Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Associations of Cytokine Concentrations With Key Osteopathic Lesions and Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Nonspecific Chronic Low Back Pain: Results From the OSTEOPATHIC Trial

Abstract Context: Little is known about the role that cytokines play in osteopathic manual treatment (OMT) of patients with chronic low back pain (LBP). Objective: To measure the baseline concentrations of interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in patients with chronic LBP; the correlations of these cytokine concentrations with clinical measures, including the number of key osteopathic lesions; the changes in cytokine concentrations with OMT; and the association of such changes with clinical outcomes. Design: Substudy nested within a randomized controlled trial of OMT for nonspecific chronic LBP. Setting: University-based study in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. Patients: Seventy adult research patients with nonspecific chronic LBP. Main Outcome Measures: A 10-cm visual analog scale, the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire, and the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form-36 Health Survey were used to measure LBP severity, back-specific functioning, and general health, respectively. Results:At baseline, IL-1β (ρ=0.33; P=.005) and IL-6 (ρ=0.32; P=.006) were each correlated with the number of key osteopathic lesions; however, only IL-6 was correlated with LBP severity (ρ=0.28; P=.02). There was a significantly greater reduction of TNF-α concentration after 12 weeks in patients who received OMT compared with patients who received sham OMT (Mann-Whitney U=251.5; P=.03). Significant associations were found between OMT and a reduced TNF-α concentration response at week 12 among patients who achieved moderate (response ratio, 2.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.11-4.06; P=.006) and substantial (response ratio, 2.13; 95% CI, 1.07-4.25; P=.01) LBP improvements, and improvement in back-specific functioning (response ratio, 1.68; 95% CI, 1.04-2.71; P=.03). Conclusions: This study found associations between IL-1β and IL-6 concentrations and the number of key osteopathic lesions and between IL-6 and LBP severity at baseline. However, only TNF-α concentration changed significantly after 12 weeks in response to OMT. These discordant findings indicate that additional research is needed to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of action of OMT in patients with nonspecific chronic LBP.
Understanding corporate governance in the Australian public sector: A social capital approach

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that affect corporate governance in Australian state government departments. Design/methodology/approach - – A qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 65 executives and middle managers from 25 departments across Australia is used. The interviews identified managers ' - perceptions of the structures and practices of governance in four nominated areas: strategic planning, auditing, risk management and capacity building. A social capital model is utilised to analyse the data along structural, relational and cognitive dimensions. Findings - – Aligned with the structural dimension, frequent departmental and leadership changes and the size and complexity of departments are reported as major barriers to good governance, while well-structured committees are perceived to strengthen governance. Aligned with the relational dimension, a culture of good working relationships between staff and strong leadership are recognised as critical for strong governance while, aligned with the cognitive dimension, a lack of shared understanding of risk, a short-term focus, and unclear individual roles and organisational goals are seen as barriers to effective governance. Research limitations/implications - – The evidence is based on perceptions of participants and may not reflect actual practices nor the perceptions of others. Originality/value - – A contribution of this study is the application of social capital theory to advance understanding of public sector governance. The study adds insights into the behavioural and organisational factors that encourage or impede effective governance based on the experiences of managers from key governance functions.
Expression of CD34 and β-Catenin in Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor of the Liver Mimicking Proximal-Type Epithelioid Sarcoma

© 2018 The Korean Society of Pathologists/The Korean Society for Cytopathology This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. pISSN 2383-7837 eISSN 2383-7845 Expression of CD34 and β-Catenin in Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor of the Liver Mimicking Proximal-Type Epithelioid Sarcoma
Hardware-assisted fine-grained control-flow integrity: Towards efficient protection of embedded systems against software exploitation

Embedded systems have become pervasive and are built into a vast number of devices such as sensors, vehicles, mobile and wearable devices. However, due to resource constraints, they fail to provide sufficient security, and are particularly vulnerable to runtime attacks (code injection and ROP). Previous works have proposed the enforcement of control-flow integrity (CFI) as a general defense against runtime attacks. However, existing solutions either suffer from performance overhead or only enforce coarse-grain CFI policies that a sophisticated adversary can undermine. In this paper, we tackle these limitations and present the design of novel security hardware mechanisms to enable fine-grained CFI checks. Our CFI proposal is based on a state model and a per-function CFI label approach. In particular, our CFI policies ensure that function returns can only transfer control to active call sides (i.e, return landing pads of functions currently executing). Further, we restrict indirect calls to target the beginning of a function, and lastly, deploy behavioral heuristics for indirect jumps.
Children's Conflict Tactics with Mothers: A Longitudinal Investigation of the Toddler and Preschool Years.

