Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Communicating with dying patients within the spectrum of medical care from terminal diagnosis to death.

BACKGROUND Efforts to improve communication between physicians and dying patients have been unsuccessful, and guidelines for improving patient-physician communication about end-of-life care are based primarily on expert opinion. This study assessed which aspects of communication between patients and physicians are important in end-of-life care. METHODS Twenty focus groups were held with 137 individuals, including patients with chronic and terminal illnesses, family members, health care professionals from hospice or acute care settings, and physicians with expertise in end-of-life care. Focus group analyses determined domains of physician skill at end-of-life care. Communication with patients was identified as one of the most important domains. Analyses of components important in communicating with dying patients and their families were performed. RESULTS The following 6 areas were of central importance in communicating with dying patients: talking with patients in an honest and straightforward way, being willing to talk about dying, giving bad news in a sensitive way, listening to patients, encouraging questions from patients, and being sensitive to when patients are ready to talk about death. Within these components, subthemes emerged that provide guidelines for physicians and educators. Dying patients also identified the need to achieve a balance between being honest and straightforward and not discouraging hope. CONCLUSIONS Several areas emerged for physicians to focus their attention on when communicating with dying patients. These findings provide guidance in how to improve this communication. They also highlight the need to approach communication about end-of-life care as a spectrum that requires attention from the time of a terminal diagnosis through death.
Cultured human NK cells express the Ki‐l/CD30 antigen

In this study we show that in vitro cultured human polyclonal NK cell lines and clones express the Ki-1/CD30 Hodgkin-associated antigen, identified by the BER-H2 monoclonal antibody. The percentage of BER-H2+ cells ranged from 19% to 67% in five polyclonal NK cell lines and was 31% and 20% in two NK clones. The intensity of BER-H2 mAb staining on cultured NK cells was remarkably lower than that found on the L540 Hodgkin's lymphoma cell line. Resting PBL populations that had been enriched for NK cells failed to react with the BER-H2 mAb. Western blot analysis performed on cell lysates from a polyclonal NK cell line and from the NK3.3 NK-like cell line revealed that BER-H2-reactive molecules consisted of two major bands of approximately 110 kD and 100 kD. Two bands displaying an identical electrophoretic mobility were also found in lysates of the L540 cell line. The BER-H2 mAb failed to inhibit the nonspecific activated killer activity of cultured NK cells against both K562 and MeWo tumour target cells. In addition, the BER-H2 mAb was unable to trigger the cytolytic activity of NK cells in a redirected killing assay. The observation that cultured human NK cells express the Ki-1/CD30 antigen may be of relevance for the possible lineage assignment of K11/CD30+ lymphoid cell neoplasia with unrearranged TCR genes.
Structural barriers and facilitators in HIV prevention: a review of international research

Objectives: This article provides an overview of a growing body of international research focusing on the structural and environmental factors that shape the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and create barriers and facilitators in relation to HIV-prevention programs. Overview of structural-factors literature: Most of the research on structural and environmental factors can be grouped into a small number of analytically distinct but interconnected categories: economic (under)development and poverty; mobility, including migration, seasonal work, and social disruption due to war and political instability; and gender inequalities. An additional focus in research on structural and environmental factors has been on the effects of particular governmental and intergovernmental policies in increasing or diminishing HIV vulnerability and transmission. Interventions: A smaller subset of the research on structural factors describes and/or evaluates specific interventions in detail. Approaches that have received significant attention include targeted interventions developed for heterosexual women, female commercial sex workers, male truck drivers, and men who have sex with men. Conclusions: The structural and environmental factors literature offers important insights and reveals a number of productive intervention strategies that might be explored in both resource-rich and -poor settings. However, new methodologies are required to document and evaluate the effects of the structural interventions, which by their very nature involve large-scale elements that cannot be easily controlled by experimental or quasi-experimental research designs. Innovative, interdisciplinary approaches are needed that can move beyond the limited successes of traditional behavioral interventions and explicitly attempt to achieve broader social and structural change.
The Changing Landscape of Disability in Childhood

