Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Jakość życia pielęgniarek – badanie wstępne

Introduction. The quality of life is manifested by biological, social, personal and spiritual adaptation. From this perspective, the concept is identified both with the values of the surrounding world, and the quality of human functioning. In one sentence, this is a set of elements mutually interpenetrating in various proportions and with various intensity, consisting of such areas as: co-participation in social life, creative output, wealth of experience, level of awareness and level of activity. Material and methods. The quality of life conditioned by the state of health was examined among 145 nurses based on the Polish adaptation of the EQ 5D questionnaire. Apart from demographic data, the questionnaire contains an assessment of the state of health from 5 aspects of daily life: mobility capabilities, self-care, daily activity and psychological state, and global self-reported state of health (so-called EQ-VAS). Results. Moderate problems within at least one domain of the quality of life were reported by 65.52% of respondents, while extreme problems – by 1.4%. Pain or discomfort were experienced by 48.97% of respondents, whereas anxiety or low mood – by 50.3%. Problems with walking were mentioned by 6.2%, and with performing simple activities – 10.34%. Pain and fear were the most frequently reported problems, especially among the younger group of women in the study. The mean evaluation of the state of health according to the visual analogue scale VAS was 78.85 scores (SD 13.85). Conclusions. Anxiety and pain are frequent problems among nurses, especially those who were younger. The mean evaluation of the state of health decreased with age. No significant differences in the state of health were observed between nurses and the general Polish population. Job satisfaction affects health-related quality of life, while the health status modifies the level of job satisfaction.
Using Future Information to Reduce Waiting Times in the Emergency Department via Diversion

The development of predictive models in healthcare settings has been growing; one such area is the prediction of patient arrivals to the emergency department (ED). The general premise behind these works is that such models may be used to help manage an ED that consistently faces high congestion. In this work, we propose a class of proactive policies that utilize future information of potential patient arrivals to effectively manage admissions into an ED while reducing waiting times for patients who are eventually treated. Instead of the standard strategy of waiting for queues to build before diverting patients, the proposed policy utilizes the predictions to identify when congestion is going to increase and proactively diverts patients before things get “too bad. ” We demonstrate that the proposed policy provides delay improvements over standard policies used in practice. We also consider the impact of errors in the information provided by the predictive models and find that even with noisy predictions, ou.
Segmentation of brain MRI structures with deep machine learning

Several studies on brain Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) show relations between neuroanatomical abnormalities of brain structures and neurological disorders, such as Attention De fficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Alzheimer. These abnormalities seem to be correlated with the size and shape of these structures, and there is an active fi eld of research trying to find accurate methods for automatic MRI segmentation. In this project, we study the automatic segmentation of structures from the Basal Ganglia and we propose a new methodology based on Stacked Sparse Autoencoders (SSAE). SSAE is a strategy that belongs to the family of Deep Machine Learning and consists on a supervised learning method based on an unsupervisely pretrained Feed-forward Neural Network. Moreover, we present two approaches based on 2D and 3D features of the images. We compare the results obtained on the di fferent regions of interest with those achieved by other machine learning techniques such as Neural Networks and Support Vector Machines. We observed that in most cases SSAE improves those other methods. We demonstrate that the 3D features do not report better results than the 2D ones as could be thought. Furthermore, we show that SSAE provides state-of-the-art Dice Coe fficient results (left, right): Caudate (90.6+-3 1.4, 90.31 +-1.7), Putamen (91.03 +-1.4, 90.82+- 1.4), Pallidus (85.11+-1.8, 83.47 +-2.2), Accumbens (74.26+- 4.4, 74.46 +-4.6).
Treatment of complex regional pain syndrome with stellate ganglion local anesthetic blockade: a case report of one patient's experiences with traditional bupivacaine HCl and liposome bupivacaine

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a poorly understood, debilitating disorder characterized by severe chronic pain in an affected limb or region of the body. This case presentation is the first to describe the effectiveness and prolonged duration of the effect of liposome bupivacaine in stellate ganglion block for CRPS.
The Third Force? Independent Regulatory Agencies and Elected Politicians in Europe

Governments and legislatures in Europe have created or greatly strengthened independent regulatory agencies (IRAs). Yet they also retain many formal controls over those agencies. The article analyzes whether elected politicians have used their powers to create IRAs in their own image and kept IRAs under tight control or whether they have allowed IRAs to become a distinct set of actors, hence a "third force" in regulation. Principal–agent (PA) theories, largely based on U.S. experience, emphasize the importance of certain formal controls for elected politicians to limit "agency losses. " However, an analysis of four European nations between 1990 and 2001 shows that elected politicians did not use their powers to appoint party politicians, force the early departures of IRA members, reverse IRA decisions, or reduce IRA budgets and powers. Using PA theory, two interpretations of this apparent puzzle are offered, each with differing implications for agency autonomy. One is that elected politicians used alternative methods of control, hence they suffered low "agency losses" and IRAs in practice had little autonomy. The other is that elected politicians found that the benefits of IRA autonomy in practice and the costs of applying their formal control outweighed agency losses, and hence accepted agency autonomy.
Clinical and Diagnostic Imaging Features of Brain Herniation in Dogs and Cats

