Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stress Appraisal, Coping Resources, and Psychological Functioning in Parents of Infants and Toddlers Diagnosed with Congenital Heart Disease

Congenital heart disease (CHD) includes a variety of disorders that are characterized by structural defects to the heart or the coronary blood vessels that occur in fetal development. CHD occurs in 8 of every 1,000 live births. CHD often requires surgical repair and increases caregiving burden for families. The purpose of this study was to better understand the relations between illness-related parenting stress, coping resources, and psychological functioning in primary caregivers of young children with CHD. 69 parents provided demographic information and completed measures of parenting stress, self-efficacy, mindfulness, social support, and adjustment. Results revealed that psychological functioning in this sample is comparable to other chronic illness populations. In regression analyses, illness-related parenting stress was positively related and mindfulness was negatively related to psychological distress. INDEX WORDS: Congenital heart disease, Pediatric, Parent, Caregiver, Stress, Coping, Distress STRESS APPRAISAL, COPING RESOURCES, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING IN PARENTS OF INFANTS AND TODDLERS DIAGNOSED WITH CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE
Geographic Variation of Failure-to-Rescue in Public Acute Hospitals in New South Wales, Australia

Despite the wide acceptance of Failure-to-Rescue (FTR) as a patient safety indicator (defined as the deaths among surgical patients with treatable complications), no study has explored the geographic variation of FTR in a large health jurisdiction. Our study aimed to explore the spatiotemporal variations of FTR rates across New South Wales (NSW), Australia. We conducted a population-based study using all admitted surgical patients in public acute hospitals during 2002–2009 in NSW, Australia. We developed a spatiotemporal Poisson model using Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA) methods in a Bayesian framework to obtain area-specific adjusted relative risk. Local Government Area (LGA) was chosen as the areal unit. LGA-aggregated covariates included age, gender, socio-economic and remoteness index scores, distance between patient residential postcode and the treating hospital, and a quadratic time trend. We studied 4,285,494 elective surgical admissions in 82 acute public hospitals over eight years in NSW. Around 14% of patients who developed at least one of the six FTR-related complications (58,590) died during hospitalization. Of 153 LGAs, patients who lived in 31 LGAs, accommodating 48% of NSW patients at risk, were exposed to an excessive adjusted FTR risk (10% to 50%) compared to the state-average. They were mostly located in state's centre and western Sydney. Thirty LGAs with a lower adjusted FTR risk (10% to 30%), accommodating 8% of patients at risk, were mostly found in the southern parts of NSW and Sydney east and south. There were significant spatiotemporal variations of FTR rates across NSW over an eight-year span. Areas identified with significantly high and low FTR risks provide potential opportunities for policy-makers, clinicians and researchers to learn from the success or failure of adopting the best care for surgical patients and build a self-learning organisation and health system.
Sleep and physical growth in infants during the first 6 months

The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between infant sleep patterns and infant physical growth (weight for length ratio) using both objective and subjective sleep measures. Ninety‐six first‐born, healthy 6‐month‐old infants and their parents participated in the study. Infant sleep was assessed by actigraphy for four consecutive nights and by the Brief Infant Sleep Questionnaire (BISQ). In addition, parents were asked to complete background and developmental questionnaires. Questions about feeding methods were included in the developmental questionnaire. Infants’ weight and length were assessed during a standard checkup at the infant‐care clinic when the infants were 6 months old. Significant correlations were found between infant sleep and growth after controlling for potential infant and family confounding factors. Actigraphic sleep percentage and reported sleep duration were correlated negatively with the weight‐to‐length ratio measures. Sex‐related differences in the associations between sleep and physical growth were found. Breast feeding at night was correlated with a more fragmented sleep, but not with physical growth. These findings suggest that sleep is related significantly to physical growth as early as in the first months of life. The study supports increasing evidence from recent studies demonstrating a link between short sleep duration and weight gain and obesity in young children.
Successful Left-Heart Decompression during Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation in an Adult Patient by Percutaneous Transaortic Catheter Venting

Venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA ECMO) is widely used in patients with cardiogenic shock. Insufficient decompression of the left ventricle (LV) is considered a major factor preventing adequate LV recovery. A 40-year-old male was diagnosed with acute myocardial infarction, and revascularization was performed using percutaneous stenting. However, cardiogenic shock occurred, and VA ECMO was initiated. Severe LV failure developed, and percutaneous transaortic catheter venting (TACV) was incorporated into the venous circuit of VA ECMO under transthoracic echocardiography guidance. The patient was successfully weaned from VA ECMO. Percutaneous TACV is an effective, relatively noninvasive, and rapid method of LV decompression in patients undergoing VA ECMO.
On global existence for nonlinear wave equations outside of convex obstacles

The authors prove global existence of small solutions to a semilinear wave equation outside of convex obstacles. This extends results of Christodoulou and Klainerman who handled the Minkowski space version. The proof is a compromise of the methods of Christodoulou and Klainerman. It relies on local estimates proved earlier by Smith and Sogge together with classical energy decay estimates for the wave equation of Morawetz, Lax and Phillips.
On the validity of team performance indicators in rugby union

We conduct a validation study to determine which historically statistically significant rugby union team key performance indicators (KPIs) continue to be valid differentiators between winning and losing teams. We examine KPI validity within and among five competitions across 2013, 2014 and 2015 by determining which KPIs continue to achieve statistical significance, as well as provide actionable information to stakeholders (coaches, players, teams, performance analysts, researchers). While most of the historically significant KPIs differentiate between winning and losing teams in at least one competition, few do so across all the competitions considered. We argue that the handful of KPIs that reliably differentiate between winning and losing teams across competitions do not yield much actionable information for stakeholders. We discuss some contributing factors to this result and other important methodological issues in KPI performance analysis in rugby union.
Neural correlates of frustration

Psychological considerations suggest that the omission of rewards in humans comprises two effects: first, an allocentric effect triggering learning and behavioural changes potentially processed by dopaminergic neurons according to the prediction error theory; second, an egocentric effect representing the individual's emotional reaction, commonly called frustration. We investigated this second effect in the context of omission of monetary reward with functional magnetic resonance imaging. As expected, the contrast omission relative to receipt of reward led to a decrease in ventral striatal activation consistent with prediction error theory. Increased activation for this contrast was found in areas previously related to emotional pain: the right anterior insula and the right ventral prefrontal cortex. We interpreted this as a neural correlate of the egocentric effect.
Interlaboratory Comparison of the Results of Lifecodes LSA Class I and Class II Single Antigen Kits for Human Leukocyte Antigen Antibody Detection

Background Although single antigen bead assays (SAB) are approved qualitative tests, the median fluorescence intensity (MFI) values obtained from SAB are frequently used in combination with quantitative significances for diagnostic purposes. To gauge the reproducibility of SAB results, we assessed the interlaboratory variability of MFI values using identical kits with reagents from the same lot and the manufacturer's protocol. Methods Six serum samples containing HLA-specific antibodies were analyzed at five laboratories by using Lifecodes LSA Class I and Class II SAB kits (Immucor, USA) from the same lot, according to the manufacturer's protocol. We analyzed the concordance of qualitative results according to distinct MFI cutoffs (1,000, 3,000, 5,000, and 10,000), and the correlation of quantitative MFI values obtained by the participating laboratories. The CV for MFI values were analyzed and grouped by mean MFI values from the five laboratories (<1,000; 1,000-2,999; 3,000-4,999; 5,000-9,999; and ≥10,000). Results The categorical results obtained from the five laboratories exhibited concordance rates of 96.0% and 97.2% for detection of HLA class I and class II antibodies, respectively. The Pearson correlation coefficients for MFI values of class I and class II antibodies were between 0.947-0.991 and 0.992-0.997, respectively. The median CVs for the MFI values among five laboratories in the lower MFI range (<1,000) were significantly higher than those for the other MFI ranges (all P<0.01). Conclusions Analysis of SAB performed in five laboratories using identical protocols and reagents from the same lot resulted in high levels of concordance and strong correlation of results.
Trojan data layouts: right shoes for a running elephant

