Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Helicobacter pylori: a cohort phenomenon.

Helicobacter pylori infection is an etiopathogenetic cause of chronic gastritis in more than 90% of the cases. In a proportion of infected subjects, gastritis slowly (over years or decades) progresses, for unknown reasons, into atrophic gastritis that affects antral or corpus mucosa, or both (multifocal atrophic gastritis). Some recent improvements have been made in studies of H. pylori gastritis. H. pylori gastritis has shown to associate strongly with peptic ulcer diseases and gastric cancer. The risk for ulcer (excluding the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-related ulcers) is highest in the nonatrophic forms of gastritis and the risk for gastric cancer in the severe forms of atrophic (metaplastic) gastritis. For routine histopathologic practice, the Sydney System has been developed to describe and grade the histopathologic appearances of gastritis, i.e., chronic and acute ("activity") inflammation, atrophy (loss of normal mucosal glands), intestinal metaplasia, and H. pylori in endoscopic biopsy specimens from antrum and corpus. Different phenotypes of H. pylori gastritis can be reliably described and the risks for various gastric diseases reasonably well predicted by the System. Most recent studies from developed countries have indicated that H. pylori acquisition occurs mainly during childhood and that the infection risk is quite low in adulthood. In addition, the acquisition rate has declined in these countries during the past few decades. The observations suggest that H. pylori gastritis is a birth cohort-related phenomenon. The acquisition rate has been high and the subsequent chronic gastritis is a common disease in the cohorts (generations) born in the beginning of this century but both are much less common in cohorts born more recently.
Types of Integration in a Theory of Language

Abstract In the face of the complexity of language as an object of study, it becomes crucial for researchers who investigate its various facets to communicate and to understand each-others’ terminology, methods and results. The feasibility and utility of striving for the elegance of formal models of isolated aspects of the linguistic system (for example, set of generative rules in an individual’s head) are called into question: a theory of language needs to account for how it functions in multiple systems and on multiple time-scales. This short introduction to the special issue on Language as Social Coordination situates works in this issue on the map of collective effort to formulate such a theory. It is also a reflection on the form of a theory of language that could integrate this variety of data and results.
Detection of Catchment-Scale Gully-Affected Areas Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) on the Chinese Loess Plateau

The Chinese Loess Plateau suffers from serious gully erosion induced by natural and human causes. Gully-affected areas detection is the basic work in this region for gully erosion assessment and monitoring. For the first time, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was applied to extract gully features in this region. Two typical catchments in Changwu and Ansai were selected to represent loess tableland and loess hilly regions, respectively. A high-powered quadrocopter (md4-1000) equipped with a non-metric camera was used for image acquisition. InPho and MapMatrix were applied for semi-automatic workflow including aerial triangulation and model generation. Based on the stereo-imaging and the ground control points, the highly detailed digital elevation models (DEMs) and ortho-mosaics were generated. Subsequently, an object-based approach combined with the random forest classifier was designed to detect gully-affected areas. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the influences of segmentation strategy and feature selection. Results showed that vertical and horizontal root-mean-square errors were below 0.5 and 0.2 m, respectively, which were ideal for the Loess Plateau region. The overall extraction accuracy in Changwu and Ansai achieved was 84.62% and 86.46%, respectively, which indicated the potential of the proposed workflow for extracting gully features. This study demonstrated that UAV can bridge the gap between field measurement and satellite-based remote sensing, obtaining a balance in resolution and efficiency for catchment-scale gully erosion research.
Stopping Rules for Turbo Decoders

Decoders for turbo codes are iterative in nature, i.e., they have to perform a certain number of iterations before reaching a satisfactory degree of confidence regarding a frame to be decoded. Until now standard turbo decoders have used a fixed number of iterations. In this article, we propose some simple “stopping rules” that can be used to reduce the average number of iterations. This technique offers a trade-off between speed and performance and can provide a significant increase in the average decoding speed while not sacrificing decoder performance.
Applicants’ Perceptions of Selection Procedures and Decisions: A Critical Review and Agenda for the Future

