Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Suture contamination in strabismus surgery.

PURPOSE To document the contamination rate of sutures used in strabismus surgery and evaluate the reduction of contamination using antibiotic-coated and antiseptic/antibiotic-coated sutures. METHODS This was a prospective randomized analysis of suture contamination and potential prophylaxis measures after strabismus surgery. Muscle sutures (6-0 polyglactin) used in 302 consecutive cases of strabismus from October 2008 to May 2009 were collected and randomly assigned to three groups: (1) a control without pretreatment sutures (61); (2) antibiotic/steroid-coated sutures (200); and (3) antiseptic-soaked and antibiotic/steroid-coated sutures (141). The sutures were used under sterile conditions and then cut into pieces and transferred to blood agar plates, which were incubated for 48 hours and then checked for growth. RESULTS Group 1 had bacterial growth in 17 of 61 (28%) sutures; group 2 had growth in 44 of 200 (22%) sutures; and group 3 had growth in 12 of 141 (9%) sutures. The reduction in bacterial growth using the antibiotic/antiseptic coating was significant (P = .006). One patient developed coagulase-negative Staphylococcus epidermidis endophthalmitis 1 week after surgery, which was promptly diagnosed and successfully treated. No complications from the antibiotic-coated or antiseptic-soaked sutures were noted. CONCLUSIONS Although endophthalmitis after strabismus surgery is rare, estimated at 1 in 35,000 to 1 in 185,000, visual outcome is uniformly poor. The authors hypothesize that strabismus sutures can be contaminated via contact with the eyelashes and skin, providing a possible conduit for endophthalmitis. Bacterial contamination of strabismus sutures is high (28%) and can be reduced significantly if sutures are soaked in antiseptic before use.
Epigenetic variation during the adult lifespan: cross-sectional and longitudinal data on monozygotic twin pairs

The accumulation of epigenetic changes was proposed to contribute to the age‐related increase in the risk of most common diseases. In this study on 230 monozygotic twin pairs (MZ pairs), aged 18–89 years, we investigated the occurrence of epigenetic changes over the adult lifespan. Using mass spectrometry, we investigated variation in global (LINE1) DNA methylation and in DNA methylation at INS, KCNQ1OT1, IGF2, GNASAS, ABCA1, LEP, and CRH, candidate loci for common diseases. Except for KCNQ1OT1, interindividual variation in locus‐specific DNA methylation was larger in old individuals than in young individuals, ranging from 1.2‐fold larger at ABCA1 (P = 0.010) to 1.6‐fold larger at INS (P = 3.7 × 10−07). Similarly, there was more within‐MZ‐pair discordance in old as compared with young MZ pairs, except for GNASAS, ranging from an 8% increase in discordance each decade at CRH (P = 8.9 × 10−06) to a 16% increase each decade at LEP (P = 2.0 × 10−08). Still, old MZ pairs with strikingly similar DNA methylation were also observed at these loci. After 10‐year follow‐up in elderly twins, the variation in DNA methylation showed a similar pattern of change as observed cross‐sectionally. The age‐related increase in methylation variation was generally attributable to unique environmental factors, except for CRH, for which familial factors may play a more important role. In conclusion, sustained epigenetic differences arise from early adulthood to old age and contribute to an increasing discordance of MZ twins during aging.
COMPACT PRINTED DIVERSITY ANTENNA FOR LTE700/GSM1700/1800/UMTS/WI-FI/BLUETOOTH/LTE2300/2500 APPLICATIONS FOR SLIM MOBILE HANDSETS