MapReduce is becoming ubiquitous in large-scale data analysis. Several recent works have shown that the performance of Hadoop MapReduce could be improved, for instance, by creating indexes in a non-invasive manner. However, they ignore the impact of the data layout used inside data blocks of Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS). In this paper, we analyze different data layouts in detail in the context of MapReduce and argue that Row, Column, and PAX layouts can lead to poor system performance. We propose a new data layout, coined Trojan Layout, that internally organizes data blocks into attribute groups according to the workload in order to improve data access times. A salient feature of Trojan Layout is that it fully preserves the fault-tolerance properties of MapReduce. We implement our Trojan Layout idea in HDFS 0.20. 3 and call the resulting system Trojan HDFS. We exploit the fact that HDFS stores multiple replicas of each data block on different computing nodes. Trojan HDFS automatically creates a different Trojan Layout per replica to better fit the workload. As a result, we are able to schedule incoming MapReduce jobs to data block replicas with the most suitable Trojan Layout. We evaluate our approach using three real-world workloads. We compare Trojan Layouts against Hadoop using Row and PAX layouts. The results demonstrate that Trojan Layout allows MapReduce jobs to read their input data up to 4.8 times faster than Row layout and up to 3.5 times faster than PAX layout.
Growth of Breast Cancer Cells Regulated − Cleavable ErbB 4 Isoform in Estrogen Receptor

ErbB1 and ErbB2 receptors are well-characterized targets for anticancer drugs, but the clinical relevance of the related ErbB4 receptor is unknown. Here, we have assessed the clinical significance of the proteolytically cleavable ErbB4 isoforms in breast cancer patients and investigated their functions in vitro . The expression of transcripts encoding the cleavable ErbB4 isoforms associated with estrogen receptorA (ER) expression (P < 0.001) and a high histologic grade of differentiation (P V 0.002) in real-time reverse transcriptionPCR analysis of 62 breast cancer samples. Despite high ErbB4 mRNA expression levels in a subset of samples, ErbB4 gene amplification was not observed. High ErbB4 protein expression levels, as assessed by immunohistochemistry, associated with a favorable outcome in ER-positive cases from a series of 458 breast cancer patients (P = 0.01), whereas no association between ErbB4 expression and survival was found among women with ER-negative cancer (P = 0.86). However, nuclear ErbB4 immunoreactivity was associated with poor survival as compared with women whose cancer had membranous ErbB4 staining (P = 0.04). In vitro, overexpression of a cleavable ErbB4 isoform in ER-positive breast cancer cells resulted in translocation of a proteolytically released intracellular ErbB4 receptor fragment into the nucleus, as well as, enhanced proliferation, anchorageindependent growth, and estrogen response element–mediated transcriptional activity. These results suggest that the association of ErbB4 expression with clinical outcome is dependent on the subcellular localization of ErbB4 and that a proteinase-cleavable ErbB4 isoform promotes growth of ER-positive breast cancer and enhances ER-mediated gene transcription. (Cancer Res 2005; 65(4): 1384-93)
Frequency Estimation of Real-Valued Single-Tone Using High Lags Autocorrelation

Based on the linear prediction (LP) property and high lags autocorrelation of sinusoidal signals, a new frequency estimators of real sinusoid signal in additive white Gaussian noise is proposed. The new estimator is inspired by the alternative derivation of Pisarenko harmonic decomposer (PHD). A simple cubic function of autocorrelation coefficients is then employed for frequency estimation. Computer simulations are included to show the performance of the proposed estimator via comparison with Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) and several conventional frequency estimators.
Le mode de fixation des prix dans l'entreprise : vers une plus grande rationalité de la décision

