Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic Value of Surfactant Protein-A in Severe Acute Pancreatitis-Induced Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

Background The complexity of multiple-item criteria in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) often causes inconvenience for physicians in the management of patients with severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). We evaluated whether serum SP-A levels in the presence of diffuse alveolar damage (DAD) can be qualitatively assessed for diagnosis of SAP-induced ARDS. Material/Methods Eighty rats were randomly divided into 2 groups (n=40 each) – the sham-operated (SO) group and the SAP group – and then randomly subdivided into 4 subgroups in a time-course manner. Furthermore, rats in the SAP group were subdivided into the SAP induced-ARDS group (ARDS group) and the SAP without ARDS group (non-ARDS group) according to the diagnostic standard of ARDS. The diagnostic cut-off values of SP-A for SAP-induced ARDS were determined by the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC). Results Serum SP-A levels in Baseline, SO group, SAP group, ARDS group, and non-ARDS group were 43.15±14.29, 51.91±16.99, 193.4±35.37, 198.0+29.73, and 185.7±43.21 ug/ml, respectively. The best cut-off value for the serum SP-A level for the diagnosis of SAP-induced ARDS was 150 ug/ml and the area under the ROC curve of SP-A was 0.88. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of SP-A in the diagnosis of SAP-induced ARDS were 100.0%, 81.8%, 71.4%, 100.0%, and 87.5%, respectively. Conclusions Serum SP-A levels may allow the detection of SAP-induced ARDS and may help to support the clinical diagnosis of ARDS. The optimal serum SP-A cut-off value to discriminate SAP-induced ARDS and other groups (SO group and non-ARDS group) is around 150 ug/ml.
Anion-cation interactions in the pore of neuronal background chloride channels

Background Cl channels in neurons and skeletal muscle are significantly permeable for alkali cations when tested with asymmetrical concentrations of the same salt. Both anion and cation permeation were proposed to require binding of an alkali cation with the pore (Franciolini, F., and W. Nonner. 1987. Journal of General Physiology. 90:453-478). We tested this hypothesis by bilaterally substituting large alkali cations for Na and found no significant changes of unitary conductance at 300 mM symmetrical concentrations. In addition, all organic cations examined were permeant in a salt gradient test (1,000 mM internal@300 mM external), including triethanolamine, benzyltrimethylamine, and bis-tris-propane (BTP, which is divalent at the tested pH of 6.2). Inward currents were detected following substitution of internal NaCl by the Na salts of the divalent anions of phosphoric, fumaric, and malic acid. Zero-current potentials in gradients of the Na and BTP salts of varied anions (propionate, F, Br, nitrate) that have different permeabilities under bi-ionic conditions, were approximately constant, as if the permeation of either cation were coupled to the permeation of the anion. These results rule out our earlier hypothesis of anion permeation dependent on a bound alkali cation, but they are consistent with the idea that the tested anions and cations form mixed complexes while traversing the Cl channel.
An Analysis of Interaction and Participation Patterns in Online Community

This paper presents findings from the pattern of participation and discourse analysis of the online interaction among in-service teachers in the teacher training institute in Singapore. It was found that the teachers formed a knowledge-building community and jointly discussed issues related to integrating information technology into the classroom. There was evidence that teachers formed a socially cohesive community and their participations were active. However it was found that in-depth and sustainable online interaction were lacking. The authors suggest searching for ways to promote deep and sustainable online interaction, especially in terms of getting participants to detect the gap in ideas and challenging assumptions.
Showing your ID: intrinsic disorder as an ID for recognition, regulation and cell signaling

