Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oxygen Saturation Nomogram in Newborns Screened for Critical Congenital Heart Disease

OBJECTIVE: To establish simultaneous pre- and postductal oxygen saturation nomograms in asymptomatic newborns when screening for critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) at ∼24 hours after birth. METHODS: Asymptomatic term and late preterm newborns admitted to the newborn nursery were screened with simultaneous pre- and postductal oxygen saturation measurements at ∼24 hours after birth. The screening program was implemented in a stepwise fashion in 3 different affiliated institutions. Data were collected prospectively from July 2009 to March 2012 in all 3 centers. RESULTS: We screened 13 714 healthy newborns at a median age of 25 hours. The mean preductal saturation was 98.29% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 98.27–98.31), median 98%, and mean postductal saturation was 98.57% (95% CI: 98.55–98.60), median 99%. The mean difference between the pre- and postductal saturation was −0.29% (95% CI: −0.31 to −0.27) with P < . 00005. Its clinical relevance to CCHD screening remains to be determined. The postductal saturation was equal to preductal saturation in 38% and greater than preductal saturation in 40% of the screens. CONCLUSIONS: We have established simultaneous pre- and postductal oxygen saturation nomograms at ∼24 hours after birth based on >13 000 asymptomatic newborns. Such nomograms are important to optimize screening thresholds and methodology for detecting CCHD.
Validation of S-band data performance for future spaceborne SAR missions

Most of the SAR missions of the latest years presented sensors working in X-band (like in the TerraSAR-X and Cosmo-SkyMed missions). Today new SAR missions, working at alternative frequencies like S-band, are under planning/design and will be launched in the upcoming years. In addition, full polarimetry is likely to be implemented in some of those missions. This is the case of the UK sensor NovaSAR-S to be launched by 2013. In order to validate the performance of S-band, especially in comparison with the better known and tested X-band, an airborne demonstrator has been set up to contemporaneously acquire fully polarimetric SAR data in both bands. In this paper we present, compare and discuss results deriving from the application of the H/α and the Pauli decompositions to the fully polarimetric datasets in both bands to understand possible advantages of S-band in specific applications.
Benefits of exercise intervention in reducing neuropathic pain

Peripheral neuropathy is a widespread and potentially incapacitating pathological condition that encompasses more than 100 different forms and manifestations of nerve damage. The diverse pathogenesis of peripheral neuropathy affects autonomic, motor and/or sensory neurons, and the symptoms that typify the condition are abnormal cutaneous sensation, muscle dysfunction and, most notably, chronic pain. Chronic neuropathic pain is difficult to treat and is often characterized by either exaggerated responses to painful stimuli (hyperalgesia) or pain resulting from stimuli that would not normally provoke pain (allodynia). The objective of this review is to provide an overview of some pathways associated with the development of peripheral neuropathy and then discuss the benefits of exercise interventions. The development of neuropathic pain is a highly complex and multifactorial process, but recent evidence indicates that the activation of spinal glial cells via the enzyme glycogen synthase kinase 3 and increases in the production of both pro-inflammatory cytokines and brain derived neurotropic factor are crucial steps. Since many of the most common causes of peripheral neuropathy cannot be fully treated, it is critical to understand that routine exercise may not only help prevent some of those causes, but that it has also proven to be an effective means of alleviating some of the condition’s most distressing symptoms. More research is required to elucidate the typical mechanisms of injury associated with peripheral neuropathy and the exercise-induced benefits to those mechanisms.
The 20-Bit DAC Is the Easiest Part of a 1-ppm-Accurate Precision Voltage Source

Introduction A common use of high-resolution digital-to-analog converters (DACs) is providing controllable precision voltages. Applications for DACs with resolution up to 20 bits, precision up to 1 ppm, and reasonable speed include gradient coil control in medical MRI systems; precision dc sources in test and measurement; precision set-point and position control in mass spectrometry and gas chromatography; and beamprobing in scientific applications.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: An Empirical Study into Its Relationship with Affective Commitment, Job Satisfaction, and Job Involvement

The topic of organizational citizenship behaviour has generated a considerable amount of research over the past ten years. This has derived particularly from industrial and organizational psychologists. Despite increasing interest, however, little research has been carried out from within a French context. The aim of this paper was to develop such knowledge. Although there are abundant studies on organizational citizenship behaviour, the role of job attitudes still remains much misunderstand. Job satisfaction and affective commitment have been studied the most, whilst relationships between job involvement and organizational citizenship behaviour have largely been neglected. An empirical study was conducted using a sample of 122? managers to examine the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviour, job satisfaction, affective commitment, and job involvement. Using confirmatory factor analysis, it was shown that an organizational citizenship behaviour structure builds upon four factors? : altruism, conciliation, courtesy, and civic virtue. The results suggest that sportsmanship is not present. Furthermore, they show that only job satisfaction and job involvement relate to altruism and civic virtue respectively. Affective commitment has no relationship with organizational citizenship behaviour. The present study indicates that when job satisfaction, affective commitment, and job involvement are considered together, only one determinant can stimulate organizational citizenship behaviour. It is a first time that these results have been obtained in a French context. The most important data concern the relationship between job involvement and organizational citizenship behaviour. Finally, the contribution made by this research is discussed, together with its implications and limitations.
MUP-4 is a novel transmembrane protein with functions in epithelial cell adhesion in Caenorhabditis elegans