This review critically examines the literature from 1985 to 1999 on applicant perceptions of selection procedures. We organize our review around several key questions: What perceptions have been studied? What are determinants of perceptions? What are the consequences or outcomes associated with perceptions applicants hold? What theoretical frameworks are most useful in examining these perceptions? For each of these questions, we provide suggestions for key research directions. We conclude with a discussion of the practical implications of this line of research for those who design and administer selection processes.
Antidepressant Drugs for Prevention of Acute and Chronic Postsurgical Pain: Early Evidence and Recommended Future Directions

Background:This review evaluates trials of antidepressants for acute and chronic postsurgical pain. Methods:Trials were systematically identified using predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Extracted data included the following: pain at rest and with movement, adverse effects, and other outcomes. Results:Fifteen studies (985 participants) of early postoperative pain evaluated amitriptyline (three trials), bicifadine (two trials), desipramine (three trials), duloxetine (one trial), fluoxetine (one trial), fluradoline (one trial), tryptophan (four trials), and venlafaxine (one trial). Three studies (565 participants) of chronic postoperative pain prevention evaluated duloxetine (one trial), escitalopram (one trial), and venlafaxine (one trial). Heterogeneity because of differences in drug, dosing regimen, outcomes, and/or surgical procedure precluded any meta-analyses. Superiority to placebo was reported in 8 of 15 trials for early pain reduction and 1 of 3 trials for chronic pain reduction. The majority of positive trials did not report sufficient data to estimate treatment effect sizes. Many studies had inadequate size, safety evaluation/reporting, procedure specificity, and movement-evoked pain assessment. Conclusions:There is currently insufficient evidence to support the clinical use of antidepressants—beyond controlled investigations—for treatment of acute, or prevention of chronic, postoperative pain. Multiple positive trials suggest the therapeutic potential of antidepressants, which need to be replicated. Other nontrial evidence suggests potential safety concerns of perioperative antidepressant use. Future studies are needed to better define the risk–benefit ratio of antidepressants in postoperative pain management. Higher-quality trials should optimize dosing, timing and duration of antidepressant treatment, trial size, patient selection, safety evaluation and reporting, procedure specificity, and assessment of movement-evoked pain relevant to postoperative functional recovery.
Using lifestyle factors to identify individuals at higher risk of inflammatory polyarthritis (results from the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer-Norfolk and the Norfolk Arthritis Register—the EPIC-2-NOAR Study)

Objectives To investigate the association of lifestyle factors with risk of inflammatory polyarthritis (IP) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods The European Prospective Investigation of Cancer, Norfolk, UK (EPIC-Norfolk) gathered lifestyle data from participants aged 40–79 years from 1993 to 1997. Individuals who subsequently developed IP were identified by linkage with the Norfolk Arthritis Register. A Cox proportional hazard model was developed, and a score assigned to each risk factor to calculate the odds of developing IP. Results 25 455 EPIC participants were followed for a median (IQR) of 14.2 (12.9, 15.3) years; 184 developed incident IP (138 cumulatively fulfilled criteria for RA; 107 were seropositive). Pack-years of smoking were associated with increased risk of IP and RA in men (HR 1.21 (95% CI 1.08 to 1.37) per 10-pack-years) and seropositive IP (HR 1.24 (95% CI 1.10 to 1.41)) for all. Diabetes mellitus was associated with increased risk of IP (HR 2.54 (95% CI 1.26 to 5.09)), while alcohol (HR 0.86 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.99) per unit/day) and higher social class (HR 0.36 (95% CI 0.15 to 0.89) for professionals vs manual workers) were associated with reduced risk. Body mass index was associated with seronegative IP (HR 2.75 (95% CI 1.39 to 5.46) for obese vs normal-weight participants). In women, parity (HR 2.81 (95% CI 1.37 to 5.76) for ≥2 vs no children) was associated with increased risk, and breast feeding (HR 0.66 (95% CI 0.46 to 0.94) for every 52 weeks of breast feeding) was inversely associated with risk. Risk factors from the model were used to generate a ‘risk score’. A total of 1159 (8.4%) women had scores reflecting a >3-fold increased risk of IP over those with a score of 0. Conclusions Several easily ascertained clinical and lifestyle factors can be used to stratify populations for risk of IP.
Bloodstream infections associated with parenteral nutrition preparation methods in the United States: a retrospective, large database analysis.

