Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inter-Ethnic Differences in Quantified Coronary Artery Disease Severity and All-Cause Mortality among Dutch and Singaporean Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Patients

Background Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a global problem with increasing incidence in Asia. Prior studies reported inter-ethnic differences in the prevalence of CAD rather than the severity of CAD. The angiographic “synergy between percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with taxus and cardiac surgery” (SYNTAX) score quantifies CAD severity and predicts outcomes. We studied CAD severity and all-cause mortality in four globally populous ethnic groups: Caucasians, Chinese, Indians and Malays. Methods We quantified SYNTAX scores of 1,000 multi-ethnic patients undergoing PCI in two tertiary hospitals in the Netherlands (Caucasians) and Singapore (Chinese, Indians and Malays). Within each ethnicity we studied 150 patients with stable CAD and 100 with ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI). We made inter-ethnic comparisons of SYNTAX scores and all-cause mortality. Results Despite having a younger age (mean age Indians: 56.8 and Malays: 57.7 vs. Caucasians: 63.7 years), multivariable adjusted SYNTAX scores were significantly higher in Indians and Malays than Caucasians with stable CAD: 13.4 [11.9-14.9] and 13.4 [12.0-14.8] vs. 9.4 [8.1-10.8], p<0.001. Among STEMI patients, SYNTAX scores were highest in Chinese and Malays: 17.7 [15.9-19.5] and 18.8 [17.1-20.6] vs. 15.5 [13.5-17.4] and 12.7 [10.9-14.6] in Indians and Caucasians, p<0.001. Over a median follow-up of 709 days, 67 deaths (stable CAD: 37, STEMI: 30) occurred. Among STEMI patients, the SYNTAX score independently predicted all-cause mortality: HR 2.5 [1.7-3.8], p<0.001 for every 10-point increase. All-cause mortality was higher in Indian and Malay STEMI patients than Caucasians, independent of SYNTAX score (adjusted HR 7.2 [1.5-34.7], p=0.01 and 5.8 [1.2-27.2], p=0.02). Conclusion Among stable CAD and STEMI patients requiring PCI, CAD is more severe in Indians and Malays than in Caucasians, despite having a younger age. Moreover, Indian and Malay STEMI patients had a greater adjusted risk of all-cause mortality than Caucasians, independent of SYNTAX score.
Importance of the organic aerosol fraction for modeling aerosol hygroscopic growth and activation: a case study in the Amazon Basin

Abstract. The aerosol in the Amazon basin is dominated throughout the year by organic matter, for the most part soluble in water. In this modeling study, we show how the knowledge of water-soluble organic compounds (WSOC) and the associated physical and chemical properties (e.g. solubility, surface tension, dissociation into ions) affect the hygroscopic growth and activation of the aerosol in this area. The study is based on data obtained during the SMOCC field experiment carried out in Rondonia, Brazil, over a period encompassing the dry (biomass burning) season to the onset of the wet season (September to mid-November, 2002). The comparison of predicted and measured cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentration shows that the knowledge of aerosol WSOC composition in terms of classes of compounds and of their relative molecular weights and acidic properties may be sufficient to predict aerosol activation, without any information on solubility. Conversely, the lack of knowledge on WSOC solubility leads to a high overestimation of the observed diameter growth factors (DGF) by the theory. Moreover, the aerosol water soluble inorganic species fail to predict both DGFs and CCN number concentration. In fact, this study shows that a good reproduction of the measured DGF and CCN concentration is obtained if the chemical composition of aerosol, especially that of WSOC, is appropriately taken into account in the calculations. New parameterizations for the computed CCN spectra are also derived which take into account the variability caused by chemical effects (surface tension, molecular composition, solubility, degree of dissociation of WSOC).
The relationship between images of nursing and person-environment fit

The public image of nurses has been of great concern to the nursing profession. This image views nursing as a female occupation with nurses having little power over their practice. Researchers claim that the stereotypical public image of nursing could constrain nursing practice. For instance, nursing skills may be underutilised and the health care environment may not adequately reward nurses for their performance. There has also been a concern that the constraints arising from the stereotypical public image of nursing may adversely affect nurses’ work behaviour. Based on the Person-Environment-Occupation Model of Occupational Performance, the thesis examined how the public image of nurses could impact on nursing practice. The thesis also explored the person-environment (mis)fit in nursing, which is characterised as (in)congruence between nurses’ professional orientation (i.e., nurses’ self-image, role expectations and work values) and their actual practice (i.e., nurses’ perception of the image of nurses held by the public, and nurses’ perceptions of their actual roles and the rewards available to them in practice). In addition, the thesis investigated the factors that could moderate nurses’ perception of the personenvironment fit, and how this fit could impact on their job performance and turnover intention. Currently practising Division One and Three nurses from one university and two hospitals (N = 346) in Victoria, Australia participated in the study by completing a questionnaire. Data were analysed using a series of regression analyses. In addition, six participants from the survey sample were recruited for a focus group, in which the survey results were discussed. The results showed that nurses perceived that the public viewed them more negatively than they saw themselves as professionals. The results also showed that the public image of nurses could be manifested within the health care environment in the form of a lack of professional recognition toward nurses. In other words, the lack of public understanding of nursing contributes to the person-environment misfit. Nurses’ perception of the person-environment misfit was, however, partially moderated by the level of their collective self-esteem and their area of practice. The impact of the person-environment misfit on nurses’ job performance and their intention to leave their jobs was complex. With regard to job performance, it was
The Black Box

