Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Asymptotic Analysis of Queues with Delayed Information and Time Varying Arrival Rates

Understanding how delayed information impacts queueing systems is an important area of research. However, much of the current literature neglects one important feature of many queueing systems, namely non-stationary arrivals. Non-stationary arrivals model the fact that customers tend to access services during certain times of the day and not at a constant rate. In this paper, we analyze two two-dimensional deterministic fluid models that incorporate customer choice behavior based on delayed queue length information with time varying arrivals. In the first model, customers receive queue length information that is delayed by a constant Delta. In the second model, customers receive information about the queue length through a moving average of the queue length where the moving average window is Delta. We analyze the impact of the time varying arrival rate and show using asymptotic analysis that the time varying arrival rate does not impact the critical delay unless the frequency of the time varying arrival rate is twice that of the critical delay. When the frequency of the arrival rate is twice that of the critical delay, then the stability is enlarged by a wedge that is determined by the model parameters. As a result, this problem allows us to combine the theory of nonlinear dynamics, parametric excitation, delays, and time varying queues together to provide insight on the impact of information in queueing systems.
CELL HETEROGENEITY WITHIN THE HEPATIC LOBULE (QUANTITATIVE HISTOCHEMISTRY)

This investigation was undertaken to seek quantitative information concerning the relative activity of certain enzymes in hepatic cells in various parts of the lobule. The enzymes selected for study are chiefly those with important nwtabohc roles. It was thought that such infornmtion might bring important new understandlilig of function in the liver lobule and its relationship to the localization of various types of injury. This approach has been made possible by the inicrochemical rnethodls of Lowry (4) which permit analysis of small groups of cells dissected out of frozen dried! sections of tissue. These method! s have been adlaptcd in our laboratory with the collaboration and assistance of Dr. Lowry and have been utilized in the study of liver of normal young male Sprague-Dawley rats weighing from 180 to 230 grams and! maintained! on a diet of Purina chow fed ad libitum. After eight hours of fast, the animals were sacrificed by decapitation. The liver was weighed and a small biopsy from the periphery of the left lateral lobe was droppedl immediately into liquid nitrogen. Sections were cut at 22 in a cryostat at a temperature of -25#{176}C. The tissue sections were then dehydrated! ifl vacuo at -40#{176}C. After dehydration sections were brought to room temperature in vacuo and! , in an air conditioned room, representative areas of the lobule were dissected out at a magnification of 72 x under the dissecting microscope. The areas selected included small Portal triadis surroundled by a rim
Multi-Task Convolutional Neural Network for Patient Detection and Skin Segmentation in Continuous Non-Contact Vital Sign Monitoring

Patient detection and skin segmentation are important steps in non-contact vital sign monitoring as skin regions contain pulsatile information required for the estimation of vital signs such as heart rate, respiratory rate and peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2). Previous methods based on face detection or colour-based image segmentation are less reliable in a hospital setting. In this paper, we develop a multi-task convolutional neural network (CNN) for detecting the presence of a patient and segmenting the patient’s skin regions. The multi-task model has a shared core network with two branches: a segmentation branch which was implemented using a fully convolutional network, and a classification branch which was implemented using global average pooling. The whole network was trained using images from a clinical study conducted in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the John Radcliffe hospital, Oxford, UK. Our model can produce accurate results and is robust to changes in different skin tones, pose variations, lighting variations, and routine interaction of clinical staff.
Long‐term invasive measurement of subcutaneous oxygen partial pressure above the sacrum on lying healthy volunteers

Pressure ulcers are frequently seen dermal lesions, but little is known about their pathophysiology. It is generally assumed that prolonged tissue pressure impairs blood circulation thus causing ischemic damage to tissue. Therefore, subcutaneous oxygen partial pressure was measured to confirm this hypothesis. In the past, various authors have conducted tests on healthy subjects to determine oxygen partial pressure transcutaneously during periods not exceeding 20 minutes. All found a decrease at susceptible sites, e.g., the sacrum. The present study was the first one to measure oxygen partial pressure subcutaneously above the sacrums of four test subjects during a period of 5 hours. In all cases, the values first decreased to a minimum of 37% of baseline before they returned to the initial values. This observation is in contradiction to former studies, which start from the assumption of critical ischemia due to interface pressure, measured on healthy volunteers too.
Exploring software piracy as a factor of video game console adoption

