order to make dietary inferences, one must first establish isotopic variability for potential food sources. In this study we examine stable carbon isotope (δ13C) values for chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) food resources from two Ugandan forests: Ngogo (Kibale National Park), and Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. Mean δ13C values for plant samples are equivalent at both sites. Plant δ13C values are best explained by a multivariate linear model including plant part (leaves, pith, flowers, and fruit), vertical position within the canopy (canopy vs. ground), and taxon (R2 = 0.6992). At both sites, leaves had the lowest δ13C values followed by pith and fruit. Canopy resources have comparable δ13C values at the two sites but ground resources have lower δ13C values at Ngogo than Bwindi (−30.7 vs. −28.6‰). Consequently, isotopic differences between ground and canopy resources (4.2 vs. 2.2‰), and among plant parts are more pronounced at Ngogo. These results demonstrate that underlying environmental differences between sites can produce variable δ13C signatures among primate food resources. In the absence of observation data or isotope values for local vegetation, caution must be taken when interpreting isotopic differences among geographically or temporally separated populations or species. Am. J. Primatol. 78:1031–1040, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Invasive Salmonellosis among Children Admitted to a Rural Tanzanian Hospital and a Comparison with Previous Studies

Background The importance of invasive salmonellosis in African children is well recognized but there is inadequate information on these infections. We conducted a fever surveillance study in a Tanzanian rural hospital to estimate the case fraction of invasive salmonellosis among pediatric admissions, examine associations with common co-morbidities and describe its clinical features. We compared our main findings with those from previous studies among children in sub-Saharan Africa. Methodology/Principal Findings From 1 March 2008 to 28 Feb 2009, 1,502 children were enrolled into the study. We collected clinical information and blood for point of care tests, culture, and diagnosis of malaria and HIV. We analyzed the clinical features on admission and outcome by laboratory-confirmed diagnosis. Pathogenic bacteria were isolated from the blood of 156 (10%) children, of which 14 (9%) were S. typhi, 45 (29%) were NTS and 97 (62%) were other pathogenic bacteria. Invasive salmonellosis accounted for 59/156 (38%) bacteremic children. Children with typhoid fever were significantly older and presented with a longer duration of fever. NTS infections were significantly associated with prior antimalarial treatment, malarial complications and with a high risk for death. Conclusions/Significance Invasive salmonellosis, particularly NTS infection, is an important cause of febrile disease among hospitalized children in our rural Tanzanian setting. Previous studies showed considerable variation in the case fraction of S. typhi and NTS infections. Certain suggestive clinical features (such as older age and long duration of fever for typhoid whereas concomitant malaria, anemia, jaundice and hypoglycemia for NTS infection) may be used to distinguish invasive salmonellosis from other severe febrile illness.
Automated identification of molecular effects of drugs (AIMED)

INTRODUCTION Genomic profiling information is frequently available to oncologists, enabling targeted cancer therapy. Because clinically relevant information is rapidly emerging in the literature and elsewhere, there is a need for informatics technologies to support targeted therapies. To this end, we have developed a system for Automated Identification of Molecular Effects of Drugs, to help biomedical scientists curate this literature to facilitate decision support. OBJECTIVES To create an automated system to identify assertions in the literature concerning drugs targeting genes with therapeutic implications and characterize the challenges inherent in automating this process in rapidly evolving domains. METHODS We used subject-predicate-object triples (semantic predications) and co-occurrence relations generated by applying the SemRep Natural Language Processing system to MEDLINE abstracts and ClinicalTrials.gov descriptions. We applied customized semantic queries to find drugs targeting genes of interest. The results were manually reviewed by a team of experts. RESULTS Compared to a manually curated set of relationships, recall, precision, and F2 were 0.39, 0.21, and 0.33, respectively, which represents a 3- to 4-fold improvement over a publically available set of predications (SemMedDB) alone. Upon review of ostensibly false positive results, 26% were considered relevant additions to the reference set, and an additional 61% were considered to be relevant for review. Adding co-occurrence data improved results for drugs in early development, but not their better-established counterparts. CONCLUSIONS Precision medicine poses unique challenges for biomedical informatics systems that help domain experts find answers to their research questions. Further research is required to improve the performance of such systems, particularly for drugs in development.
Improving Sleep Quality Assessment Using Wearable Sensors by Including Information From Postural/Sleep Position Changes and Body Acceleration: A Comparison of Chest-Worn Sensors, Wrist Actigraphy, and Polysomnography.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To improve sleep quality assessment using a single chest-worn sensor by extracting body acceleration and sleep position changes. METHODS Sleep patterns of 21 participants (50.8 ± 12.8 years, 47.8% female) with self-reported sleep problems were simultaneously recorded using a chest sensor (Chest), an Actiwatch (Wrist), and polysomnography (PSG) during overnight sleep laboratory assessment. An algorithm for Chest was developed to detect sleep/wake epochs based on body acceleration and sleep position/postural changes data, which were then used to estimate sleep parameters of interest. Comparisons between Chest and Wrist with respect to PSG were performed. Identification of sleep/wake epochs was assessed by estimating sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Agreement between sensor-derived sleep parameters and PSG was assessed using correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman analysis. RESULTS Chest identified sleep/wake epochs with an accuracy of on average 6% higher than Wrist (85.8% versus 79.8%). Similar trends were observed for sensitivity/specificity values. Correlation between Wrist and PSG was poor for most of the sleep parameters of interest (r = 0.0-0.3); however, Chest and PSG correlation showed moderate to strong agreement (r = 0.4-0.8) with relatively low bias and high precision bias (precision): 9.2 (13.2) minutes for sleep onset latency; 17.3(34.8) minutes for total sleep time; 7.5 (29.8) minutes for wake after sleep onset; and 2.0 (7.3)% for sleep efficacy. CONCLUSIONS Combination of sleep postural/position changes and body acceleration improved detection of sleep/wake epochs compared to wrist acceleration alone. The chest sensors also improved estimation of sleep parameters of interest with stronger agreement with PSG. Our findings may expand the application of wearable sensors to clinically assess sleep outside of a sleep laboratory.
The association between executive functioning and psychopathology: general or specific?