Tissue functions and mechanical coupling of cells must be integrated throughout development. A striking example of this coupling is the interactions of body wall muscle and hypodermal cells in Caenorhabditis elegans. These tissues are intimately associated in development and their interactions generate structures that provide a continuous mechanical link to transmit muscle forces across the hypodermis to the cuticle. Previously, we established that mup-4 is essential in embryonic epithelial (hypodermal) morphogenesis and maintenance of muscle position. Here, we report that mup-4 encodes a novel transmembrane protein that is required for attachments between the apical epithelial surface and the cuticular matrix. Its extracellular domain includes epidermal growth factor-like repeats, a von Willebrand factor A domain, and two sea urchin enterokinase modules. Its intracellular domain is homologous to filaggrin, an intermediate filament (IF)-associated protein that regulates IF compaction and that has not previously been reported as part of a junctional complex. MUP-4 colocalizes with epithelial hemidesmosomes overlying body wall muscles, beginning at the time of embryonic cuticle maturation, as well as with other sites of mechanical coupling. These findings support that MUP-4 is a junctional protein that functions in IF tethering, cell–matrix adherence, and mechanical coupling of tissues.
Transcranial direct current stimulation of the prefrontal cortex: a means to modulate fear memories

Targeting memory processes by noninvasive interventions is a potential gateway to modulate fear memories as shown by animal and human studies in recent years. Modulation of fear memories by noninvasive brain stimulation techniques might be an attractive approach, which, however, has not been examined so far. We investigated the effect of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left supraorbital region on fear memories in humans. Seventy-four young, healthy individuals were assigned randomly to two groups, which underwent fear conditioning with mild electric stimuli paired with a visual stimulus. Twenty-four hours later, both groups were shown a reminder of the conditioned fearful stimulus. Shortly thereafter, they received either tDCS (right prefrontal – anodal, left supraorbital – cathodal) for 20 min at 1 mA current intensity or sham stimulation. A day later, fear responses of both groups were compared by monitoring skin conductance. On day 3, during fear response assessment, the tDCS group had a significantly (P<0.05) higher mean skin conductance in comparison with the sham group. These results suggest that tDCS (right prefrontal – anodal, left supraorbital – cathodal) enhanced fear memories, possibly by influencing the prefrontal cortex–amygdala circuit underlying the memory for fear.
Reversible Watermarking Algorithm with Distortion Compensation

A novel reversible watermarking algorithm with two-stage data hiding strategy is presented in this paper. The core idea is two-stage data hiding (i.e., hiding data twice in a pixel of a cell), where the distortion after the first stage of embedding can be rarely removed, mostly reduced, or hardly increased after the second stage. Note that even the increased distortion is smaller compared to that of other methods under the same conditions. For this purpose, we compute lower and upper bounds from ordered neighboring pixels. In the first stage, the difference value between a pixel and its corresponding lower bound is used to hide one bit. The distortion can be removed, reduced, or increased by hiding another bit of data by using a difference value between the upper bound and the modified pixel. For the purpose of controlling capacity and reducing distortion, we determine appropriate threshold values. Finally, we present an algorithm to handle overflow/underflow problems designed specifically for two-stage embedding. Experimental study is carried out using several images, and the results are compared with well-known methods in the literature. The results clearly highlight that the proposed algorithm can hide more data with less distortion.
Skyline-join in distributed databases

The database research community has recently recognized the usefulness of skyline query. As an extension of existing database operator, the skyline query is valuable for multi-criteria decision making. However, current research tends to assume that the skyline operator is applied to one table which is not true for many applications on Web databases. In Web databases, tables are distributed in different sites, and a skyline query may involve attributes of multiple tables. In this paper, we address the problem of processing skyline queries on multiple tables in a distributed environment. We call the new operator skyline-join, as it is a hybrid of skyline and join operations. We propose two efficient approaches to process skyline-join queries which can significantly reduce the communication cost and processing time. Experiments are conducted and results show that our approaches are efficient for distributed skyline-join queries.
Application of shear wave elastography for the gastrocnemius medial head to tennis leg