The market for video game consoles is substantial and competition is heated. At the same time, software piracy has seen substantial literature coverage. The hardware controls that ordinarily prevent illegally modified software can be bypassed. As part of an ongoing research project, this paper explores the role of software piracy in the decision to adopt a video game console. This work presents a new research direction, observing software piracy as a previously unforeseen driver of system adoption. This study explores a set of consumers with low disposable incomes, who must make a moral choice with regard to consumption for entertainment. The study used focus groups and a literature review to develop a set of factors based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour. These factors were operationalised in a survey of 150 young adults. Analysis was conducted on the basis of adoption level and gender. In contrast to much prior information systems research, the ability to pirate console software was significant for adopters and both genders, but not non-adopters. Cost was not a significant factor.
Relationship between Ethnic Backgrounds, Family Socioeconomic Status, Leisure Participation, and Psychological Well-Being

Relations between ethnic backgrounds, family socioeconomic status, leisure participation, and psychological well-being were explored. Participants returned 827 valid pencil-and-paper surveys. An increase in student-athlete leisure participation was associated with better psychological well-being and sense of accomplishment. Compared with Aboriginal student-athletes, Han student-athletes had higher passive leisure participation; there was no correlation between their families' socioeconomic status and the student-athletes' leisure participation or psychological well-being.
Do Preschool Teachers Professional Qualifications Play a Role in Enhancing their Understanding of ECCE Training

Preschool teachers? professional development and professional qualifications are crucial in enhancing the quality of children? s education. Studies related to the quality of preschool education and preschool teachers? professional qualifications are very limited in Malaysia. As such, this study embarks on finding the effects of ECCE teachers? professional qualifications on their understanding of overall ECCE training, perceptions of the quality of ECCE training, understanding of ECCE curriculum, and their understanding of the teaching and learning process. This study employed the descriptive research design using questionnaires to collect the data. The sample of the study consists of 296 preschool teachers from West Malaysia. The findings indicate that the ECCE teachers? professional qualifications have a significant effect on their understanding of the ECCE training. The results also show that ECCE teachers with higher professional qualifications have better perceptions of the quality of ECCE training compared with their counterparts with lower professional qualifications. The findings affirmed that the ECCE teachers with higher professional qualifications have a significantly better understanding of the ECCE curriculum compared to those with lower professional qualifications. These findings have crucial theoretical, pedagogical and practical implications in early childhood education.
Reliability and validity of the Korean version of the way-finding effectiveness scale for persons with dementia.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Korean version of the Way-finding Effectiveness Scale (WES) for Korean persons with dementia (PWDs). DESIGN A descriptive, cross-sectional survey method was used. METHODS Data were collected with a non-probability sampling strategy using structured format face-to-face interviews. A convenience sample of 83 community-dwelling PWDs and their family caregivers were recruited. The participants were PWDs who were over 60 years of age, had been medically diagnosed with dementia or showed signs and symptoms of dementia, had a Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score of less than 24 of 30 and were independent in walking. RESULTS Internal consistency for the 29-item KWES was 0.93 and exceeded 0.70 for the four subscales (complex way-finding goals, CWG; analytic strategy, AS; global strategy, GS; and simple way-finding goals, SWG). The intercorrelations for total KWES and subscales demonstrated a high to moderate relationship ranging from 0.84 (total and CWG) to 0.24 (AS and SWG). Pearson correlations between each subscale scores of the KWES and K-MMSE demonstrated significant, moderate relationships ranging from 0.41 (CWG and K-MSE) to 0.28 (AS and K-MMSE). Differences in current and prior behaviour of KWES were significant for the total (t = -21.00, p < 0.001) and subscales (t = -28.33--9.33, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Acceptable reliabilities and validities support the conclusion that the KWES is a valid and reliable instrument for examining way-finding effectiveness for Korean PWDs. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The KWES will contribute to the development of understanding of way-finding ability for community-dwelling PWDs in both research and clinical practices.
TQM Practices in Public Sector: Case of Finnish Healthcare Organizations

This study aims to discuss the evolution, principles, and stages of total quality management TQM in public health care organizations. It also makes a comparison that how case organizations think about quality and TQM along with its applicability within public sector. The study can be categorized as qualitative research. The data is collected from semi structural interviews of the informants and the concerning documents, which consist of strategy, policy papers and audit reports of the case organizations. Altogether there are two case organizations. Furthermore, data is analyzed with the help of content analysis. Most vital issues in TQM practices are its comprehensiveness, and its application in such a way which is appropriate for the organization, with a logical way of operation and the participation of management and personnel. Training, guidance, teamwork, involvement and learning are imperative for achieving a continuous improvement culture and are vital elements when adopting TQM. Managers should learn from the experience of TQM implementers by studying expected challenges and pitfalls. They should also pay more attention to the crucial role of all stakeholders in the TQM implementation. The study could be quite valuable from a strategic perspective in providing guidelines to build up a proper plan for TQM practices more promptly. The paper also manages to shed light on TQM practices of public service organizations by comparing their current approaches to quality.
Severity scoring systems: Are they internally valid, reliable and predictive of oxygen use in children with acute bronchiolitis?