BACKGROUND The incidence of bloodstream infection (BSI) among patients receiving parenteral nutrition (PN) is reported to vary widely from 1.3%-39%. BSI rates in a large inpatient population were compared in this study to determine if PN prepared by different methods was associated with BSI. METHODS Data from Premier Perspective, the largest inpatient cost-based clinical and financial claims database in the United States, were analyzed. Included were all hospitalized patients age ≥18 years who received any PN from January 1, 2005, to December 31, 2007. BSI rates, the primary dependent variable, were defined as the occurrence ICD-9 codes of 038.x (septicemia), 995.91 (sepsis), 995.92 (severe sepsis), and 790.7 (bacteremia). The exposure cohort received PN in a commercial multichamber bag (MCB) (n = 4669), whereas the comparator group received PN prepared by a pharmacy (either hospital compounded or outsourced; n = 64,315). Observed data were adjusted using multivariate logistic regression for baseline differences, risk factors, and potential confounders, with propensity score matching as a sensitivity analysis. RESULTS The observed and adjusted BSI rates indicate that MCB is associated with fewer infections than pharmacy-prepared PN (observed 17.5% vs 26.6%; adjusted 19.6% vs 25.9%, both P < .001). Propensity-matched scores found similar results with observed BSI rates of 18.9% in patients receiving MCB and 24.6% in patients receiving a compounded PN. CONCLUSION Both the observed rate of BSI and adjusted probability of developing a BSI remained significantly lower for the MCB than the compounded PN group.
The electronic bands of CrD, CrH, MgD and MgH: application to the ‘deuterium test’

We compute opacities for the electronic molecular band systems A 6 � + – X 6 � + of CrH and CrD, and A 2 � – X 2 � + of MgH and MgD. The opacities are computed by making use of existing spectroscopic constants for MgH and CrH. These constants are adjusted for the different reduced masses of MgD and CrD. Frank-Condon factors are used to provide intensities for the individual vibronic bands. These results are used in the computation of synthetic spectra between Teff = 1800 and 1200 K with an emphasis on the realisation of “deuterium test”, first proposed by Bejar et al. (1999) to distinguish brown dwarfs from planetary mass objects. We discuss the possible use of CrD and MgD electronic bands for the “deuterium test”. We find CrD to be the more promising of the two deuterides, potentially, the most useful bands of ′′ ′′ ′′ ! × "
The Nature of Schizotypal Symptoms and Social Recovery in Psychosis

Background This study reports on a preliminary evaluation of a cognitive behavioural intervention to improve social recovery in psychosis. The study was a singleblind RCT with two arms, 35 participants receiving CBT plus TAU, and 42 participants receiving TAU alone. Participants were assessed at baseline and post-treatment. Method Seventy-seven participants were recruited from secondary mental health teams after presenting with a history of unemployment and poor social outcome. The cognitive behavioural intervention was delivered over a nine-month period with a mean of 12 sessions. The primary outcomes were weekly hours spent in constructive economic and structured activity. A range of secondary and tertiary outcomes were also assessed. Results Intention to treat analysis on the combined affective and non-affective psychosis sample showed no significant impact of treatment on primary or secondary outcomes. Analysis of interactions by diagnostic subgroup approached significance for secondary symptomatic outcomes (PANSS (F(1,69)=3.99, p=0.05). Exploratory analyses within diagnostic subgroups revealed significant improvements in weekly hours in constructive and structured activity, PANSS scores, and beliefs about self and others amongst people with non-affective psychosis. In the affective psychosis group there were striking improvements in activity and symptoms but these occurred in both treatment and control groups. Conclusion The primary study comparison provided no clear evidence for the benefit of CBT in on a combined sample of patients. However, secondary analyses showed benefits for CBT amongst people with non-affective psychosis who have social recovery problems. These promising results need to be independently replicated in a larger, multi-centre RCT.
The Psychotherapy Process Q-set from the Perspective of the Italian Research in Psychotherapy: Commentary on a Paper by J. Stuart Ablon, Raymond A. Levy, and Lotte Smith-Hansen