Cette these a pour objet de mettre en evidence les pratiques courantes des dirigeants d'entreprise en matiere de fixation des prix de vente de leurs produits et services et de rationaliser leur decision. Apres un rappel sur la theorie des prix et un recensement des principales etudes empiriques effectuees sur ce sujet, nous menons notre propre enquete afin de determiner les variables que les chefs d'entreprise prennent en compte pour fixer leurs prix de vente et de mesurer l'importance qu'ils accordent a chacune d'elles. Une analyse typologique des resultats revele une uniformite de comportement des firmes dans certaines situations, en fonction de criteres tels que la taille des entreprises, la nature du produit, son niveau technologique, l'intensite de la concurrence, la part de marche. Cependant, la rationalite de la decision de prix semble insuffisante dans de nombreux cas. Pour reduire le degre de subjectivite introduit dans cette decision, nous proposons un "mode de fixation des prix" plus rigoureux que les pratiques habituelles et applicable, contrairement a la theorie des prix. Il consiste a raisonner en termes d'objectifs et de contraintes de prix, de facon a "optimiser les objectifs sous diverses contraintes"
Role of Rat Neuronal Oscillations in Acquisition and Disruption of Working Memory with Acute Ethanol

ii Dedication . iv Acknowledgments. v Vita . vii List of Figures . xiii List of Tables . xvi Chapter 1: Introduction . 1 1.1. Overview of Working Memory . 1 1.2. Working Memory Tasks in Animal Models . 5 1.3. Brain Regions associated with Working Memory . 7 1.4. Anatomical connections between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex . 13 1.5. Overview of neural oscillations . 16 1.6. The Theta Rhythm . 20 1.7. The Gamma Rhythm . 26 1.8. Relationships between theta and gamma rhythms . 28
The simulation life-cycle: Supporting the data collection and representation phase

The life-cycle of a DES study goes through a number of phases, from initially goal setting to validation of experiments. Of these, the phases to support DES data collection and representation have been underrepresented in the literature to date. This paper sets out to describe a process of data collection and representation for DES within the context of the DES life-cycle. It is recognized that for large companies the data collection and representation phase differs when compared to SMEs. Due to the high complexity in performing a DES study in an SME data might not be in a DES ready format in existence whatsoever. This complexity can cost without budgets to meet it. This paper describes an expanded process in relation to the data collection and representation phase specifically for SMEs. Finally, a preliminary high level overview of a prototype is presented which supports this phase at an SME level.
Proportional delay differentiation employing the CBQ service discipline

The DiffServ architecture provides a scalable mechanism for QoS introduction in a TCP/IP network. The idea of DiffServ is based on the aggregation of traffic flows at an ingress (or egress) point of a network and the IP packet marking for different priority flows, according to several classification criteria. Two approaches exist in the DiffServ architecture: the absolute and the relative. In absolute DiffServ, an admission control scheme is used to provide QoS guarantees as absolute bounds of specific QoS parameters. The relative DiffServ model provides QoS guarantees per class expressed with reference to guarantees given to the other classes defined. Our study targets at providing relative proportional delay differentiation service based on class based queue (CBQ) scheduler. The main idea is to frequently adjust the service rates allocated to classes of a CBQ scheduler in order to achieve relative delay spacing among classes. The simulation experiments conducted show that our model can attain relative delay, provided that the required delay differentiation parameters (DDPs) are feasible.
Metallicities on the Double Main Sequence of ω Centauri Imply Large Helium Enhancement

Having shown in a recent paper that the main sequence of ω Centauri is split into two distinct branches, we now present spectroscopic results showing that the bluer sequence is less metal-poor. We have carefully combined VLT's GIRAFFE spectra of 17 stars on each side of the split into a single spectrum for each branch, with adequate signal-to-noise ratio, to show clearly that the stars of the blue main sequence are less metal-poor by 0.3 dex than those of the dominant red one. From an analysis of the individual spectra, we could not detect any abundance spread among the blue main-sequence stars, whereas the red main-sequence stars show a 0.2 dex spread in metallicity. We use stellar structure models to show that only greatly enhanced helium can explain the color difference between the two main sequences, and we discuss ways in which this enhancement could have arisen.
Risk factors associated with low birth weight infants in the Malaysian population.

