Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Age on Postoperative Morbidity in Women Undergoing Urogynecologic Surgery

Objectives The objectives of this study were to estimate the effect of older age on postoperative morbidity and to assess other factors associated with postoperative complications after urogynecologic surgery. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 508 women who underwent pelvic floor reconstructive surgery between March 2011 and June 2013. Our 2 cohorts were based on age—women younger than 65 years and women aged 65 years or older. Our primary outcome was clinically significant postoperative complications defined as Dindo-Clavien grade greater than or equal to 2. We compared the risk of postoperative morbidity between the cohorts and constructed a logistic regression analysis to adjust for potential confounders. Results Of the 508 patients, 300 (59.1%) were in the younger cohort and 208 (40.9%) were in the older cohort. For our primary outcome, we found that older women had a significantly higher rate of clinically significant postoperative complications (12.5% vs 6.7%, P = 0.02). In a multivariate logistic regression model that included advanced prolapse, smoking status, Charlson Comorbidity Index, body mass index, and operative time, older age remained significantly associated with greater postoperative morbidity (odds ratio, 2.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.03–4.11). The length of surgery in hours was also associated with greater morbidity (odds ratio, 1.47; 95% confidence interval, 1.14–1.66). Conclusions Women aged 65 years and older who underwent urogynecologic surgery had a higher risk of clinically significant postoperative complications based on the Dindo-Clavien Scale when compared with women younger than 65 years.
Asymptotic behavior of weighted quadratic variations of fractional Brownian motion: The critical case H=1/4

We derive the asymptotic behavior of weighted quadratic variations of fractional Brow- nian motion B with Hurst index H = 1/4. This completes the only missing case in a very recent work by I. Nourdin, D. Nualart and C.A. Tudor. Moreover, as an application, we solve a recent conjecture of K. Burdzy and J. Swanson on the asymptotic behavior of the Riemann sums with alternating signs associated to B.
Characterisation of the Misalignment and Misangulation Components in the Poggendorff and Corner-Poggendorff Illusions

In the Poggendorff illusion, two colinear segments abutting obliquely on an intervening configuration (often consisting of two long parallel lines) appear misaligned. We report here the results of a component analysis of the illusion and several of its variants, including in particular the ‘corner-Poggendorff’ illusion, and variants with a single arm. Using a nulling method, we determined an ‘orientation profile’ of each configuration, that is, how the illusions varied as the configuration was rotated in the plane of the display. We were able to characterise a pure-misalignment component (having peaks and dips around the ±22.5° and ±67.5° orientations of the arms) and a pure misangulation component of constant sign, having peaks at the ±45° orientations of the arms. Both these components were present in both the classic and the corner-Poggendorff configurations. Thus, the misangulation component appears clearly in the classic Poggendorff illusion, once the misalignment component is partitioned out. Similarly, the corner-Poggendorff configuration, which essentially estimates a misangulation component, contains a misalignment component which becomes apparent once the misangulation is nulled. While our analysis accounts for much of the variability in the shapes of the profiles, additional assumptions must be made to explain the relatively small misangulation measured in the corner-Poggendorff configuration (1.5°, on average, at peak value), and the relatively large illusion measured in the configurations with a single arm (above 6°, on average, at peak values). We invoke the notion that parallelism and colinearity detectors provide counteracting cues, the first class reducing misangulation in the corner-Poggendorff configuration, and the second class reducing the illusion in the Poggendorff configurations with two arms.
Nontraumatic spinal cord injury at the neurological intensive care unit: spectrum, causes of admission and predictors of mortality

