Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Three Methods for Postoperative Pain Control in Patients Undergoing Arthroscopic Shoulder Surgery

Background Arthroscopic shoulder operations (ASS) are often associated with severe postoperative pain. Nerve blocks have been studied for pain in shoulder surgeries. Interscalene brachial plexus blocks (ISB) and an intra-articular injection (IA) have been reported in many studies. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effect of ISB, a continuous cervical epidural block (CCE) and IA as a means of postoperative pain control and to study the influence of these procedures on postoperative analgesic consumption and after ASS. Methods Fifty seven patients who underwent ASS under general anesthesia were randomly assigned to one of three groups: the ISB group (n = 19), the CCE group (n = 19), and the IA group (n = 19). Patients in each group were evaluated on a postoperative numerical rating scale (NRS), their rescue opioid dosage (ROD), and side effects. Results Postoperative NRSs were found to be higher in the IA group than in the ISB and CCE groups both at rest and on movement. The ROD were 1.6 ± 2.3, 3.0 ± 4.9 and 7.1 ± 7.9 mg morphine equivalent dose in groups CCE, ISB, and IA groups (P = 0.001), respectively, and statistically significant differences were noted between the CCE and IA groups (P = 0.01) but not in between the ISB and CCE groups. Conclusions This prospective, randomized study demonstrated that ISB is as effective analgesic technique as a CCE for postoperative pain control in patients undergoing ASS.
Simulating Weak Lensing by Large-Scale Structure

We model weak gravitational lensing of light by large-scale structure using ray tracing through N-body simulations. The method is described with particular attention paid to numerical convergence. We investigate some of the key approximations in the multiplane ray-tracing algorithm. Our simulated shear and convergence maps are used to explore how well standard assumptions about weak lensing hold, especially near large peaks in the lensing signal.
VISION 2020: The Right to Sight: a global initiative to eliminate avoidable blindness.

An estimated 45 million people around the world are blind. 1 Most of them have lost their sight to diseases that are treatable or preventable. Eighty percent of them live in the lesser-developed world in countries where chronic economic deprivation is exacerbated by the added challenge of failing vision. Without intervention, the number of individuals with blindness might reach 76 million by 2020 because of a number of factors, primarily the rapid aging of populations in most countries.2 Since eye disease is seen largely in older people, the projected doubling of the world's population older than 50 years to 2 billion by 2020 has profound effects on the number of those with blindness and low vision.
Growth of gallium nitride thin film with the aid of polymethyl methacrylate

Wurtzite structure gallium nitride (GaN) thin film was grown on a c-plane sapphire (0001) substrate through spin coating method followed by nitridation process. Readily available and cheap gallium (III) nitrate hydrate (Ga(NO3)3·xH2O) powder was used as the gallium source. Besides that, ethanol-based precursor solution which has better wetting properties and fast evaporation rate was prepared. In addition, a thin layer of polymethyl methacrylate was introduced as a bonding adhesive layer for the growth of the GaN thin film. X-ray diffraction results indicated that the deposited film consists of nanocrystallite GaN with hexagonal wurtzite structure. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy showed the morphologies of the small and well-defined spherical grains that coated on the substrate. The synthesized GaN thin film demonstrated a pronounced and broad exciton peak at 380 nm in Photoluminescence spectrum. Raman scattering measurements showed two features that correspond to the E2 (high) and A1 (LO) phonon modes of the hexagonal GaN.
Determinants of Obesity and Associated Population Attributability, South Africa: Empirical Evidence from a National Panel Survey, 2008-2012

Background Obesity is a major risk factor for emerging non-communicable diseases (NCDS) in middle income countries including South Africa (SA). Understanding the multiple and complex determinants of obesity and their true population attributable impact is critical for informing and developing effective prevention efforts using scientific based evidence. This study identified contextualised high impact factors associated with obesity in South Africa. Methods Analysis of three national cross sectional (repeated panel) surveys, using a multilevel logistic regression and population attributable fraction estimation allowed for identification of contextualised high impact factors associated with obesity (BMI>30 kg/m2) among adults (15years+). Results Obesity prevalence increased significantly from 23.5% in 2008 to 27.2% in 2012, with a significantly (p-value<0.001) higher prevalence among females (37.9% in 2012) compared to males (13.3% in 2012). Living in formal urban areas, white ethnicity, being married, not exercising and/or in higher socio-economic category were significantly associated with male obesity. Females living in formal or informal urban areas, higher crime areas, African/White ethnicity, married, not exercising, in a higher socio-economic category and/or living in households with proportionate higher spending on food (and unhealthy food options) were significantly more likely to be obese. The identified determinants appeared to account for 75% and 43% of male and female obesity respectively. White males had the highest relative gain in obesity from 2008 to 2012. Conclusions The rising prevalence of obesity in South Africa is significant and over the past 5 years the rising prevalence of Type-2 diabetes has mirrored this pattern, especially among females. Targeting young adolescent girls should be a priority. Addressing determinants of obesity will involve a multifaceted strategy and requires at individual and population levels. With rising costs in the private and public sector to combat obesity related NCDS, this analysis can inform culturally sensitive mass communications and wellness campaigns. Knowledge of social determinants is critical to develop “best buys”.
The cosmological history of accretion onto dark halos and supermassive black holes

