Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of Antibiotic Prophylaxis in Cystoscopy to Prevent Urinary Tract Infection: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT Objective: To estimate the efficacy of antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent urinary tract infection in patients (both gender) who undergo a cystoscopy with sterile urine. Materials and Methods: Search strategy (January 1980-December 2013) in Medline via PubMed, CENTRAL, and EMBASE. Additionally, we searched databases for registered trials and conference abstracts, as well as reference lists of systematic reviews and included studies. Seven published randomized clinical trials (January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2013) were included in quantitative analyses with no language restrictions. Two independent reviewers collected data. Risk of bias was evaluated with the Cochrane Collaboration tool. We performed a fixed effect analyses due to statistical homogeneity. The primary outcome was urinary tract infection and the secondary was asymptomatic bacteriuria. The effect measure was the risk difference (RD) with 95% confidence interval. The planned interventions were: Antibiotic vs placebo; Antibiotic vs no intervention and Antibiotic vs any other intervention. Results: 3038 patients were found in seven studies. For the primary outcome, we included 5 studies and we found a RR 0.53 CI95% (0.31, 0.90) and a RD-0.012 CI95% (-0.023,-0.002), favoring antibiotic prophylaxis. For asymptomatic bacteriuria we included 6 studies and we found a RR 0.28 CI95% (0.20, 0.39) and a RD-0.055 CI95% (-0.07,-0.039), was found favoring prophylaxis. According to GRADE evaluation, we considered moderate quality of evidence for both outcomes. The subgroup analysis showed that only two studies were classified as having low risk of bias: Cam 2009 and García-Perdomo 2013. They showed no statistical differences (RD-0.009 CI95% -0.03, 0.011). Conclusions: Based on studies classified as low risk of bias, we found moderate evidence to not recommend the use of antibiotic prophylaxis to prevent urinary tract infection and asymptomatic bacteriuria in patients who undergo cystoscopy with sterile urine in an ambulatory setting.
The supervisor's influence on workplace learning

Supervisors are often urged by the workplace learning literature to take active roles as facilitators of the learning of their staff. The role that is envisaged is similar to the facilitative role developed in the humanistic traditions of adult education, in which facilitation is supportive but also proactive, challenging and interventionist. However, an exploration of the experiences and concerns of workplace learners raises issues of identity and trust that suggest that such a facilitative supervisory role may not be realistic. This is not to say that supervisors can have no impact on workplace learning; rather, their role is more indirect than direct, and that it is exercised through quite traditional supervisory activities. Issues of identity and trust development for workplace learners will be examined in this paper, and the implications for supervisory action in relation to learning explored. The paper draws on doctoral research with workers new to administrative positions in the public sector.
Portfolios in the EFL classroom: disclosing an informed practice

This article provides an overview of the work carried out over the period of one year with a group of 10th grade students in a Portuguese high school. It argues that by using portfolios in EFL classrooms, the teacher cannot only diagnose the learners’ skills and competences, but also become aware of their preferences, styles, dispositions, and learning strategies, thus being able to adopt a more learner-centred practice. The article first introduces the rationale for the use of portfolios with this group of students. Then it reports on their feedback, categorizing their reflections into four domains. Finally, it draws some preliminary conclusions that suggest how the students’ reflections can help the teacher make informed decisions and choices in the classroom, and also contribute to a greater student involvement in the teaching-learning process, and to more autonomous learners of English.
A Comparison of Behavioral and Emotional Characteristics in Children with Autism, Prader-Willi Syndrome, and Williams Syndrome

In order to investigate unique and shared characteristics and to determine factors predictive of group classification, quantitative comparisons of behavioral and emotional problems were assessed using the Developmental Behavior Checklist (DBC-P) and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales in autistic disorder, Williams syndrome (WS), and Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The DBC-P Total Behavior Problem Score did not differ between groups. However, at the subscale level, the autism group showed more behavioral and emotional problems in the Self-Absorbed and Communication Disturbance domains than the WS and PWS group. Discriminant analysis revealed 16 variables that predicted group membership with 90.9% accuracy. Within-group analyses revealed problems decreased with age among individuals with autism. However, as people with WS aged, they had greater difficulty with Social Relating. Distinct age and IQ correlates of adaptive behavior among groups were also found. These findings both confirm and refine the behavioral phenotypes of these developmental disorders.
Organizational Learning and Organizational Knowledge

Organizational learning and organizational knowledge have seen important growth in both the academic and business worlds. However, both approaches face various problems, the most striking of which is their theoretical confusion and diversity. This is due to the great number of authors and publications on the theoretical concepts, which originate in different fields, and are dealt with from different perspectives. Despite their implicit links, the two areas of literature retain a relative distance. This article sets out to improve the situation by linking the two perspectives with the aim of providing an integrative approach. Furthermore, the analysis outlines some common unresolved issues in these debates: the epistemological and ontological principles that underpin our understanding of learning, knowledge, and the relationship between them, as well as the relationship between individual and organizational learning and knowing.
Dispersion Analysis of helical corrugation waveguide for Gyro-TWT and Gyro-BWO

The paper puts forward a simple method of solving the coupled coefficient and the dispersion equation of the backward wave in the helical corrugation waveguide gyro-BWO. And using the VBA macro in the software CST, two taper parts and a regular part helical waveguide is founded. A simulation method is used to analysis the dispersion curve.
Collisionless instability of the cathode sheath in a hollow-cathode discharge.