Severity scores are commonly used in research and clinically to assess the severity of bronchiolitis. However, there are limitations as few have been validated. The aim of our study was to: (i) determine the validity and reliability of a bronchiolitis scoring system, and (ii) examine if the score predicted the need for oxygen at 12 and 24 hrs. Children aged <24 months presenting to Royal Darwin Hospital with a clinical diagnosis of bronchiolitis were eligible to participate.
Involvement of the CD27‐CD70 co‐stimulatory pathway in allogeneic T‐cell response to follicular lymphoma cells

Non‐activated follicular lymphoma (FL) cells do not function as effective antigen‐presenting cells in vivo. CD40 activation of FL cells up‐regulates critical adhesion and co‐stimulatory molecules, thereby inducing lymphoma‐specific cytotoxic T cells in vitro. However, other evidence suggests that CD70 is another important co‐stimulatory molecule involved in antigen dependent T‐cell activation. Here, we showed that freshly isolated FL cells from eight diagnostic biopsies expressed intermediate to high levels of CD27, whereas only insignificant levels of CD70 were detected on their cell surface. Together with the low to intermediate expression of B7, these findings help to explain the poor antigen‐presenting capacity of non‐activated FL cells. Activation of FL cells by CD27 and CD40 induced a significantly higher alloantigen T‐cell response than CD40 alone, whereas CD27 activation induced only a mostly insignificant T‐cell proliferation. Both CD40 and CD27 + CD40 activation resulted in a high up‐regulation of CD70 and B7 molecules, whereas CD27 activation up‐regulated CD70 but not B7 expression on the surface of FL cells. Thus, expression of both CD70 and B7 co‐stimulatory molecules appears to be essential for an efficient T‐cell‐mediated immune response. However, the molecules responsible for the significantly higher alloantigen T‐cell response to FL cells activated through CD27 and CD40 remain to be identified. In summary, we conclude that CD27+CD70 represents another co‐stimulatory pathway involved in T‐cell‐mediated immune responses to FL cells. Our findings suggest that several co‐stimulatory pathways exist and should be taken into consideration to optimize antigen presentation for the generation of lymphoma‐directed cytotoxic T cells for adoptive immunotherapy.
Histiocytosis With Raisinoid Nuclei: A Unifying Concept for Lesions Reported Under Different Names as Nodular Mesothelial/Histiocytic Hyperplasia, Mesothelial/Monocytic Incidental Cardiac Excrescences, Intralymphatic Histiocytosis, and Others A Report of 50 Cases

We report 50 cases of peculiar histiocytic proliferations occurring in diverse body sites that currently bear various names, including nodular mesothelial/histiocytic hyperplasia, nodular histiocytic aggregates, mesothelial/monocytic incidental cardiac excrescences, reactive eosinophilic pleuritis, histioeosinophilic granuloma of the thymus, and intralymphatic histiocytosis. They can sometimes cause considerable differential diagnostic difficulties by resembling a metastatic carcinoma or Langerhans cell histiocytosis. Several previous publications have established a link between some of these conditions, suggesting that these are merely variations within a histopathologic spectrum, affecting different organs and bearing different names based on a particular location. However, no publication has ever comprehensively addressed all of these lesions together in one study in an attempt to explain and discuss their striking analogy. Having studied a large series of cases we provide evidence that all these lesions share the same morphologic, immunohistochemical, and pathogenetic properties, thus they all represent the same pathologic process and should be referred to as such. Taking into account their typical nuclear features we propose a collective term “histiocytosis with raisinoid nuclei” for this spectrum of conditions.
Generalisierte Amyloidose bei einer Shar-Pei-Zuchthündin

Zusammenfassung Gegenstand und Ziel: Es wird ein Fall von generalisierter AA-Amyloidose bei einem Shar Pei vorgestellt. Die schwerwiegendsten Veränderungen fanden sich in den Nieren. Material und Methoden: Eine achtjährige Shar-Pei-Zuchthündin, die klinische Symptome einer Niereninsuffizienz gezeigt hatte, wurde pathologisch-anatomisch und histologisch untersucht. Ergebnisse: Es wurde eine generalisierte AA-Amyloidose mit besonderer Beteiligung des Nierenmarkes festgestellt. Schlussfolgerungen: Aufgrund der Rasse und des Verteilungsmusters der Amyloidablagerung ist vermutlich davon auszugehen, dass es sich um einen Fall von familiärer Amyloidose der Shar Peis handelt, die bei US-amerikanischen Zuchtlinien bereits beschrieben ist. Klinische Relevanz: Da es sich um eine Zuchthündin handelte, ist ein zukünftiger Anstieg der Inzidenz von familiärer AA-Amyloidose bei Shar Peis in Deutschland nicht auszuschließen. Die histologische Untersuchung von Biopsieproben aus der Nierenrinde kann zu Interpretationsschwierigkeiten führen, da die Amyloidablagerungen vor allem im Nierenmark lokalisiert sind.
Drivers and barriers in sustainable manufacturing implementation in Malaysian manufacturing firms