Aims. We investigate the cosmological growth of dark halos and follow the consequences of coeval growth for the accretion history of associated supermassive black holes. Methods. The Press-Schechter approximation is used to obtain an analytic expression for the mean rate of growth of dark matter halos. Dark halo accretion rates are compared with numerical work and the consequences for understanding AGN evolution are described. Results. The mean accretion rate onto dark matter halos is shown to have a simple analytic form that agrees with previous numerical work and that may easily be calculated for a wide range of halo mass, redshift and cosmological parameters. The result offers a significant improvement over published fitting formulae deduced from merger trees. We then consider the growth of associated supermassive black holes, and make a basic test of the simple hypothesis of "Pure Coeval Evolution" (PCE) in which, on average, black hole growth tracks dark halo growth. We demonstrate that both the absolute value of the integrated AGN bolometric luminosity density and its cosmological evolution derived from hard X-ray surveys are well-reproduced by PCE. Excellent agreement is found at , although the observed luminosity density drops by a factor 2 compared with PCE by z=0: black hole growth appears to decouple from halo growth at low redshifts, and this may be related to the phenomenon of "cosmic downsizing". Overall, AGN evolution appears either to be caused by or to be closely linked to the slow-down in the growth of cosmic structure. We also discuss the mean Eddington ratio averaged over all galaxies, which is predicted to show strong evolution to higher values with redshift
Enhanced Protective Effects of Combined Treatment with β-Carotene and Curcumin against Hyperthermic Spermatogenic Disorders in Mice

Scrotal hyperthermia leads to oxidative stress and apoptosis in spermatogenic cells, which subsequently causes male infertility. In this study, we examined the effects of β-carotene and/or curcumin on heat-stress- (HS-) induced testicular injuries in mice. ICR male mice (8 weeks old) were consecutively treated with β-carotene (10 mg/kg) and/or curcumin (20 mg/kg) orally once a day for 14 days and then subjected to single exposure with scrotal HS at 43°C for 15 min on day 7. HS induced a significant reduction in testicular weight, appearance of multinucleated giant cells, and desquamation of germ cells in destructive seminiferous tubules, as well as degenerative Leydig cells. Moreover, HS reduced the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and mRNA levels of mitochondrial SOD, phospholipid hydroperoxide glutathione peroxidase, B-cell lymphoma-extra-large, and 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, with increases in lipid peroxidation levels and mRNA levels of BCL2-associated X protein and caspase-3 relative to those of the control group. However, these changes were significantly recovered by combined treatment with β-carotene and curcumin after HS. These findings indicate that the combined treatment with β-carotene and curcumin might be a valuable protective agent to ameliorate hyperthermic spermatogenic disorders via its potent antioxidative, antiapoptotic, and androgen synthetic effects.
1H-NMR-Based Metabolomic Profiling of CSF in Early Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background Pathophysiological mechanisms involved in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are complex and none has identified reliable markers useful in routine patient evaluation. The aim of this study was to analyze the CSF of patients with ALS by 1H NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectroscopy in order to identify biomarkers in the early stages of the disease, and to evaluate the biochemical factors involved in ALS. Methodology CSF samples were collected from patients with ALS at the time of diagnosis and from patients without neurodegenerative diseases. One and two-dimensional 1H NMR analyses were performed and metabolites were quantified by the ERETIC method. We compared the concentrations of CSF metabolites between both groups. Finally, we performed principal component (PCA) and discriminant analyses. Principal Findings Fifty CSF samples from ALS patients and 44 from controls were analyzed. We quantified 17 metabolites including amino-acids, organic acids, and ketone bodies. Quantitative analysis revealed significantly lower acetate concentrations (p = 0.0002) in ALS patients compared to controls. Concentration of acetone trended higher (p = 0.015), and those of pyruvate (p = 0.002) and ascorbate (p = 0.003) were higher in the ALS group. PCA demonstrated that the pattern of analyzed metabolites discriminated between groups. Discriminant analysis using an algorithm of 17 metabolites revealed that patients were accurately classified 81.6% of the time. Conclusion/Significance CSF screening by NMR spectroscopy could be a useful, simple and low cost tool to improve the early diagnosis of ALS. The results indicate a perturbation of glucose metabolism, and the need to further explore cerebral energetic metabolism.
E XTENDED ABSTRACT : A repertoire for additive functionals of uniformly distributed mary search trees

