Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery The advent of thoracic endovascular aortic repair is associated with broadened treatment eligibility and decreased overall mortality in traumatic thoracic aortic injury

Background: Aortic injury is the second leading cause of death in trauma. Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has recently been applied to traumatic thoracic aortic injuries (TTAIs) as a minimally invasive alternative to open surgery. We sought to determine the impact of TEVAR on national trends in the management of TTAI. Methods: We queried the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from the years 2001 to 2007 to select patients diagnosed with TTAI (International Classification of Disease-9 code 901.0). Patients were evaluated based on open surgical repair, TEVAR, or nonoperative management, before and after widespread adoption of TEVAR (2001-2005 and 2006-2007). Outcomes of interest were inpatient mortality, length of stay (LOS), and major complications. Results: An estimated 1180 annual admissions occurred for TTAI in the United States. Comparing the two time periods, there was an increase in TEVAR (P < .001) with a simultaneous decrease in open repair (P < .001) in 2006 to 2007. The overall number of interventions also increased (P < .001). Overall mortality decreased (25.0% vs 19.0%;P < .001), corresponding to improved survival in the nonoperative group (28.0% vs 23.2%; P < .001). There was no improvement in open repair mortality rates between the two time periods. Comparing intervention types, the TEVAR group had a higher percentage of patients with brain injury (26.1% vs 20.6%; P .008), lung injury (25.0% vs 17.7%; P < .001), and hemothorax (32.5% vs 21.7%; P < .001) than the open surgery group. There were no differences in the number of intra-abdominal injuries or major orthopedic fractures. The open surgery group had more respiratory complications (43.9% vs 54.2%; P < .001), whereas TEVAR had a higher stroke rate (1.9% vs 0.7%; P .021). There were no differences in paraplegia or renal failure. Overall in-hospital mortality was 23.2% (nonoperative group 26.7%, open repair 12.4%, and TEVAR 10.6%). Mortality between open repair and TEVAR groups were not significantly different. LOS was shorter among the TEVAR group vs open (15.7 vs 22.9 days; P < .001). Conclusion: TEVAR has replaced open repair as the primary operative treatment for TTAI and has extended operative treatment to those patients not previously considered candidates for repair. Increased utilization of TEVAR is associated with improved overall mortality. There is no difference in mortality between TEVAR and open repair groups in our study, which likely reflects the multisystem nature of injury and greater preoperative risk in the TEVAR group. (J Vasc Surg 2011;53:36-43.)
Customer defection in retail banking: Attitudinal and behavioural consequences of failed service quality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide managers and researchers a comprehensive view of the root causes of customer departure and empirically test the attitudinal and behavioural consequences of failed service quality in a retail banking context. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative study was conducted among retail banking customers who had defected from a large retail bank provider. Data from 989 usable responses to a questionnaire filled through a telephone survey were applied to model estimation through structural equation modelling. Findings – Findings demonstrate the effect of failed service quality on customers’ negative attitudes towards the retail bank provider (dissatisfaction and lack of commitment), the direct negative impact of failed service quality on loyalty (the opposite of defection), as well as its indirect negative impact on loyalty through negative attitudes. The moderating role of customers’ switching costs and subjective knowledge of the bank’s products is revealed.
Field validation of the DNDC model for greenhouse gas emissions in East Asian cropping systems

Validations of the DeNitrification‐DeComposition (DNDC) model against field data sets of trace gases (CH4, N2O, and NO) emitted from cropping systems in Japan, China, and Thailand were conducted. The model‐simulated results were in agreement with seasonal N2O emissions from a lowland soil in Japan from 1995 to 2000 and seasonal CH4 emissions from rice fields in China, but failed to simulate N2O and NO emissions from an Andisol in Japan as well as NO emissions from the lowland soil. Seasonal CH4 emissions from rice cropping systems in Thailand were poorly simulated because of site‐specific soil conditions and rice variety. For all of the simulated cases, the model satisfactorily simulated annual variations of greenhouse gas emissions from cropping systems and effects of land management. However, discrepancies existed between the modeled and observed seasonal patterns of CH4 and N2O emissions. By incorporating modifications based on the local soil properties and management, DNDC model could become a powerful tool for estimating greenhouse gas emissions from terrestrial ecosystems.
Proteolytic expression in Blastocrithidia culicis: influence of the endosymbiont and similarities with virulence factors of pathogenic trypanosomatids