Regulation, recognition and cell signaling involve the coordinated actions of many players. To achieve this coordination, each participant must have a valid identification (ID) that is easily recognized by the others. For proteins, these IDs are often within intrinsically disordered (also ID) regions. The functions of a set of well‐characterized ID regions from a diversity of proteins are presented herein to support this view. These examples include both more recently described signaling proteins, such as p53, α‐synuclein, HMGA, the Rieske protein, estrogen receptor α, chaperones, GCN4, Arf, Hdm2, FlgM, measles virus nucleoprotein, RNase E, glycogen synthase kinase 3β,ℓ p21Waf1/Cip1/Sdi1, caldesmon, calmodulin, BRCA1 and several other intriguing proteins, as well as historical prototypes for signaling, regulation, control and molecular recognition, such as the lac repressor, the voltage gated potassium channel, RNA polymerase and the S15 peptide associating with the RNA polymerase S‐protein. The frequent occurrence and the common use of ID regions in important protein functions raise the possibility that the relationship between amino acid sequence, disordered ensemble and function might be the dominant paradigm for the molecular recognition that serves as the basis for signaling and regulation by protein molecules. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Functional MRI Preprocessing in Lesioned Brains: Manual Versus Automated Region of Interest Analysis

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has significant potential in the study and treatment of neurological disorders and stroke. Region of interest (ROI) analysis in such studies allows for testing of strong a priori clinical hypotheses with improved statistical power. A commonly used automated approach to ROI analysis is to spatially normalize each participant’s structural brain image to a template brain image and define ROIs using an atlas. However, in studies of individuals with structural brain lesions, such as stroke, the gold standard approach may be to manually hand-draw ROIs on each participant’s non-normalized structural brain image. Automated approaches to ROI analysis are faster and more standardized, yet are susceptible to preprocessing error (e.g., normalization error) that can be greater in lesioned brains. The manual approach to ROI analysis has high demand for time and expertise, but may provide a more accurate estimate of brain response. In this study, commonly used automated and manual approaches to ROI analysis were directly compared by reanalyzing data from a previously published hypothesis-driven cognitive fMRI study, involving individuals with stroke. The ROI evaluated is the pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus. Significant differences were identified in task-related effect size and percent-activated voxels in this ROI between the automated and manual approaches to ROI analysis. Task interactions, however, were consistent across ROI analysis approaches. These findings support the use of automated approaches to ROI analysis in studies of lesioned brains, provided they employ a task interaction design.
Urban and rural Differences in the Prevalence of Gender and Age specific Obesity and related Health Behaviors in Korea

The objective of this study was to discuss the residential difference in gender and age specific prevalence of obesity by body mass index (BMI) and obesity related health behaviors in the Republic of Korea. A total of nationally representative 2,583 men and 3,087 women (age: 20-64 yr) was used as subjects from 1998 National Health and Nutrition Survey. All statistics were calculated using SUDAAN to consider a stratified multistage probability sampling design. The prevalence of obesity (BMI≥25) was significantly different by age, gender and residential areas. Although younger men aged 20-49 yr did not show a residential difference in the prevalence of obesity, men aged 50-64 yr showed differences, highest in big cities and lowest in rural areas. However, in women, a higher prevalence was observed in rural areas compared to urban areas in the younger age group (20-49 yr), but not in the older age group. Residential differences of obesity related health behaviors existed mostly in the older population, but not in the younger population. The urban-rural differences demonstrate the various stages of behavioral transition that Korea is currently undergoing. Therefore, different strategies considering those factors are needed to manage obesity problems in Korea.
Real BCH codes as joint source channel codes for satellite images coding

In this paper, a Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) coder in the field of the real numbers is investigated for simultaneous source coding and impulse noise cancellation of satellite images. Our channel is a binary symmetric channel (BSC). Our approach is to make a carefully designed interpolation of the subband images prior to quantization and transmission. Compared to a classical tandem source and channel coding (TSC) scheme, in which a binary BCH coder would take place after quantization, our approach makes use of BCH coding prior to quantization, thus, allowing joint source and channel decoding. We also examine the issue of robust transmission of wavelet compressed images through the noisy channel: simulations show that we obtain a 3.7 dB improvement in PSNR over the classical entropy coder for a global rate of 3.25 transmitted bits per pixel and small BSC crossover probability.
Thresholds for shock formation in traffic flow models with Arrhenius look-ahead dynamics