Americans' perceptions of childhood disability have changed dramatically over the past century, as have their ideas about health and illness, medical developments, threats to children's health and development, and expectations for child functioning. Neal Halfon, Amy Houtrow, Kandyce Larson, and Paul Newacheck examine how these changes have influenced the risk of poor health and disability and how recent policies to address the needs of children with disabilities have evolved.The authors examine the prevalence in the United States of childhood disability and of the conditions responsible for impairment, as well as trends in the prevalence of chronic conditions associated with disability. They find that childhood disability is increasing and that emotional, behavioral, and neurological disabilities are now more prevalent than physical impairments. They stress the importance of, and lack of progress in, improving socioeconomic disparities in disability prevalence, as well as the need for better measures and greater harmonization of data and data sources across different child-serving agencies and levels of government. They call on policy makers to strengthen existing data systems to advance understanding of the causes of childhood disabilities and guide the formulation of more strategic, responsive, and effective policies, programs, and interventions.The authors offer a new and forward-looking definition of childhood disability that reflects emerging and developmentally responsive notions of childhood health and disability. They highlight the relationship between health, functioning, and the environment; the gap in function between a child's abilities and the norm; and how that gap limits the child's ability to engage successfully with his or her world. Their definition also recognizes the dynamic nature of disability and how the experience of disability can be modified by the child's environment.
904 12 hours after cerebral ischemia is the optimal time for bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell transplantation

Introduction Stroke is one of the most important central nervous system disorders, which is caused by hypoperfusion and has serious consequences such as various disabilities in the patient’s whole life without any curative treatments (Lindvall and Kokaia, 2006). Thus, the reduction of pro-inflammatory cytokines could diminish the secondary damage and apoptosis. An excessive amount of apoptosis is seen in neurodegenerative diseases including brain stroke (Ko et al., 2009; Sung et al., 2012; Kim et al., 2014). Post-cerebral ischemia apoptosis plays an important role in neural death and secondary damage that is not a direct result of the hypoperfusion (Broughton et al., 2009). A major factor of initiating apoptosis is to activate caspase-3, which can trigger the apoptosis cascade (Fan et al., 2005). Nowadays, stem cell therapy has opened a new window for central nervous system diseases due to the regenerative capacity and anti-inflammatory effects of stem cells. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a group of available stem cells isolated from different sources such as bone marrow and adipose tissue (Bang et al., 2005). Immunomodulatory and poorly immunogenic properties of MSCs make them a good source for cell therapy (Sung et al., 2012). MSCs exert immunomodulatory effects by diminishing the production of adhesion molecules and pro-inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and activating T helper cells (Bartholomew et al., 2002; Le Blanc et al., 2003). The anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory and anti-apoptotic properties of MSCs make them a good candidate for treating central nervous system diseases such as brain stroke. The aim of this study was to investigate the optimal time for MSCs injection against cerebral ischemia and reveal the neuroprotective effects of MSCs in rat modes of cerebral ischemia by assessing neurological function recovery and determining infarct volume and caspase-3 activity (apoptosis) in ischemic cerebral tissue at 1, 12 hours, 1, 3, 5 and 7 days after cerebral ischemia induction.
Sur la systématique foliaire en paléobotanique

ResumeL'auteur etudie les difficultes et les possibilites d'identifier les feuilles en paleobotanique. Los difficultes sont indiquees: variabilite, convergence des formes, perte de caracteres par fossilisation, presence de folioles isolees. La region floristique, les inegales possibilites de fossilisation familiale et le paleoclimat, decelable par la methode Raunkiaer, sont des atouts a ne pas negliger. L'identification peut se faire soit par dos cles dont on donne la valeur des caracteres, soit par des fiches perforees.L'auteur indique tout particulierement l'aptitude a la fossilisation des divers caracteres foliaires (tableau 1), la maniere de distinguer une foliole d'une feuille simple et mentionne les differents resultats acquis jusqu'a present sur les types biologiques foliaires de RAUNKIAER (tableau 3).
THE EFFECTS OF ANTIBODIES ON CELLS. II. CHANGES IN THE ELECTROPHORETIC MOBILITY OF ASCITES TUMOUR CELLS TREATED WITH ANTIBODIES AND COMPLEMENT.