To document the normative developmental progression of mother-child conflict and conflict resolution strategies, two cohorts of children, spanning the toddler to preschool years, were observed longitudinally. Children's verbal negotiations were emphasized, and a multidimensional definition of negotiation permitted delineation of their conflict resolution strategies. The developmental findings, central to this study, showed that mother-child conflicts reach a peak at 30 months. The results suggest that toddlers may rely predominantly on refusing and preschoolers rely increasingly on negotiation during conflict. The results also indicate that patterns of conflict and negotiation are similar in different settings, and may elucidate important individual differences in young children. Implications and limitations for these nor mative developmental patterns are discussed.
Three-dimensional subband coding of video using the zero-tree method

In this paper, a simple yet highly effective video compression technique is presented. The zerotree method by Said, which is an improved version of Shapiro's original one, is applied and expanded to three-dimension to encode image sequences. A three-dimensional subband transformation on the image sequences is first performed, and the transformed information is then encoded using the zerotree coding scheme. The algorithm achieves results comparable to MPEG-2, without the complexity of motion compensation. The reconstructed image sequences have no blocking effects at very low rates, and the transmission is progressive.
Practical Homicide Investigation Tactics, Procedures, and Forensic Techniques

CONTENTS: The Homicide Crime Scene. First Officer's Duties. First Officer's Duties: Specific. Preliminary Investigation at the Scene: The Detectives. Specific Investigative Duties. The Crime Scene Photographs. The Crime Scene Sketch. The Homicide Crime Scene Search. Estimating Time of Death. The Identity of the Deceased. Death Notification. Modes of Death. Suicide Investigation. Sex-Related Homicide Investigation. Homosexual Homicide Investigation. Narcotics-Related Homicides.
Population Geography Perspectives on the Central Asian Republics

Since the fall of the iron curtain, research on population issues in Central Asia, with the exception of migration, has lost ground in the academia, and little is known about the geographical dimensions of population issues in this region beyond the findings of the handful of studies carried out under the auspices of international organisations. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to outline the main traits of the population geography of the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The report investigates the geographical characteristics of the countries’ vital statistics, as well as of other significant demographic indicators, such as the age structure, dependency ratio and infant mortality. Additionally, the report attempts to establish whether particular regional and local demographies show inter-linkages with the specific socio-economic and/or cultural settings that they are embedded in. The report uses the systematic collection and analysis of data from statistical sources as its main method. Most of the statistical materials derive from the national statistical authorities of the USSR and its successor states, although additional and complementary data was collected from the US Bureau of Census’ international database web resource. The use of such data involves substantial methodological and interpretative difficulties, which this report discusses in detail. Applying a three-scale geographical approach on the study of the Central Asian Republics’ population development, this report demonstrates that there are significant variations in the territoriality of these countries’ demographies. The variations are indeed striking, and suggest that the five states will face distinctly spatially differentiated challenges with regard to the volume and type of healthcare that will be required, the nature of the demand for housing, social and cultural services, and the structure of the labour market, just to name a few examples. These challenges should be taken into greater consideration by policy-makers and other stakeholders, along with matters of more immediate concern, such as the poor health infrastructure and sanitary situation, the high rate of poverty, environmental degradation, and the economic and political instability in the southern regions, most recently epitomized by the Ferghana valley-based “tulip” revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the violent riots in the Uzbek city of Andijan.
The Role of Identification in Eliciting Social Movement Participation: A Conceptual Framework

Extending the existing theories of social movement - especially Klandermans' and Oegema's (1987) social movement participation model - with social identity theory and identity theory, the authors propose that identification and identity salience play an important role in eliciting social movement participation. Based on this assumption, an integrative conceptual framework will be introduced that includes findings from sociology, social psychology, organizational research, marketing, and nonprofit management to elaborate on identification and social movement participation will be introduced. The framework will be discussed using a current example of a Swiss social movement organization which has addressed a petition against DJ BoBo's vampire song with the argument that the pop song offends religious sensibilities.
Practical spherical embedding of manifold triangle meshes