We investigate a class of nonlocal conservation laws with the nonlinear advection coupling both local and nonlocal mechanism, which arises in several applications such as the collective motion of cells and traffic flows. It is proved that the $C^1$ solution regularity of this class of conservation laws will persist at least for a short time. This persistency may continue as long as the solution gradient remains bounded. Based on this result, we further identify sub-thresholds for finite time shock formation in traffic flow models with Arrhenius look-ahead dynamics.
Increasing Incidence of Extended-Spectrum β-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia coli in Community Hospitals throughout the Southeastern United States

OBJECTIVE To describe the epidemiology of extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli (ESBL-EC) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (ESBL-KP) infections DESIGN Retrospective cohort SETTING Inpatient care at community hospitals PATIENTS All patients with ESBL-EC or ESBL-KP infections METHODS ESBL-EC and ESBL-KP infections from 26 community hospitals were prospectively entered into a centralized database from January 2009 to December 2014. RESULTS A total of 925 infections caused by ESBL-EC (10.5 infections per 100,000 patient days) and 463 infections caused by ESBL-KP (5.3 infections per 100,000 patient days) were identified during 8,791,243 patient days of surveillance. The incidence of ESBL-EC infections increased from 5.28 to 10.5 patients per 100,000 patient days during the study period (P=.006). The number of community hospitals with ESBL-EC infections increased from 17 (65%) in 2009 to 20 (77%) in 2014. The median ESBL-EC infection rates among individual hospitals with ≥1 ESBL-EC infection increased from 11.1 infections/100,000 patient days (range, 2.2–33.9 days) in 2009 to 22.1 infections per 100,000 patient days (range, 0.66–134 days) in 2014 (P=.05). The incidence of ESBL-KP infections remained constant over the study period (P=.14). Community-associated and healthcare-associated ESBL-EC infections trended upward (P=.006 and P=.02, respectively), while hospital-onset infections remained stable (P=.07). ESBL-EC infections were more common in females (54% vs 44%, P<.001) and Caucasians (50% vs 40%, P<.0001), and were more likely to be isolated from the urinary tract (61% vs 52%, P<.0001) than ESBL-KP infections. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of ESBL-EC infection has increased in community hospitals throughout the southeastern United States, while the incidence of ESBL-KP infection has remained stable. Community- and healthcare-associated ESBL-EC infections are driving the upward trend. Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2015;37(1):49–54
The effect of added-purpose and meaningful occupation on motor learning.

OBJECTIVE Numerous studies in the occupational therapy literature have investigated the effects of added-purpose (multidimensional, goal-oriented) occupation on performance. Motor learning research has demonstrated that factors that enhance performance measures do not necessarily enhance motor learning. This study examined the effects of both added-purpose and meaningful occupation on motor learning. METHOD Twenty subjects (university students) were randomly assigned to either an added-purpose or rote exercise condition. After a skill acquisition phase, retention and transfer scores were obtained, and subjects were asked to rate the meaningfulness of the occupation on a visual analog scale. RESULTS A two-way analysis of variance indicated that only the added-purpose occupation resulted in significantly greater motor learning. Additionally, the added-purpose scores were not influenced by the level of meaning assigned to the occupation. CONCLUSION This study is the first to demonstrate how added-purpose can enhance a more permanent aspect of performance: motor learning. Further research is necessary to determine whether occupations that both are meaningful and have added-purpose are the most effective in enhancing motor learning.
NWU-CS-0440 July 12 , 2004 Cyber Disease Monitoring with Distributed Hash Tables : A Global Peer-to-Peer Intrusion Detection System