This communication describes the use of micro-electrophoresis in studying the changes in ascites tumour cells exposed to antibodies and complement. Treatment of the cells with rabbit antibody led to a change in electrophoretic mobility consistent with a surface adsorption of γ-globulin. The addition of complement led to a reduction in this electrophoretic effect of antibody. Treatment of the cells with neuraminidase, which produced a marked fall in their electrophoretic mobility, did not alter the effect of rabbit antibody and complement on the cells. Incubation with iso-antibody, in the presence or absence of complement, did not alter the mobility of the ascites cells measured at pH 7.0. The addition of 0.01 M calcium chloride to the electrophoresis medium produced a fall in mobility of the cells exposed to either antibody preparation in the presence of complement. Therefore, although iso-antibody and complement did not produce direct changes in cell mobility, changes in the cell surface could be detected by electrophoresis in the presence of calcium ions. The possibility is discussed that, during immune cytolysis, unmasking of phosphate groups of phospholipids might take place in the cell surface.
LASSO for Stochastic Frontier Models with Many Efficient Firms

Abstract We apply the adaptive LASSO to select a set of maximally efficient firms in the panel fixed-effect stochastic frontier model. The adaptively weighted L 1 penalty with sign restrictions allows simultaneous selection of a group of maximally efficient firms and estimation of firm-level inefficiency parameters with a faster rate of convergence than least squares dummy variable estimators. Our estimator possesses the oracle property. We propose a tuning parameter selection criterion and an efficient optimization algorithm based on coordinate descent. We apply the method to estimate a group of efficient police officers who are best at detecting contraband in motor vehicle stops (i.e., search efficiency) in Syracuse, NY.
Robust state estimation for singularly perturbed systems

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the design of interval observers for singularly perturbed linear systems. The full-order system is first decoupled into slow and fast subsystems. Then, using the cooperativity theory, an interval observer is designed for the slow and fast subsystems assuming that the measurement noise and the disturbances are bounded and the singular perturbed parameter is uncertain. This decoupling leads to two observers that estimate the lower and upper bounds for the feasible state domain. A numerical example shows the efficiency of the proposed technique.
Prenatal diagnosis of de novo isochromosome 13q associated with microcephaly, alobar holoprosencephaly and cebocephaly in a fetus

We report on the prenatal diagnosis, genetic studies, and pathology of a case with de novo isochromosome 13q. A 31‐year‐old primigravida was referred for genetic counselling at 26 weeks' gestation due to the sonographic findings of intrauterine growth retardation and microcephaly. Level II ultrasonograms further demonstrated alobar holoprosencephaly, hypotelorism, polydactyly, a ventricular septal defect, and a single nostril. A diagnosis of cebocephaly was made. Genetic amniocentesis and cord blood sampling revealed translocation trisomy 13 with a de novo t(13q13q) rearrangement. Chromosomal analysis using G‐ and C‐banding techniques and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) showed an apparent monocentric isochromosome. Molecular analyses using polymorphic molecular markers showed that the rearrangement was consistent with an isochromosome of maternal chromosome 13q [46,XX,i(13)(q10)]. Necropsy confirmed cebocephaly and the prenatally detected anomalies. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Topics in Meeting Complex Service Level Objectives for Mixed Database Workloads

