Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use and Timing of Tracheostomy After Severe Stroke.

A patient with severe ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke needs to have a tracheostomy performed if he remains unable to breathe and protect his airway sufficiently. This can be caused by very different types of stroke, such as severe acute ischemic stroke (eg, large hemispheric stroke, space-occupying cerebellar stroke, basilar thrombosis, and brain stem infarction), large or brain stem intracerebral hemorrhage and intraventricular hemorrhage, severe cerebral venous and sinus thrombosis, and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. The particular type of cerebrovascular pathology is probably less relevant than how extensive the brain damage and its sequelae (brain edema, secondary ischemia) are and what parts of the brain they affect. In particular, compromise of brain regions regulating the level of consciousness (reticular formation in the brain stem, thalami, limbic system), breathing (respiratory centers in the cortex, pons, and medulla), and swallowing (medulla and brain stem connections) may lead to the need of a tracheostomy. There are 2 main scenarios in which tracheostomy after stroke is usually considered. The first is in a patient requiring stroke unit care with an overall moderate stroke that affects swallowing centers of the brain (such as infarcts of the brain stem or the medulla oblongata) causing dysphagia. In some of those cases, after several noninvasive supportive measures have been sufficiently applied but failed, tracheostomy may be considered to prevent aspiration and bridge swallowing therapy. This approach to that scenario, however, is very controversial. The second scenario is in a patient with a stroke so severe to demand admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) and mechanical ventilation. There, tracheostomy will be chosen if extubation fails or is deemed not feasible, that is, as part of weaning from the ventilator. The need of tracheostomy, the timing of tracheostomy, and its potential benefits versus risks to the patient with severe stroke remain …
Comparisons of computed mobile phone induced SAR in the SAM phantom to that in anatomically correct models of the human head

The specific absorption rates (SAR) determined computationally in the specific anthropomorphic mannequin (SAM) and anatomically correct models of the human head when exposed to a mobile phone model are compared as part of a study organized by IEEE Standards Coordinating Committee 34, Sub-Committee 2, and Working Group 2, and carried out by an international task force comprising 14 government, academic, and industrial research institutions. The detailed study protocol defined the computational head and mobile phone models. The participants used different finite-difference time-domain software and independently positioned the mobile phone and head models in accordance with the protocol. The results show that when the pinna SAR is calculated separately from the head SAR, SAM produced a higher SAR in the head than the anatomically correct head models. Also the larger (adult) head produced a statistically significant higher peak SAR for both the 1- and 10-g averages than did the smaller (child) head for all conditions of frequency and position.
Do Bat Gantries and Underpasses Help Bats Cross Roads Safely?

Major roads can reduce bat abundance and diversity over considerable distances. To mitigate against these effects and comply with environmental law, many European countries install bridges, gantries or underpasses to make roads permeable and safer to cross. However, through lack of appropriate monitoring, there is little evidence to support their effectiveness. Three underpasses and four bat gantries were investigated in northern England. Echolocation call recordings and observations were used to determine the number of bats using underpasses in preference to crossing the road above, and the height at which bats crossed. At gantries, proximity to the gantry and height of crossing bats were measured. Data were compared to those from adjacent, severed commuting routes that had no crossing structure. At one underpass 96% of bats flew through it in preference to crossing the road. This underpass was located on a pre-construction commuting route that allowed bats to pass without changing flight height or direction. At two underpasses attempts to divert bats from their original commuting routes were unsuccessful and bats crossed the road at the height of passing vehicles. Underpasses have the potential to allow bats to cross roads safely if built on pre-construction commuting routes. Bat gantries were ineffective and used by a very small proportion of bats, even up to nine years after construction. Most bats near gantries crossed roads along severed, pre-construction commuting routes at heights that put them in the path of vehicles. Crossing height was strongly correlated with verge height, suggesting that elevated verges may have some value in mitigation, but increased flight height may be at the cost of reduced permeability. Green bridges should be explored as an alternative form of mitigation. Robust monitoring is essential to assess objectively the case for mitigation and to ensure effective mitigation.
Respiratory Health before and after the Opening of a Road Traffic Tunnel: A Planned Evaluation