A planar, printed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna for slim mobile handset is presented. The dual-antenna system, comprises two symmetric antenna elements, is printed on a printed circuit board (PCB) of mobile phone. Each antenna element consists of coupled-fed loop antenna. The loop antenna is formed by a quarter wavelength (at 762MHz) meandered loop strip with end terminal short-circuited to the ground plane. A T-shaped protruded ground is deliberately designed to enhance the impedance matching and decoupled the two closely deposed antenna elements (distance between antenna elements are 0.03λ at 762MHz). The integrity of the T-shaped decoupling structure and coupled-fed loop antenna array covers LTE700 (0.747GHz–0.787 GHz) and WWAN (1.7GHz– 3.04GHz) based on −6 dB reflection coefficient and achieves isolation between elements well below −10 dB over all the operating bands. The application platform is LTE700, GSM1700, GMS1800, UMTS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LTE2300, and LTE2500 bands for the 2G/3G/4G mobile terminals. The effect of user proximity by considering the actual mobile environment is also studied in the form of total radiated power (TRP), specific absorption rate (SAR), diversity performances, and radiation performances. Finally, a prototype is fabricated and tested with network analyser. The measured results are found in good agreement with simulated ones.
Group-Alignment based Accurate Floating-Point Summation on FPGAs

Floating-point summation is one of the most important operations in scientific/numerical computing applications and also a basic subroutine (SUM) in BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) library. However, standard floating-point arithmetic based summation algorithms may not always result in accurate solutions because of possible catastrophic cancellations. To make the situation worse, the sequence of consecutive additions will affect the final result, which makes it impossible to produce a unique solution for the same input dataset on different computer platforms with different software compilers. The emergence of high-density reconfigurable hardware devices gives us an option to customize high-performance arithmetic units for our specific computing problems. In this paper, we design an FPGA-based hardware algorithm for accurate floating-point summations using group alignment technique. The corresponding fullpipelined summation unit is proven to provide similar or even better numerical errors than standard floating-point arithmetic. Moreover, it consumes much less RC resources as well as pipelining stages than existent designs, but achieves the optimal working speed at one summation per clock cycle with only moderate start-up latency. This new technique can also be used to accelerate executions of other linear algebra subroutines on FPGAs and result in much more efficient and compact implementations without negative impact on computational performance or numerical accuracy.
A Unique Support for Sexual-Minority Identity Development: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of a Long-Term Formal Mentoring Relationship Between an Adult and a Youth From the Gay Community

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Recommended Citation Rummell, Christian L. , "A Unique Support for Sexual-Minority Identity Development: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of a Long-Term Formal Mentoring Relationship Between an Adult and a Youth From the Gay Community" (2013). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1487.
FBA and BIP: Increasing the Behavior Adjustment of African American Boys in Schools

Overrepresentation of African American boys in disciplinary and special education referrals has been a national conern. This study used functional behavioral assessments (FBAs) and behavioral intervention plans (BIPs) as a means to prevent disproportionality of African American boys. Based on FBA results, interventions were developed for four elementary students to include skill training, differential reinforcement, and a self-monitoring program. The interventions not only meaningfully reduced the students' target problem behaviors to a level similar to that of their comparison peers, but also produced positive outcomes for their alternative replacement behavior. The across-setting generality effects, however, were limited. Implications are discussed regarding the efficacy of FBAs and BIPs for African American boys at risk for and with disabilities.
Occurrence of furan in commercial processed foods in Brazil

Selected commercial processed foods available in the Brazilian market (306 samples) were analysed for furan content using a validated gas chromatography-mass spectrometry method preceded by headspace solid phase micro-extraction (HS-SPME-GC/MS). Canned and jarred foods, including vegetable, meat, fruit and sweet products, showed levels up to 32.8 µg kg−1, with the highest concentrations observed in vegetables and meats. For coffee, furan content ranged from 253.0 to 5021.4 µg kg−1 in the roasted ground coffee and from not detected to 156.6 µg kg−1 in the beverage. For sauces, levels up to 138.1 µg kg−1 were found. In cereal-based products, the highest concentrations (up to 191.3 µg kg−1) were observed in breakfast cereal (corn flakes), cracker (cream crackers) and biscuit (wafer). In general, these results are comparable with those reported in other countries and will be useful for a preliminary estimate of the furan dietary intake in Brazil.
Short and long interpregnancy intervals: correlates and variations by pregnancy timing among U.S. women.