In operational business intelligence (BI) database systems, the same database may support mixed workloads, e.g. , short-running OLTP queries and batch jobs containing multitudes of queries with varying complexity. Different workloads may have different performance requirements, expressed in terms of service level objectives (SLOs). It is the task of a database administrator to manage the workload in order to fulfill the SLOs and, thus, to satisfy the objectives. This work investigates approaches and methods for dynamic prioritization of database requests, handling “problem queries”, and for automatically setting control parameter settings in an environment with workloads having multiple service classes to meet the service level objectives.
Regulation of fatty acid transport protein and fatty acid translocase mRNA levels by endotoxin and cytokines

Memon, Riaz A. , Kenneth R. Feingold, Arthur H. Moser, John Fuller, and Carl Grunfeld. Regulation of fatty acid transport protein and fatty acid translocase mRNA levels by endotoxin and cytokines. Am. J. Physiol. 274 (Endocrinol. Metab. 37): E210–E217, 1998. —The cloning of two novel fatty acid (FA) transport proteins, FA transport protein (FATP) and FA translocase (FAT), has recently been reported; however, little is known about their in vivo regulation. Endotoxin [lipopolysaccharide (LPS)], tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and interleukin-1 (IL-1) stimulate adipose tissue lipolysis and enhance hepatic lipogenesis and reesterification while suppressing FA oxidation in multiple tissues. Hence, in this study we examined their effects on FATP and FAT mRNA levels in Syrian hamsters. Our results demonstrate that LPS decreased FATP and FAT mRNA expression in adipose tissue, heart, skeletal muscle, brain, spleen, and kidney, tissues in which FA uptake and/or oxidation is decreased during sepsis. In the liver, where FA oxidation is decreased during sepsis but the uptake of peripherally derived FA is increased to support reesterifiation, LPS decreased FATP mRNA expression by 70–80% but increased FAT mRNA levels by fourto fivefold. The effects of LPS on FATP and FAT mRNA levels in liver were observed as early as 4 h after administration and were maximal by 16 h. TNF and IL-1 mimicked the effect of LPS on FATP and FAT mRNA levels in both liver and adipose tissue. These results indicate that the mRNAs for both transport proteins are downregulated by LPS in tissues in which FA uptake and/or oxidation are decreased during sepsis. On the other hand, differential regulation of FATP and FAT mRNA in liver raises the possibility that these proteins may be involved in transporting FA to different locations inside the cell. FATP may transport FA toward mitochondria for oxidation, which is decreased in sepsis, whereas FAT may transport FA to cytosol for reesterification, which is enhanced in sepsis.
T-maze behaviour in domestic chicks: a search for underlying variables

We investigated whether contrasting T-maze behaviour shown by domestic chicks, Gallus gallus domesticus, of a broiler strain reflected underlying differences in their general activity levels, fearfulness or sociality. The time taken by 2-day-old chicks to traverse a T maze and thereby regain visual contact with their companions was measured. Chicks were categorized according to whether they completed this task quickly (HP, high performance, <25 s) or slowly (LP, low performance, >75 s) and then housed in same-category groups, each of eight chicks. In experiment 1, we compared the numbers of HP and LP chicks showing certain home cage behaviours (ambulation, standing, resting, maintenance, pecking, preening). No significant differences were found. In experiment 2, we compared the behaviour of HP and LP chicks in two tests of sociality (home cage proximity, runway) and in two tests of fear (emergence, tonic immobility). The HP chicks stayed closer together in the home cage than did their LP counterparts and they spent significantly longer near a goal box containing conspecifics in the runway than did LP ones. Conversely, there were no significant differences between HP and LP chicks in their latency to emerge from a sheltered area into an exposed and, hence, potentially frightening one or in their tonic immobility fear reactions. These findings suggest that contrasting T-maze performance was unlikely to have reflected differences in underlying activity levels or in fearfulness. Conversely, individual variation in underlying sociality was probably an influential variable. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
MicroRNA 857 Is Involved in the Regulation of Secondary Growth of Vascular Tissues in Arabidopsis 1

