Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity of Four Self-reported Colorectal Cancer Screening Modalities in a General Population: Differences over Time and by Intervention Assignment

Little is known about the validity of self-reported colorectal cancer screening. To date, few published studies have validated all four screening modalities per recommended guidelines or included a general population-based sample, and none has assessed validity over time and by intervention condition. To estimate the validity of self-reported screening, a random sample of 200 adults, ages ≥50 years, was selected from those completing annual surveys on screening behavior as part of an intervention study. Approximately 60% of the validation sample authorized medical record review. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were calculated for baseline and year 1 follow-up reports for each test and for overall screening adherence. Sensitivity at baseline ranged from 86.9% (flexible sigmoidoscopy) to 100% (colonoscopy). Sensitivity at follow-up was slightly lower. Adjusting for validity measures, the sample overreported screening prevalence at baseline for each of the four modalities. At follow-up, overreporting was greatest for fecal occult blood test (13.0%). Overreporting across intervention conditions was highest for fecal occult blood test (10.8% for control; 24.8% for the most intense intervention) and overall screening adherence (10.9% for control; 14.3% for the most intense intervention). Sensitivity and specificity of self-reported colorectal cancer screening compared with medical records were high; however, adjusting self-reported screening rates based on relative error rates reduced screening prevalence estimates. Those exposed to more intense interventions to modify screening behavior seemed more likely to overestimate their screening rates compared with those who were not exposed. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2008;17(4):777–84)
Model Predictive Control leveraging Ensemble Kalman forecasting for optimal power take-off in wave energy conversion systems

Although solar and wind energy are the dominant sources of renewable energy production today, attention is increasing towards other solutions, such as marine Wave Energy Conversion (WEC). High installation costs and the relatively low efficiency of current power take-off mechanisms currently prevent WEC from being competitive with solar and wind energy production. One potential way to overcome this is by implementing an active control strategy which optimizes WEC power takeoff in real time, thereby extracting the maximum energy possible from each individual wave. Accomplishing this requires an estimation problem to be solved, since oncoming sea waves are not known a priori-they come from multiple directions, and generally arrive in sets. In the present work, a parallel Ensemble Kalman forecasting algorithm leveraging a pseudospectral wave model for time propagation of the ensemble members is developed to estimate and forecast the wavefield based on data assimilated from a Doppler wave radar system. This forecast of the future wavefield is then exploited in a linear Model Predictive Control (MPC) setting for the online optimization of power take-off of a one-body point-absorber WEC system subject to motion and machinery constraints. Simulations over a realistic sea state exhibit a trade-off between control efficiency and forecast accuracy, with power losses in the prediction-based setting not exceeding 16% of the power take-off obtained using MPC under the ideal assumption of complete knowledge of the oncoming wavefield.
The relationship of self-reported sleep disturbance, mood, and menopause in a community study

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between sleep disturbance, mood, menopausal status, and vasomotor symptoms in middle-aged women in Kinmen. Design: A community-based sample of 1,113 Taiwanese women aged 43 to 57 years who were living on the island of Kinmen were recruited in this cross-sectional study. Menopausal status was determined by menstrual history. Sleep quality was measured by self-reported sleep problems. Anxiety and depression were assessed by the Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale. Results: Forty-six percent of middle-aged women reported feeling dissatisfied with their sleep. Total sleep hours were not significantly different as a function of menopausal status. Generally, the occurrence of sleep problems or poor sleep quality was most prevalent in the postmenopausal group and least prevalent in premenopausal women. After analysis by multiple logistic regression, menopausal status was the independent factor of difficulty initiating sleep and sleep fragmentation. The Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale anxiety score was related to all sleep problems except for "excessive daytime sleepiness" and "awakening without further sleep. " Conclusions: Almost half of the Taiwanese middle-aged women felt dissatisfied with their sleep. Both menopausal status and higher anxiety score were associated with poor sleep quality of midlife women.
A Solomon descent theory for the wreath products ≀_{}

We propose an analogue of Solomon's descent theory for the case of a wreath product G/G n , where G is a finite abelian group. Our construction mixes a number of ingredients: Mantaci-Reutenauer algebras, Specht's theory for the representations of wreath products, Okada's extension to wreath products of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence, and Poirier's quasisymmetric functions. We insist on the functorial aspect of our definitions and explain the relation of our results with previous work concerning the hyperoctaedral group.
The 2006 RWTH parliamentary speeches transcription system

