Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bronchopleural fistula in the surgery of non-small cell lung cancer: incidence, risk factors, and management.

BACKGROUND The incidence of a bronchopleural fistula (BPF) as a major complication after non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) surgery has decreased in recent years, due to new surgical refinements and a better understanding of the bronchial healing process. We reviewed our most recent experience with BPFs and tried to determine methods which may effectively reduce its occurrence. METHODS Data on 490 patients with lung resections for NSCLC over a period from 1990 to 1999 were retrospectively reviewed. Details regarding surgery and the subsequent treatment were carefully reviewed. Particular attention was paid to factors possibly affecting the occurrence of BPFs: the technique of the initial bronchial closure, previous radiation and/or chemotherapy, need for postoperative ventilation and presence of residual carcinomatous tissue at the bronchial suture line. Information about age, sex, clinical diagnosis, associated conditions, TNM stage, period between primary operation and rethoracotomy and postoperative outcome was also recorded. RESULTS The overall BPF incidence was 4.4% (22/490). There were 21 (95.5%) males and 1 (4.5%) female, mean age was 57.8 years. BPFs occurred after pneumonectomy in 12 (54.6%), after lobectomy in 9 (40.9%) patients and after sleeve resections in 1 (4.5%) patient. Mortality rate was 27.2% (6/22). Right-sided pneumonectomy and postoperative mechanical ventilation were identified as risk factors for BPFs (p<0.05). Initial chest re-exploration was performed in 20 (90.9%) patients. After debridement, the bronchial stump was reclosed by hand suture in 10 (45.4%) patients. All 10 (45.4%) patients with a post-lobectomy- and sleeve resection BPF necessitated completion surgery. The BPF was additionally covered with a vascularized flap in 20 (90.9%) patients. In 2 (9%) patients with small BPFs and poor overall condition the initial treatment was endoscopic. In both the fistula persisted and the stump had to be surgically resutured. CONCLUSIONS A BPF remains a major complication in the surgery of NSCLC because of its high mortality and morbidity rate. A BPF is more common after right-sided pneumonectomy and is frequently associated with postoperative mechanical ventilation. The management varies according to the initial type of surgery, the size of the BPF, the overall patient condition and that of the remaining lung. Endoscopic treatment is reserved only for small fistulas associated with poor general condition.
Process predictors of the outcome of group drug counseling.

OBJECTIVE This study examined the relation of process variables to the outcome of group drug counseling, a commonly used community treatment, for cocaine dependence. METHOD Videotaped group drug counseling sessions from 440 adult patients (23% female, 41% minority) were rated for member alliance, group cohesion, participation, self-disclosure, as well as positive and non-positive feedback and advice during the 6-month treatment of cocaine dependence. Average, session-level, and slopes of process scores were evaluated. Primary outcomes were monthly cocaine use (days using out of 30), next session cocaine use, and duration of sustained abstinence from cocaine. Secondary outcomes were endorsement of 12-step philosophy and beliefs about substance abuse. RESULTS More positive alliances (with counselor) were associated with reductions in days using cocaine per month and next-session cocaine use and increases in endorsement of 12-step philosophy. Patient self-disclosure about the past and degree of participation in the group were generally not predictive of group drug counseling outcomes. More advice from counselor and other group members were consistently associated with poorer outcomes in all categories. Individual differences in changes in process variables over time (linear slopes) were generally not predictive of treatment outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Some group behaviors widely believed to be associated with outcome, such as self-disclosure and participation, were not generally predictive of outcomes of group drug counseling, but alliance with the group counselor was positively associated, and advice giving was negatively associated, with the outcome of treatments for cocaine dependence.
Conditioning of Carbon Fiber Cathodes in UHV-Sealed Tubes at 200 A/cm2