Background We modeled both psychopathology and executive function (EF) as bi-factor models to study if EF impairments are transdiagnostic or relate to individual syndromes, and concurrently, if such associations are with general EF or specific EF impairments. Methods Data were obtained from the Tracking Adolescents’ Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS; N = 2230). Psychopathology was assessed with parent-report questionnaires at ages 11, 14, 16, and 19, and EF with tasks from the Amsterdam Neuropsychological Tasks program at ages 11 and 19. Bi-factor models were fitted to the data using confirmatory factor analysis. Correlations were estimated to study the associations between general or specific components of both psychopathology and EF. Results A bi-factor model with a general psychopathology factor, alongside internalizing (INT), externalizing, attention deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD), and autism spectrum (ASD) problem domains, and a bi-factor model with a general EF factor, alongside specific EFs were adequately fitting measurement models. The best-fitting model between EF and psychopathology showed substantial associations of specific EFs with the general psychopathology factor, in addition to distinct patterns of association with ASD, ADHD, and INT problems. Conclusions By studying very diverse psychopathology domains simultaneously, we show how EF impairments cross diagnostic boundaries. In addition to this generic relation, ADHD, ASD, and INT symptomatology show separable profiles of EF impairments. Thus, inconsistent findings in the literature may be explained by substantial transdiagnostic EF impairments. Whether general EF or specific EFs are related to psychopathology needs to be further studied, as differences in fit between these models were small.
Taking the Biggest First: Age Differences in Preferences for Monetary and Hedonic Sequences.

Objectives People face decisions about how to sequence payments and events, including when to schedule bigger events relative to smaller ones. We examine age differences in these sequence preferences. Methods We gave a national adult life-span sample (n = 1,296, mean = 53.06 years, standard deviation = 16.33) four scenarios describing a positive or negative hedonic (enjoyable weekends, painful dental procedures) or monetary (receiving versus paying money) event. We considered associations among age, sequence preferences, three self-reported decision-making processes-emphasizing experience, emotion, and reasoning-and two dimensions of future time perspective-focusing on future opportunities and limited time. Results Older age was associated with taking the "biggest" event sooner instead of later, especially for receiving money, but also for the other three scenarios. Older age was associated with greater reported use of reason and experience and lesser reported use of emotion. These decision-making processes played a role in understanding age differences in sequence preferences, but future time perspective did not. Discussion We discuss "taking the biggest first" preferences in light of prior mixed findings on age differences in sequence preferences. We highlight the distinct roles of experience- and emotion-based decision-making processes. We propose applications to financial and health-care settings.
Changes toward Earlier Streamflow Timing across Western North America

Abstract The highly variable timing of streamflow in snowmelt-dominated basins across western North America is an important consequence, and indicator, of climate fluctuations. Changes in the timing of snowmelt-derived streamflow from 1948 to 2002 were investigated in a network of 302 western North America gauges by examining the center of mass for flow, spring pulse onset dates, and seasonal fractional flows through trend and principal component analyses. Statistical analysis of the streamflow timing measures with Pacific climate indicators identified local and key large-scale processes that govern the regionally coherent parts of the changes and their relative importance. Widespread and regionally coherent trends toward earlier onsets of springtime snowmelt and streamflow have taken place across most of western North America, affecting an area that is much larger than previously recognized. These timing changes have resulted in increasing fractions of annual flow occurring earlier in the water year by 1.
Defining the Alloreactive T Cell Repertoire Using High-Throughput Sequencing of Mixed Lymphocyte Reaction Culture