Traffic anomalies and distributed attacks are commonplace in today’s networks. Single point detection is often insufficient to determine the causes, patterns and prevalence of such events. Most existing distributed intrusion detection systems (DIDS) rely on centralized fusion, or distributed fusion with unscalable communication mechanisms. In this paper, we propose to build a distributed IDS based on the emerging decentralized location and routing infrastructure: distributed hash table (DHT). We embed the intrusion symptoms into the DHT dimensions so that alarms related to the same intrusion (thus with similar symptoms) will be routed to the same sensor fusion center (SFC) while evenly distributing unrelated alarms to different SFCs. This is achieved through careful routing key design based on: 1) analysis of essential characteristics of three common types of intrusions: DoS attacks, port scanning and virus/worm infection; and 2) distribution and stability analysis of the popular port numbers and those of the popular source IP addresses in scans. We further propose load-aware node bootstrapping to distribute the alarms more evenly across the fusion centers. Evaluation based on one month of DShield firewall logs (600 million scan records) collected from over 2200 Worldwide providers show that the resulting system, termed Cyber Disease DHT (CDDHT), can effectively fuse related alarms while distributing unrelated ones evenly among the SFCs. Open questions on querying and attack-resilience of CDDHT are also discussed.
On Amplitude Estimation for High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy

Amplitude estimation or demodulation plays a vital part in the control loop of dynamic mode high-speed atomic force microscopy (AFM). The closed-loop bandwidth will be limited by the convergence speed of the estimator. Recent developments have introduced new ways of demodulating the measured deflection signal. This article reviews and compares present methods for AFM amplitude demodulation and introduces a new Lyapunov based estimator. The performance of the techniques are discussed in terms of bandwidth, measurement noise, convergence time, unwanted harmonics, and complexity.
MORC: A manycore-oriented compressed cache

Cache compression has largely focused on improving single-stream application performance. In contrast, this work proposes utilizing cache compression to improve application throughput for manycore processors while potentially harming single-stream performance. The growing interest in throughput-oriented manycore architectures and widening disparity between on-chip resources and off-chip bandwidth motivate re-evaluation of utilizing costly compression to conserve off-chip memory bandwidth. This work proposes MORC, a Many-core ORiented Compressed Cache architecture that compresses hundreds of cache lines together to maximize compression ratio. By looking across cache lines, MORC is able to achieve compression ratios beyond compression schemes which only compress within a single cache line. MORC utilizes a novel log-based cache organization which selects cache lines that are filled into the cache close in time as candidates to compress together. The proposed design not only compresses cache data, but also cache tags together to further save storage. Future manycore processors will likely have reduced cache sizes and less bandwidth per core than current multicore processors. We evaluate MORC on such future many-core processors utilizing the SPEC2006 benchmark suite. We find that MORC offers 37% more throughput than uncompressed caches and 17% more throughput than the next best cache compression scheme, while simultaneously reducing 17% of memory system energy compared to uncompressed caches.
Understanding why gay men seek HIV‐seroconcordant partners: Intimacy and risk reduction motivations

Our goal was to situate the interest of some gay men in having HIV‐seroconcordant partners within the psychosocial context of concurrent motivations for intimacy and sexual risk reduction. Data were obtained from semi‐structured qualitative interviews with a racially/ethnically diverse sample of 32 gay men (16 HIV‐positive and 16 HIV‐negative) living in New York City who sought HIV‐seroconcordant partners. Thematic analysis indicated that seroconcordant partner selection was strongly motivated by a desire to reduce sexual risk as well as the pursuit of multiple forms of intimacy. Affirmative experiences in seroconcordant relationships and goals for future long‐term relationships also informed men's current partner selection practices. When seeking seroconcordant partners, men reported key junctures and disjunctures between motivations for intimacy and interests in risk reduction. Our findings suggest that HIV prevention efforts will have greater relevance if they address broader motivational concerns for partner selection and serosorting, including the pursuit of intimacy.
The cognitive profile of Sotos syndrome.