Muscle strain of the gastrocnemius medial head mainly occurs at the musculotendinous junction (MTJ), and stiffness is a risk factor. Shear wave elastography (SWE) measures elasticity by determining the propagation velocity. The aim of this study was to measure the elasticity of the normal muscle and aponeurosis in the MTJ of the gastrocnemius medial head using SWE, thus obtaining information relevant to muscle strain at this point. Forty‐one volunteers (82 legs) were recruited and the gastrocnemius medial heads were examined at four points: three on the aponeurosis, namely at the center of the MTJ (Central), 10 mm proximal to it (Proximal) and 10 mm distal to it (Distal); and at one on the muscle belly (Muscle). The measurements were compared among the points, between males and females, and between younger and middle‐aged subjects. Correlations between the elastic modulus and age were also examined. The elastic moduli at Proximal, Central, Distal, and Muscle were 2.82 ± 0.53 m/s, 3.43 ± 0.83 m/s, 4.83 ± 1.56 m/s, and 2.25 ± 0.43 m/s, respectively. These values differed significantly among the points of the aponeurosis, Distal having the highest modulus followed by Central. The elastic moduli were significantly greater in males than females at Distal and Muscle and in younger subjects than middle‐aged subjects at Muscle. No significant correlations between elastic modulus and age were observed for any point. SWE could be a feasible method for quantifying the elasticity of muscle and aponeurosis in the MTJ of the gastrocnemius medial head. Clin. Anat. 30:114–119, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Performance analysis of MPEG-4 video stream with FEC error recovery over IEEE 802.11 DCF WLANs

Due to the increasing use of mobile and handheld devices, the performance of video streaming over wireless networks has emerged as an important concern in recent years. However, while many analytical models have been proposed for analyzing the system performance, these models do not take explicit account of the effects of error recovery. As a result, they fail to provide an accurate indication of the true video quality at the receiver end. Accordingly, this paper proposes a model for evaluating the performance of MPEG-4 video streaming with Forward Error Correction (FEC) over IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). The proposed model considers not only the effects of congestion and wireless frame losses, but also the FEC error recovery performance in improving the perceived video quality at the receiver end. The validity of the proposed model is demonstrated by comparing the predicted values of the Playable Frame Rate (PFR) with the results obtained from NS-2 simulations and two existing analytical models, respectively. The results confirm that the proposed model provides an accurate indication of the perceived quality of FEC-protected MPEG-4 video streaming over DCF WLANs.
Self-Sorted, Aligned Nanotube Networks for Thin-Film Transistors

To find use in electronics, single-walled carbon nanotubes need to be efficiently separated by electronic type and aligned to ensure optimal and reproducible electronic properties. We report the fabrication of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) network field-effect transistors, deposited from solution, possessing controllable topology and an on/off ratio as high as 900,000. The spin-assisted alignment and density of the SWNTs are tuned by different surfaces that effectively vary the degree of interaction with surface functionalities in the device channel. This leads to a self-sorted SWNT network in which nanotube chirality separation and simultaneous control of density and alignment occur in one step during device fabrication. Micro-Raman experiments corroborate device results as a function of surface chemistry, indicating enrichment of the specific SWNT electronic type absorbed onto the modified dielectric.
Schizophrenia, theory of mind, and persecutory delusions

Introduction. There is already a substantial body of evidence supporting Frith's (1992) theory that theory of mind (ToM) is impaired in people with schizophrenia. However, a specific relationship between impaired ToM and paranoid delusions, while intuitively reasonable, has only been demonstrated in two studies to date. Correspondence should be addressed to Richard J. Siegert, Rehabilitation Teaching and Research Unit, Department of Medicine, Wellington School of Medicine & Health Sciences, University of Otago, PO Box 7343, Wellington South, New Zealand; e‐mail: rsiegert@wnmeds.ac. nz This research was supported by a Victoria University Science Faculty research grant. Thanks to Max Coltheart and other members of the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science who provided valuable feedback and support in the early stages of this research. Preliminary results were presented at the Australian Conference of Cognitive Neuropsychology and Neuropsychiatry, Deakin University, 2001. Methods. A total of 25 participants with schizophrenia were classified as paranoid or nonparanoid and compared with 38 healthy controls on a variety of ToM tasks. These tasks included verbal and nonverbal, and first and second order ToM tasks. Results. Participants with schizophrenia performed significantly more poorly than healthy controls on both the first and second order verbal ToM tasks but not on the nonverbal ToM tasks. However, the ToM deficit was only observed for those participants with schizophrenia who had persecutory delusions. There was also a strong relationship observed between the severity of persecutory delusions and length of illness. Conclusions. This study represents only the third demonstration of a specific link between paranoid delusions and ToM impairment. Reasons why previous findings on this issue have been so inconsistent are considered. Further research is needed to explore the relationships among paranoia, ToM, and length of illness.
Quantitative PCR Assessments of Bacterial Species in Women with and without Bacterial Vaginosis