Background Quantification of brain herniation on MRI and its immediate clinical implications are poorly described. Objectives Define the normal position of caudal fossa structures on brain MRIs in dogs and cats utilizing morphometry, compare this to dogs and cats with caudal transtentorial herniation (CTH), foramen magnum herniation (FMH) or both identified on MRI, and investigate associations between herniation severity, clinical signs, and 24‐hour outcome. Animals Ninety‐two controls (66 dogs, 26 cats), 119 cases with herniation (88 dogs, 31 cats). Methods Retrospective case series. The MRI database was searched for controls with normal brain anatomy and cases with brain herniation. Morphometry in controls established TTX (transtentorial to rostroventral cerebellum) to quantify CTH and FMX (caudoventral cerebellum to foramen magnum) to quantify FMH. Measurements were compared between cases and controls. Correlations with specific clinical variables and outcome were investigated. Results Measurements in medium/large control dogs versus small dog and cat controls were significantly different (P < .001, TTX: −0.46, −0.305, −0.3, FMX: 0.695, 0.27, 0.25, respectively). 119/1564 (7.6%) cases that underwent brain imaging had brain herniation. TTX and FMX were significantly different between controls and cases with CTH or FMH (P < .001). 67/89 (75%) cases with supratentorial lesions had no signs directly attributable to herniation. 71/119 (60%) had a normal anesthetic recovery. TTX was significantly associated with 24‐hour survival (P < .001). Conclusions and clinical importance Brain herniation can be quantified on MRI. Clinical signs directly attributable to brain herniation commonly are absent, and more severe CTH based on TTX is associated with a worse short‐term outcome.
Application of a Holistic Information Systems Strategy for Organisational Management (Hissom), to an E-Commerce Card Payment Processor

Alignment of organisational strategy with Information Systems Strategy (ISS) has become critical as adoption of Information Systems (IS ) over the last 50 years has escalated. IS capabilities have evolved from central, internally controlled and strictly restricted data processing and automation architectures, to less structured, globally distributed and largely unregulated, Internet-linked IS. Established organisations must adjust to the pace new Web based IS innovations dictate. One area of particular interest in Internet-based IS developments has been the emergence of e-commerce direct to the general public through provision of electronic data interchange (EDI) facilities supporting credit and debit card payments, hitherto transacted only face-to-face and through mail/telephone channels. These developments have, however, highlighted a complexity hitherto unrecognised in IS research, emphasising the need to balance the competing influences of internal and external stakeholder groups upon organisational direction. Recently, the influence of the global investment community, in pursuit of the big payoff, fuelled Internet start-ups boasting IS “breakthrough paradigms”, unchallenged by strategic logic. Established organisations reacted, countering unquantifiable threats, hastily reorganising scarce IS resources. Alignment between organisational and IS strategy was little considered, despite the commercial stakes. Many of these IS failed to deliver, raising questions over their real strategic rationale. The HISSOM model addresses these weaknesses, providing action-based research to support the application of a useable, holistic ISS model, yielding insight into the perspectives that influence organisational behaviours. HISSOM has previously been applied successfully to the integration of two established, large-scale European financial services organisations, facilitating the first Internet-enabled ISS for the combined organisation. In that integration, the maturity of the management processes, organisational capabilities and functional interaction aided the balancing of different organisational perspectives, resulting in strategic alignment. This led to the question whether HISSOM in its current form was flexible enough to be applied to a new organisational setting, in which the maturity of management processes and organisational capabilities was less well established. To answer this question, HISSOM is herein applied to an Internet entrant in the global card payment industry, facilitating e-commerce through Internet enabled EDI for card payments. The cultural interaction of entrepreneurial top management with internal and external stakeholders is highlighted. The strategic model developed by HISSOM is discussed, and the destructive impact of discarding fundamental ISS and organisational strategy principles in favour of entrepreneurial initiative, resulting in the failure of the organisation to meet its public targets, is summarised.
Symbolic self-completion theory: The impact of a threat to undergraduate students' academic competence beliefs