The Black Box is a site based installation that allows users to create unique sounds through physical interaction. The installation consists of a geodesic dome, surround sound speakers, and a custom instrument suspended from the apex of the dome. Audience members entering the space are able to create sound by striking or rubbing the cube, and are able to control a delay system by moving the cube within the space.
Articulated structure from motion by factorization

Multibody affine structure from motion (SFM) methods commonly assume independent motion between objects such that the 'measurement matrix' has rank 4k. When multiple views are available, each object is then independently calibrated to a metric co-ordinate frame. However, articulated motion results in a further decrease in rank - a fact that we exploit to detect articulated objects and determine their degrees of freedom using simple linear methods. Furthermore, these objects cannot be recovered and calibrated independently since this violates articulation constraints. We show that articulation constraints can be imposed during factorization and self-calibration to recover consistent 3D structure and motion, from which link lengths and joint angles can be computed. The stability of the method is evaluated using synthetic data for comparison with ground truth and results are also presented for real image sequences.
Do Spatially-Implicit Estimates of Neutral Migration Comply with Seed Dispersal Data in Tropical Forests?

Neutral community models have shown that limited migration can have a pervasive influence on the taxonomic composition of local communities even when all individuals are assumed of equivalent ecological fitness. Notably, the spatially implicit neutral theory yields a single parameter I for the immigration-drift equilibrium in a local community. In the case of plants, seed dispersal is considered as a defining moment of the immigration process and has attracted empirical and theoretical work. In this paper, we consider a version of the immigration parameter I depending on dispersal limitation from the neighbourhood of a community. Seed dispersal distance is alternatively modelled using a distribution that decreases quickly in the tails (thin-tailed Gaussian kernel) and another that enhances the chance of dispersal events over very long distances (heavily fat-tailed Cauchy kernel). Our analysis highlights two contrasting situations, where I is either mainly sensitive to community size (related to ecological drift) under the heavily fat-tailed kernel or mainly sensitive to dispersal distance under the thin-tailed kernel. We review dispersal distances of rainforest trees from field studies and assess the consistency between published estimates of I based on spatially-implicit models and the predictions of the kernel-based model in tropical forest plots. Most estimates of I were derived from large plots (10–50 ha) and were too large to be accounted for by a Cauchy kernel. Conversely, a fraction of the estimates based on multiple smaller plots (1 ha) appeared too small to be consistent with reported ranges of dispersal distances in tropical forests. Very large estimates may reflect within-plot habitat heterogeneity or estimation problems, while the smallest estimates likely imply other factors inhibiting migration beyond dispersal limitation. Our study underscores the need for interpreting I as an integrative index of migration limitation which, besides the limited seed dispersal, possibly includes habitat filtering or fragmentation.
Deep neural network trained with speaker representation for speaker normalization

A method for speaker normalization in deep neural network (DNN) based discriminative feature estimation for automatic speech recognition (ASR) is presented. This method is applied in the context of a DNN configured for auto-encoder based low dimensional bottleneck (AE-BN) feature extraction where the derived features are used as input to a continuous Gaussian density hidden Markov model (HMM/GMM) based ASR decoder. While AE-BN features are known to provide significant reduction in ASR word error rate (WER) with respect to more conventional spectral magnitude based features, there is no general agreement on how these networks can reduce the impact of speaker variability by incorporating prior knowledge of the speaker. An approach is presented in this paper where spectrum based DNN inputs are augmented with speaker inputs that are derived from separate regression based speaker transformations. It is shown the proposed method could reduce the WER by 3% relative to the best speaker adapted AE-BN CDHMM system.
Mitochondrial superoxide: a key player in Alzheimer's disease

