Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcomes of the Victorian Safewards trial in 13 wards: Impact on seclusion rates and fidelity measurement

Restrictive practices are used in response to conflict and aggression in psychiatric inpatient settings. Reducing such practices is the focus internationally of policy and legislative change, many initiatives, and a growing body of research. Safewards is a model and a set of 10 interventions designed to reduce conflict and containment in inpatient services. In the current study, we aimed to assess the impact of implementing Safewards on seclusion in Victorian inpatient mental health services in Australia. The study used a before-and-after design, with a comparison group matched for service type. Thirteen wards opted into a 12-week trial to implement Safewards and 1-year follow up. The comparison group was all other wards (n = 31) with seclusion facilities in the jurisdiction, matched to service type. Mandatorily-reported seclusion event data for all 44 wards over a 15-month period were analysed using negative binomial regression. Adherence to Safewards was measured via fidelity checklists at four time points: twice during the trial, post-trial, and at 1-year follow up. Seclusion rates were reduced by 36% in Safewards trial wards by the 12-month follow-up period (incidence rate ratios (IRR) = 0.64,) but in the comparison wards seclusion rates did not differ from baseline to post-trial (IRR = 1.17) or to follow-up period (IRR = 1.35). Fidelity analysis revealed a trajectory of increased use of Safewards interventions after the trial phase to follow up. The findings suggest that Safewards is appropriate for practice change in Victorian inpatient mental health services more broadly than adult acute wards, and is effective in reducing the use of seclusion.
Therapeutic time window for the effects of erythropoietin on astrogliosis and neurite outgrowth in an in vitro model of spinal cord injury

Background: The objective of this study was to investigate the underlying molecular mechanisms and the therapeutic time window for preventing astrogliosis with erythropoietin (EPO) treatment after in vitro modeled spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods: Cultured rat spinal cord astrocytes were treated with kainate and scratching to generate an in vitro model of SCI. EPO (100U/mL or 300U/mL) was added immediately or 2, 4, or 8 hours after injury. Some cultures were also treated with AG490, an inhibitor of the EPO-EPO receptor (EpoR) pathway mediator Janus kinase 2 (JAK2). To evaluate neurite extension, rat embryonic spinal cord neurons were seeded onto astrocyte cultures and treated with EPO immediately after injury in the presence or absence of anti-EpoR antibody. Results: EPO treatment at up to 8 hours after injury reduced the expression of axonal growth inhibiting molecules (glial fibrillary acidic protein, vimentin, and chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan), cytoskeletal regulatory proteins (Rho-associated protein kinase and ephephrin A4), and proinflammatory cytokines (tumor necrosis factor-alpha, transforming growth factor-beta, and phosphorylated-Smad3) in a dosedependent manner (P < .001). Most effects peaked with EPO treatment 2–4hours after injury. Additionally, EPO treatment up to 4 hours after injury promoted expression of the EpoR (>2-fold) and JAK2 (>3-fold) in a dose-dependent manner (P < .001), whereas co-treatment with AG490 precluded these effects (P < .001). EPO treatment up to 4hours after injury also enhanced axonal b-III tubulin-immunoreactivity (>12-fold), and this effect was precluded by co-treatment with an anti-EpoR antibody (P < .001). Conclusions: EPO treatment within 8 hours after injury reduced astrogliosis, and EPO treatment within 4 hours promoted neurite outgrowth. EPO therapy immediately after spinal cord injury may regulate glia to generate an environment permissive of axonal regeneration.
Evaluating the Classification of Economic Activity into Recessions and Expansions

The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research provides a historical chronology of business cycle turning points. We investigate three central aspects of this chronology. How skillful is the Dating Committee when classifying economic activity into expansions and recessions? Which indices of economic conditions best capture the current but unobservable state of the business cycle? And which indicators best predict future turning points, and at what horizons? We answer each of these questions in detail using methods specifically designed to assess classification ability. In the process, we clarify several important features of the business cycle. (JEL C82, E32)
A Budget Proposal for China’s Public Long-Term Care Policy