Gotsman et al. (SIGGRAPH 2003) presented the first method to generate a provably bijective parameterization of a closed genus-0 manifold mesh to the unit sphere. This involves the solution of a large system of non-linear equations. However, they did not show how to solve these equations efficiently, so, while theoretically sound, the method has remained impractical till now. We show why simple iterative methods to solve the equations are bound to fail, and provide an efficient numerical scheme that succeeds. Our method uses a number of optimization methods combined with an algebraic multigrid technique. With these, we are able to spherically parameterize meshes containing up to a hundred thousand vertices in a matter of minutes.
Predictors and consequences of anaemia among antiretroviral-naïve HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected children in Tanzania

Abstract Objective Predictors and consequences of childhood anaemia in settings with high HIV prevalence are not well known. The aims of the present study were to identify maternal and child predictors of anaemia among children born to HIV-infected women and to study the association between childhood anaemia and mortality. Design Prospective cohort study. Maternal characteristics during pregnancy and Hb measurements at 3-month intervals from birth were available for children. Information was also collected on malaria and HIV infection in the children, who were followed up for survival status until 24 months after birth. Setting Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Subjects The study sample consisted of 829 children born to HIV-positive women. Results Advanced maternal clinical HIV disease (relative risk (RR) for stage ≥2 v. stage 1: 1·31, 95 % CI 1·14, 1·51) and low CD4 cell counts during pregnancy (RR for <350 cells/mm3v. ≥350 cells/mm3: 1·58, 95 % CI 1·05, 2·37) were associated with increased risk of anaemia among children. Birth weight <2500 g, preterm birth (<34 weeks), malaria parasitaemia and HIV infection in the children also increased the risk of anaemia. Fe-deficiency anaemia in children was an independent predictor of mortality in the first two years of life (hazard ratio 1·99, 95 % CI 1·06, 3·72). Conclusions Comprehensive care including highly active antiretroviral therapy to eligible HIV-infected women during pregnancy could reduce the burden of anaemia in children. Programmes for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and antimalarial treatment to children could improve child survival in settings with high HIV prevalence.
Incidence and pathology of synucleinopathies and tauopathies related to parkinsonism.

IMPORTANCE The frequency and distribution of synucleinopathies and tauopathies manifesting with parkinsonism in the general population are poorly understood, thus affecting health care planning and research. OBJECTIVE To investigate the incidence and distribution of specific types of parkinsonism and related proteinopathies. DESIGN We used the medical records-linkage system of the Rochester Epidemiology Project to identify all subjects who received a screening diagnostic code related to parkinsonism in Olmsted County, Minnesota, from January 1, 1991, through December 31, 2005 (15 years). A movement disorders specialist reviewed the complete medical records of each subject who screened positive to determine the type of parkinsonism and the presumed proteinopathy using specified criteria. SETTING Geographically defined population. PARTICIPANTS All residents of Olmsted County who provided authorization to use their data for medical records research (population-based sample). MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES Incidence of parkinsonism and specific proteinopathies. RESULTS Among 542 incident cases of parkinsonism, 409 (75.5%) were classified as proteinopathies. Of the 389 patients with presumed synucleinopathies (71.8%), 264 had Parkinson disease (48.7% of all cases). The incidence rate of synucleinopathies was 21.0 per 100 000 person-years overall and increased steeply with age. The incidence rate of tauopathies was 1.1 overall (20 cases), and the most common tauopathy was progressive supranuclear palsy (16 cases). Thirty-six subjects had drug-induced parkinsonism (6.6%), 11 had vascular parkinsonism (2.0%), 1 had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in parkinsonism (0.2%), 1 had parkinsonism secondary to surgery (0.2%), and 84 remained unspecified (15.5%). Men had a higher incidence than women for most types of parkinsonism. Findings at brain autopsy confirmed the clinical diagnosis in 53 of 65 patients who underwent autopsy (81.5%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE The incidence of proteinopathies related to parkinsonism increases steeply with age and is consistently higher in men than women. Clinically diagnosed synucleinopathies are much more common than tauopathies. Findings at autopsy confirm the clinical diagnosis of presumed proteinopathy. Our findings may guide health care planning and prompt new research directions.
Distributed computing meets game theory: robust mechanisms for rational secret sharing and multiparty computation