This paper presents a study on outgassing and electrical conditioning for three carbon fiber cathode types in a vacuum-sealed, high-power microwave virtual-cathode-oscillator (vircator) that operates in the low 10-9 torr pressure regime. The three cathode types consist of a bare bimodal fiber structure, a bare unimodal fiber structure, and a cesium-iodide coated bimodal fiber structure with identical fiber coverage of 2% by area with a surface area of ~20 cm2. The electrodes are cleaned by a 1.2 kW, argon/oxygen microwave plasma prior to complete vircator assembly, followed by a 300 °C bake-out for 72 h. Each cathode was pulsed in a single pulse operation by an 80 J, low inductance Marx generator with an approximate pulsewidth of 100 ns full-width at half-maximum for 10000 current pulses. The data presented includes individual gas constituents, high-speed intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) imaging, and voltage and current waveforms. The conditioning process resulted in a gas load reduction of ~80% overall, with the indication that the bare bimodal fiber structure performed the best as diode power increased throughout the experiment, while the power decreased for the other tested cathode types.
Hydroxyurea: Clinical and Hematological Effects in Patients With Sickle Cell Anemia

Background and Aim: It is well known that hydroxyurea impacts on clinical and hematologic indices in sickle cell disease (SCD), we aimed to evaluate the effect of hydroxyurea on clinical and hematological improvement of sickle cell anemia. Methods and Materials: In this cohort study 48 patients with sickle cell disease were enrolled and pain crisis, severity of pain, acute chest syndrome, the number of hospitalization, the rate of transfusion, spleen size, total Hb, HbF levels, MCV, MCH were compared before and after treatment with HU 10 mg/kg/day/for one year. Results: In patients with Sickle cell disease Hu significantly decreased the rate of transfusion, hospitalization, spleen size and significantly increased Hb, RBC indices and HbF. Furthermore, we did not find any remarkable adverse effect related to HU during the one year follow up in patients. Conclusion: We demonstrated that in the course of one year hydroxyurea 10 mg/kg/day can significantly increase HbF, total hemoglobin and RBC indices without any notable side effect in patients with SCD.
Subspecies IIIa and IIIb Salmonellae Are Defective for Colonization of Murine Models of Salmonellosis Compared to Salmonella enterica subsp. I Serovar Typhimurium

ABSTRACT Non-subspecies I salmonellae are commensals of cold-blooded vertebrates and cause sporadic disease in mammals. The reasons why non-subspecies I salmonellae do not circulate in populations of warm-blooded vertebrates, but instead only cause occasional disease in this niche, are unknown. We examined the ability of Salmonella enterica subsp. IIIa (subsp. arizonae) and subsp. IIIb (subsp. diarizonae) isolates to grow competitively with subspecies I (serovar Typhimurium) ATCC 14028 in vitro, to colonize Salmonella-sensitive BALB/c mice, and to persist in the intestine of Salmonella-resistant CBA/J mice in competitive infections. Subspecies IIIa had severely reduced intestinal colonization, intestinal persistence, and systemic spread in mice. Subspecies IIIa is nonmotile on swarming agar and thus may also have reduced motility under viscous conditions in vivo. Surprisingly, subspecies IIIb colonizes the intestinal tract of BALB/c mice normally yet does not spread systemically. Subspecies IIIb colonization of the intestine of CBA/J mice is reduced late in infection. In order to understand why these isolates do not colonize systemic sites, we determined that subspecies IIIa and IIIb are not internalized well and do not replicate in J774-A.1 murine macrophages, despite normal adherence to these cells. We further show that selected effectors of both type III secretion systems 1 and 2 are secreted by subspecies IIIa and IIIb in vitro but that each of these isolates secretes a different combination of effectors. We outline the phenotypic differences between these subspecies and subspecies I and provide a possible explanation for the inability of these strains to spread systemically in murine models.
The Deaf Child and Solving Problems of Arithmetic: The Importance of Comprehensive Reading