ABSTRACT Long-term care (LTC) policy is at an experimental stage in China, characterized by various regional pilot programs. The public cost of LTC is difficult to estimate due to a lack of clarity about policy detail from the central government. This article analyzes the current disabled status for vulnerable older people without sufficient financial resources and family supports. It focuses on estimating a safety net public subsidy policy for LTC services in China, both for today and into the future, using China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) data, 2011 wave, with the methods of multinomial logistic regression and simulation. The key contribution is to estimate the future disability trend and LTC public cost based on changes in education, population ageing, and urbanization. Disability prevalence might be decreasing partly due to higher education, urbanization, and better health care, and the overall public LTC costs might be growing by the results of projection.
Language production strategies and disfluencies in multi-clause network descriptions: a study of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

UNLABELLED A prominent behavioral manifestation of impulsivity in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is inappropriate language production, such as talking excessively, blurting out answers, and interrupting others. OBJECTIVE In this study, we examined language production in ADHD and non-ADHD controls to determine whether these types of language production problems are apparent in adults with ADHD. METHOD Participants (18-35 years old, 53.3% male) were asked to describe networks of colored dots that contained two branches that differed in length and complexity. According to the Minimal-Load Principle (Levelt, 1989), participants should prefer to describe a shorter and less complex branch first, in order to minimize planning and memory demands when formulating a description of the network. The dependent measures focused on which branch participants chose to describe first and the fluency of the descriptions. Four types of disfluency were examined: filled pauses, silent pauses, repetitions, and repairs. RESULTS There was no difference between ADHD participants and controls in the decisions they made when describing the networks (p > .10, η² = .004). Participants in both groups preferred to describe a short branch before describing a long branch and decisions were unaffected by complexity. However, ADHD participants did produce more words overall, t(73) = -2.33, p < . 05, η² = . 07, and they also produced more disfluencies, F(4, 70) = 2.98, p < . 05, η² = . 15, even after adjusting for number of words produced. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest less language efficiency and reduced fluency in ADHD, and that language production issues remain in adults with ADHD, similar to the issues commonly reported in children with ADHD.
Major changes in the composition of a Southern Ocean bacterial community in response to diatom‐derived dissolved organic matter

Abstract In the Southern Ocean, natural iron fertilization in the wake of islands leads to annually occurring spring phytoplankton blooms associated with enhanced heterotrophic activity through the release of labile dissolved organic matter (DOM). The aim of this study was to investigate experimentally how diatom‐derived DOM affects the composition of Southern Ocean winter water bacterial communities and to identify the most responsive taxa. A bacterial community collected in the naturally iron‐fertilized region off Kerguelen Island (KEOPS2 October‐November 2011) was grown onboard in continuous cultures, on winter water alone or amended with diatom‐derived DOM supplied at identical DOC concentrations. 454 sequencing of 16S amplicons revealed that the two DOM sources sustained strikingly different bacterial communities, with higher relative abundances of Sulfitobacter, Colwellia and Methylophaga operational taxonomic units (OTUs) and lower relative abundances of Polaribacter, Marinobacter, NAC11‐7 and SAR11 OTUs in diatom‐DOM compared to winter water conditions. Using a modeling approach, we obtained growth rates for phylogenetically diverse taxa varying between 0.12 and 0.49 d−1 under carbon‐limited conditions. Our results identify diatom DOM as a key factor shaping Southern Ocean winter water bacterial communities and suggest a role for niche partitioning and microbial interactions in organic matter utilization. Figure. No Caption available.
A Novel Short-Term Event Extraction Algorithm for Biomedical Signals