Objective The construction of a new road tunnel in Sydney, Australia, and concomitant reduction in traffic on a major road presented the opportunity to study the effects of this traffic intervention on respiratory health. Methods We made measurements in a cohort of residents in the year before the tunnel opened (2006) and in each of two years afterwards (2007–2008). Cohort members resided in one of four exposure zones, including a control zone. Each year, a respiratory questionnaire was administered (n = 2,978) and a panel sub-cohort (n = 380) performed spirometry once and recorded peak expiratory flow and symptoms twice daily for nine weeks. Results There was no consistent evidence of improvement in respiratory health in residents living along the bypassed main road, despite a reduction in traffic from 90,000 to 45,000 vpd. Residents living near tunnel feeder roads reported more upper respiratory symptoms in the survey but not in the panel sub-cohort. Residents living around the tunnel ventilation stack reported more upper and lower respiratory symptoms and had lower spirometric volumes after the tunnel opened. Air pollutant levels measured near the stack did not increase over the study period. Conclusion The finding of adverse health effects among residents living around the stack is unexpected and difficult to explain, but might be due to unmeasured pollutants or risk factors or an unrecognized pollutant source nearby. The lack of improvement in respiratory health among people living along the bypassed main road probably reflects a minimal change in exposure due to distance of residence from the road.
Creative software crowdsourcing: from components and algorithm development to project concept formations

Software development is complex and creative as it involves requirement analysis, design, architecture, coding and testing. Recently, software crowdsourcing has been popular with numerous software coders participated in various software competitions. This paper first analyses the data collected on software crowdsourcing and summarises major lessons learned. This paper then examines two software crowdsourcing processes including TopCoder and AppStori processes. Lastly, this paper identifies the min-max nature among participants as an important design element in software crowdsourcing for software quality and creativity. Although in a min-max game, one party tries to maximise the finding of bugs in a set of artefacts, and the other parties try to minimise the potential bugs in the same artefact, software crowdsourcing can still be a collaborative and win-win process for all parties. By using this approach, lots of aspects of software development can be crowdsourced with the crowd can contribute their creativity to each aspect.
Conversion Discriminative Analysis on Mild Cognitive Impairment Using Multiple Cortical Features from MR Images

Neuroimaging measurements derived from magnetic resonance imaging provide important information required for detecting changes related to the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Cortical features and changes play a crucial role in revealing unique anatomical patterns of brain regions, and further differentiate MCI patients from normal states. Four cortical features, namely, gray matter volume, cortical thickness, surface area, and mean curvature, were explored for discriminative analysis among three groups including the stable MCI (sMCI), the converted MCI (cMCI), and the normal control (NC) groups. In this study, 158 subjects (72 NC, 46 sMCI, and 40 cMCI) were selected from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. A sparse-constrained regression model based on the l2-1-norm was introduced to reduce the feature dimensionality and retrieve essential features for the discrimination of the three groups by using a support vector machine (SVM). An optimized strategy of feature addition based on the weight of each feature was adopted for the SVM classifier in order to achieve the best classification performance. The baseline cortical features combined with the longitudinal measurements for 2 years of follow-up data yielded prominent classification results. In particular, the cortical thickness produced a classification with 98.84% accuracy, 97.5% sensitivity, and 100% specificity for the sMCI–cMCI comparison; 92.37% accuracy, 84.78% sensitivity, and 97.22% specificity for the cMCI–NC comparison; and 93.75% accuracy, 92.5% sensitivity, and 94.44% specificity for the sMCI–NC comparison. The best performances obtained by the SVM classifier using the essential features were 5–40% more than those using all of the retained features. The feasibility of the cortical features for the recognition of anatomical patterns was certified; thus, the proposed method has the potential to improve the clinical diagnosis of sub-types of MCI and predict the risk of its conversion to Alzheimer's disease.
What matters, and what matters most, for change in life satisfaction in the oldest-old? A study over 6 years among individuals 80+

Objectives: The study investigates whether markers of life satisfaction identified in a cross-sectional study–quality of social network, self-rated health, depressive symptoms, locus of control and widowhood, in addition to financial satisfaction and the personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism–predict change in life satisfaction (LSI-Z) across four measurement occasions during a 6-year period in individuals aged 80+. Method: Data were drawn from the Swedish OCTO-Twin-study of individuals aged 80 and older. Results: Growth curve analysis showed a relatively consistent significant linear decline in life satisfaction, but certain markers predicted change in life satisfaction. The loss of spouse, in particular in men, and higher levels of depressive symptoms were related to lower levels of life satisfaction over time. Conclusion: The results from the study question the notion of a life-long stability of life satisfaction.
Effect of Nitrogen-containing Dietary Supplements on the Mating Success of Sterile Males of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract In Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) programs, mass-reared males of the Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Wiedemann), are maintained on a sugar-agar diet before their release into the environment. Several studies suggest that nitrogenous dietary supplements improve the mating competitiveness of the sterile males, thus increasing the cost effectiveness of SIT. Other research, however, has not supported this notion. Here, we further investigate the potential usefulness of nitrogen-containing diet additives by examining the effect of 4 different nitrogenous materials--yeast hydrolysate, urea, whey protein, and honey--on the mating success of sterile C. capitata males. These materials were mixed directly with the sugar-agar diet in varying concentrations (1, 5, or 10%). Trials conducted in outdoor field-cages generated 2 consistent results across all diets: (1) neither the type nor concentration of nitrogenous material used elevated the mating success of sterile males above that observed for the standard sugar-agar diet, and (2) wild males invariably had a significant mating advantage over sterile males, accounting for an average of 81% of the total matings per replicate. In addition, a field comparison of short-term dispersal from a central release point revealed no significant difference between sterile males fed (i) the sugar-agar diet or (ii) the sugar-agar diet supplemented with yeast hydrolysate (10%) in either the number or spatial distribution of recaptured individuals. Our results do not support the proposal that pre-release nitrogenous dietary supplements improve the field performance of sterile C. capitata males in SIT programs.
Improving Document Navigation Using Space-Filling Thumbnails