Using recent results on singularity analysis for Hadamard products of generating functions, we obtain the limiting distributions for additive functionals on m-ary search trees on n keys with toll sequence (i) nα with α ≥ 0 (α = 0 and α = 1 correspond roughly to the space requirement and total path length, respectively); (ii) ln ( n m−1 ) , which corresponds to the so-called shape functional; and (iii) 1n=m−1, which corresponds to the number of leaves.
Selection of rifampicin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus during tuberculosis therapy: concurrent bacterial eradication and acquisition of resistance.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Acquired antimicrobial resistance is commonly attributed to regimens that expose bacteria to subinhibitory concentrations; consequently, eradication of susceptible cells is advocated. The mutant selection window hypothesis predicts that resistance can be acquired even when inhibitory concentrations are exceeded and susceptible bacteria are eradicated. The objective was to test that prediction clinically. METHODS Tuberculosis patients (n = 372) were sampled for nasal colonization by Staphylococcus aureus at the beginning of anti-tuberculosis therapy with rifampicin-containing regimens and again after 2 and 4 weeks. Rifampicin susceptibility of S. aureus was determined, and S. aureus isolates from patients developing acquired resistance were examined by molecular strain typing. Diabetes patients (n = 200) served as untreated controls. RESULTS Nasal colonization was 17% and 20% for the tuberculosis and diabetes patients, respectively. Four patients were initially colonized with rifampicin-resistant S. aureus and were excluded from further sampling. Initiation of anti-tuberculosis therapy eradicated S. aureus nasal colonization in 53/58 tuberculosis patients while allowing acquisition of rifampicin resistance in 5/58. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) band patterns and protein A repeat sequence determination differed in S. aureus isolated from different patients but was identical in isolates obtained from the same patient before and after acquisition of resistance. No resistance was acquired in untreated control patients, which differed statistically from treated patients (P = 0.025). CONCLUSIONS Acquired resistance and eradication of susceptible bacteria can occur concurrently; restricting acquired resistance may require direct suppression of mutant growth and viability in addition to elimination of susceptible bacteria.
Combining Quantitative and Logical Data Cleaning

Quantitative data cleaning relies on the use of statistical methods to identify and repair data quality problems while logical data cleaning tackles the same problems using various forms of logical reasoning over declarative dependencies. Each of these approaches has its strengths: the logical approach is able to capture subtle data quality problems using sophisticated dependencies, while the quantitative approach excels at ensuring that the repaired data has desired statistical properties. We propose a novel framework within which these two approaches can be used synergistically to combine their respective strengths. We instantiate our framework using (i) metric functional dependencies, a type of dependency that generalizes functional dependencies (FDs) to identify inconsistencies in domains where only large differences in metric data are considered to be a data quality problem, and (ii) repairs that modify the inconsistent data so as to minimize statistical distortion, measured using the Earth Mover's Distance. We show that the problem of computing a statistical distortion minimal repair is NP-hard. Given this complexity, we present an efficient algorithm for finding a minimal repair that has a small statistical distortion using EMD computation over semantically related attributes. To identify semantically related attributes, we present a sound and complete axiomatization and an efficient algorithm for testing implication of metric FDs. While the complexity of inference for some other FD extensions is co-NP complete, we show that the inference problem for metric FDs remains linear, as in traditional FDs. We prove that every instance that can be generated by our repair algorithm is set-minimal (with no unnecessary changes). Our experimental evaluation demonstrates that our techniques obtain a considerably lower statistical distortion than existing repair techniques, while achieving similar levels of efficiency.
Non-equilibrium statistical behaviors within common MANET routing protocols

Mobile adhoc networks (MANETs) have been widely proposed as solutions for delivering peered wireless services (i.e., for disaster recovery scenarios, etc). The quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE) delivered by such MANETs depends largely on the performance of their underlying routing protocols. Early research has begun to show that networklevel MANET behaviors tend not to follow standard equilibrium system assumptions (i.e., QoS measures not exhibit the statistical stationarity and ergodicity required for Birkhoff's Ergodic theorem to apply). Hence, the standard approach of reporting MANET results in terms of averages computed across ensembles of Monte Carlo simulation runs is insufficient since ergodicity does not hold. This work extends such prior works by showing that non-equilibrium behaviors continues to hold even when much larger sets of Monte Carlo runs are analyzed (i.e., sets of 100 runs as opposed to the prior 15 runs) providing further credence to the claim that these MANETs behave more generally as non-equilibrium systems that has previously been supposed within the prior literature.
Involving private healthcare practitioners in an urban NCD sentinel surveillance system: lessons learned from Pune, India