Sustainable manufacturing practices seek to optimize production efficiency while minimizing environmental impact. Nowadays, the implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices in companies has increased. By implementing sustainable manufacturing practices, firms can gain better access to international markets; enhance business profile, consumer perceptions and corporate reputation and increase the manufacturing capacity. However, the implementation of sustainable manufacturing practices is posed to many drivers and barriers in light of the benefits manufacturing firms stand to gain from this initiative. This paper aims to investigate the drivers and barriers of sustainable manufacturing implementation in Malaysia. In this study, data were collected by using a self-administered questionnaires. The result shows that the increment in the overall cost of implementation is regarded as the main barrier to implementing sustainable manufacturing practices while environmental regulation and top management commitment are regarded as the main drivers. This research has been able to highlight the important barriers and drivers of implementing sustainable manufacturing practices through which industries can improve the manufacturing practices to offset the negativity on the environment.
When Is the Deep Inferior Epigastric Artery Flap Indicated for Breast Reconstruction in Patients not Treated With Radiotherapy?

BackgroundIt is controversial whether breast reconstruction with a microvascular free flap should be done without restrictions in patients who have not had radiotherapy. Many regard it as too expensive, but some consider it better and more economically advantageous than an implant reconstruction. MethodsDatabases of publications were searched to find out under what conditions is it suitable to offer a deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) or a transverse rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap to normalize the body’s appearance in a woman whose breast(s) had been removed for cancer or to prevent the development of breast cancer. The effect of breast reconstruction with DIEP flaps was analyzed, taking account of the following factors: general satisfaction (quality of life), aesthetic satisfaction (cosmesis), and morbidity. To find out which factors were of potential importance, we recorded age, hypertension, whether scars from previous abdominal surgery were present, microcirculation, whether the patient was overweight or obese, and costs of the procedure. ResultsPatients planning to have DIEP flaps should be willing to stop smoking at least 4 weeks before and after the procedure and have a body mass index of less than 30 kg/m2 to avoid a higher risk of complications. Because of the paucity of papers, it is difficult to recommend one approach over the other when considering general satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, and health economics. However, economical long-term outcome is highly dependent on the initial costs of each procedure and the cumulative costs of complications for each reconstruction method. ConclusionsThe scientific foundation of assessment of methods of techniques of breast reconstruction is weak. Therefore, it is important that future studies should present more comparable series, highlight the long-term effects in high-quality studies, to provide the patients with optimal results without undue risks and to avoid financial burdens on society.
Risk of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion in HIV-infected adolescents.

BACKGROUND The risk of developing the human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated precancer high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected adolescents is unknown. We examined the risk of developing HSIL among adolescents with and without HIV infection. METHODS HIV-infected (n = 172) and -uninfected (n = 84) girls aged 13-18 years who were participating in a multicenter study of primarily horizontally acquired HIV infections in adolescents (Reaching for Excellence in Adolescent Health Care) and who did not have HSIL on cytologic examination at study entry or at the first follow-up visit were followed at 6-month intervals. HIV-uninfected girls were recruited for comparison in a 2:1 ratio (HIV infected:HIV uninfected). The primary outcome was cytologic diagnosis of HSIL confirmed by expert review. RESULTS Incidence of HSIL by the end of follow-up was higher for HIV-infected girls than for HIV-uninfected girls (21.5% vs. 4.8%, respectively). In multivariate analysis, use of hormonal (either estrogen/progesterone oral combination or medroxyprogesterone acetate intramuscular) contraceptives, high cervical mucous concentrations of interleukin (IL)-12, a positive HPV test, and persistent low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) were significantly associated with the development of HSIL. CONCLUSIONS The incidence of HSIL was alarmingly high in HIV-infected adolescent girls. However, when other predictors were considered in multivariate analysis, HIV status was not retained in the model. The heightened risk for HSIL associated with persistent LSIL underscores the need to closely monitor HIV-infected adolescents with LSIL. The risk for HSIL associated with high concentrations of IL-12 may be suggestive of a local immune dysregulation. The role of hormonal contraception as a risk factor deserves further investigation.