Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient-Initiated Refusals of Prehospital Care: Ambulance Call Report Documentation, Patient Outcome, and On-line Medical Command

Abstract Introduction: There is a growing interest in cases in which emergency medical services (EMS) providers evaluate a patient, but do not transport the patient to a hospital. A subset of these cases, the patient-initiated refusal (PIR) in which the patient refused care and transport, was studied and evaluated. The objectives of the study were to examine the adequacy of ambulance call report documentation in PIR, to examine the clinical outcome of these patients in one hospital-based, suburban EMS system, and to assess the potential impact of on-line medical command (OLMC) on cases of PIR. Methods: The system studied is a hospital-based, transport-capable, advanced life support service in a suburban EMS system, with an annual call volume of 4,200 runs. During the 6-month study period, all ambulance call reports completed by the paramedics and medical command control forms completed by medical command physicians were examined, and cases of PIR collected. Each ambulance call report was examined for adequacy of documentation. Patient outcome was determined from emergency department records and telephone follow-up. Results: Eighty-five PIRs were documented during the study period. Four cases were excluded because of a missing ambulance call reports and/or medical command control forms, leaving 81 PIRs for analysis. Despite policy requiring OLMC in cases of PIR, OLMC was established in only 23 PIRs (28%). Of these, two (9%) had inadequate ambulance call report documentation. Of the 58 PIR in which OLMC was not established, 25 (43%) had inadequate ambulance call report documentation (p <0.001, Fisher's exact test). Follow-up was obtained for 54 (67%) PIR. Of these, 37 (68%) did not subsequently see a physician, and all needed no further medical care. Seven (13%) saw their own physicians within a few days of the initial refusal of prehospital care, and had no further problems. Ten patients were seen in an emergency department within a few days. Three (6%) were discharged, and did well. Seven (13%) were admitted to the hospital, with four (7%) admitted to monitored beds, and three (6%) to unmonitored beds. There were no deaths. Conclusions: Ambulance call report documentation is better with OLMC than without. Patients who initially refuse care may be ill, and some ultimately will be hospitalized. Further research may elucidate a role for OLMC in preventing refusals by incompetent patients, convincing patients who are competent but appear ill to accept transport, and assisting paramedics with other difficult or unusual circumstances.
The Dichotomy of Thermal Convection in Enceladus' Ice Shell

Enceladus exhibits a strong hemispheric dichotomy of tectonism and heat flux, with geologically young, heavily tectonized terrains and a high heat flux in the south polar terrains (SPT) and relatively ancient terrains with presumably lower heat fluxes over the rest of the satellite. To understand the c onditions that can give rise to this dichotomy, we present three-dimensional numerical models of convection in Enceladus’ ice shell including tidal heating . Our thermal boundary conditions exhibit no north-south asymmetries, but because the tectonism at the SPT may weaken the ice there, we implement a mechanically weak lithosphere within the SPT. The weakening is parameterized by adopting a reduced viscosity contrast within the SPT. Without such a weak zone, convection (if any) resides in stagnant-lid mode and exhibits no hemispheric dichotomy. In the presence of such a SPT weak zone, however, we find vigorous convection in the ic e underneath the SPT, with convective plumes rising close to the surface. In contrast, only stagnant lid convection, or no convection at all, occurs elsewhere over the satellite. Away from the SPT, the heat flux in our models is small (5‐ 10mWm −2 ) and the surface strains are small enough to imply surface ages > 10 9 years. Within the SPT,
A performance analysis of multi-hop ad hoc networks with adaptive antenna array systems

Based on a stochastic geometry framework, we establish an analysis of the multi-hop spatial reuse aloha protocol (MSR-Aloha) in ad hoc networks. We compare MSR-Aloha to a simple routing strategy, where a node selects the next relay of the treated packet as to be its nearest receiver with a forward progress toward the final destination (NFP). In addition, performance gains achieved by employing adaptive antenna array systems are quantified in this paper. We derive a tight upper bound on the spatial density of progress of MSR-Aloha. Our analytical results demonstrate that the spatial density of progress scales as the square root of the density of users, and the optimal contention density (that maximizes the spatial density of progress) is independent of the density of users. These two facts are consistent with the observations of Baccelli et al., established through an analytical lower bound and through simulations.
Targeting Cholesterol Homeostasis to Fight Hearing Loss: A New Perspective

Sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) is a major pathology of the inner ear that affects nearly 600 million people worldwide. Despite intensive researches, this major health problem remains without satisfactory solutions. The pathophysiological mechanisms involved in SNHL include oxidative stress, excitotoxicity, inflammation, and ischemia, resulting in synaptic loss, axonal degeneration, and apoptosis of spiral ganglion neurons. The mechanisms associated with SNHL are shared with other neurodegenerative disorders. Cholesterol homeostasis is central to numerous pathologies including neurodegenerative diseases and cholesterol regulates major processes involved in neurons survival and function. The role of cholesterol homeostasis in the physiopathology of inner ear is largely unexplored. In this review, we discuss the findings concerning cholesterol homeostasis in neurodegenerative diseases and whether it should be translated into potential therapeutic strategies for the treatment of SNHL.
Effects of aging on photoperiodic responsiveness and specific 2‐[125I]‐iodomelatonin binding sites in the pars tuberalis and suprachiasmatic nuclei of Siberian hamsters

Duncan MJ, Purvis CC. Effects of aging on photoperiodic responsiveness and specific 2‐[125I]‐iodomelatonin binding sites in the pars tuberalis and suprachiasmatic nuclei of Siberian hamsters. J. Pineal Res. 1994:16:184–187.
Should there really be a ‘Dyslexia debate’? THE

As its name suggests, the book The Dyslexia Debate by Julian Elliott and Elena Grigorenko aims to generate a debate on the concept of developmental dyslexia. Contrary to some misguided detractors of dyslexia (see text box below) these authors do not attempt to deny the existence of children with a specific reading disorder, nor do they deny that it has a strong underlying biological basis, even less do they try to convince the reader that dyslexia is just an excuse for bad teaching or a synonym of social disadvantage. Indeed, they can be commended for being very up-to-date on current research on the topic. The largest part of this book (Chapters 2, 3 and 4) is dedicated to a thorough review of the dyslexia literature, in its cognitive, neural, genetic and educational/therapeutic aspects. The breadth of research covered is remarkable, and its treatment is accurate, if not perfectly well balanced. One may indeed regret that, for the sake of its argument, the book prefers to emphasize inconsistencies and disagreements, rather than providing a more constructive synthesis by focusing on the (admittedly scarce) converging lines of evidence and points of broad agreement. Most importantly, the comprehensive review of the literature is only a means to the book’s real purpose, developed in the first and the last chapters: to demonstrate, step by step, that the notion of dyslexia has no validity, and that we should prefer instead the notion of reading disability. The dispute is not just about whether the notion of specific reading disability should be called dyslexia. The authors argue that there is no good reason to distinguish specific reading disability (dyslexia) from reading disability (or poor reading). Let us begin by clarifying this apparently sibylline point about the definition of dyslexia.
A Comparison of Two Sodium Citrate Concentrations in Two Evacuated Blood Collection Systems for Prothrombin Time and ISI Determination

Summary The prothrombin time is usually measured in citrated plasma. The W.H. O. recommended concentration of sodium citrate for blood collection for laboratory control of oral anticoagulant therapy is 0.109 M. Some evacuated blood collection systems include 0.105 M sodium citrate. The purpose of the present study was to establish the difference in ISI calibration between 0.109 and 0.105 M citrate, using 7 types of thromboplastin and various types of instrumentation. The two citrate concentrations were provided in both evacuated siliconised glass tubes and in evacuated polyethylene terephtalate (PET) tubes. The ISI difference between the two citrate concentrations was 5.4% for one system but not greater than 3% for all other systems when blood samples were collected with either siliconized glass or PET tubes. Most of the ISI differences between the two citrate concentrations were not significant at the 5% level. It is concluded that the ISI differences between 0.105 M and 0.109 M citrate are not of practical importance. In contrast, ISI differences between siliconised glass and PET tubes, using either 0.105 or 0.109 M citrate, were significant (p <0.05) for most thromboplastin systems and amounted to 7%. ISI interchange between these glass and PET tubes could induce INR differences amounting to 14%, which could affect clinical dosage of oral anticoagulants.
A conservative theory for long term reliability growth prediction

The paper describes a different approach to software reliability growth modelling which should enable conservative long term predictions to be made. Using relatively standard assumptions it is shown that the expected value of the failure rate after a usage time t is bounded by: /spl lambda/~/sub t//spl les/(N/(et)) where N is the initial number of faults and e is the exponential constant. This is conservative since it places a worst case bound on the reliability rather than making a best estimate. We also show that the predictions might be relatively insensitive to assumption violations over the longer term. The theory offers the potential for making long term software reliability growth predictions based solely on prior estimates of the number of residual faults. The predicted bound appears to agree with a wide range of industrial and experimental reliability data. It is shown that less pessimistic results can be obtained if additional assumptions are made about the failure rate distribution of faults.
How Many HIV Infections May Be Averted by Targeting Primary Infection in Men Who Have Sex With Men? Quantification of Changes in Transmission-Risk Behavior, Using an Individual-Based Model