We study k-resilient Nash equilibria, joint strategies where no member of a coalition C of size up to k can do better, even if the whole coalition defects. We show that such k-resilient Nash equilibria exist for secret sharing and multiparty computation, provided that players prefer to get the information than not to get it. Our results hold even if there are only 2 players, so we can do multiparty computation with only two rational agents. We extend our results so that they hold even in the presence of up to t players with "unexpected" utilities. Finally, we show that our techniques can be used to simulate games with mediators by games without mediators.
Comparison of Climate Preferences for Domestic and International Beach Holidays: A Case Study of Canadian Travelers

Coastal tourism is the largest segment of global leisure tourism and it is firmly linked to the destination’s natural resources—with climatic resources chief among them. Through observations and survey responses of beach users, studies have evaluated climatic resources for coastal tourism by quantifying optimal and unacceptable conditions. However, these studies have not taken into consideration that different forms of holidays (e.g., daytrips, short trips, main annual holiday, “once-in-a-lifetime” trip) may have varying degrees of resilience to climatic conditions. This is the first study to explore whether ideal and unacceptable climatic conditions vary between domestic and international tourists. Using an in situ survey, Canadian beach users traveling domestically (n = 359) and internationally (n = 120) were examined. Key findings include statistically significant differences (p ≤ 0.05) between the two sample groups for every climate variable, with the international sample more resilient to a broader range of weather conditions, including a greater acceptance for warm temperatures, longer rainfall durations, higher wind speeds, and greater cloud cover. This study adds further insight into the complexities of evaluating climate for tourism, with implications for the demand response of tourists to climate change.
Trimpi perturbations from large ionisation enhancement patches

A number of increasingly sophisticated and realistic models have been developed in order to investigate the interaction between sub-ionospherically propagating VLF waves and regions of ionisation enhancement (LIE) in the D-region caused by lightning-induced electron precipitation enhancements (LEP). This LEP-produced LIE can result in phase and amplitude perturbations on received VLF radio signals that are referred to as Trimpis or more precisely, classic Trimpis, to distinguish them from ``early/fast Trimpis'' or ``VLF sprites'' which are not caused by LEP and are not considered here. It is important, for comparison with experimentally observed Trimpi eects, that the spatial extent of the D-region electron density (Ne) perturbation is modeled accurately. Here, it is argued that most previous modeling has used patch (LIE) sizes that are typically up to 100 km in both latitudinal and longitudinal extent, which are generally smaller than those that actually occur for real lightning induced electron precipitation events. It would also appear that maximum DNe values assumed have often been too large, and the patches (LIEs) have been incorrectly modelled as circular rather than elliptical in horizontal extent. Consequently, in the present work, Trimpi perturbations are determined for LIEs with smaller maximum DNe, larger spatial extent and elliptical shape. Calculations of VLF Trimpis have been made as a function of the horizontal coordinates of the LIE centre, over the whole rectangular corridor linking transmitter and receiver. The Trimpi modelling program is fully 3D, and takes account of modal mixing at the LIE. The underlying theory assumes weak Born scattering, but the code calculates a non-Born skin depth attenuation function for the LIE in question. The LIE is modelled as an electron density enhancement with a Gaussian pro®le in all coordinates. Results for a large elliptical LIE0200 600 km show that signi®cant Trimpis, 0ÿ0. 4 dB in amplitude and 0+48 in phase are predicted, using modest maximum DNe values 0 1.5 el/cc. Such an electron density enhancement is well within the range that would be expected to result from experimentally observed ̄uxes of electron precipitation following wave particle interactions with whistler-mode waves. 7 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Auditory-Motor Processing of Speech Sounds

The motor regions that control movements of the articulators activate during listening to speech and contribute to performance in demanding speech recognition and discrimination tasks. Whether the articulatory motor cortex modulates auditory processing of speech sounds is unknown. Here, we aimed to determine whether the articulatory motor cortex affects the auditory mechanisms underlying discrimination of speech sounds in the absence of demanding speech tasks. Using electroencephalography, we recorded responses to changes in sound sequences, while participants watched a silent video. We also disrupted the lip or the hand representation in left motor cortex using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Disruption of the lip representation suppressed responses to changes in speech sounds, but not piano tones. In contrast, disruption of the hand representation had no effect on responses to changes in speech sounds. These findings show that disruptions within, but not outside, the articulatory motor cortex impair automatic auditory discrimination of speech sounds. The findings provide evidence for the importance of auditory-motor processes in efficient neural analysis of speech sounds.