Blastocrithidia culicis is an insect trypanosomatid that presents bacterial endosymbionts. The cell-associated and secreted proteinases of the endosymbiont-bearing and aposymbiotic strains were compared through the incorporation of proteinaceous substrates into sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). Few qualitative changes could be detected in the proteolytic zymograms in the 2 strains studied when gelatin, casein, haemoglobin or bovine serum albumin (BSA) were tested. However, the level of proteolytic activities was significantly higher in the aposymbiotic strain. Some of the B. culicis proteins reacted in Western blots with antibodies raised against gp63, a zinc-metalloproteinase, and cruzipain, a cysteinyl-proteinase, which are virulence factors of the human pathogenic trypanosomatids, Leishmania spp. and Trypanosoma cruzi, respectively. The anti-cross-reacting determinant (CRD) antibody recognized 2 polypeptides (50 and 58 kDa) in the spent culture media and in the supernatant from glycosylphosphatidylinositol-phospholipase C (GPI-PLC)-treated cells, suggesting that these proteins are GPI-anchored to the plasma membrane. In addition, the anti-gp63 reacted with the 50 kDa protein. The identification of protein homologues in trypanosomatids with distinct life-cycles may help to determine the importance of proteinases in trypanosomatids.
Calpain and Other Cytosolic Proteases Can Contribute to the Degradation of Retro-translocated Prion Protein in the Cytosol*

PrP, a cell surface-localized N-linked glycoprotein, is required for the pathogenesis of prion diseases. Recent studies have revealed that prion protein (PrP) becomes neurotoxic and prone to aggregation when it is in the cytosol, suggesting that cytosolic PrP may play a role in the pathogenesis of prion disease. Retro-translocation of PrP from the endoplasmic reticulum to the cytosol for proteasome degradation offers a natural route for PrP to enter the cytosol, but whether PrP is subject to retrotranslocation is controversial. In this study, we investigated the metabolism of endogenous wild-type PrP in several cell lines and in primary mouse cortical neurons. Our results suggest that a portion of the endogenous wild-type PrP is retro-translocated to the cytosol and degraded by the proteasome. Moreover, we also found that calpain and other cytosolic proteases could degrade PrP in the cytosol when the proteasome activity is compromised. These results provide the foundation for the hypothesis that cytosolic PrP may be involved in the pathogenesis of prion disease.
Offline-Online Approximate Dynamic Programming for Dynamic Vehicle Routing with Stochastic Requests

Although increasing amounts of transaction data make it possible to characterize uncertainties surrounding customer service requests, few methods integrate predictive tools with prescriptive optimization procedures to meet growing demand for small-volume urban transport services. We incorporate temporal and spatial anticipation of service requests into approximate dynamic programming (ADP) procedures to yield dynamic routing policies for the single-vehicle routing problem with stochastic service requests, an important problem in city-based logistics. We contribute to the routing literature as well as to the field of ADP. We combine offline value function approximation (VFA) with online rollout algorithms resulting in a high-quality, computationally tractable policy. Our offline–online policy enhances the anticipation of the VFA policy, yielding spatial and temporal anticipation of requests and routing developments. Our combination of VFA with rollout algorithms demonstrates the potential benefit of using .
Reliability and validity of the Spanish version of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ-SP) in school-age children.

BACKGROUND Sleep disorders in schoolchildren are a common problem worldwide, and when are not adequately diagnosed and treated, their negative impact on daytime functioning may be significant. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ). METHODS Participants were 286 school-aged children from a community-based sample, aged 4 to 7 years. The sleep behaviour was evaluated using the CSHQ and actigraphy (ActiSleep monitor). The CSHQ was adapted to the Spanish language. The internal consistency of the questionnaire and the test-retest reliability between scores at baseline and three-weeks-later were estimated. Associations between CSHQ items and accelerometer sleep quality indicators were used as indicators of concurrent validity. RESULTS Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the subscales ranged from 0.60 to 0.81, and 0.81 for the full scale; the intraclass correlation coefficients ranged from 0.56 to 0.81. A moderate correlation was observed in sleep latency and awakenings measurements using both parents' reported sleep habits (CSHQ-SP) and sleep quality indicators (ActiSleep). CONCLUSIONS The CSHQ-SP has demonstrated adequate psychometric properties, and it serves as a useful instrument for clinical and research setting.
Spirometry utilization for COPD: how do we measure up?