In the United Kingdom, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission among men who have sex with men (MSM) is not under control, despite readily available treatment, highlighting the need to design a cost-effective combination prevention package. MSM report significantly reduced transmission risk behavior following HIV diagnosis. To assess the effectiveness of HIV diagnosis in averting transmission during highly infectious primary HIV infection (PHI), we developed a stochastic individual-based model to calculate the number of HIV-transmission events expected to occur from a cohort of recently infected MSM with and those without the behavior changes reported after diagnosis. The model incorporates different types of sex acts, incorporates condom use, and distinguishes between regular and casual sex partners. The impact on transmission in the 3 months after infection depends on PHI duration and testing frequency. If PHI lasts for 3 months and testing is performed monthly, then behavior changes after diagnosis would have reduced estimated transmission events by 49%–52%, from 31–45 to 15–23 events; a shorter duration of PHI and/or a lower testing frequency reduces the number of infections averted. Diagnosing HIV during PHI can markedly reduce transmission by changing transmission-risk behavior. Because of the high infectivity but short duration of PHI, even short-term behavior change can significantly reduce transmission. Our quantification of the number of infections averted is an essential component of assessment of the cost-effectiveness of strategies to increase detection and diagnoses of PHI.
Aqueous and Alcoholic Extracts of Triphala and Their Active Compounds Chebulagic Acid and Chebulinic Acid Prevented Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition in Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells, by Inhibiting SMAD-3 Phosphorylation

Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) of the retinal pigment epithelium is involved in the pathogenesis of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) that often leads to retinal detachment. In this study, Triphala, an ayurvedic formulation and two of its active ingredients, namely chebulagic acid and chebulinic acid were evaluated for anti-EMT properties based on in vitro experiments in human retinal pigment epithelial cell line (ARPE-19) under TGFβ1 induced conditions. ARPE-19 cells were treated with TGFβ1 alone or co-treated with various concentrations of aqueous extract (AqE) (30 - 300 μg/ml); alcoholic extract (AlE) (50 - 500 μg/ml) of triphala and the active principles chebulagic acid (CA) and chebulinic acid (CI) (CA,CI: 50 - 200 μM). The expression of EMT markers namely MMP-2, αSMA, vimentin and the tight junction protein ZO-1 were evaluated by qPCR, western blot and immunofluorescence. The functional implications of EMT, namely migration and proliferation of cells were assessed by proliferation assay, scratch assay and transwell migration assay. AqE, AlE, CA and CI reduced the expression and activity of MMP-2 at an ED50 value of 100 μg/ml, 50 μg/ml, 100 μM and 100 μM, respectively. At these concentrations, a significant down-regulation of the expression of αSMA, vimentin and up-regulation of the expression of ZO-1 altered by TGFβ1 were observed. These concentrations also inhibited proliferation and migration of ARPE-19 cells induced by TGFβ1. EMT was found to be induced in ARPE-19 cells, through SMAD-3 phosphorylation and it was inhibited by AqE, AlE, CA and CI. Further studies in experimental animals are required to attribute therapeutic potential of these extracts and their active compounds, as an adjuvant therapy in the disease management of PVR.
Functional Characterization of Penicillin-Binding Protein 1b from Streptococcus pneumoniae

ABSTRACT The widespread use of antibiotics has encouraged the development of drug resistance in pathogenic bacteria. In order to overcome this problem, the modification of existing antibiotics and/or the identification of targets for the design of new antibiotics is currently being undertaken. Bifunctional penicillin-binding proteins (PBPs) are membrane-associated molecules whose transpeptidase (TP) activity is irreversibly inhibited by β-lactam antibiotics and whose glycosyltransferase (GT) activity represents a potential target in the antibacterial fight. In this work, we describe the expression and the biochemical characterization of the soluble extracellular region of Streptococcus pneumoniae PBP1b (PBP1b*). The acylation efficiency for benzylpenicillin and cefotaxime was characterized by stopped-flow fluorometry and a 40-kDa stable TP domain was generated after limited proteolysis. In order to analyze the GT activity of PBP1b*, we developed an electrophoretic assay which monitors the fluorescence signal from PBP1b*-bound dansylated lipid II. This binding was inhibited by the antibiotic moenomycin and was specific for the GT domain, since no signal was observed in the presence of the purified functional TP domain. Binding studies performed with truncated forms of PBP1b* demonstrated that the first conserved motif of the GT domain is not required for the recognition of lipid II, whereas the second motif is necessary for such interaction.
A Multimodal LDA Model integrating Textual, Cognitive and Visual Modalities

Recent investigations into grounded models of language have shown that holistic views of language and perception can provide higher performance than independent views. In this work, we improve a two-dimensional multimodal version of Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Andrews et al., 2009) in various ways. (1) We outperform text-only models in two different evaluations, and demonstrate that low-level visual features are directly compatible with the existing model. (2) We present a novel way to integrate visual features into the LDA model using unsupervised clusters of images. The clusters are directly interpretable and improve on our evaluation tasks. (3) We provide two novel ways to extend the bimodal models to support three or more modalities. We find that the three-, four-, and five-dimensional models significantly outperform models using only one or two modalities, and that nontextual modalities each provide separate, disjoint knowledge that cannot be forced into a shared, latent structure.
Quantitative 4D analyses of epithelial folding during Drosophila gastrulation