Our recent study characterized a role for mitochondrial superoxide in the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease [1]. Using the Tg2576 Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse model in combination with a mouse that overexpresses the mitochondrial antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD-2), we showed that severe deficits in the spatial and associative memory of AD mice could be prevented by scavenging of superoxide. SOD-2 overexpression also resulted in a reduction in amyloid-β (Aβ) plaque deposition without affecting the levels of soluble and fibrillar Aβ. It did however lead to a reduction in the Aβ 42/40 ratio resulting in an Aβ pool composition less favorable for aggregation. These findings point towards the involvement of mitochondrial superoxide in AD pathology perhaps through its effects on Aβ processing. Here we discuss these findings and comment on the future directions that this research may lead to. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease characterized by the neuropathological deposition of extracellular amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and intracellular tau neurofibrillary tangles [2]. The disease also is characterized by the devastating loss of memory and cognitive functions, which is thought to arise from the increased production of Aβ [3]. The neurotoxic role of Aβ has long been established [3], however, it is not clear how it contributes to the cognitive deficits characteristic of AD. In addition to Aβ, several studies have implicated oxidative stress in the etiology of AD. Oxidative stress occurs mainly as a
Combining information from two data sources with misreporting and incompleteness to assess hospice‐use among cancer patients: a multiple imputation approach

Combining information from multiple data sources can enhance estimates of health‐related measures by using one source to supply information that is lacking in another, assuming the former has accurate and complete data. However, there is little research conducted on combining methods when each source might be imperfect, for example, subject to measurement errors and/or missing data. In a multisite study of hospice‐use by late‐stage cancer patients, this variable was available from patients’ abstracted medical records, which may be considerably underreported because of incomplete acquisition of these records. Therefore, data for Medicare‐eligible patients were supplemented with their Medicare claims that contained information on hospice‐use, which may also be subject to underreporting yet to a lesser degree. In addition, both sources suffered from missing data because of unit nonresponse from medical record abstraction and sample undercoverage for Medicare claims. We treat the true hospice‐use status from these patients as a latent variable and propose to multiply impute it using information from both data sources, borrowing the strength from each. We characterize the complete‐data model as a product of an ‘outcome’ model for the probability of hospice‐use and a ‘reporting’ model for the probability of underreporting from both sources, adjusting for other covariates. Assuming the reports of hospice‐use from both sources are missing at random and the underreporting are conditionally independent, we develop a Bayesian multiple imputation algorithm and conduct multiple imputation analyses of patient hospice‐use in demographic and clinical subgroups. The proposed approach yields more sensible results than alternative methods in our example. Our model is also related to dual system estimation in population censuses and dual exposure assessment in epidemiology. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Review of Intervention Studies Promoting Physical Activity in Hispanic Women

The objectives of this review are to (a) provide a comprehensive review and evaluation of intervention studies designed to promote physical activity among Hispanic women and (b) provide recommendations for future research involving Hispanic women in physical activity intervention research. Computer and manual searches have been conducted of articles in the English-language literature from 1980 to present. Twelve articles are evaluated that emphasize physical activity interventions in Hispanic women. A review of current intervention research provides a starting point for determining salient approaches for intervention and evaluation, issues related to program implementation, and the strengths and limits of existing approaches. During the past 30 years, very few interventions have been conducted that examine physical activity among Hispanic women; those that include Hispanic women across ages support the need for interventions that build on the strengths and address the limitations of this body of research.
ROS Production Is Essential for the Apoptotic Function of E2F1 in Pheochromocytoma and Neuroblastoma Cell Lines

In this study we demonstrate that accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is essential for E2F1 mediated apoptosis in ER-E2F1 PC12 pheochromocytoma, and SH-SY5Y and SK-N-JD neuroblastoma stable cell lines. In these cells, the ER-E2F1 fusion protein is expressed in the cytosol; the addition of 4-hydroxytamoxifen (OHT) induces its translocation to the nucleus and activation of E2F1target genes. Previously we demonstrated that, in ER-E2F1 PC12 cells, OHT treatment induced apoptosis through activation of caspase-3. Here we show that caspase-8 activity did not change upon treatment with OHT. Moreover, over-expression of Bcl-xL arrested OHT-induced apoptosis; by contrast, over-expression of c-FLIP, did not have any effect on OHT-induced apoptosis. OHT addition induces BimL expression, its translocation to mitochondria and activation of Bax, which is paralleled by diminished mitochondrial enrichment of Bcl-xL. Treatment with a Bax-inhibitory peptide reduced OHT-induced apoptosis. These results point out the essential role of mitochondria on the apoptotic process driven by E2F1. ROS accumulation followed E2F1 induction and treatment with the antioxidant N-acetylcysteine, inhibited E2F1-induced Bax translocation to mitochondria and subsequent apoptosis. The role of ROS in mediating OHT-induced apoptosis was also studied in two neuroblastoma cell lines, SH-SY5Y and SK-N-JD. In SH-SY5Y cells, activation of E2F1 by the addition of OHT induced ROS production and apoptosis, whereas over-expression of E2F1 in SK-N-JD cells failed to induce either response. Transcriptional profiling revealed that many of the genes responsible for scavenging ROS were down-regulated following E2F1-induction in SH-SY5Y, but not in SK-N-JD cells. Finally, inhibition of GSK3β blocked ROS production, Bax activation and the down regulation of ROS scavenging genes. These findings provide an explanation for the apparent contradictory role of E2F1 as an apoptotic agent versus a cell cycle activator.
Effect of citric acid, herbal feed additive and their combination on the performance of broiler