High-intensity periodic variations of the potential fall across the cathode sheath are observed in a low-pressure magnetic-field-free hollow-cathode discharge. These potential variations cause modulation of the discharge current, reaching a depth of almost 100%. Typical frequencies are tens of MHz, slightly lower than the ion plasma frequency near the cathode-sheath boundary and associated with the ion transit time through the sheath. The measured pressure dependence of the current threshold for the oscillations indicates that the mechanism of the instability is collisionless.
Assistive Control System for Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot

This paper presents an assistive control system with a special kinematic structure of an upper limb rehabilitation robot embedded with force/torque sensors. A dynamic human model integrated with sensing torque is used to simulate human interaction under three rehabilitation modes: active mode, assistive mode, and passive mode. The hereby proposed rehabilitation robot, called NTUH-ARM, provides 7 degree-of- freedom (DOF) motion and runs subject to an inherent mapping between the 7 DOFs of the robot arm and the 4 DOFs of the human arm. The Lyapunov theory is used to analyze the stability of the proposed controller design. Clinical trials have been conducted with six patients, one of which acts as a control. The results of these experiments are positive and STREAM assessment by physical therapists also reveals promising results.
Influence of parties’ behavioural features on motor compensation disputes in insurance markets

Disputes between parties involved in motor insurance claims compensations are analysed. The decision to resolve the disagreement by either negotiation or trial may depend on how risk and confrontation adverse or pessimistic the claimant is. The extent to which these behavioural features of the claimant might influence the final compensation amount is examined. An empirical analysis, fitting a switching regression model to a Spanish database, is conducted in order to analyse whether the choice of the conflict resolution procedure is endogenous to the compensation outcomes. The results show that compensations awarded by courts are always higher, although 95% of cases are settled by negotiation. We show that this is because claimants are adverse to risk and confrontation, and are pessimistic about their chances at trial. By contrast, insurers are risk/confrontation neutral and more objective in relation to the expected trial compensation. During the negotiation insurers accept to pay the subjective compensation values of claimants, since these values are lower than their estimates of compensations at trial.
Growth hormone response to GRF and insulin-induced hypoglycemia in Yorkshire and Meishan pigs.

Plasma glucose and porcine growth hormone (GH) responses to insulin and/or growth hormone-releasing factor (GRF) challenges were determined in Yorkshire (Y) and Meishan (MS) castrated male pigs at 140 days of age. The decline in glucose levels observed during the first 30 min after insulin injection was similar between the two breeds. In Y pigs, GH concentrations increased sharply after insulin injection. The GH response to insulin was much smaller in MS than in Y pigs (101 +/- 82 vs. 1,077 +/- 124 ng.min.ml-1, P < 0.001 after 0.30 U/kg insulin). The GH response to GRF (10 micrograms/kg) did not differ significantly between the two breeds. The GH response was larger after combined insulin (0.20 U/kg) plus GRF than after GRF alone in Y pigs (1,512 +/- 229 vs. 463 +/- 401 ng.min.ml-1, P < 0.05), whereas it did not differ in MS pigs (714 +/- 164 vs. 507 +/- 127 ng.min.ml-1, P > 0.10). The present data demonstrate that the GH response to insulin is dramatically altered in MS pigs. A possible explanation to this result is that somatostatin tone would not be depressed by insulin-induced hypoglycemia in MS pigs.
Management of human capital: discipline, security and controlled circulation in HRM

This article provides a contribution to the Foucauldian problematization of HRM. It draws particular attention to Foucault’s lectures that were devoted to re-conceptualizing power relations to accommodate transformations that have arisen from the emergence of liberal and neoliberal forms of government. Whilst Foucauldian approaches to HRM have mainly focused on the centripetal elements of disciplinary power in modern management, they have tended to neglect the centrifugal mechanisms aimed at the controlled circulation of flows within networks. The article shows how these mechanisms gain in importance along with HRM’s reframing in terms of human capital. Our analysis outlines a number of modifications in the apparatus of power that emerge as a consequence of this reframing, showing how human capital management operationalizes a specific style of governmental rationality.
Color Representation Is Retinotopically Biased but Locally Intermingled in Mouse V1