In this work, the RWTH automatic speech recognition systems developed for the second TC-STAR evaluation campaign 2006 are presented. The systems were designed to transcribe parliamentary speeches taken from the European Parliament Plenary Sessions (EPPS) in European English and Spanish, as well as speeches from the Spanish Parliament. The RWTH systems apply a two pass search strategy with a fourgram one-pass decoder including a fast vocal tract length normalization variant as first pass. The systems further include several adaptation and normalization methods, minimum classification error trained models, and bayes risk minimization. For all relevant individual components contrastive results are presented on the EPPS Spanish and English data. Index Terms: speech recognition, speaker normalisation, VTLN
Extendable Object Visualisation for Software Reengineering

This paper describes an experimental reengineering tool which assists the process of understanding the functionality of unknown software, particularly object oriented programs. In contrast to many other tools which analyse the source code, the inspected program is analysed at runtime by a concurrent process running in parallel. Information on all objects allocated by the inspected program is collected, in particular the dynamic type of each inspected object is determined. In contrast to the static type, the dynamic type of an object can only be determined at runtime. Each object is visualised by a corresponding visualisation class. Visualisation classes for well known data structures like binary trees can be used from the beginning. New visualisation can be derived by class extensions or can be added simply. The inspected program can be halted at specific locations to update the visualisation. Also, updating the visualisation can be triggered by specifying watch points.
'Traumatisers or traumatised': Trauma experiences and personality characteristics of Australian prisoners.

BACKGROUND Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is over represented in the prisoner population and is predictive of violence and suicide. This raises issues in relation to prisoner management, as well as theoretical issues such as why there is a range of vulnerability for PTSD. The current study examines the relationship between PTSD and personality profiles of prisoners. METHOD Data from 1305 participants in the NSW survey of health in prisoners are examined to identify relationships between personality profiles derived from the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and PTSD. Participants are grouped as experiencing no trauma; with a trauma history but no PTSD; and being diagnosed with PTSD. A logistic regression modelled significant predictors of PTSD. These data indicated that women prisoners report PTSD at twice the rate of males. An increased risk for PTSD is associated with high Harm Avoidance, low Self-Directedness, high Persistence and high Self-Transcendence. CONCLUSIONS A combination of both temperament and character traits influences the trajectory towards PTSD development. Targeted treatment of these traits is needed in addressing the problems of prisoners with PTSD and managing the associated risks of violence and suicide.
The Costs of Low Birth Weight

Birth weight has emerged as the leading indicator of infant health and welfare and the central focus of infant health policy. This is because low birth weight (LBW) infants experience severe health and developmental difficulties that can impose enormous costs on society. But would the prevention of LBW generate equally sizable cost savings and health improvements? Estimates of the return to LBW-prevention from cross-sectional associations may be biased by omitted variables that cannot be influenced by policy, such as genetic factors. To address this, we compare the hospital costs, health at birth, and infant mortality rates between heavier and lighter infants from all twin pairs born in the United States. We also examine the effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy the leading risk factor for LBW in the United States on health among singleton births after controlling for detailed background characteristics. Both analyses imply substantially smaller effects of LBW than previously thought, suggesting two possibilities: 1) existing estimates overstate the true costs and consequences of LBW by at least a factor of four and by as much as a factor of 20; or 2) different LBW-preventing interventions have different health and cost consequences, implying that policy efforts that presume a single return to reducing LBW will necessarily be suboptimal.
Fatigue life prediction of wind turbine rotor blade composites considering the combined effects of stress amplitude and mean stress

To predict fatigue life of wind turbine rotor blade composites under random loads, the combined effects of stress amplitude and mean stress are considered. First, the generalized σ–N curved surface is introduced to characterize the fatigue properties of composites under constant amplitude cyclic load. Then, a modified Miner’s rule is developed to reveal the evolution process of fatigue damage under variable amplitude cyclic loads. Finally, a fatigue life prediction model is presented based on the total probability formula and the modified Miner’s rule, which can reflect the combined effects of stress amplitude and mean stress on fatigue life. The experimental data of wind turbine rotor blade composites are used to illustrate the specific process of the proposed method; the results indicate that the prediction values of the developed method are reasonable and effective.
Systematic review and meta‐analysis of intraperitoneal local anaesthetic for pain reduction after laparoscopic gastric procedures

With the advent of minimally invasive gastric surgery, visceral nociception has become an important area of investigation as a potential cause of postoperative pain. A systematic review and meta‐analysis was carried out to investigate the clinical effects of intraperitoneal local anaesthetic (IPLA) in laparoscopic gastric procedures.
D0-brane recoil revisited