Objective: Nontraumatic spinal cord injuries (NTSCIs) form a heterogeneous group of diseases, which may evolve into a life-threatening condition. We sought to characterize spectrum, causes of admission and predictors of death in patients with NTSCI treated at the neurological intensive care unit (NICU). Methods: We performed a retrospective observational analysis of NTSCI cases treated at a tertiary care center between 2001 and 2013. Among the 3937 NICU admissions were 93 patients with NTSCI (2.4%). Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, we examined predictors of mortality including demographics, etiology, reasons for admission and GCS/SAPS (Glasgow Coma Scale/Simplified Acute Physiology Score) scores. Results: Infectious and inflammatory/autoimmune causes made up 50% of the NTSCI cases. The most common reasons for NICU admission were rapidly progressing paresis (49.5%) and abundance of respiratory insufficiency (26.9%). The mortality rate was 22.6% and 2.5-fold higher than in the cohort of all other patients treated at the NICU. Respiratory insufficiency as the reason for NICU admission [odds ratio (OR) 4.97, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.38–17.9; p < 0.01], high initial SAPS scores (OR 1.04; 95% CI 1.003–1.08; p = 0.04), and the development of acute kidney injury throughout the stay (OR 7.25, 1.9–27.5; p = 0.004) were independent risk factors for NICU death. Conclusions: Patients with NTSCI account for a subset of patients admitted to the NICU and are at risk for adverse outcome. A better understanding of predisposing conditions and further knowledge of management of critically ill patients with NTSCI is mandatory.
The Informativeness of k -Means and Dimensionality Reduction for Learning Mixture Models

The learning of mixture models can be viewed as a clustering problem. Indeed, given data samples independently generated from a mixture of distributions, we often would like to ﬁnd the correct target clustering of the samples according to which component distribution they were generated from. For a clustering problem, practitioners often choose to use the simple k -means algorithm. k -means attempts to ﬁnd an optimal clustering which minimizes the sum-of-squared distance between each point and its cluster center. In this paper, we provide suﬃcient conditions for the closeness of any optimal clustering and the correct target clustering assuming that the data samples are generated from a mixture of log-concave distributions. Moreover, we show that under similar or even weaker conditions on the mixture model, any optimal clustering for the samples with reduced dimensionality is also close to the correct target clustering. These results provide intuition for the informativeness of k -means (with and without dimensionality reduction) as an algorithm for learning mixture models. We verify the correctness of our theorems using numerical experiments and demonstrate using datasets with reduced dimensionality signiﬁcant speed ups for the time required to perform clustering.
Surface-Micromachined CMUT Using Low-Temperature Deposited Silicon Carbide Membranes for Above-IC Integration

This paper presents a surface-micromachining technology to fabricate silicon carbide (SiC)-based capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs). The use of dc-sputtered amorphous SiC as a structural layer allows the fabrication process to limit the temperature to a thermal budget of 200 °C, which is the lowest reported to date, making this technology ideally suited for above-IC integration. The high Young's modulus of the deposited SiC film, along with its very low residual stress, results in high strength and resilient CMUT membranes. The placement of the suspended aluminum electrode directly at the bottom side of the membrane reduces the effective size of the electrostatic transduction gap, resulting in superior electro-mechanical coupling. Fabricated transducers are tested in air with both continuous-wave and pulsed signals, using a pitch-and-catch configuration. The transducer pair, composed of 110-μm-diameter membrane arrays, exhibits a resonant frequency of 1.75 MHz, a 3 dB-bandwidth of 0.15 MHz, and a transmission gain of -38 dB. The CMUT prototypes showcase the versatility of low-temperature dc-sputtered SiC films applied in the field of MEMS.
Transmural Heterogeneity of Ventricular Repolarization Under Baseline and Long QT Conditions in the Canine Heart In Vivo: Torsades de Pointes Develops with Halothane but not Pentobarbital Anesthesia

Transmural Dispersion of Repolarization In Vivo. Introduction: In vitro studies have provided evidence for the existence of M cells. The present study examines the contribution of the M cell to transmural dispersion of repolarization (TDR) and to the development of torsades de pointes (TdP) in the canine heart in vivo in animals anesthetized with either pentobarbital or halothane.
Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation and Atrial Flutter: Part II