ABSTRACT Knowledge of the abundance of bacterial species in vaginal communities will help us to better understand their role in health and disease. However, progress in this field has been limited because quantifying bacteria in natural specimens is an arduous process. We developed quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) assays to facilitate assessments of bacterial abundance in vaginal specimens and evaluated the utility of these assays by measuring species abundance in patients whose vaginal floras were clinically described as normal, intermediate, or bacterial vaginosis (BV) as defined by Nugent's criteria. The qPCR measurements showed that Lactobacillus species were predominant in normal vaginal specimens and that high Lactobacillus crispatus and Lactobacillus jensenii abundance was specific to normal specimens, while Lactobacillus iners abundance was high in all categories including BV. The abundances of all non-Lactobacillus species were higher in BV specimens than in normal specimens. Prevotella species were prevalent in all specimens and represented a high percentage of total species in BV specimens. qPCR assays can be a useful tool for describing the structure of vaginal communities and elucidating their role in health and disease.
OligoDesign: optimal design of LNA (locked nucleic acid) oligonucleotide capture probes for gene expression profiling

We report the development of new software, OligoDesign, which provides optimal design of LNA (locked nucleic acid) substituted oligonucleotides for functional genomics applications. LNAs constitute a novel class of bicyclic RNA analogs having an exceptionally high affinity and specificity toward their complementary DNA and RNA target molecules. The OligoDesign software features recognition and filtering of the target sequence by genome-wide BLAST analysis in order to minimize cross-hybridization with non-target sequences. Furthermore it includes routines for prediction of melting temperature, self-annealing and secondary structure for LNA substituted oligonucleotides, as well as secondary structure prediction of the target nucleotide sequence. Individual scores for all these properties are calculated for each possible LNA oligonucleotide in the query gene and the OligoDesign program ranks the LNA capture probes according to a combined fuzzy logic score and finally returns the top scoring probes to the user in the output. We have successfully used the OligoDesign tool to design a Caenorhabditis elegans LNA oligonucleotide microarray, which allows monitoring of the expression of a set of 120 potential marker genes for a variety of stress and toxicological processes and toxicologically relevant pathways. The OligoDesign program is freely accessible at http://lnatools.com/.
Gene conversion and linkage: effects on genome evolution and speciation

Crossing over is well known to have profound effects on patterns of genetic diversity and genome evolution. Far less direct attention has been paid to another distinct outcome of meiotic recombination: noncrossover gene conversion (NCGC). Crossing over and NCGC both shuffle combinations of alleles, and this degradation of linkage disequilibrium (LD) has major evolutionary consequences, ranging from immediate effects on nucleotide diversity to long‐term consequences that shape genome evolution, species formation and species persistence. Unlike simple crossing over, NCGC has the potential to alter allele frequencies. Gene conversion can also occur in genomic regions where crossing over does not, and it purportedly exhibits more uniform rates across genomes. Considerable progress has been made towards understanding the mechanisms of gene conversion, and this progress enables us to begin exploring how gene conversion affects processes such as molecular evolution and interspecies gene flow. These topics are timely with the recent shift in focus from a primarily neutral null model of molecular evolution and speciation to one incorporating base levels of selection, making it all the more crucial to understand the basis and evolutionary implications of linkage. Here, we discuss the impact of gene conversion on genome structure and evolution and the current methods for detecting these events. We provide a comprehensive review of how gene conversion breaks down LD and affects both short‐ and long‐term evolutionary processes, and we contrast its impact to that expected from crossing over alone.
Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose

Love, Joy, Authenticity, and Soul:Building Winning Businesses in theNew Age of Transcendence· Why today's most humane companies are blowing away the SP It's Share of Hearti? i? i? i? i? i? 1Chapter 2i? i? i? New Age, New Rules, New Capitalismi? 23Chapter 3i? i? i? The Chaotic Interregnum 49Chapter 4i? i? i? Employees-The Decline and Fall of Human Resourcesi? i? i? i? i? 65Chapter 5i? i? i? Customers-The Power of Love 97Chapter 6i? i? i? Investors-Reaping What FoEs Sowi? i? i? 125Chapter 7i? i? i? Partners-Elegant Harmoniesi? i? i? i? 145Chapter 8i? i? i? Society-The Ultimate Stakeholderi? i? i? i? i? 171Chapter 9i? i? i? Culture-The Secret Ingredienti? i? 197Chapter 10i? Lessons Learnedi? i? i? 235Chapter 11i? Crossing Over to the Other Side 253Acknowledgmentsi? 273