Dichromatic vision is common in many mammals. However, color processing in the primary visual cortex (V1) of dichromatic mammals is relatively unknown compared to the trichromatic primates. In this study, we investigated the functional organization of color processing in mouse V1. The mouse retina has a graded expression pattern of two opsins along its dorsoventral axis. However, it is not clear whether and how this expression pattern is reflected in the cortical representation at local (several hundred microns) and areal (V1) level. Using in vivo two-photon calcium (Ca2+) imaging and wide-field Ca2+ imaging, we revealed that V1 neurons responded to S (UV)- and M (green)-opsin isolating stimuli with slightly biased color preference depending on retinotopic position in V1. This was consistent with the distribution of retinal opsins. At the cellular level, preferences for S- and M-opsin isolating stimuli were intermingled in a local region encompassing several hundred microns. These results suggest that functional organizations of color information are locally intermingled, but slightly biased depending on the retinotopic position in mouse V1.
A Privacy-Preserving Unpadded RSA based-Third Party Auditing Protocol for Cloud Storage Secure

—The motivation of this paper is to present an improved privacy preserving public auditing protocol for secure cloud storage, which is based on unpadded RSA based public auditing. Many protocols have been proposed to secure cloud storage. However, many issues such as enabling worry free public auditing, user data privacy and additional online burden to users. Thus in this paper we propose a secure cloud storage system supporting privacy preserving unpadded RSA based public auditing. The proposed protocol solves all the above mentioned issues and additionally batch auditability is done. By comparing the proposed protocols with the existing protocols of encryption the proposed protocol is much better than the existing protocol in terms of data privacy and public auditability.
Secondary leukaemia and myelodysplasia after autografting for lymphoma: results from the EBMT

Between 1978 and 1996 more than 7500 lymphoma transplants have been reported to the European Bone Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) Lymphoma Registry. This has been examined to establish the incidence of secondary leukaemia and myelodysplasia and to relate this to possible prognostic factors. 131 centres representing 4998 patients responded to a questionnaire. This identified 66 patients with post transplant myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)/acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). The actuarial risk for MDS/AML at 5 years post‐transplant (±95% CI) was 4.6% (3.1–6.8) for Hodgkin's disease and 3.0% (2.0–4.3) for non‐Hodgkin's lymphoma. Multivariate analysis for all patients demonstrated an effect of age at transplant, radiotherapy at conditioning, number of transplants and interval between diagnosis and transplant as risk factors. For patients with NHL, grade of histology was important (low grade > intermediate or high‐grade); for Hodgkin's disease, female sex was identified as a risk factor. These findings suggest that the incidence of MDS/AML may not be greater following an autograft than after conventional chemotherapy.
Correlating Nerve Conduction Studies and Clinical Outcome Measures on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: Lessons From a Randomized Controlled Trial

The reported relationships between nerve conduction studies (NCS) and outcome measures in carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) are weak to moderate. However, selection of patients may have confounded nonrandomized studies. NCS have potentially great value in selecting patients for a specific treatment and in objectively assessing the efficacy of treatments in CTS, especially if they correlate significantly with clinical outcome measures. To investigate the relationship between clinical outcome measures for the severity of complaints and NCS in patients treated for CTS, data were obtained from a multicenter randomized controlled trial on the efficacy of splinting versus surgery for CTS. At baseline and 12 months after randomization, clinical outcome measures were assessed and NCS were performed. In total, 138 patients completed the questionnaires and underwent repeated NCS. Relationships were analyzed with Spearman rank correlation coefficients and Pearson correlation coefficients. All NCS parameters showed highly significant improvement compared with baseline (P < 0.001). Modest correlations (<0.4) were found between the neurophysiologic and clinical outcome measures after 12 months, and between the changes in these different categories of outcome measures. This study confirms that the parameters of NCS improve significantly after treatment for CTS, but the modest correlations between neurophysiologic and clinical outcome measures do not support that NCS are routinely performed in clinical practice to evaluate treatment effects. However, studies investigating the effects of treatment for CTS should incorporate both clinical outcome measures and NCS, because they are complementary. Furthermore, NCS can provide additional information to the clinician when treatment effects are unsatisfactory.
The Effect of Board Size and Composition on the Efficiency of UK Banks

Abstract We examine a sample of 17 banking institutions operating in the UK between 2001 and 2006 to provide empirical evidence on the association between the efficiency of UK banks and board structure, namely board size and composition. Our approach is to use data envelopment analysis to estimate several measures of the efficiency of banks, and then to use panel data regressions for investigating the impact of board structure on efficiency. After controlling for bank size and capital strength, we find some evidence of a positive association between board size and efficiency, although this is not robust across all our specifications. Board composition, by contrast, has a robustly significant and positive impact on all measures of efficiency.
The Influence of Anionic Initiator on the Selected Properties of Poly-N-Isopropyl Acrylamide Evaluated for Controlled Drug Delivery