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is often complicated by a life-threatening ventricular response, and emergency electrocardioversion and/or drug therapy to reduce the rapid ventricular rate may be necessary. However, patients with AF and Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome should not be given digoxin or calcium channel blockers. Elective direct current (DC) cardioversion has a higher success rate and a lower incidence of cardiac adverse effects than does medical cardioversion in converting AF to sinus rhythm. Unless transesophageal echocardiography has shown no thrombus in the left atrial appendage before cardioversion, oral warfarin should be given for 3 weeks before elective direct current or drug cardioversion of AF and continued for at least 4 weeks after maintenance of sinus rhythm. Many cardiologists prefer, especially in older patients, ventricular rate control plus warfarin rather than maintaining sinus rhythm with antiarrhythmic drugs. Patients with chronic or paroxysmal AF at high risk for stroke should be treated with long-term warfarin to achieve an international normalized ratio of 2.0–3.0. Patients with AF at low risk for stroke or with contraindications to warfarin should be treated with aspirin 325 mg daily. Management of atrial flutter is similar to management of AF.
Ego Development Theory and Its Implications for Supervision.

This article discusses the implications of ego development theory and assessment for the supervision and education of counselors. Using Loevinger's theory as a model, current thinking and research on the relationship between ego development theory and counseling supervision are examined. The author proposes that the concept of matching methodology, counselor, and client through ego development assessment may also be applied to the supervision and education of counselors at all levels.
Regular Patterns in Cerebellar Purkinje Cell Simple Spike Trains

Background Cerebellar Purkinje cells (PC) in vivo are commonly reported to generate irregular spike trains, documented by high coefficients of variation of interspike-intervals (ISI). In strong contrast, they fire very regularly in the in vitro slice preparation. We studied the nature of this difference in firing properties by focusing on short-term variability and its dependence on behavioral state. Methodology/Principal Findings Using an analysis based on CV2 values, we could isolate precise regular spiking patterns, lasting up to hundreds of milliseconds, in PC simple spike trains recorded in both anesthetized and awake rodents. Regular spike patterns, defined by low variability of successive ISIs, comprised over half of the spikes, showed a wide range of mean ISIs, and were affected by behavioral state and tactile stimulation. Interestingly, regular patterns often coincided in nearby Purkinje cells without precise synchronization of individual spikes. Regular patterns exclusively appeared during the up state of the PC membrane potential, while single ISIs occurred both during up and down states. Possible functional consequences of regular spike patterns were investigated by modeling the synaptic conductance in neurons of the deep cerebellar nuclei (DCN). Simulations showed that these regular patterns caused epochs of relatively constant synaptic conductance in DCN neurons. Conclusions/Significance Our findings indicate that the apparent irregularity in cerebellar PC simple spike trains in vivo is most likely caused by mixing of different regular spike patterns, separated by single long intervals, over time. We propose that PCs may signal information, at least in part, in regular spike patterns to downstream DCN neurons.
Sleep-related Cognitions Mediate the Impact of Neuroticism on Insomnia.

OBJECTIVES Our study aimed to explore how neuroticism and neuroticism-related traits as well as sleep-related cognitions (dysfunctional beliefs and subjective quality of sleep) influence the emergence of insomnia using a mediational model. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted in which 159 insomniac patients paired with 159 normal sleepers in sex and age (N = 318) completed an online questionnaire. RESULTS At the global level, dysfunctional beliefs and poor subjective quality of sleep mediated the neuroticism-insomnia path; at the trait-specific level, these variables mediated the anxiety-insomnia path and partially mediated the effects of vulnerability and self-consciousness on insomnia; some other relations were essentially indirect effects (between depression and insomnia). CONCLUSIONS These findings extend our understanding of how neuroticism is a predisposing factor of insomnia. This knowledge could be helpful to shape prevention and intervention programs to treat insomnia.
CONTEMPORARY PATTERNS IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT: PHYLOGEOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE PIPEVINE SWALLOWTAIL, BATTUS PHILENOR (PAPILIONIDAE)