CONTEXT Short and long interpregnancy intervals are associated with adverse health outcomes. Little is known about the correlates of short and long interpregnancy intervals in the general population, and whether correlates vary by pregnancy intention. METHODS Data on 10,236 pregnancies following a live birth were drawn from the 1995, 2002 and 2006-2010 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth. Logistic regression was used to assess characteristics associated with women's reporting short interpregnancy intervals (less than 12 months) and long intervals (greater than 60 months). Analyses were stratified by whether women considered their pregnancies well timed or mistimed. RESULTS Thirty-one percent of pregnancies following short intervals and 47% following long intervals were well timed. Among well-timed pregnancies only, the odds of short intervals were elevated if women had been 35 or older, rather than aged 20-29, at last pregnancy (odds ratio, 2.3); if their prior infant had died (10.6); or if they had wanted their prior pregnancy sooner than it had occurred (2.2). Overall, the odds of long intervals were higher among minority groups than among whites (1.4-1.6) and were lower among women who had been 30 or older at prior pregnancy than among those who had been in their 20s (0.1-0.5); they increased with level of family income. Correlates of long intervals generally varied little by intention. CONCLUSIONS Although the majority of pregnancies at short intervals are unintended, specific subsets of women have elevated odds of intending short interpregnancy intervals.
From Hypo- to Hypersuppression: Effect of Amino Acid Substitutions on the RNA-Silencing Suppressor Activity of the Tobacco etch potyvirus HC-Pro

RNA silencing participates in several important functions: from the regulation of cell metabolism and organism development to sequence-specific antiviral defense. Most plant viruses have evolved proteins that suppress RNA silencing and that in many cases are multifunctional. Tobacco etch potyvirus (TEV) HC-Pro protein suppresses RNA silencing and participates in aphid-mediated transmission, polyprotein processing, and genome amplification. In this study, we have generated 28 HC-Pro amino acid substitution mutants and quantified their capacity as suppressors of RNA silencing in a transient expression assay. Most mutations either had no quantitative effect or completely abolished silencing suppression (10 in each class), 3 caused a significant decrease in the activity, and 5 significantly increased it, revealing an unexpected high frequency of mutations conferring hypersuppressor activity. A representative set of the mutant alleles, containing both hypo- and hypersuppressors, was further analyzed for their effect on TEV accumulation and the strength of induced symptoms. Whereas TEV variants with hyposuppressor mutants were far less virulent than wild-type TEV, those with hypersuppressor alleles induced symptoms that were not more severe than those characteristic of the wild-type virus, suggesting that there is not a perfect match between suppression and virulence.
Decreased beta-amyloid1-42 and increased tau levels in cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer disease.