SYMBOLIC SELF-COMPLETION THEORY: THE IMPACT OF A THREAT TO UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC COMPETENCE BELIEFS Matthew David Lange, PhD Department of Leadership, Educational Psychology, and Foundations Northern Illinois University, 2015 Stephen M. Tonks, Director The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the influence that a threat to university students’ academic competence had on their reported competence, self-efficacy, and the avoidance of help seeking in academics. This dissertation was conceptualized based on symbolic self-completion theory which maintains that when individuals are actively committed to pursuing certain self-definitions, they define themselves as complete (e.g., competent or possessing a desired quality) through the use of symbols of attainment. These symbols can consist of any behavior or material possession that is accepted by others as proof that the individual possesses the desired self-definition. In the present study, the desired quality is being a competent university student, and potential symbols of attainment are measures of perceived competence, self-efficacy, and the avoidance of help seeking in academics. Providing written advice to future undergraduate students was also examined as an additional symbol of attainment. A pre/posttest design was used to gather measures surrounding an academic threat to current undergraduate students (n=203). Results of this dissertation support that being an undergraduate student does represent a self-defining goal and suggest that some students are invested in establishing and maintaining competence within this desired self-definition. This dissertation found that following an academic threat the experimental group did exaggerate (i.e., increase) responses to some of the measures. In addition, both academic commitment and selfii esteem were important in determining the extent to which a student engaged in the symbolic selfcompletion process using measures that focus on competence, self-efficacy, and the avoidance of help seeking in academics. NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY DE KALB, ILLINOIS
The Link Between Men’s Zero-Sum Gender Beliefs and Mental Health: Findings From Chile and Croatia

Zero-sum gender beliefs (ZSGBs) refer to the perception that the advancement of a gender outgroup’s rights (e.g., women’s rights) would be at the expense of a gender ingroup’s rights (e.g., men’s rights). Although it seems obvious that men’s ZSGBs could be harmful to women, the authors of this study propose that such beliefs are ultimately also harmful to men’s own mental health. Using multigroup structural equation modeling, this cross-national study tested the link between men’s ZSGBs and psychological distress. Participants were 1,224 men from Chile and Croatia who were in heterosexual relationships and living with their female partners. The results showed that men’s ZSGBs were positively related to psychological distress whereas relationship satisfaction was negatively related to psychological distress. ZSGBs were also negatively associated with participation in domestic tasks and relationship satisfaction whereas childhood exposure to male role models who participated in domestic chores was negatively linked to ZSGBs. These paths were structurally invariant across both countries with 1 exception: the negative association between ZSGBs and relationship satisfaction was stronger among Croatian than among Chilean men. In addition, the authors identified several mediation effects that explained the link between ZSGBs and psychological distress. These results draw attention to the pernicious nature of ZSGBs and the need for gender equality programs to include interventions to reduce men’s ZSGBs.
A retrospective study of 21 cases of malignant odontogenic tumours from two tertiary health centres in Nigeria

Introduction Malignant odontogenic tumours (MOTs) are relatively rare tmours and only few cases have been reported in the sub-Sahara African literature. The aim of this study was to describe the demographic distribution of malignant odontogenic tumours in two tertiary health centres based on the current WHO 2005 classification scheme. Methods We reviewed 21 malignant odontogenic tumours out of a total of 374 odontogenic tumours from two Tertiary Health Centres. Information regarding histology, location, patients age and gender for MOTs were analysed using SPSS for Windows (version 20.0; SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL). Results Twenty one (5.6%) MOTs out of a total of 374 odontogenic tumours were seen from the two institutions over the study period. The median age for MOTs was 42.0 (±19.0) years (range = 16-66 years). The male: female ratio was 2.5:1 and 85.7% occurred in the mandible. Ameloblastic carcinoma (AC) with 13 (61.9%) cases was the most common MOT. AC had a mean age of 37.5 (±11.9) years. AC had a mandible: maxilla ratio of 5.5:1 with majority (84.6%) occurring in the posterior mandible. Conclusion This study showed that MOTs are rare lesions. AC was the most common MOT and majority of MOTs occurred in the posterior mandible of male patients. The study helps to better elucidate the demography of MOTs in sub-Sahara Africans.
Engineering and implementing software architectural patterns based on feedback loops

A highly decentralized system of autonomous service components consists of multiple and interacting feedback loops which can be organized into a variety of architectural patterns. The highly complex nature of these loops make engineering and implementation of these patterns a very challenging task. In this paper, we present SimSOTA - an integrated Eclipse plug-in to architect, engineer and implement self-adaptive systems based on our feedback loop-based approach. SimSOTA adopts model-driven development to model and simulate complex self-adaptive architectural patterns, and to automate the generation of Java-based implementation code. The approach is validated using a case study in cooperative electric vehicles.
Securing UDT protocol: Experiences in integrating Transport Layer Security Solutions with UDT