One-loop string scattering amplitudes computed using the standard D0-brane conformal field theory (CFT) suffer from infrared divergences associated with recoil. A systematic framework to take recoil into account is the worldline formalism, where fixed boundary conditions are replaced by dynamical D0-brane worldlines. We show that, in the worldline formalism, the divergences that plague the CFT are automatically cancelled in a non-trivial way. The amplitudes derived in the worldline formalism can be reproduced by deforming the CFT with a specific ``recoil operator'', which is bilocal and different from the ones previously suggested in the literature.
International Journal of Women's Health Dovepress Open Access to Scientific and Medical Research Open Access Full Text Article Dovepress Advances in Labor Analgesia

The pain of childbirth is arguably the most severe pain most women will endure in their lifetimes. The pain of the early first stage of labor arises from dilation of the lower uterine segment and cervix. Pain from the late first stage and second stage of labor arises from descent of the fetus in the birth canal, resulting in distension and tearing of tissues in the vagina and perineum. An array of regional nerve blocks, systemic analgesic, and nonpharmacologic techniques are currently used for labor analgesia. Nonpharmacologic methods are commonly used, but the effectiveness of these techniques generally lacks rigorous scientific study. Continuous labor support has been shown to decrease the use of pharmacologic analgesia and shorten labor. Intradermal water injections decrease back labor pain. Neuraxial labor analgesia (most commonly epidural or combined spinal-epidural) is the most effective method of pain relief during childbirth, and the only method that provides complete analgesia without maternal or fetal sedation. Current techniques commonly combine a low dose of local anesthetic (bupivacaine or ropivacaine) with a lipid soluble opioid (fentanyl or sufentanil). Neuraxial analgesia does not increase the rate of cesarean delivery compared to systemic opioid analgesia; however, dense neuraxial analgesia may increase the risk of instrumental vaginal delivery. The pain of childbirth is arguably the most severe pain most women will endure in their lifetimes. The modern era of childbirth analgesia began in 1847 when Dr James Young Simpson administered ether to a woman in childbirth, and later in the same year, chloroform. Several years later John Snow successfully administered chloroform to Queen Victoria during the birth of her eighth child. Dämmerschlaf, or " twilight sleep, " a combination of systemic morphine and scopolamine, was first described in the early twentieth century. 1 Regional anesthesia was introduced in 1884 when Carl Koller described the use of cocaine to anesthetize the eye. Descriptions of spinal, lumbar and caudal epidural, paravertebral, and pudendal nerve blocks for obstetrics were published between 1900 and 1930. 2 Continuous neuraxial analgesia, as it is practiced today, had its birth in the mid-twentieth century when Hingson and Edwards published the first report of continuous caudal analgesia for childbirth in 1943. 3 An array of regional nerve blocks, systemic analgesic, and nonpharmacologic techniques are currently used for labor analgesia. This review will summarize the
An Energy Efficient Multichannel MAC Protocol for Cognitive Radio Ad Hoc Networks

This paper presents a TDMA based energy efficient cognitive radio multichannel medium access control (MAC) protocol called ECR-MAC for wireless ad hoc networks. ECR- MAC requires only a single half-duplex radio transceiver on each node that integrates the spectrum sensing at physical (PHY) layer and the packet scheduling at MAC layer. In addition to explicit frequency negotiation which is adopted by conventional multichannel MAC protocols, ECR-MAC introduces lightweight explicit time negotiation. This two-dimensional negotiation enables ECR-MAC to exploit the advantage of both multiple channels and TDMA, and achieve aggressive power savings by allowing nodes that are not involved in communication to go into doze mode. The IEEE 802.11 standard allows for the use of multiple channels available at the PHY layer, but its MAC protocol is designed only for a single channel. A single channel MAC protocol does not work well in a multichannel environment, because of the multichannel hidden terminal problem. The proposed energy efficient ECR-MAC protocol allows secondary users (SUs) to identify and use the unused frequency spectrum in a way that constrains the level of interference to the primary users (PUs). Extensive simulation results show that our proposed ECR-MAC protocol successfully exploits multiple channels and significantly improves network performance by using the licensed spectrum band opportunistically and protects QoS provisioning over cognitive radio ad hoc networks.
Association of cardiac troponin T with left ventricular structure and function in CKD.