In this paper, we propose a fast novel nonlinear filtering method named Relative-Energy (Rel-En), for robust short-term event extraction from biomedical signals. We developed an algorithm that extracts short- and long-term energies in a signal and provides a coefficient vector with which the signal is multiplied, heightening events of interest. This algorithm is thoroughly assessed on benchmark datasets in three different biomedical applications, namely ECG QRS-complex detection, EEG K-complex detection, and imaging photoplethysmography (iPPG) peak detection. Rel-En successfully identified the events in these settings. Compared to the state-of-the-art, better or comparable results were obtained on QRS-complex and K-complex detection. For iPPG peak detection, the proposed method was used as a preprocessing step to a fixed threshold algorithm that lead to a significant improvement in overall results. While easily defined and computed, Rel-En robustly extracted short-term events of interest. The proposed algorithm can be implemented by two filters and its parameters can be selected easily and intuitively. Furthermore, Rel-En algorithm can be used in other biomedical signal processing applications where a need of short-term event extraction is present.
Eye-Catching Odors: Olfaction Elicits Sustained Gazing to Faces and Eyes in 4-Month-Old Infants

This study investigated whether an odor can affect infants' attention to visually presented objects and whether it can selectively direct visual gaze at visual targets as a function of their meaning. Four-month-old infants (n = 48) were exposed to their mother's body odors while their visual exploration was recorded with an eye-movement tracking system. Two groups of infants, who were assigned to either an odor condition or a control condition, looked at a scene composed of still pictures of faces and cars. As expected, infants looked longer at the faces than at the cars but this spontaneous preference for faces was significantly enhanced in presence of the odor. As expected also, when looking at the face, the infants looked longer at the eyes than at any other facial regions, but, again, they looked at the eyes significantly longer in the presence of the odor. Thus, 4-month-old infants are sensitive to the contextual effects of odors while looking at faces. This suggests that early social attention to faces is mediated by visual as well as non-visual cues.
Surface Characterization of Alkali Treated Kenaf Fibers by XPS and AFM

Kenaf fibers were immersed in 6% solution of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 hours. The treated fibers were characterized with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The XPS results showed that the alkali treatment increased the proportion of oxygen atoms on the fiber surface as indicated by the increase in oxygen-carbon ratio. An increase in C2 peak (C-OH bonds) was also observed suggesting the present of cellulose on the fiber surface. The decrease in C1 peak (C-C bonds) suggested that lignin was removed from the fiber surface following the alkali treatment. Scale-like structures were observed from the AFM topographic images to indicate the presence of cellulose microfibrils in the primary cell wall of the treated fiber. Alkali treated fiber surface showed lower mean surface roughness than the untreated fiber indicating smoother fiber surface. The fiber surface became relatively smooth after the alkali treatment due to the removal of non-cellulosic layer.
Transcriptome Analysis in Sheepgrass (Leymus chinensis): A Dominant Perennial Grass of the Eurasian Steppe

Background Sheepgrass [Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel. ] is an important perennial forage grass across the Eurasian Steppe and is known for its adaptability to various environmental conditions. However, insufficient data resources in public databases for sheepgrass limited our understanding of the mechanism of environmental adaptations, gene discovery and molecular marker development. Results The transcriptome of sheepgrass was sequenced using Roche 454 pyrosequencing technology. We assembled 952,328 high-quality reads into 87,214 unigenes, including 32,416 contigs and 54,798 singletons. There were 15,450 contigs over 500 bp in length. BLAST searches of our database against Swiss-Prot and NCBI non-redundant protein sequences (nr) databases resulted in the annotation of 54,584 (62.6%) of the unigenes. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis assigned 89,129 GO term annotations for 17,463 unigenes. We identified 11,675 core Poaceae-specific and 12,811 putative sheepgrass-specific unigenes by BLAST searches against all plant genome and transcriptome databases. A total of 2,979 specific freezing-responsive unigenes were found from this RNAseq dataset. We identified 3,818 EST-SSRs in 3,597 unigenes, and some SSRs contained unigenes that were also candidates for freezing-response genes. Characterizations of nucleotide repeats and dominant motifs of SSRs in sheepgrass were also performed. Similarity and phylogenetic analysis indicated that sheepgrass is closely related to barley and wheat. Conclusions This research has greatly enriched sheepgrass transcriptome resources. The identified stress-related genes will help us to decipher the genetic basis of the environmental and ecological adaptations of this species and will be used to improve wheat and barley crops through hybridization or genetic transformation. The EST-SSRs reported here will be a valuable resource for future gene-phenotype studies and for the molecular breeding of sheepgrass and other Poaceae species.
Different male vs. female breeding periodicity helps mitigate offspring sex ratio skews in sea turtles