Background Despite the rising impact of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on public health in India, lack of quality data and routine surveillance hampers the planning process for NCD prevention and control. Current surveillance programs focus largely on communicable diseases and do not adequately include the private healthcare sector as a major source of care in cities. Objective The objective of the study was to conceptualize, implement, and evaluate a prototype for an urban NCD sentinel surveillance system among private healthcare practitioners providing primary care in Pune, India. Design We mapped all private healthcare providers in three selected areas of the city, conducted a knowledge, attitude, and practice survey with regard to surveillance among 258 consenting practitioners, and assessed their willingness to participate in a routine NCD surveillance system. In total, 127 practitioners agreed and were included in a 6-month surveillance study. Data on first-time diagnoses of 10 selected NCDs alongside basic demographic and socioeconomic patient information were collected onsite on a monthly basis using a paper-based register. Descriptive and regression analyses were performed. Results In total, 1,532 incident cases were recorded that mainly included hypertension (n=622, 41%) and diabetes (n=460, 30%). Dropout rate was 10% (n=13). The monthly reporting consistency was quite constant, with the majority (n=63, 50%) submitting 1–10 cases in 6 months. Average number of submitted cases was highest among allopathic practitioners (17.4). A majority of the participants (n=104, 91%) agreed that the surveillance design could be scaled up to cover the entire city. Conclusions The study indicates that private primary healthcare providers (allopathic and alternate medicine practitioners) play an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of NCDs and can be involved in NCD surveillance, if certain barriers are addressed. Main barriers observed were lack of regulation of the private sector, cross-practices among different systems of medicine, limited clinic infrastructure, and knowledge gaps about disease surveillance. We suggest a voluntary augmented sentinel NCD surveillance system including public and private healthcare facilities at all levels of care.
Belief in the Claim of an Argument Increases Perceived Argument Soundness

We examined subjects' ability to judge the soundness of informal arguments. The argument claims matched or did not match subject beliefs. In all experiments subjects indicated beliefs about spanking and television violence in a prescreening. Subjects read one-sentence arguments consisting of a claim followed by a reason and then judged the soundness of the argument. Signal detection theory analyses were used to examine discrimination performance and response bias. In Experiment 1 discrimination was not predicted by beliefs, but subjects were biased in favor of rejecting arguments as unsound when the claim was inconsistent with their beliefs compared with when it was consistent. In Experiments 2 and 3 we replicated these effects and examined neutral subjects and reasoning ability as factors. The results suggest that belief or disbelief in an argument claim biases students' judgments of the argument's soundness.
Using the Projection-based Vehicle in the Loop for the Investigation of in-Vehicle Information Systems: First Insights

Most driving simulators cannot replicate real driving dynamics and thus fail to convey a realistic driving experience. To overcome this issue, the Vehicle in the loop (VIL) had been developed, which combines a virtual visual environment with the realistic kinaesthetic feedback of a vehicle while driving on a closed test track. Previous VIL setups used a head-mounted display (HMD) for displaying the virtual environment. This limits the driver’s visual input to the virtual environment and makes it difficult to investigate potential research questions concerning driver interactions with in-vehicle information systems (IVIS). To address this issue, a new version of the VIL has been developed, which uses a projector for displaying the driving simulation on an inset in the windshield and two monitors mounted at the vehicle’s sides. This work presents the first application of the Pro-VIL for investigating IVIS and their impact on driving performance in safety critical situations. For this purpose, we built a setup for comparing the user experience when using either a gestureor touch-based interaction system, and the observation of driver attention. Results support the overall practicability of the setup, but also revealed new challenges for experimental research design and execution.
Charles A . Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Market-Based Loss Mitigation Practices for Troubled Mortgages Following the Financial Crisis

The meltdown in residential real-estate prices that commenced in 2006 resulted in unprecedented mortgage delinquency rates. Until mid-2009, lenders and servicers pursued their own individual loss mitigation practices without being significantly influenced by government intervention. Using a unique dataset that precisely identifies loss mitigation actions, we study these methods—liquidation, repayment plans, loan modification, and refinancing— and analyze their effectiveness. We show that the majority of delinquent mortgages do not enter any loss mitigation program or become a part of foreclosure proceedings within 6 months of becoming distressed. We also find that it takes longer to complete foreclosures over time, potentially due to congestion. We further document large heterogeneity in practices across servicers, which is not accounted for by differences in borrower population. Consistent with the idea that securitization induces agency conflicts, we confirm that the likelihood of modification of securitized loans is up to 70% lower relative to portfolio loans. Finally, we find evidence that affordability (as opposed to strategic default due to negative equity) is the prime reason for redefault following modifications. While modification terms are more favorable for weaker borrowers, greater reductions in mortgage payments and/or interest rates are associated with lower redefault rates. Our regression estimates suggest that a 1 percentage point decline in mortgage interest rate is associated with a nearly 4 percentage point decline in default probability. This finding is consistent with the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) focus on improving mortgage affordability.