BACKGROUND Serum cardiac troponin T (cTnT) is associated with increased risk of heart failure and cardiovascular death in several population settings. We evaluated associations of cTnT levels with cardiac structural and functional abnormalities in a cohort of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) without heart failure. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort (CRIC; N=3,243). PREDICTOR The primary predictor was cTnT level. Secondary predictors included demographic and clinical characteristics, hemoglobin level, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level, and estimated glomerular filtration rate using cystatin C. OUTCOMES Echocardiography was used to determine left ventricular (LV) mass and LV systolic and diastolic function. MEASUREMENTS Circulating cTnT was measured in stored sera using the highly sensitive assay. Logistic and linear regression models were used to examine associations of cTnT level with each echocardiographic outcome. RESULTS cTnT was detectable in 2,735 (84%) persons; median level was 13.3 (IQR, 7.7-23.8) pg/mL. Compared with undetectable cTnT (<3.0 pg/mL), the highest quartile (23.9-738.7 pg/mL) was approximately 2 times as likely to have LV hypertrophy (OR, 2.43; 95% CI, 1.44-4.09) in the fully adjusted model. cTnT level had a more modest association with LV systolic dysfunction; as a log-linear variable, a significant association was present in the fully adjusted model (OR of 1.4 [95% CI, 1.2-1.7] per 1-log unit; P < 0.001). There was no significant independent association between cTnT level and LV diastolic dysfunction. When evaluated as a screening test, cTnT level functioned only modestly for LV hypertrophy and concentric hypertrophy detection (area under the curve, 0.64 for both), with weaker areas under the curve for the other outcomes. LIMITATIONS The presence of coronary artery disease was not formally assessed using either noninvasive or angiographic techniques in this study. CONCLUSIONS In this large CKD cohort without heart failure, detectable cTnT had a strong association with LV hypertrophy, a more modest association with LV systolic dysfunction, and no association with diastolic dysfunction. These findings indicate that circulating cTnT levels in patients with CKD are predominantly an indicator of pathologic LV hypertrophy.
Fracture mechanics assessment of fatigue semi-elliptical cracks in butt-welded joints

espanolEn este trabajo se realiza un estudio teorico sobre la influencia que posee en la vida de fatiga la geometria del perfil del cordon de soldadura. Se considera una soldadura a tope utilizando SMAW, placas en acero estructural A36 de 6 mm de espesor y electrodo E6013. La influencia de la geometria es parametrizada por medio del sobreespesor del cordon y el radio del pie de soldadura, para ello se realiza un arreglo de experimento a tres niveles. Para el desarrollo del presente trabajo se utilizo cierta informacion proveniente de resultados experimentales (por ejemplo: perfil de soldadura y propiedades mecanicas). La geometria de un grupo de cordones de soldadura reales es digitalizada y emulada en la construccion de los modelos de solido 3D, mientras que se define una grieta semieliptica superficial en el pie de la soldadura. Mediante el Metodo de los Elementos Finitos se obtienen ecuaciones analiticas para el factor de magnificacion por soldadura (Mk). Como resultados principales se destacan, en primer lugar, la marcada influencia que posee el sobreespesor del cordon en la vida de fatiga, un mayor sobreespesor significa una reduccion en la prediccion de vida de fatiga de hasta un 42% para la union soldada considerada; y en segundo lugar la evolucion diferente del factor de intensidad de esfuerzos en el perimetro del vertice de la grieta, lo cual provoca que la grieta durante su propagacion estable se vuelva cada vez mas alargada y estrecha. Las ecuaciones analiticas obtenidas para Mk pueden ser utilizadas en modelos de gestion de vida para este tipo de union soldada. EnglishThis work carries out a theoretical study about the influence that profile geometry of the weld seam joints has on fatigue life. It is considered that SMAW butt-welded joints, 6 mm-A36 structural steel board, and the E6013 electrode. The influence of geometry is parametrized by the overweight weld and the radius of the weld toe. To do the latter, an arrangement of experiments were made into 3 levels for each factor. For the development of the current work some information obtained from experimental results was used (i.e., weld profile and mechanical properties). The geometry of one group of real weld seams is digitalized and simulated in the construction of 3D solid-models, while a superficial semi-elliptical crack is defined around the weld toe. By applying the Finite Element Method, analytical equations are obtained for the weld magnification factors (Mk). As main results of this work stand out, on the first hand, the strong influence that slub has on the fatigue life, an excess thickness means a reduction in the life forecast to even 42% for the welded joint. Secondly, the different behavior of strength intensity factor around the crack edge, which makes the crack become longer and narrower. The analytical equations for Mk can be utilized on life-management model for butt-welded joints.