Key Laboratory for Genetics and Breeding of Forest Trees and Ornamental Plants of Ministry of Education, National Engineering Laboratory for Tree Breeding, College of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology (Y.Z., D.C., J.L., X.L.), and Beijing Key Laboratory of Lignocellulosic Chemistry (J.W.), Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China (S.L., Z.Q., X.D., X.W.); and University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China (S.L.)
Solid pseudopapillary tumor of the pancreas: typical and atypical manifestations.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this pictorial essay is to illustrate the various appearances of solid pseudopapillary tumor of the pancreas. CONCLUSION Solid pseudopapillary tumor of the pancreas is a rare neoplasm usually found in young women. Typical solid pseudopapillary tumor is characterized by a well-encapsulated mass with varying amounts of intratumoral hemorrhage. However, the tumor can have an atypical appearance, such as metastasis, ductal obstruction, parenchymal and extracapsular invasion, simulation of islet cell tumor, intratumoral calcification, and occurrence in a male patient. The typical and atypical manifestations of solid pseudopapillary tumor can be visualized with cross-sectional imaging.
3 themes described how self care management was learned and experienced by patients with chronic illness

Thorne S, Paterson B, Russell C. The structure of everyday self-care decision making in chronic illness. Qual Health Res 2003;13:1337–52. [OpenUrl][1][Abstract/FREE Full Text][2] Q In patients with expertise in self care management of chronic illnesses (ie, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, HIV/AIDS, or multiple sclerosis), how was the everyday self care decision making process learned and experienced? Qualitative secondary analysis of data from 2 primary studies. The 2 primary studies included patients from British Columbia, Canada. 43 patients (22 with type 1 diabetes, and 7 each with type 2 diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and MS) who had been chronically ill and had several years of experience in self care decision making for their disease. In both primary studies, data were collected through individual interviews at baseline, and after 2–3 audiotaped think aloud sessions (each lasting 1 week) over the course of 12 months; and focus group interviews done near the end of the study year. Themes and patterns evolved from a qualitative descriptive analysis method. Learning: the decision to assume control. … [1]: {openurl}? query=rft.jtitle%253DQualitative%2BHealth%2BResearch%26rft.stitle%253DQual%2BHealth%2BRes%26rft.issn%253D1049-7323%26rft.aulast%253DThorne%26rft.auinit1%253DS. %26rft.volume%253D13%26rft.issue%253D10%26rft.spage%253D1337%26rft.epage%253D1352%26rft.atitle%253DThe%2BStructure%2Bof%2BEveryday%2BSelf-Care%2BDecision%2BMaking%2Bin%2BChronic%2BIllness%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1177%252F1049732303258039%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F14658350%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [2]: /lookup/ijlink? linkType=ABST&journalCode=spqhr&resid=13/10/1337&atom=%2Febnurs%2F7%2F3%2F94.atom
THE PHYSICAL ORIGINS OF THE MORPHOLOGY–DENSITY RELATION: EVIDENCE FOR GAS STRIPPING FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY

We provide a physical interpretation and explanation of the morphology–density relation for galaxies, drawing on stellar masses, star formation rates, axis ratios, and group halo masses from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We first re-cast the classical morphology–density relation in more quantitative terms, using low star formation rate (quiescence) as a proxy for early-type morphology and dark matter halo mass from a group catalog as a proxy for environmental density: for galaxies of a given stellar mass the quiescent fraction is found to increase with increasing dark matter halo mass. Our novel result is that—at a given stellar mass—quiescent galaxies are significantly flatter in dense environments, implying a higher fraction of disk galaxies. Supposing that the denser environments differ simply by a higher incidence of quiescent disk galaxies that are structurally similar to star-forming disk galaxies of similar mass, explains simultaneously and quantitatively these quiescence–environment and shape–environment relations. Our findings add considerable weight to the slow removal of gas as the main physical driver of the morphology–density relation, at the expense of other explanations.