Understanding the cellular and mechanical processes that underlie the shape changes of individual cells and their collective behaviors in a tissue during dynamic and complex morphogenetic events is currently one of the major frontiers in developmental biology. The advent of high-speed time-lapse microscopy and its use in monitoring the cellular events in fluorescently labeled developing organisms demonstrate tremendous promise in establishing detailed descriptions of these events and could potentially provide a foundation for subsequent hypothesis-driven research strategies. However, obtaining quantitative measurements of dynamic shapes and behaviors of cells and tissues in a rapidly developing metazoan embryo using time-lapse 3D microscopy remains technically challenging, with the main hurdle being the shortage of robust imaging processing and analysis tools. We have developed EDGE4D, a software tool for segmenting and tracking membrane-labeled cells using multi-photon microscopy data. Our results demonstrate that EDGE4D enables quantification of the dynamics of cell shape changes, cell interfaces and neighbor relations at single-cell resolution during a complex epithelial folding event in the early Drosophila embryo. We expect this tool to be broadly useful for the analysis of epithelial cell geometries and movements in a wide variety of developmental contexts.
Ventilator-induced lung injury in preterm infants

In preterm infants, the need for intubation and mechanical ventilation is associated with ventilator-induced lung injuries and subsequent bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The aim of the present review was to improve the understanding of the mechanisms of injury that involve cytokine-mediated inflammation to contribute to the development of new preventive strategies. Relevant articles were retrieved from the PubMed database using the search terms "ventilator-induced lung injury preterm", "continuous positive airway pressure", "preterm", and "bronchopulmonary dysplasia". The resulting data and other relevant information were divided into several topics to ensure a thorough, critical view of ventilation-induced lung injury and its consequences in preterm infants. The role of pro-inflammatory cytokines (particularly interleukins 6 and 8 and tumor necrosis factor alpha) as mediators of lung injury was assessed. Evidence from studies conducted with animals and human newborns is described. This evidence shows that brief periods of mechanical ventilation is sufficient to induce the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Other forms of mechanical and non-invasive ventilation were also analyzed as protective alternatives to conventional mechanical ventilation. It was concluded that non-invasive ventilation, intubation followed by early surfactant administration and quick extubation for nasal continuous positive airway pressure, and strategies that regulate tidal volume and avoid volutrauma (such as volume guarantee ventilation) protect against ventilator-induced lung injury in preterm infants.
High-temperature pairing in a strongly interacting two-dimensional Fermi gas

Tuning the atomic pairing Cold atomic gases are extremely flexible systems; the ability to tune interactions between fermionic atoms can, for example, cause the gas to undergo a crossover from weakly interacting fermions to weakly interacting bosons via a strongly interacting unitary regime. Murthy et al. studied this crossover in a gas of fermions confined to two dimensions. The formation of atomic pairs occurred at much higher temperatures in the unitary regime than previously thought. Science, this issue p. 452 Radio-frequency spectroscopy shows that strongly interacting fermions start pairing high above the critical temperature. The nature of the normal phase of strongly correlated fermionic systems is an outstanding question in quantum many-body physics. We used spatially resolved radio-frequency spectroscopy to measure pairing energy of fermions across a wide range of temperatures and interaction strengths in a two-dimensional gas of ultracold fermionic atoms. We observed many-body pairing at temperatures far above the critical temperature for superfluidity. In the strongly interacting regime, the pairing energy in the normal phase considerably exceeds the intrinsic two-body binding energy of the system and shows a clear dependence on local density. This implies that pairing in this regime is driven by many-body correlations, rather than two-body physics. Our findings show that pairing correlations in strongly interacting two-dimensional fermionic systems are remarkably robust against thermal fluctuations.
Analytical Analysis of Cage Rotor Induction Motors in Healthy, Defective, and Broken Bars Conditions

This paper presents a 2-D static analytical method in the frequency domain for the calculation of magnetic field distribution, eddy-currents, circuit model parameters, and steady-state performances in multiphase/multipole cage rotor induction motors with integer and fractional stator winding. The complex model allows to study the healthy, defective, and broken bars conditions in these electrical machines. The proposed static analytical model considers stator and rotor slotting with tooth-tips. The method is based on the resolution of Poisson's, Laplace's, and Helmholtz's equations in stator slots, air-gap, and rotor bars regions, respectively. The electromagnetic torque is obtained from both the electrical equivalent circuit and Maxwell stress tensor that is given by the magnetic field calculation. The analytical results are validated by those issued from time harmonic finite-element method.