The implications of climate change for global biodiversity may be profound with those species with little capacity for adaptation being thought to be particularly vulnerable to warming. A classic case of groups for concern are those animals exhibiting temperature-dependent sex-determination (TSD), such as sea turtles, where climate warming may produce single sex populations and hence extinction. We show that, globally, female biased hatchling sex ratios dominate sea turtle populations (exceeding 3:1 in >50% records), which, at-a-glance, reiterates concerns for extinction. However, we also demonstrate that more frequent breeding by males, empirically shown by satellite tracking 23 individuals and supported by a generalized bio-energetic life history model, generates more balanced operational sex ratios (OSRs). Hence, concerns of increasingly skewed hatchling sex ratios and reduced population viability are less acute than previously thought for sea turtles. In fact, in some scenarios skewed hatchling sex ratios in groups with TSD may be adaptive to ensure optimum OSRs.
High-pH inclined stress corrosion cracking in Australian and Canadian gas pipeline X65 steels

High-pH stress corrosion cracking is a form of environmental degradation of gas pipeline steels. The crack path is intergranular by nature and typically perpendicular to the maximum applied (hoop) stress (i.e. perpendicular to the pipe outer surface). Some unusual instances of cracks have been observed in Canadian and Australian X65 pipes, where cracks grow away from the perpendicular for considerable distances. This paper presents a comparative study in terms of crack morphology, mechanical properties and crystallographic texture for these Australian and Canadian pipe steels. It is shown that the crack morphologies are quite similar, the main difference being the angle at which the cracks propagate into the material. This difference could be explained by the different through-wall texture and grain aspect ratio measured in the two materials. The interdependency of crack tip plasticity, crack tip electrochemistry and anisotropy in microstructural texture seems to heavily affect the resulting inclined crack path.
The current and future role of stem cells in myelodysplastic syndrome therapies

ABSTRACT Introduction: Allogeneic blood stem cell transplantation (aBSCT) still is the only curative therapy for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes. While it carries the hope for cure for some patients, it may result in severe toxicity and death from complications or recurrent disease in others. Recent developments have improved patient and donor selection as well as technical aspects of the transplant procedure and post-transplant care, including early detection and treatment of relapse. Areas covered: This review will discuss current stratification tools to identify suitable patients, donors and transplant techniques. In addition, it will cover the prognostic and predictive value of cytogenetics and somatic mutations and elucidate strategies for minimal residual disease detection as well as prophylactic and preemptive treatment of recurrent disease. Expert commentary: aBSCT will continue to be the most powerful curative treatment option for patients with MDS. Advances in the understanding of disease biology will allow to incorporate molecular alterations in current prognostic scores, tracking of specific mutations during therapy and the use of novel, targeted therapies to augment the graft versus leukemia effect.
Cooling Slope Casting Process of Semi-solid Aluminum Alloys: A Review