In their review, Ablon, Levy, and Smith-Hansen (2011) showed that the Psychotherapy Process Q-set (PQS; Jones, 2000) has been applied to a large range of studies with different methods and aims, from Randomized Control Trials (RCT) to naturalistic studies and single-case designs. Focusing on our colleagues’ work, we will highlight the contribution of the PQS to research in psychotherapy, not only in process-outcome studies, but also into the therapeutic action debates, the specific vs common factors discussion, and the insight vs relation dialect. According to our studies, PQS has played the most relevant and innovative role in psychoanalysis. Ablon et al. (2011) showed how Jones left the clinical inheritance of his empirical method. One of PQS’s strengths deals with the Q-sort methodology (Stephenson, 1953; Block, 1961) that enables both an empirical study of human subjectivity (McKnown & Thomas, 1988) and the application of rigorous data analysis for single-case designs, such as the P-technique and time series analysis. PQS, as colleagues have shown, is useful in single-case designs that, despite their limitations in the generalization of the findings (Kazdin, 2002), capture the richness and complexity of the clinical dialogue and describe the uniqueness of the patient and therapist dyad and interaction structures.
Cancer-derived mutations in the regulatory subunit p85α of phosphoinositide 3-kinase function through the catalytic subunit p110α

Cancer-specific mutations in the iSH2 (inter-SH2) and nSH2 (N-terminal SH2) domains of p85α, the regulatory subunit of phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), show gain of function. They induce oncogenic cellular transformation, stimulate cellular proliferation, and enhance PI3K signaling. Quantitative determinations of oncogenic activity reveal large differences between individual mutants of p85α. The mutant proteins are still able to bind to the catalytic subunits p110α and p110β. Studies with isoform-specific inhibitors of p110 suggest that expression of p85 mutants in fibroblasts leads exclusively to an activation of p110α, and p110α is the sole mediator of p85 mutant-induced oncogenic transformation. The characteristics of the p85 mutants are in agreement with the hypothesis that the mutations weaken an inhibitory interaction between p85α and p110α while preserving the stabilizing interaction between p85α iSH2 and the adapter-binding domain of p110α.
Epidemiology for public health practice

From authors Friis and Sellers comes the Fourth Edition of this best-selling introduction to epidemiology: Epidemiology for Public Health Practice. In clear and accessible language, this comprehensive text will introduce your students to the most important and timely issues in epidemiology today. New to this edition: Information on new disease outbreaks: *E. coli in spinach *Avian influenza *XDR TB * Expanded coverage of the history of epidemiology * New coverage of the natural history of disease * Updated coverage of morbidity and mortality data throughout the text * Method for rate adjustment updated to the 2000 standard population * New information on health disparities, including the * Hispanic mortality paradox * Updated information on data sources including notifiable diseases * Additional statistical measures provided, e.g., measures of life expectancy * New coverage of models of causality * New chapter on professional issues in epidemiology * Exciting new figures, tables, and exhibits provided throughout * Additional exercises and study questions
Toxicological Assessment of Gadoversetamide Injection (OptiMARK®), a New Contrast-Enhancement Agent for Use in Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Wible JH, Troup CM, Hynes MR, et al. Toxicological assessment of gadoversetamide injection (OptiMARK®), a new contrast-enhancement agent for use in magnetic resonance imaging. Invest Radiol 2001;36:401–412. rationale and objectives. A series of preclinical tests were undertaken during the developmental process to determine the safety profile of gadoversetamide injection (OptiMARK®). methods.Acute intravenous, acute intracisternal, and repeated-dose toxicities; cardiovascular effects; and genetic and reproductive toxicology characteristics were assessed in several animal species. results.Gadoversetamide injection demonstrated an acute intravenous median lethal dose of 25 to 28 mmol/kg and a maximum nonlethal dose of 14 mmol/kg in mice. In the dog, acute administration of gadoversetamide injection showed a no observable effect level at 3 mmol/kg. Dosed daily for 4 weeks, gadoversetamide injection (0.1 mmol · kg−1 · d−1) caused no serious irreversible changes in any organs in rats and dogs. At a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg, gadoversetamide injection caused no significant (P < 0.05) changes in cardiovascular function in anesthetized dogs. Gadoversetamide injection showed no mutagenic activity. Fertility, reproductive performance, and postnatal fetal development were not affected at doses up to 0.5 mmol · kg−1 · d−1 in the rat. No teratogenicity was observed at doses up to 4.2 mmol · kg−1 · d−1 in the rat and up to 1.6 mmol · kg−1 · d−1 in the rabbit. conclusions.Data from our toxicological assessment demonstrate the safety of gadoversetamide injection in a number of animal species at doses exceeding the intended human clinical dose.
Secondary influences on neuropsychological test performance