BACKGROUND COPD is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. Guidelines recommend the confirmation of a COPD diagnosis with spirometry. Limited evidence exists, however, documenting the frequency of spirometry use in clinical practice. METHODS The National Committee for Quality Assurance recruited five health plans to determine the proportion of patients >/= 40 years old with a new diagnosis of COPD who had received spirometry during the interval starting 720 days prior to diagnosis and ending 180 days after diagnosis. Patients were identified via International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision diagnostic codes for encounters during the period July 1, 2002, through June 30, 2003. For each patient, the participating plans provided patient demographic and claims data from administrative data systems. RESULTS Participating health plans covered 1,597,749 members with a total of 5,039 eligible COPD patients identified. Patients in the 40 to 64 age range had the highest percentage of new COPD diagnoses. Women were also slightly more likely to undergo spirometry (33.5% vs 29.4%, p = 0.001). Approximately 32% of patients with a new diagnosis of COPD had undergone spirometry in the specified interval. Spirometry frequency was lowest in older patients, with the lowest frequency in those >/= 75 years old. CONCLUSIONS Our study suggests that approximately 32% of a broad range of patients with a new COPD diagnosis had undergone spirometry within the previous 2 years to 6 months following diagnosis. In addition, spirometric testing appeared to decrease with increasing age. As opposed to a prior report, women were not less likely to have undergone spirometry. This study shows that spirometry is infrequently used in clinical practice for diagnosis of COPD and suggests opportunities for practice improvement.
Improving Requirements Engineering through Goal-oriented Models and Tools: Feedback from a Large Industrial Deployment

Nowadays, mastering the requirements phase is still challenging for companies of any size and often impacts the quality, delay or cost of the delivered software system. While smaller companies may suffer from maturity, resource or tooling problems, larger companies have to cope with the larger size, complexity and crossdependencies between their projects. This paper reports about the work carried out over the past three years to address such challenges within Huawei, a very large Chinese company active worldwide in the high-tech and telecommunication sectors, with the help of experts from the requirements engineering community. We show how goal-oriented requirements engineering (GORE) is able to provide a strong foundation to support the evolution of requirements engineering practices and also in connection with related processes such as business analysis, technical specification and testing. We also report about our experience in developing adequate tool support to achieve successful industrial adoption and address team-work, scalability and toolchain integration needs. Although anchored in a specific case, most of the reported issues are shared by many companies in many domains. To further abstract away from our case, we also formulate some ”Chinese wisdom” learned, identify useful strategies for successful technology transfer and point further research challenges.
The neutrophils response after laparoscopic and open cholecystectomy.

AIM This study want to examine (a) whether neutrophils, the neutrophil-elastase, C-reactive protein and the Interleukin- 6 are modified and how, in patients after laparoscopic cholecystectomy open cholecystectomy; (b) whether these findings are indicative of an increased risk to develop infectious complications. MATERIALS OF STUDY Circulating Interleukin-6 level, C-reactive protein and neutrophil-elastase were measured in 71 patients (35 underwent open cholecystectomy and 36 laparoscopic cholecystectomy). The diagnosis was confirmed by ultrasound examination. During hospitalization the patients were not given antispastic drugs, steroids, or nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID). RESULTS The increase in the serum Interleukin-6 and neurtophil-elastase, during laparoscopic cholecystectomy, was found to be significantly smaller than that during open cholecystectomy and resulted in a smaller extent of postoperative elevations for C-reactive protein. We recorded three cases (8.5%) of postoperative infections in the "open'" group and neutrophil- elastase values normalized later in patient with complications. CONCLUSION There were significant associations between the response areas of Interleukin-6, C-reactive protein and neutrophil- elastase levels. Neutrophils-elastase level is a more sensible inflammatory marker in comparison to the IL-6 and C-reactive protein. Excessive and prolonged post injury elevations of these mediators are associated with increased morbidity.
Energetic plumes over the western Ross Sea continental slope