Cooling Slope casting process promises to be a simple yet useful technique to produce semi-solid feedstock for thixoforming processes. However, the challenge lies in the judicious choice of process parameters to obtain a desired microstructure in the semisolid feedstock. The present paper reviews various investigations made by researchers with different parameters of Cooling Slope casting process and highlights their importance which is divided into four sections. Initially, the fundamentals of semi-solid metal processing are discussed and the classification of semi-solid processing has been outlined. Secondly, focus was drawn on fundamentals of the Cooling Slope casting process, the mechanism involved, with a note on its advantages and drawbacks. The third section lays particular emphasis on Cooling Slope casting process parameters that affect the final microstructure of the feedstock. The final section deals with reheating and isothermal holding conditions to obtain a sound component and the mechanical properties obtained thereafter. Keywords— Semi-solid metal processing; thixoforming; Cooling slope casting; Aluminum alloys
Property Modification of Edible Wheat, Gluten-Based Films

Procedures were developed to produce edible wheat, gluten-based films. A film was produced as a standard. Five additional films were then produced by modifying the initial film-forming solution. Modifications included changing the plasticizer, partially substituting wheat gluten with soy protein isolate and corn zein, and incorporating two acetylated monoglyceride products. All films were characterized by measuring selected mechanical properties, and permeabilities to water vapor and to oxygen. Comparison of the films, in terms of their measured properties, indicates ways to improve the overall performance of the standard film as a potential packaging material. A main limitation of all of the films was their poor water vapor barrier characteristics. On the other hand, they were very good oxygen barriers. All modified films were stronger than the standard in terms of tensile and bursting strength. The film containing soy protein was the strongest and the most uniform. Significant differences in measured properties were observed when the plasticizer was changed from glycerin to triethylene glycol.
Stabilization of Discrete-Time Systems With Multiple Actuator Delays and Saturations

This paper studies the problems of global and semi-global stabilization of discrete-time linear systems with multiple input saturations and arbitrarily large bounded delays. By developing the methodology of truncated predictor feedback (TPF), state feedback control laws using only the current states of the systems are constructed to solve these problems. The feedback gains are dependent on the delay information of the open-loop system and thus are referred to as delay-dependent feedback. A method for determining the exact condition such that the resulting closed-loop system is asymptotically stable is also presented. Moreover, if the delays in the system are time-varying or even unknown, a modified delay-independent TPF is also established to solve the concerned problems. Numerical example has been worked out to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.
Status and challenges of municipal solid waste management in India: A review

Abstract The abysmal state of and challenges in municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in urban India is the motivation of the present study. Urbanization contributes enhanced municipal solid waste (MSW) generation and unscientific handling of MSW degrades the urban environment and causes health hazards. In this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate the major parameters of MSWM, in addition to a comprehensive review of MSW generation, its characterization, collection, and treatment options as practiced in India. The current status of MSWM in Indian states and important cities of India is also reported. The essential conditions for harnessing optimal benefits from the possibilities for public private partnership and challenges thereof and unnoticeable role of rag-pickers are also discussed. The study concludes that installation of decentralized solid waste processing units in metropolitan cities/towns and development of formal recycling industry sector is the need of the hour in developing countries like India.
Variable response of nirK and nirS containing denitrifier communities to long‐term pH manipulation and cultivation

&NA; Denitrification is a key process responsible for the majority of soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions but the influences of pH and cultivation on the soil denitrifier community remain poorly understood. We hypothesised that the abundance and community structure of the total bacterial community and bacterial denitrifiers would be pH sensitive and that nirK and nirS containing denitrifiers would differ in their responses to change in pH and cultivation. We investigated the effect of long‐term pH‐adjusted soils (ranging from pH 4.2 to 6.6) under different lengths of grass cultivation (one, two and three years of ley grass) on the general bacterial and denitrifier functional communities using 16S rRNA, nirK and nirS genes as markers. Denitrifier abundance increased with pH, and at pH below 4.7 there was a greater loss in nirS abundance per unit drop in pH than soils above this threshold pH. All community structures responded to changes in soil pH, while cultivation only influenced the community structure of nirK. These differences in denitrifier responses highlight the importance of considering both nirK and nirS gene markers for estimating denitrifier activity. Identifying such thresholds in response of the microbial community to changes in pH is essential to understanding impacts of management or environmental change.