Space-Filling Thumbnails (SFT) is a new technique for document navigation that disposes of traditional scrollbars. SFT provides a matrix of thumbnail images, one for every page of the document, on a single screen. Pages can be selected for viewing by using a mouse. A prototype Space-Filling Thumbnails interface has been designed, developed and implemented. Six further document navigation systems have been implemented to enable comparative evaluations. Three formal experiments have been carried out, all of which have shown Space-Filling Thumbnails to be more efficient than other research and mainstream document navigation systems. The first experiment (n= 13) showed SFT to be significantly faster than all other document navigation interfaces for both visual search and spatial re-acquisition tasks. Experiment Two ( n = 32) showed that SFT is robust and faster than Thumbnail-Enhanced Scrollbars (TES) for visual and spatial search tasks in documents of differing lengths. Lastly, in Experiment Three ( n = 12), the possible “Achilles’ Heel” of SFT was tested—long documents. SFT proved to be more efficient than TES even in its “worst-case scenario” situation—a 300 page book. Subjective measures from these experiments showed favour for SFT. We have shown that Space-Filling Thumbnails outperforms traditional document navigation systems through the exploitation of users’ spatial memory. The swiftness of visual and spatial searches in SFT have proved that this system has the potential to revolutionise document navigation, as a valuable addition to, if not replacement for, scrollbars. Acknowledgements The author would like to thank his supervisor Andy Cockburn for his inspiration, enthusiasm and guidance throughout this project. He would also like to thank his family, staff members and fellow post-graduate students who have shown interest and offered suppor. All of the participants involved in the experiments also deserve thanks, for giving up their time and providing valuable feedback.
Observing seed removal: remote video monitoring of seed selection, predation and dispersal.

What happens to seeds once they have reached a surface – here referred to as post-dispersal seed fate (cf. Chambers and MacMahon, 1994) – is becoming an increasingly important question. A large body of literature is available evaluating postdispersal seed fate (reviewed in Hulme, 1998, 2002; Crawley, 2000; Moles and Westoby, 2003; see Hulme and Kollmann, Chapter 2, this volume; Vander Wall and Longland, Chapter 18, this volume). Many studies investigating post-dispersal seed fate, however, measure only seed removal from experimental plots, and implicitly or explicitly assume that removed seeds were killed by seedeaters (see Hulme and Kollmann, Chapter 2, this volume; Forget and Wenny, Chapter 23, this volume; Wenny, Chapter 21, this volume). This approach may be inadequate, as several recent studies in which removed seeds were tracked have shown that many of these seeds are secondarily dispersed rather than consumed (e.g. Vander Wall, 1992, 1997; Forget, 1993; Levey and Byrne, 1993; Brewer and Rejmanek, 1999; Hoshizaki et al., 1999; Jansen et al., 2002). Scatterhoarding animals eat some of the seeds they gather but bury most seeds as food reserves in scattered caches in the soil (e.g. Jansen et al., 2002; Jansen et al., 2004). Scatterhoarding may enhance seed survival and seedling establishment because it moves seeds away from the parent and siblings, secures seeds from seed predators such as insects and wild pigs, and puts seeds in situations that often enhance germination and establishment (Vander Wall, 1990). Cached seeds can only establish seedlings, however, if animals leave some proportion of their food reserves untouched. Several studies of secondary dispersal (e.g. Vander Wall, 1994; Jansen, 2003) have shown that scatterhoarded seeds may indeed escape consumption and develop into seedlings. Thus, seed survival and seedling establishment can occur not only right after primary dispersal, but also after one or more subsequent bouts of secondary dispersal (Price and Jenkins, 1986). Moreover, some studies of large-seeded species have observed seeds dying from desiccation or seed predation if they were not removed and buried by scatterhoarding animals (Shaw, 1968; Jansen et al., 2004). Hence, traditional studies of post-dispersal seed survival that simply measure seed removal are insufficient for estimating seed mortality (see
Nitric oxides in plasma, urine, and cerebrospinal fluid in patients with severe falciparum malaria.