The present investigation is informed by two major considerations. First, the need for teachers to know more about the difficulties experienced by the deaf child when presented with written mathematical problems. Second, the idea of the relationship between linguistic competence in deaf subjects and their difficulties in the comprehension of verbal messages. In particular, the present article analyzes the influence of reading comprehension level on the solution of verbally expressed problems of arithmetic. The results indicate that reading comprehension level is clearly related to the problem-solving level of deaf subjects. In general, if the deaf are unable to understand the verbally presented problem, they will not be able to solve it correctly.
Logics in policy and practice: a critical nodal analysis of the UK banking reform process

Drawing on the ‘logics approach’ to advance critical policy studies, we contribute to our understanding of the banking reform process in the wake of the financial crisis. We focus on the political and ideological dimensions of this process, paying particular attention to the way the narrow character of associated debates is produced and maintained. We operationalize the logics approach by invoking a ‘nodal framework’ that apprehends the banking service chain in terms of the nodes of provision, distribution, delivery and governance. Using this logics-cum-nodal framework, and focusing on the work of the Independent Commission of Banking and two left-wing think tanks during 2011 and beyond, we suggest that the master signifier ‘stable competition’ has served to organize a range of interventions, both organizational and rhetorical, that have marginalized progressive efforts to articulate and promote alternative visions of finance and banking; and that the dynamic interaction between diverse interventions can be grasped – at least in part – in terms of their capacity to act as a hinge between concrete visions on the one hand (understood in terms of projected norms and values), and potent affective investments on the other hand (understood in terms of fantasmatic desire).
Mapping the interstellar dust with near-infrared observations: An optimized multi-band technique

We generalize Lada et al. (1994) Nice technique to map dust column density through a molecular cloud to an optimized multi-band technique that can be applied to any multi-band survey of molecular clouds. We present a first application to a ~ 625 deg2 subset of the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) data and show that when compared to Nice, the optimized Nicer (i) achieves the same extinction peak values, (ii) improves the noise variance of the map by a factor of 2 and (iii) is able to reach 3σ dust extinction measurements as low as A V ≃ 0.5 magnitudes, better than or equivalent to classical optical star count techniques and below the threshold column density for the formation of CO.
The effects of Spanish home language use on the scholastic performance of Hispanic pupils

Abstract This study looked at the home language use patterns of Hispanic families in an urban setting to determine the differences between academic achievement, language development, and psychosocial adjustment of children whose families have maintained Spanish as the main home language (additive bilingual home environment) and children who come from homes where a switch to English has occurred (subtractive bilingual home environment. For this study, 108 subjects were selected based on their ability to meet criteria established to control for (a) initial home language, (b) length of enrolment in school, and (c) socio‐economic status. All the subjects were enrolled in the fifth or sixth grade at a large East Los Angeles elementary school during the 1982–83 year. A series of independent t tests was used to compare the two groups of primary interest on school measures of academic achievement (English reading proficiency, mathematics, Spanish reading vocabulary, and academic grade point average), language dev.
A Non-Parametric Approach to Stochastic Inventory Planning with Lost Sales and Censored Demand

We study stochastic inventory planning systems with lost sales and censored demand under stationary and non-stationary settings. Contrary to classical inventory theory, we assume that no knowledge of demand is initially available, and lost sales in each period are unobservable. We take a non-parametric approach and propose adaptive inventory policies that generate a sequence of ordering decisions over time. The decision in each period depends only on historical sales data of the past. In the stationary demand setting, any excess inventory in each period is either scrapped (perishable) or carried over to the next period (non-perishable). We also consider non-stationary inventory systems with seasonal demand – allowing for a cyclic pattern of demand distributions – with product updates at the beginning of each season. To assess the quality of our inventory policies, we use as a benchmark the optimal expected cost that would have incurred if the true distribution were known. Our adaptive algorithms are easy to implement and converge to the optimal solution. Furthermore, for any T ≥ 1, the average cost during the first T periods under our inventory policies differs from the optimal cost by at most O ( 1/ √ T ) . Extensive computation shows that our adaptive policies perform well. ∗Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA. huh@ieor.columbia. edu. †School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. paatrus@cornell.edu.
The Nonhomologous Nature of Solar Diameter Variations