This study aimed to identify the risk factors which were significantly associated with low birth weight (LBW, <2500 g) infants among the Malaysian population. This was a case-control study carried out at the Tuanku Jaafar Hospital, Seremban, Malaysia over a five-month period. Cases were all infants born with birth weight less than 2500 g. Control infant were selected with the help a random sampling table from among infants with birth weight of > or =2500 g born on the same day in the hospital. Of 3341 livebirths delivered in the hospital, 422 (12.6%) were LBW infants. Logistic regression analysis showed that, after controlling for various potential confounders, the only significant risk factors associated with infants of LBW were gestational age (adjusted odds ratio (OR)=0.6, 95% C.I. : 0.5, 0.6; < 0.0001), maternal pre-pregnancy weight (adjusted OR = 0.97, 95% C.I.: 0.95, 0.99; p < 0.0001), nulliparity (adjusted OR = 3.4, 95% C.I.: 2.2, 5.1; p < 0.0001), previous history of LBW infants (adjusted OR = 2.3, 95% C.I.: 1.4, 3.8; p=0.001) and PIH during current pregnancy (adjusted OR=3.3, 95% C.I.: 1.6, 6.6; p = 0.001). A number of potentially preventable or treatable risk factors were identified to be associated with LBW infants in Malaysia.
Psychosocial reward of orthodontic treatment in adult patients.

SUMMARY The purpose of this study was to assess the short-term psychosocial impact of dental aesthetic improvement in adult subjects. Sixty-nine adult patients (61 females and 8 males, aged 21-59 years) requesting aesthetic dental improvement were prospectively and randomly recruited for the study in a private orthodontic office. A general interview included patient motivation and expectations from treatment. After clinical examination, discussion of the mode of treatment and the expected outcome, the patients were requested to complete the Psychosocial Impact of Dental Aesthetics Questionnaire (PIDAQ) with several additions. The duration of their treatment was 6-14 months, and the main goals were tooth alignment, crowding alleviation, or space closure. After removal of the appliances, they completed an identical PIDAQ. Each patient served as his/her own control. Assessment of the impact of aesthetic improvement was based on the responses to the same questions relating to the patients' perceived dental aesthetics before and after treatment, their self-esteem, and changes in their social behaviour resulting from the treatment. The data were analysed using Cohen's and Pearson's correlation analyses and chi-square and Student's t-tests. A statistically significant improvement (P < 0.001) was found for all four factors: dental self-confidence (DSC), social impact (SI), psychological impact (PI), and aesthetic concern (AC). The reliability of the questionnaire, using Cronbach's alpha, was between 0.709 and 0.947. The degree of significance was not related to age, marital status, education, or gender. Dental aesthetics generated a significant improvement in adult patients' quality of life for the period examined (up to 6 months post-treatment).
Churn Prediction Model in Retail Banking Using Fuzzy C-Means Algorithm

The paper presents model based on fuzzy methods for churn prediction in retail banking. The study was done on the real, anonymised data of 5000 clients of a retail bank. Real data are great strength of the study, as a lot of studies often use old, irrelevant or artificial data. Canonical discriminant analysis was applied to reveal variables that provide maximal separation between clusters of churners and nonchurners. Combination of standard deviation, canonical discriminant analysis and k-means clustering results were used for outliers detection. Due to the fuzzy nature of practical customer relationship management problems it was expected, and shown, that fuzzy methods performed better than the classical ones. According to the results of the preliminary data exploration and fuzzy clustering with different values of the input parameters for fuzzy c-means algorithm, the best parameter combination was chosen and applied to training data set. Four different prediction models, called prediction engines, have been developed. The definitions of clients in the fuzzy transitional conditions and the distance of k instances fuzzy sums were introduced. The prediction engine using these sums performed best in churn prediction, applied to both balanced and non-balanced test sets.