The aim of the study was to monitor the influence of increasing initiator concentrations on the properties of poly-N-isopropylacrylamide (polyNIPA) nanoparticles obtained via surfactant free precipitation polymerization (SFPP). In all studied systems P-001 to P-1, the same amount of monomer was used, and increasing amounts of potassium persulphate (KPS). The course of each reaction was monitored by measuring the conductivity of the whole system. The resulting composition of products was confirmed by attenuated total reflectance within Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) measurements. The hydrodynamic diameters with polydispersity index (PDI) and zeta potential (ZP) were measured in aqueous dispersions of the synthesized polymers in dynamic light scattering (DLS) device (λ = 678 nm), and were found to be for P-1: 20.33 nm (PDI = 0.49) and −7 mV, for P-05: 22.24 nm (PDI = 0.39) and −5 mV, for P-01: 50.14 nm (PDI = 0.49) and −3 mV, for P-005: 62.75 nm (PDI = 0.54) and −3 mV and for P-001: 509.4 nm (PDI = 0.61) and −12 mV at 18 °C, respectively. Initiator concentration affects the size and ZP of particles. The hydrodynamic diameter decreases with initiator concentration increase, whereas the time of the reaction decreases when the initiator concentration increases. This fact is reflected in the observed values of conductivity in the course of the performed reaction. Evaluated volume phase transition temperature in the range of 32 °C enables further research of the nanoparticles as thermosensitive drug carriers.
Administration of sevoflurane and isoflurane prior to prolonged global ischemia improves heart function in isolated rat heart.

BACKGROUND The Langendorff model was used to determine whether pretreatment with sevoflurane, isoflurane, or ischemic preconditioning (IP) could protect the myocardium of rats against global ischemia. METHODS After 15-min perfusion, each isolated heart was assigned to (1) CONTROL GROUP: no pretreatment, (2) Sevoflurane group: 20-min exposure of 1.7% sevoflurane prior to ischemia, (3) Isoflurane group: exposure of 1.4% isoflurane prior to ischemia, or (4) IP group: two 5-min ischemic periods separated by 5-min perfusion. Following pretreatment, each heart was exposed to 20-min global normothermic ischemia followed by 60-min reperfusion. Heart rate (HR), left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), HR x LVDP, left ventricular contractility (+dLVP/dt), and coronary flow were recorded continuously. Myocardial damage was assessed by hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining. RESULTS No significant differences (P > 0.05) in hemodynamic variables were recorded among the four groups before the experiment. After ischemia during reperfusion, sevoflurane, isoflurane and IP pretreated hearts recovered left ventricular function significantly better than control hearts. After 60-min reperfusion, +dLVP/dt recovered to 6.84 +/- 1.06%, 23.3 +/- 4.80%, 42.3 +/- 3.16%, and 59.6 +/- 5.75% of baseline values respectively for control, sevoflurane, isoflurane and IP groups. HR x LVDP recovered to 8.9 +/- 1.7%, 27.9 +/- 6.42%, 38.7 +/- 2.78%, and 59.6 +/- 3.98% respectively. H&E staining supported the hemodynamic data in that hearts pretreated with sevoflurane, isoflurane and IP showed significantly less ischemic damage when compared to control hearts. CONCLUSIONS Our study shows pretreatment with sevoflurane or isoflurane provided moderate protection to the isolated heart against prolonged periods of global ischemia.
Investigating the key factors in designing a communication skills program for medical students: A qualitative study

Introduction Medical students have a serious need to acquire communication skills with others. In many medical schools, special curriculums are developed to improve such skills. Effective training of communication skills requires expert curriculum design. The aim of this study was to explore the experiences and views of experts and stakeholders in order to design a suitable training program in communication skills for medical students. Methods The content analysis approach was used in this qualitative study. Forty-three participants were selected from the faculty, nurses, physicians, residents, and medical students at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences using purposive sampling. The data were collected through focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. To ensure the accuracy of the data, the criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability, and conformability were met. The data were analyzed by MAXQDA software using the Graneheim & Lundman model. Results The findings of this study consisted of two main themes, i.e., “The vast nature of the present communication skills training” and “administrative requirements of the training program regarding communication skills. ” The first theme included the educational needs of students, the problems associated with training people to have good communication skills, the importance of good communication skills in performing professional duties, communication skills and job requirements, the learning environment of communication skills, and the status of existing training programs for communication skills. Strategies and suitable methods for teaching communication skills and methods of evaluating the students in this regard also were obtained. Conclusion The findings of this study were the elements required to design a proper and local model to teach communication skills to medical students through analyzing the concepts of effective communication. The results of this study can be useful for medical faculties in designing a proper program for teaching medical students how to communicate effectively with patients and colleagues.