CONTEXT Alzheimer disease (AD) is characterized by pathological results at autopsy of amyloid plaques and tau-associated neurofibrillary tangles, but the clinical diagnosis of AD is determined on the basis of medical history, cognitive symptoms, and exclusionary criteria. The search for antemortem biomarkers is intense and has focused on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) beta-amyloid1-42 and tau proteins. OBJECTIVES To compare CSF beta-amyloid and tau levels in a new population of AD patients and controls. To perform a meta-analysis of studies of CSF beta-amyloid and tau levels in AD patients and controls. DESIGN Cross-sectional study of the comparison of baseline CSF beta-amyloid1-42 and tau levels in AD patients and controls. Meta-analysis involved 17 studies of CSF beta-amyloid and 34 studies of CSF tau. SETTING Clinical research unit of the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md. PATIENTS The Geriatric Psychiatry Branch evaluated AD patients as inpatients at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center between May 1985 and January 2001. A total of 203 patients participated in this study (131 with AD and 72 controls). None had other serious illnesses, and 31 of 131 AD cases had AD confirmed at autopsy. Meta-analysis provided an additional 3133 AD patients and 1481 controls. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Levels of CSF beta-amyloid1-42 were measured by a sandwich enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay with a polyclonal capture antibody and a monoclonal detection antibody. Levels of CSF tau were measured with a standard commercial immunoassay. RESULTS Levels of CSF beta-amyloid1-42 were significantly lower in the AD patients vs controls (mean [SD], 183 [121] pg/mL vs 491 [245] pg/mL; P<.001). Levels of CSF tau were significantly higher in AD patients (mean [SD], 587 [365] pg/mL vs 244 [156] pg/mL; P<.001). The cutpoints of 444 pg/mL for CSF beta-amyloid1-42 and 195 pg/mL for CSF tau gave a sensitivity and specificity of 92% and 89%, respectively, to distinguish AD patients from controls, which is comparable with rates with clinical diagnosis. Meta-analyses of studies comparing CSF beta-amyloid and tau levels in AD participants and controls confirmed an overall difference between levels in these 2 groups. CONCLUSIONS Alzheimer disease is associated with a significant decrease in CSF beta-amyloid1-42 levels along with an increase in CSF tau levels. These findings suggest that the 2 measures are biological markers of AD pathophysiology. While these CSF measures may have a potential clinical utility as biomarkers of disease, the preliminary and retrospective nature of the findings, the absence of assay standardization, and the lack of comparison patient populations must be addressed in future studies testing the usefulness of these CSF measures for predictive, diagnostic, or treatment evaluation purposes.
Effects of carbon substrate enrichment and DOC concentration on biodegradation of PAHs in soil.

AIMS Two common reasons to explain slow environmental biodegradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), namely lack of appropriate carbon sources for microbial growth and limited bioavailability of PAHs, were tested in a laboratory bioassay using a creosote-contaminated soil. METHODS AND RESULTS The soil, containing a total of 8 mg g-1 of 16 PAHs, was sieved and incubated in bottles for 45 days. The first explanation was tested by enrichment with the analogue anthracene and the non-analogue myristic acid, and both failed to stimulate degradation of all PAHs except anthracene. The second explanation was tested by addition of different concentrations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), with effects depending on the DOC concentration and the molecular size of the PAH. The degradation was enhanced from 10 to 35% for 12 PAHs when the soil was saturated. The degraded amounts of individual PAHs were proportional to their concentration in the soil. CONCLUSIONS The slow in situ degradation of PAHs was enhanced by more than three times by adding water as a solvent. Addition of DOC facilitated the degradation of four- to six-ring PAHs. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF STUDY Bioremediation of PAH-contaminated sites may be facilitated by creating water-saturated conditions but retarded by addition of other carbon substrates, such as analogue compounds.
A unified approach to nasality and voicing

This thesis proposes a merger of voicing and nasality under a single phonological feature. One main focus of this approach is a paradoxical phenomenon involving a nasal-voice affinity in Yamato Japanese. In postnasal voicing assimilation, nasals appear to be specified for voice (e.g. sin + ta-*' sinda ‘died’). On the other hand, in Lyman's Law, which allows only a single voiced obstruent in a particular domain, nasals behave as if they have no voice feature (e.g. sindo-i ‘tired’, *zindo-i). In order to resolve this paradox, I propose that nasal and voice are phonetic manifestations of the same phonological category. The different phonetic interpretations can be accommodated within a geometry-based element theory which incorporates the notion of a complement tier (Backley 1998, Backley & Takahashi 1998). When the complement of the nasal-voice element is licensed, the realisation is one of voicing. An unlicensed complement tier results in nasality. By adopting this analysis, postnasal voicing assimilation can be treated as the extension of the nasal-voice element across both positions of an NC cluster, where only the element in the second position licenses its complement tier. In addition, the transparency of nasal stops to Lyman's Law is made to follow from the element failing to license its complement tier. The validity of the proposed representations finds further support in the analysis of spontaneous prenasalisation and spontaneous velar nasalisation found in several dialects of Japanese. In accordance with the principle of Licensing Inheritance (Harris 1994, 1997), both processes are regarded as lenition of the complement tier in a prosodically weak position. This avoids the need to rely on arbitrary notions such as lexically floating nasality or nasal insertion rules which have been proposed elsewhere in the literature. Furthermore, in conjunction with the predictions of phonological licensing (Kaye 1990; Harris 1994, 1997), the representations successfully accommodate recurrent assimilatory phenomena such as nasal harmony and voicing assimilation.
Stock trend prediction using news sentiment analysis