It has been suggested that nitric oxide (NO) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of severe falciparum malaria. Since NO has a very short half-life, nitrate and nitrite (NOx) levels, stable metabolites of NO, are used as measures of NO production. We measured plasma NOx levels in 24 adults with severe falciparum malaria on the Thai-Burmese border. After correction for renal function, there was no correlation between plasma NOx levels, or the total amount of NOx excreted in the urine, and disease severity. Plasma NOx levels decreased after the first 48 hr in all patients (P = 0.007), suggesting decreased NO production. The NOx levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) correlated well with plasma NOx levels, but these did not show a correlation with coma depth, and were not significantly different from those in a healthy control group. These findings do not support the hypothesis that excessive NO production contributes to the pathogenesis of severe falciparum malaria. However, local changes in NO production, e.g., in the central nervous system, might not be reflected in the total NOx production or NOx levels in the CSF.
Mechanical properties of recycled aggregate concreteproduced with Portland Pozzolana Cement

The quantity of construction and demolition waste has been greatly increasing recently. It causes many problems to the environment. For this reason, demolition waste management becomes inevitable in order to overcome the environmental issues. The present study aims to evaluate the effects of using recycled coarse aggregate, which is generated from construction and demolition waste, on the properties of recycled aggregate concrete. An experimental investigation on the strength characteristics of concrete made with recycled coarse aggregate is presented and discussed in this paper. In this study, Portland Pozzolana Cement (fly ash based) is used instead of ordinary Portland cement. The results of this investigation show the possibility of the use of recycled coarse aggregates in the production of fresh concrete. Use of demolition waste as coarse aggregate will lead to a cleaner environment with a significant reduction of the consumption of natural resources. A comparative study on the strength characteristics of recycled aggregate concrete made with Ordinary Portland Cement and Portland Pozzolana Cement is presented and discussed in this paper.
Constraint relaxation and chunk decomposition in insight problem solving

Insight problem solving is characterized by impasses, states of mind in which the thinker does not know what to do next. The authors hypothesized that impasses are broken by changing the problem representation, and 2 hypothetical mechanisms for representational change are described: the relaxation of constraints on the solution and the decomposition of perceptual chunks. These 2 mechanisms generate specific predictions about the relative difficulty of individual problems and about differential transfer effects. The predictions were tested in 4 experiments using matchstick arithmetic problems. The results were consistent with the predictions. Representational change is a more powerful explanation for insight than alternative hypotheses, if the hypothesized change processes are specified in detail. Overcoming impasses in insight is a special case of the general need to override the imperatives of past experience in the face of novel conditions.
Approximations of Predictive Entropy Correlate with Reading Times

The lexical frequency of an upcoming word aﬀects reading times even when the upcoming word is masked from readers (Angele et al., 2015). One explanation for this observation is that readers may slow down if there is high uncertainty about upcoming material. In line with this hypothesis, this study ﬁnds a positive correlation be-tween predictive entropy and self-paced reading times. This study also demonstrates that such predictive entropy can be eﬀectively approximated by the surprisal of upcoming observations and that this future surprisal estimate is more predictive of reading times when the grammar is more granular, which would be prohibitively expensive for predictive entropy. These results suggest readers engage in ﬁne-grained predictive estimations of certainty about upcoming lexical and syntactic material, that such predictions inﬂuence reading times, and that estimating that uncertainty can be done less expensively and more robustly with information-theoretic surprisal.
Study on jet aeration oxidation of magnesium sulfite from magnesium-based exhaust gas cleaning system

ABSTRACT Oxidation of magnesium sulfite in washing water is essential for the treatment of by-product of shipboard magnesium-based exhaust gas cleaning systems. The purpose of this study is to obtain a highly efficient magnesium sulfite oxidation technology by using the jet aeration process. Response surface methodology and central composite design were used to investigate the effects of major variables on oxidation of magnesium sulfite and optimize the oxidation conditions. The predictions of the two response functions agree well with the experimental data. The optimum oxidation conditions for ship are temperature 318 K, liquid flow rate 4.04 m3/h, and pH 7.70. Under optimal conditions, 12 moles of magnesium sulfite were oxidized by 90% over 15 minutes at an energy consumption of 0.220 kw h.