The experiment was conducted with 108 day old straight-run Hubbard Classic broiler chicks for a period of 35 days to investigate the effects of citric acid, commercial herbal additive (Keqinling) and their combination on growth and carcass traits of broiler. The dietary treatments were control (T 0 ), 0.5% citric acid (T 1 ), 0.2% Keqinling (T 2 ) and combination of 0.5% citric acid +0.2% Keqinling (T 3 ). Final live weight was 1615, 1710, 1707 and 1795g in control, 0.5% citric acid, 0.2% Keqinling and their combination groups respectively. The highest live weight gain (1748g) was found in combination group followed by 0.5% citric acid (1664g), 0.2% Keqinling (1660g), and the lowest (1568g)in control group. The highest feed consumption and feed conversion efficiency was observed in T 3 and the lowest in group T 0 . Significantly (p<0.05) the highest dressed yield (%) was found in 0.5% citric acid group (56.65) than combination (55.73) and Keqinling (55.18) and lowest in control group (54.59). Citric acid reduced the pH of the both feed and faces. The cost of production (Tk/kg broiler) was lowest in citric acid group (Tk. 76.22). Net profit per broiler production was found in 0.5% citric acid group (Tk. 10.03/broiler) followed by combination (Tk. 9.28), Keqinling (Tk. 7.31) and control group (Tk. 6.98) respectively. The addition of 0.5% citric acid and 0.2% Keqinling individually or their combination increase the performance of broiler but citric acid showed better response than Keqinling. Bang. J. Anim. Sci. 2015. 44 (3): 143-150
ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND BIOACTIVE COMPOUNDS OF ROSA CANINA L. HERBAL PREPARATIONS

The aim of the present research was to make a comparison between two Bulgarian commercial forms of Rosa canina L. for herbal preparations in terms of the possible benefits by oral intake. The plant samples were investigated for their antioxidant activity and the bioactive substances. The total phenolic content of the extracts was evaluated as well. Four reliable methods (DPPH, ABTS, FRAP and CUPRAC assays) for antioxidant activity assessment were applied. The highest results were recorded by the FRAP assay.The plant Rosa canina is known as wealthy source of carotenoids and organic acids, therefore fat soluble β-carotene, lycopene and lutein in addition to water soluble malic, citric, fumaric and ascorbic acids were evaluated by HPLC-methods. According the conducted assays the tested samples have similar composition. Lutein concentration in both tested extracts was calculated as 6.9 μg/g DW. Lycopene and β-carotene were determined to be 13.91 and 12.18 μg/g DW and 27.14 and 22.83 μg/g DW, respectively. HPLC determination of organic acids showed that the amount of citric acid in the extracts was 7343 and 6583 μg/g DW and fumaric acid content in both samples was 30 μg/g DW. The size of the plant particles used for the extraction seems to contribute significantly to the exhibited activity.
Nudges, Social Norms, and Permanence in Agri-environmental Schemes

The permanence of land management practices adopted under agri-environmental schemes (AESs) is often questioned. This paper investigates the drivers of farmers’ decisions as to whether to maintain “proenvironment” practices beyond the duration of a contract, and in particular the effect of social norms. Our results, based on the stated intentions of 395 French farmers, show that both pecuniary and nonpecuniary motivations drive farmers’ decisions, which are also significantly influenced by information about a social norm. Therefore “nudging” farmers, by conveying information to them on other farmers’ proenvironmental practices, appears to be a means of maintaining the long-run benefits of AESs. (JEL Q18, Q28)
Percepciones, valores y actitudes ante el desarrollo sostenible: detección de necesidades educativas en estudiantes universitarios

It is presented an exploratory study in order to know what the population, object of research, thinks and feels about the sustainable development. Its purpose is to identify the educative needs of the students from University and to be used as the base to design an educative program in the frame of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014). The results endorse urgency for designing and implementing programs which make available accurate knowledge of the environmental crisis and his deep roots but, over all, that they might reinforce a compromise decided with values from the sustainability and they might allow to consolidate citizen behaviour appropriate for a society that is pretending to walk towards equity, social justice and sustainable development.