We show in this Letter that the changes of the solar diameter in response to variations of large-scale magnetic fields and turbulence are not homologous. For the best current model, the variation at the photospheric level is over 1000 times larger than the variation at a depth of 5 Mm, which is about the level at which f-mode solar oscillations determine diameter variations. This model is supported by observations that indicate larger diameter changes for high-degree f-modes than for low-degree f-modes, since the energy of the former is concentrated at shallower layers than the latter.
On energy-delay tradeoff in base station sleep mode operation

Base station (BS) sleep mode operation is one of the effective ways to save energy, but it may lead to longer delay to the customers. In order to evaluate the tradeoffs between energy consumption and customer delay, we model the BS sleep mode operation as an N-policy M/G/1 vacation queue with setup and close-down times, where the BS enters sleep mode if no customers arrive during the close-down time after the queue becomes empty and it starts to setup when it sees N customer arrivals during its sleep period. Several closed-form formulas are derived to demonstrate the tradeoffs between energy consumption and mean delay by changing the close-down time and N. It is shown that the relationship between the energy consumption and the mean delay is linear by changing the close-down time. Besides, larger N reduces the energy consumption, but there may exist N >; 1 that minimizes the mean delay. We also investigate the bound on given percentile of overall delay. We observe that the delay bound is nearly linear in mean delay in the cases tested. Therefore, similar tradeoffs exist between energy consumption and the delay bound.
Music Education Philosophy: Changing Times

n the latter half of the twentieth century, the music education profession in the United States underwent considerable change in its philosophical foundations. From the launch of aesthetic education in the 1950s as a response to long-standing functional values to the emergence of praxial philosophy in the 1990s as a reaction to the aesthetic movement, the philosophical views guiding the profession have been shaped by the social, political, and cultural values of the times. This article recounts the evolution of these philosophies and offers an interpretation of the changes that took place.l
Teacher Role Model and Students' Physical Activity

Abstract Introduction. Physical activity is an important factor in health risk prevention, which improves the quality of life, as well as promotes both physical and mental health preservation [1, 2]. Each year, the lack of physical activity causes death of 600,000 people in Europe - approximately 6% of the total population [3]. Despite the significant number of studies that have been conducted on students' physical activity, it is also being claimed that studies on the teenage group are essential yet scarce, and the results are ambiguous [4]. This confirms the need for more such studies in order to better determine the significant factors in the promotion of students' physical activity. Material and methods. 339 students aged 11 to 19 participated in the collection of data base: 147 boys and 192 girls. Average age of participants was: 14.6 years. 75 students aged 14-19 years (33 girls and 42 boys) were involved in the pedagogical experiment. The average age of the participants was 16-19 years in School 1 (11 girls and 18 boys), and 14-17 years in School 2 (19 girls and 27 boys). Average age of participants was: 16.3 years. Three sports teachers participated in the pedagogical experiment as well. During the course of the experiment, teachers developed a model of pedagogical interaction in physical education classes. At each school the experiment lasted for 14 weeks. In both schools physical education classes were held twice a week. Results. Based on factor analysis, a model of pedagogical interactions promoting physical activity of students was developed. According to the results of the physical activity habits test (inventory) we can conclude that students have experienced positive and statistically significant changes in their physical activity. The boys were considerably more active during classes where the teacher was present as a participant of physical activities. Conclusions. Teachers and students remark that the applied contents of the pedagogical interaction model have positive effects on the interaction between students and teachers and stimulate physical activity of students.
Effect of warm compress application on tissue temperature in healthy dogs.