UDP based Data Transfer (UDT) protocol has emerged as one of the next-generation high-speed network protocol for transferring bulk data in distributed environment. With the rapid increase and emergence of new distributed applications for bulk data transfer using UDT framework, security has become a major concern which is driving researchers to explore for providing required security to UDT. It is important to provide security for UDT protocol security to ensure authentication, confidentiality and integrity. To provide the above security services, Transport Layer Security Solutions (TLS) are explored. Through this paper, we presented our efforts in integrating TLS with UDT along with the experimental results.
Practical Pairwise Key Establishment Schemes for Wireless Sensor Networks via Constrained Random Perturbation

The resource limitation of sensor nodes poses a great challenge in designing an efficient key establishment scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In spite of the fact that many elegant and clever solutions have been proposed, no practical key establishment scheme has emerged. In this paper, a ConstrAined Random Perturbation based pairwise keY establishment (CARPY) scheme and its variant, a CARPY+ scheme, forWSNs, are presented. Compared to all existing schemes which satisfy only some requirements in so-called sensor-key criteria, including 1) resilience to various attacks, 2) directed and guaranteed key establishment, 3) resilience to network configurations, 4) efficiency, and 5) resilience to dynamic node deployment, the proposed CARPY+ scheme meets all requirements. In particular, to the best of our knowledge, CARPY+ is the first non-interactive key establishment scheme with great resilience to a large number of node compromises designed for WSNs. We examine the CARPY and CARPY+ schemes from both the theoretical and experimental aspects. They have also been practically implemented on the TelosB compatible mote to evaluate the corresponding performance and overhead.
Computational Simulations to Predict Creatine Kinase-Associated Factors: Protein-Protein Interaction Studies of Brain and Muscle Types of Creatine Kinases

Creatine kinase (CK; EC 2.7.3.2) is related to several skin diseases such as psoriasis and dermatomyositis. CK is important in skin energy homeostasis because it catalyzes the reversible transfer of a phosphoryl group from MgATP to creatine. In this study, we predicted CK binding proteins via the use of bioinformatic tools such as protein-protein interaction (PPI) mappings and suggest the putative hub proteins for CK interactions. We obtained 123 proteins for brain type CK and 85 proteins for muscle type CK in the interaction networks. Among them, several hub proteins such as NFKB1, FHL2, MYOC, and ASB9 were predicted. Determination of the binding factors of CK can further promote our understanding of the roles of CK in physiological conditions.
Subjective outcome evaluation of a university subject on leadership and intrapersonal development

Abstract First-year undergraduate students (n=890) responded to a 48-item subjective outcome evaluation scale (SOES) after taking a leadership subject at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in the second semester of the 2012–2013 academic year. Consistent with our expectation, factor analyses showed that the scale contains three dimensions (program, instructor and benefits). Results showed that students had positive perceptions of the program contents and the instructors, and most of the students perceived the subject to be beneficial to their development in different areas. As predicted, perceived qualities of the program and instructors were significant predictors of the perceived effectiveness of the program. Perceived qualities of the program, instructors and benefits predicted student’s overall satisfaction with the program.
Optimized link state routing protocol for ad hoc networks

In this paper we propose and discuss an optimized link state routing protocol, named OLSR, for mobile wireless networks. The protocol is based on the link state algorithm and it is proactive (or table-driven) in nature. It employs periodic exchange of messages to maintain topology information of the network at each node. OLSR is an optimization over a pure link state protocol as it compacts the size of information sent in the messages, and furthermore, reduces the number of retransmissions to flood these messages in an entire network. For this purpose, the protocol uses the multipoint relaying technique to efficiently and economically flood its control messages. It provides optimal routes in terms of number of hops, which are immediately available when needed. The proposed protocol is best suitable for large and dense ad hoc networks.
Increasing the effective interstitial resistivity promotes the escape of premature beats

Ectopic beats in the heart require a heterogeneous substrate to develop into dangerous, whole-heart arrhythmias. In this study, a 1-D monodomain computer model that incorporated local heterogeneity in both the interstitial and intracellular spaces was used to investigate whether increased interstitial resistivity could modulate the escape of premature beats given at different coupling intervals. Our simulations show that locally increasing the effective interstitial resistivity (ρoeff) reduces both the conduction delay and the dispersion of repolarization at the boundary between the poorly-coupled and well-coupled regions. Increasing ρoeff also decreases the dependence of the conduction delay on the coupling beat interval. The interaction between microheterogeneity in the interstitial and intracellular spaces may increase the likelihood that premature ectopic beats will escape and trigger an arrhyhmia.