Abstract We examined mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation in pipevine swallowtail butterflies (Battus philenor) from throughout its extant range to provide a historical, phylogeographical context for ecological studies of the disjunct population in California. We evaluate current hypotheses regarding host plant use, behavior, and mimetic relationships of B. philenor populations and generate alternative hypotheses. Compared to populations throughout the rest of the species' range, California populations are ecologically distinct in that they lack mimics, lay significantly larger clutches of eggs, and exclusively use a unique, endemic larval host plant. Analysis of molecular variance, tests of population differentiation, and nested clade analysis of mtDNA variation indicate that, despite low levels of population genetic structure across the species' range, there is evidence of recent range expansion from presumed Pleistocene refuge(s) in southeastern North America. Colonization of California appears to have been a recent event. This phylogeographic investigation also suggests that the evolution of life-history adaptations to a novel larval host has occurred rapidly in California and the lack of mimics in California may be attributable to the recency of colonization.
Ive wasted maybe half of my life on one body part : the experience of living with body dysmorphic disorder

Sabina Brohede, Barbro Wijma, Klaas Wijma and Karin Blomberg, I will be at deaths door and realize that Ive wasted maybe half of my life on one body part: the experience of living with body dysmorphic disorder, International journal of psychiatry in clinical practice (Print), 2016. 20(3), pp.191-198. http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/13651501.2016. 1197273 Copyright: Informa Healthcare http://informahealthcare.com/
Assessment of the Needs of Caregivers of Stroke Patients at State-Owned Acute-Care Hospitals in Southern Vietnam, 2011

Introduction Care for stroke patients has improved steadily in southern Vietnam. Medical treatments such as thrombolytic therapy have been implemented at several hospitals, and stroke-care units composed of a team of various health professionals have been created. However, little attention has been focused on providing support to caregivers of stroke patients. This study aimed to characterize the caregivers of stroke patients who were treated in state-owned acute-care hospitals and to learn about their needs when patients are discharged. Such information can be used to enhance the caregiver’s support system. Methods We used questionnaires to conduct a descriptive study in 2011 at a state-owned acute-care hospital in southern Vietnam. We recruited study participants from among caregivers of stroke patients who had been informed of their hospital discharge date. We assessed 8 caregiver characteristics, and caregiver participants selected their needs from the survey’s list of 15 possible needs. We analyzed the data by using the independent sample t test and logistic regression. Results Of the 93 caregivers who consented to participate, 86 (92.5%) completed the survey and indicated their concerns at discharge. The most frequently cited need was information on how to prevent stroke recurrence (72, 83.7%), followed by which drugs are most effective in preventing a relapse (62, 72.1%), how long recovery would take (61, 70.9%), and availability of hospitals in the patient’s hometown (60, 69.8%). A little over half of caregivers indicated financial concerns. A caregiver’s need for information on diet for a stroke survivor increased with the caregiver’s education level. Conclusions This study revealed several needs among caregivers of stroke survivors in southern Vietnam that are similar to those found by studies of caregivers of stroke survivors in high-income countries. Our findings suggest that comprehensive stroke care that includes caregiver education about healthful diets and prevention of stroke recurrence is needed at state-owned acute-care hospitals in southern Vietnam.
MHV rules for Higgs plus multi-gluon amplitudes

We present MHV-rules for constructing perturbative amplitudes for a Higgs boson and an arbitrary number of partons. We give explicit expressions for amplitudes involving a Higgs and three negative helicity partons and any number of positive helicity partons - the NMHV amplitudes. We also present a recursive formulation of MHV rules that incorporates the Higgs, quarks and gluons. The recursion relations are valid for all non-MHV amplitudes. The general results agree numerically with all of the available Higgs + n-parton amplitudes and in some cases provide considerably shorter expressions.
The Latent Relation Mapping Engine: Algorithm and Experiments