The cellular immune response is the most important mediator of allograft rejection and is a major barrier to transplant tolerance. Delineation of the depth and breadth of the alloreactive T cell repertoire and subsequent application of the technology to the clinic may improve patient outcomes. As a first step toward this, we have used MLR and high-throughput sequencing to characterize the alloreactive T cell repertoire in healthy adults at baseline and 3 months later. Our results demonstrate that thousands of T cell clones proliferate in MLR, and that the alloreactive repertoire is dominated by relatively high-abundance T cell clones. This clonal make up is consistently reproducible across replicates and across a span of three months. These results indicate that our technology is sensitive and that the alloreactive TCR repertoire is broad and stable over time. We anticipate that application of this approach to track donor-reactive clones may positively impact clinical management of transplant patients.
A Human-Centered Platform for HIV Infection Reduction in New York: Development and Usage Analysis of the Ending the Epidemic (ETE) Dashboard

Background Dashboards have been increasingly used in clinic-based interventions, such as clinical performance improvement and monitoring risk of hospital readmissions, and are now gaining traction in population-based interventions, especially in disease assessment. Objective We describe the design, development, and usage analysis of a geovisualization dashboard, the Ending the Epidemic (ETE) Dashboard. The ETE dashboard is a tool developed to track New York’s progress towards achieving the goal of its ETE Initiative, to reduce new HIV infections from 3000 per year to 750 per year by the end of 2020. Methods The ETE dashboard was adapted from an existing human-centered geovisualization platform, SanaViz, an Internet-enabled, interactive app incorporating principles of human-centered design and cognitive fit theory to enhance visual exploration of population health data. Usage evaluation of the ETE geovisualization dashboard was conducted using Google Analytics over a 4-week period from March 19 to April 18, 2016. The aim was to monitor user activity and analyze traffic on the ETE dashboard using evidence-based metrics that can provide adequate feedback to enhance its utilization. Usage was characterized based on three metrics: (1) number of unique visits to each page, (2) average time on each page in seconds, and (3) page bounce rate (ie, percentage of visits where user left the site immediately after viewing just a single page). Further analysis was also conducted by cross-tabulating specific usage metrics. Results Of 860 sessions, 324 sessions were initiated by unique users (37.7%). The most common acquisition channels included direct source (353/860, 41.0%); followed by referral traffic (340/860, 39.5%) and organic search (134/860, 15.5%). Usage statistics indicate that for the 860 sessions initiated by both new and returning users, the average viewing time was 8 minutes, 51 seconds, and the bounce rate was 46%. These statistics reflect positive results given that prior literature estimates an average session duration of 10-20 seconds and a bounce rate of 40-60% for most websites. Key findings from our study showed that the highest bounce rates were seen for the “About” page of the ETE website (65%), which describes the ETE initiative. The lowest bounce rates were seen for the ETE blog page (17%), consistent with prior research on website usage metrics that indicate that blog pages are often the most frequently viewed pages on Web portals. Conclusions Our findings reveal the potential of Google Analytics as a tool to enhance user traffic and performance of the ETE geovisualization platform by using feedback from regular monitoring of key parameters including page bounce rates and average time on page. It also identifies the need for a follow-up usability assessment of the system.
Mass spectrometry‐based protein analysis to unravel the tissue pathophysiology in Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic muscle wasting condition with limited treatment options available and is caused by the lack of dystrophin. However, pathophysiology of different tissues is variable showing different histological and molecular signatures. Recently, a number of studies have employed gel‐free proteomic approaches to unveil the molecular pathophysiology in terms of tissue‐specific proteome changes in dystrophin deficiency. The authors analyzed studies in models of dystrophin deficiency and patients both from the published literature. The authors created a database containing all of the significantly differentially expressed proteins. By the integration of data from nine studies, the authors have identified 31 proteins which are commonly affected in different tissues by dystrophin deficiency. These proteins represent pathways involved in the maintenance of the actin cytoskeleton and those involved in cellular energy metabolism among others. Also represented is glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), often used as a loading control in protein assays, it appears to be highly variable, and should be replaced by other controls. The same intersection of data was performed using studies of the blood and urine of Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients and/or animal models and identified 33 proteins that are commonly differentially expressed. These proteins may themselves be novel therapeutic targets biomarkers that could monitor disease progression.