Sotos syndrome is a congenital overgrowth disorder, associated with intellectual disability. Previous research suggests that Sotos syndrome may be associated with relative strength in verbal ability and relative weakness in non-verbal reasoning ability but this has not been explicitly assessed. To date, the cognitive profile of Sotos syndrome is unknown. Cognitive abilities of a large and representative sample of individuals with Sotos syndrome (N = 52) were assessed using the British Ability Scales (BAS3). The majority of participants had intellectual disability or borderline intellectual functioning. The cluster score profile analysis revealed a consistent verbal ability > non-verbal reasoning ability profile. Four specific criteria were proposed as the Sotos syndrome cognitive profile (SSCP): verbal ability > non-verbal reasoning ability; quantitative reasoning T-score or matrices T-score <20th percentile; quantitative reasoning T-score < mean T-score; recognition of designs T-score or recognition of pictures T-score > mean T-score. Of the 35 participants included in the profile analysis, 28 met all four SSCP criteria, yielding a sensitivity of 0.8. The sensitivity of each of the SSCP criteria was >0.9. Individuals with Sotos syndrome display a clear and consistent cognitive profile, characterized by relative strength in verbal ability and visuospatial memory but relative weakness in non-verbal reasoning ability and quantitative reasoning. This has important implications for the education of individuals with Sotos syndrome.
Antibiotic‐Loaded PLGA Nanofibers for Wound Healing Applications

Incorporating antibiotics into biocompatible nanoscale non‐woven fibrous mats could provide utility for wound healing applications and for incorporation into wound dressing materials. In this study, the antibiotic chloramphenicol (Cm) was incorporated into electrospun poly(lactic‐co‐glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanofibers, which were then tested for inhibition of bacterial growth for multiple bacterial species (Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella typhimurium, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa). In addition, the cytotoxicity of Cm‐PLGA nanofibers was examined for two types of mammalian cells including mouse embryonic stem cells and fibroblasts. Electrospun PLGA nanofibers containing Cm were able to reduce bacterial growth on solid agar plates for all species except for P. aeruginosa. In liquid culture, Cm‐loaded nanofibers inhibited growth for E. coli, B. cereus and S. typhimurium by 93% or greater, while P. aeruginosa and S. aureus growth was inhibited by 42% and 56%, respectively. Cm‐loaded nanofibers showed limited cytoxicity on fibroblasts and embryonic stem cells, with viability greater than 96% for all conditions tested. These results suggest that Cm can be successfully incorporated into electrospun nanofibers and that these fibers could be used for wound healing applications with minimal cytotoxicity to the surrounding tissue.
Shattering the Illusion of Control: Multi-shot Versus Single-Shot Gambles

The illusion of control refers to a phenomenon whereby people believe their chances of success at a task are greater than would be warranted by objective analysis. This article raises two questions. First, how robust is the illusion of control? Second, how might the illusion be 'shattered? ' Previous experimental demonstrations involved situations that can be likened to unique or single-shot gambles. If, however, the phenomenon is robust, it should occur in repeated or multi-shot gambles in which the outcome depends on a series of gambles involv- ing the same underlying random process. It should also appear in single-shot gambles that are framed so as to superficially resemble multi-shot gambles. We label this the strong illusion of control hypothesis. On the other hand, because people have a better appreciation of probabilistic concepts in tasks they are able to represent as relative frequencies, the introduction of a multi-shot or "pseudo- multi-shot" context might cue people to the random nature of the task, thereby shattering the illusion. The i\-eak illusion of control hypothesis holds that the illusion of control will occur in single-shot but not in multi-shot or pseudo-multi- shot gambles. Two studies are reported that support the weak hypothesis. Alterna- tive explanations are considered and implications are discussed.
Facets of Dispositional Mindfulness and Health Among College Students.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between the facets of trait mindfulness with psychological and physical health while controlling for health behaviors in college students. PARTICIPANTS 310 students from a small, private college in the Northeastern United States. OUTCOME MEASURES Students completed self-report measures, including the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ), Medical Outcomes Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), and the Rutgers Alcohol Problems Index (RAPI). RESULTS After controlling for other health behaviors, the observation facet of mindfulness was negatively associated with physical health. Both acting with awareness and nonjudging facets were positively associated with emotional well-being. For social functioning, nonjudging was a significant positive facet for this domain of health. CONCLUSIONS Tailoring mindfulness-based interventions to enhance these facets may be beneficial to young adults.