Many AI researchers and cognitive scientists have argued that analogy is the core of cognition. The most influential work on computational modeling of analogy-making is Structure Mapping Theory (SMT) and its implementation in the Structure Mapping Engine (SME). A limitation of SME is the requirement for complex hand-coded representations. We introduce the Latent Relation Mapping Engine (LRME), which combines ideas from SME and Latent Relational Analysis (LRA) in order to remove the requirement for hand-coded representations. LRME builds analogical mappings between lists of words, using a large corpus of raw text to automatically discover the semantic relations among the words. We evaluate LRME on a set of twenty analogical mapping problems, ten based on scientific analogies and ten based on common metaphors. LRME achieves human-level performance on the twenty problems. We compare LRME with a variety of alternative approaches and find that they are not able to reach the same level of performance.
Suspected appendicitis in children: focused CT technique for evaluation.

PURPOSE To determine the accuracy of a focused computed tomographic (CT) technique with oral and intravenous contrast materials for the diagnosis of appendicitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ninety-three abdominal-pelvic contrast material-enhanced CT scans obtained during 6 years in 54 girls and 39 boys (age range, 1-18 years) with right lower quadrant pain were retrospectively reviewed. The detected abnormal findings were recorded as being in the region above the upper pole of the right kidney, between the upper pole of the right kidney and the lower pole of the right kidney (RLP), or below the iliac crest. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were calculated. chi(2) analysis was performed to determine whether there were significant differences among patient groups according to region of detected disease. RESULTS Fifty-five scans were abnormal: 38 showed appendicitis; and 17, other diseases. No scans, except two that showed pneumonia, had key findings above the RLP. Nineteen scans showed key findings between the RLP and the iliac crest. Thirty-three scans had diagnostic findings only below the iliac crest. The sensitivity (97%), specificity (93%), positive predictive value (90%), and negative predictive value (98%) of interpretation with all images for the diagnosis of appendicitis were the same as those of interpretation with only the focused images. CONCLUSION CT performed to diagnose appendicitis can be limited to the region below the RLP.
Depression in women with endometriosis with and without chronic pelvic pain

Aim. The aim of the study is to compare the prevalence of depression in women surgically diagnosed with endometriosis according to the presence or absence of pelvic pain. Methods. This cross‐sectional prospective study evaluated 100 women receiving care at the Outpatients’ Clinic for Endometriosis, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, equally divided into two groups: one suffering from chronic pelvic pain and the other pain‐free. The Beck Depression Inventory was used in order to measure depression. Results. Depression was detected in 86 and 38% of the women with and without chronic pelvic pain, respectively. Complaints of depression, such as somatic concerns, work inhibition, dissatisfaction, and sadness, were observed at a significantly higher rate in the group with pain. A sensation of failure was the only variable observed more frequently in the pain‐free group. Conclusions. Depression is highly prevalent in women with endometriosis, especially those with pelvic pain. Careful evaluation can identify women with depression who may benefit from treatment.
Binocular cross-orientation suppression in the primary visual cortex (V1) of infant rhesus monkeys.

PURPOSE To better understand the course of cortical maturation during early development, the phenomenon of binocular cross-orientation suppression in neurons of the primary visual cortex (V1) in young infant monkeys was investigated. METHODS Extracellular single-unit recordings were made in anesthetized and paralyzed monkeys ranging in age between 6 days and 8 weeks. Orthogonally oriented, dichoptic sine-wave gratings were used as visual stimuli. RESULTS V1 neurons in young infant monkeys showed a higher prevalence and greater magnitude of binocular cross-orientation suppression than in adult monkeys. Binocular suppression decreased and reached an adult level between 4 and 8 weeks of age, the presumed onset-age for stereopsis in monkeys. CONCLUSIONS During the first 4 weeks of life, the functional connections that are necessary for initiating binocular cross-orientation suppression exist in the monkey primary visual cortex. This finding is consistent with the view that before the abrupt onset of stereopsis, human infants may detect the differences between interocularly iso-oriented gratings and orthogonal gratings.