Efficient Market Hypothesis is the popular theory about stock prediction. With its failure much research has been carried in the area of prediction of stocks. This project is about taking non quantifiable data such as financial news articles about a company and predicting its future stock trend with news sentiment classification. Assuming that news articles have impact on stock market, this is an attempt to study relationship between news and stock trend. To show this, we created three different classification models which depict polarity of news articles being positive or negative. Observations show that RF and SVM perform well in all types of testing. Na\"ive Bayes gives good result but not compared to the other two. Experiments are conducted to evaluate various aspects of the proposed model and encouraging results are obtained in all of the experiments. The accuracy of the prediction model is more than 80% and in comparison with news random labeling with 50% of accuracy; the model has increased the accuracy by 30%.
Variability Across Repeat Assessment of Working Memory and Processing Speed in Referred Populations

vi LIST OF TABLES xi LIST OF FIGURES xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xiii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 The Present Study 4 1.2 Psychometrics and IQ Stability 7 1.3 Assessment of Working Memory and Processing Speed: WISC-IV 9 1.4 Problem Statements and Hypotheses 11 1.5 Definition of Terms 12 1.6 Significance of Study 14 1.7 Limitations of the Study 15 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 18 2.1 Theoretical Foundations 19 2.2 The Wechsler Scales 22 2.3 Factor Analysis and Processes involved in Intelligence 24 2.4 Learning: Working Memory and Processing Speed 26
Men perform comparably to women in a perspective taking task after administration of intranasal oxytocin but not after placebo

Oxytocin (OT) is thought to play an important role in human interpersonal information processing and behavior. By inference, OT should facilitate empathic responding, i.e., the ability to feel for others and to take their perspective. In two independent double-blind, placebo-controlled between-subjects studies, we assessed the effect of intranasally administered OT on affective empathy and perspective taking, whilst also examining potential sex differences (e.g., women being more empathic than men). In study 1, we provided 96 participants (48 men) with an empathy scenario and recorded self-reports of empathic reactions to the scenario, while in study 2, a sample of 120 individuals (60 men) performed a computerized implicit perspective taking task. Whilst results from Study 1 showed no influence of OT on affective empathy, we found in Study 2 that OT exerted an effect on perspective taking ability in men. More specifically, men responded faster than women in the placebo group but they responded as slowly as women in the OT group. We conjecture that men in the OT group adopted a social perspective taking strategy, such as did women in both groups, but not men in the placebo group. On the basis of results across both studies, we suggest that self-report measures (such as used in Study 1) might be less sensitive to OT effects than more implicit measures of empathy such as that used in Study 2. If these assumptions are confirmed, one could infer that OT effects on empathic responses are more pronounced in men than women, and that any such effect is best studied using more implicit measures of empathy rather than explicit self-report measures.
X-ray spectral constraints on the broad-line cloud geometry of NGC 4151

X-ray spectral data from NGC 4151 taken with the Einstein Solid-State Spectrometer (SSS) and the HEAO 1 A-2 experiment cannot be simply reconciled with absorption from a uniform column of cold gas. The SSS data can, however, be explained in terms of a clumped absorber with approximately 10% uncovered fraction and factor-of-two overabundances in Z equal to or greater than 14 elements relative to solar oxygen. It is shown that these and previously reported spectral and variability data can be quantitatively reconciled with absorption arising in the cold clouds responsible for the broad optical line emission if the cloud dimensions are small compared to the central source size. It is suggested that the lack of significant X-ray absorption observed from much higher luminosity Seyferts and quasars is a natural consequence of the proposed picture for NGC 4151.