Preface to the National Academy of Neuropsychological Series on Evidence-Based Practices Preface to the Second Volume in the National Academy of Neuropsychological Series on Evidence-Based Practices: Secondary Influences on Neuropsychological Test Performance Contributors 1. Introduction to secondary influences of neuropsychological test performance Peter Arnett Part I: Relationship of Affective Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Fatigue, Motor Impairments, Diagnosis Threat, and Effort to Cognitive Functioning 2. Symptom Invalidity on Neuropsychological Testing 3. Depression and affective disorders: Impact on the level of cognitive functioning 3. Neuropsychological Deficits in Major Depressive Disorder: Correlates and Conundrums of cognitive functioning Michael Basso, Ashely Miller, Eduardo Estevis and Dennis Combs 4. The Allure of Emotion: How Affective Stimuli Impact Cognitive Processing Among Patients with Mood Disorders content of cognitive functioning Bruce Christiansen and Matthew Kiing 5. The Anxiety on Cognitive Task Performance 6. Fatigue 6. Fatigue: Its Influence on Cognition and Assessment 7. Pain 7. The Impact of Pain and Pain-Related Factors on Cognitive Functioning 8. Motor Impairments 8. The Influence of Motor Impairments on Cognitive Functioning Peter Arnett, Gray Vargas, Dede Ukueberuwa and Amanda Rabinowitz 9. Response Expectancies and Their Potential Influence in Neuropsychological Evaluation Julie Suhr and Christina Wei Part II: Complexities in Assessing Secondary Influences in Specific Neurologic Conditions 10. Secondary Influences in Multiple Sclerosis Jared Bruce, Holly Westervelt, and Joanie Thelen 11. The Role of Secondary Factors in HIV-Associated Neurocognitive Disorders 12. Parkinson's Disease. Alexander Troster, Lindsay P. Prizer, and Amber Baxley 12. Parkinson's Disease: Secondary Influences on Cognition Alexander Troster, Lindsay Prizer and Amber Baxley 13. Traumatic Brain Injury and the Impact of Secondary Influences 14. Alzheimer's Disease/MCI/Stroke 14. Secondary Influences in Alzheimer's Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, and Stroke Stephen Miller and Antonio Nicholas Puente 15. Secondary Influences on Neuropsychological Test Performance in Epilepsy Bruce Hermann, David Loring, Dalin Pulsioher, Brian Bell, and Michael Seidenberg 16. Assessing Secondary Influences and Their Impact on Neuropsychological Test Performance: Summing Things up and Where We Need to Go From Here Index
A two-stage handwritten character segmentation approach in mail address recognition

Character segmentation has become a crucial step for mail address recognition in the automatic post mail sorting system. In this paper, a two-stage character segmentation algorithm according to the characteristics of handwritten mail address characters is proposed. In the simple segmentation stage, the block sequence is extracted from the mail address image using the structure-based methods, including projection profile analysis, connected components analysis and stroke cross number analysis. In the precise segmentation stage, all candidate segmentation paths are created by combining the neighboring blocks and represented with a candidate segmentation graph first. Then several optimal candidate paths are selected from the graph by dynamic programming searching based on recognition confidence. Finally the best segmentation path is determined by matching these paths with the known post address database. In the experiment on more than 500 real envelop images with the this approach, the correct sorting rate of address recognition is up to 79.46% and that of address-postcode integrated recognition is up to 96.26%.