OBJECTIVE To measure the effect of warm compress application on tissue temperature in healthy dogs. ANIMALS 10 healthy mixed-breed dogs. PROCEDURES Dogs were sedated with hydromorphone (0.1 mg/kg, IV) and diazepam (0.25 mg/kg, IV). Three 24-gauge thermocouple needles were inserted to a depth of 0.5 cm (superficial), 1.0 cm (middle), and 1.5 cm (deep) into a shaved, lumbar, epaxial region to measure tissue temperature. Warm (47°C) compresses were applied with gravity dependence for periods of 5, 10, and 20 minutes. Tissue temperature was recorded before compress application and at intervals for up to 80 minutes after application. Control data were collected while dogs received identical sedation but with no warm compress. RESULTS Mean temperature associated with 5 minutes of heat application at the superficial, middle, and deep depths was significantly increased, compared with the control temperature. Application for 10 minutes significantly increased the temperature at all depths, compared with 5 minutes of application. Mean temperature associated with 20 minutes of application was not different at the superficial or middle depths, compared with 10 minutes of application. Temperature at the deep depth associated with 10 minutes of application was significantly higher, compared with 20 minutes of application, but all temperature increases at this depth were minimal. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Results suggested that application of a warm compress should be performed for 10 minutes. Changes in temperature at a tissue depth of 1.5 cm were minimal or not detected. The optimal compress temperature to achieve therapeutic benefits was not determined.
Exploring a Novel Mechanism of Docetaxel Resistance in Prostate Cancer

Abstract : Docetaxel (DTX), a semi-synthetic analog of paclitaxel, has emerged as the standard of care for chemotherapy of hormone-resistant prostate cancer (PCa). However, most patients treated with DTX ultimately develop resistance to the drug and succumb to the disease. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms underlying DTX resistance is a priority area in PCa research. Increasingly, it is being suggested that cancer cells may use common pathways for disease aggressiveness/metastatic spread and chemotherapeutic resistance. Therefore, we investigated the role of CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling, which is known to promote invasion and metastasis, in DTX-resistance of PCa cells. Our data demonstrated that CXCL12 treatment rescued the PCa cells from DTX-induced cytotoxicity and G2/M mitotic arrest. Furthermore, the cytoprotective effect of CXCL12 was abolished upon pretreatment of PCa cells with AMD3100 (a small molecule antagonist of CXCR4) or siRNA-mediated silencing of CXCR4, thus confirming the role of CXCR4 in DTX-resistance. Immunofluorescence analyses revealed enhanced polymerization of microtubules in DTX-treated PCa cells. In accordance with this, immunoblot analyses demonstrated increased levels of detyrosinated (glu-) and acetylated (ace-) tubulins, specific markers of the polymerized tubulin, in PCa cells treated with DTX. Cotreatment of CXCL12 abrogated DTX-induced stabilization of microtubules in the PCa cells, an effect that was diminished when the cells were pre-treated with AMD3100. Data from our mechanistic studies suggest the role of PAK4-dependent LIMK1 activation in the CXCL12- induced resistance to docetaxel toxicity and microtubule destabilization. Altogether, our findings demonstrate the role of CXCL12/CXCR4 signaling axis in DTX-resistance of PCa cells and thus could be an attractive target for therapeutic enhancement of DTX.
A perceptual discrimination investigation of the own-race effect and intergroup experience

Research over the past two decades has demonstrated that individuals are better at the recognition and discrimination of own- versus other-race faces. Recent evidence, however, supports an own-race effect at the level of perceptual encoding in adults. The current study examines the perceptual basis of the own-race effect in secondary students from two racially segregated communities (White and South Asian). The contact hypothesis is investigated, as other-race experience may influence other-race face perception. Face stimuli were generated by morphing together South Asian and White faces along a linear continuum. In a same/different perceptual discrimination task participants judged whether face stimuli were physically identical to, or different from, the original faces. Results revealed a significant own-race effect for the White participants only, wherein they were better at discriminating White relative to South Asian faces. Other-race individuating experience was found to predict the own-race effect, indicating that other-race experience influences other-race face perceptual expertise. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en