Rapid descent of dense Drygalski Trough (western Ross Sea, Antarctica) shelf water over the continental slope, within 100 to 250 m thick benthic plumes, is described. Speeds of up to 1.0 m/s are recorded flowing at an average angle of 35° to the isobaths, entraining ambient Lower Circumpolar Deep Water en route. This process is predominant in determining the concentration and placement of the shelf water injected into the deep sea as a precursor Antarctic Bottom Water. Nonetheless, a 4‐hour duration pulse of undiluted shelf water was observed at depth (1407 m) directly north of the Drygalski Trough, moving at around 90 degrees to isobaths, and at a speed of 1.4 m/s. Thus the export of Ross Sea shelf water to the deep sea is accomplished within plumes descending at moderate angle to isobaths, punctuated by rapid downhill cascades.
Antibacterial photodynamic therapy in dermatology

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) appears to be endowed with several favourable features for the treatment of localized microbial infections, especially after the advent of cationic photosensitising agents (phenothiazines, meso -substituted porphyrins, polylysine-bound chlorins) which properly interact with the outer wall at the surface of several types of bacterial and yeast cells, increase their permeability, and allow significant amounts of photosensitizer to be accumulated at the level of the cytoplasmic membrane. These photosensitisers are characterized by a broad spectrum of activity, being effective toward both wild strain and antibiotic-resistant gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria and yeasts. In general, extensive eradication of pathogens can be achieved under mild irradiation conditions, such as short incubation times and low fluence-rates, which guarantees a high degree of selectivity in comparison with the main constituents of host tissues, such as keratinocytes and fibroblasts. Moreover, the photosensitised inactivation of microorganisms is typically a multi-target process; as a consequence, the selection of photoresistant microbial strains is very unlikely and has not been experimentally observed so far. Possible initial targets of antimicrobial PDT applications include periodontal diseases, impetigo, atopic dermatitis, acne vulgaris, infected wounds, and superinfected posriatic plaques.
The Socioeconomic Impact of Hearing Loss in U.S. Adults

Objective To evaluate the associations between hearing loss and educational attainment, income, and unemployment/underemployment in U.S. adults. Study Design National cross-sectional survey. Setting Ambulatory examination centers. Patients Adults aged 20 to 69 years who participated in the 1999 to 2002 cycles of the NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) audiometric evaluation and income questionnaire (N = 3,379). Intervention(s) Pure-tone audiometry, with hearing loss defined by World Health Organization criteria of bilateral pure-tone average of more than 25 dB (0.5, 1, 2, 4 kHz). Main Outcome Measure(s) Low educational attainment, defined as not completing high school; low income, defined as family income less than $20,000 per year; and unemployment or underemployment, defined as not having a job or working less than 35 hours per week. Results Individuals with hearing loss had 3.21 times higher odds of low educational attainment (95% confidence interval [95% CI], 2.20–4.68) compared with normal-hearing individuals. Controlling for education, age, sex, and race, individuals with hearing loss had 1.58 times higher odds of low income (95% CI, 1.16–2.15) and 1.98 times higher odds of being unemployed or underemployed (95% CI, 1.38–2.85) compared with normal-hearing individuals. Conclusion Hearing loss is associated with low educational attainment in U.S. adults. Even after controlling for education and important demographic factors, hearing loss is independently associated with economic hardship, including both low income and unemployment/underemployment. The societal impact of hearing loss is profound in this nationally representative study and should be further evaluated with longitudinal cohorts. Received institutional review board approval (National Center for Health Statistics Institutional Review Board Protocol no. 98-12).
An Empirical Investigation of Factors Influencing Voluntary Disclosure of Financial Information on the Internet in the GCC Countries

This paper examines the extent of financial information disclosed on the Internet by the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. We collected data from listed companies in stock market of a representative group of GCC countries, to test research hypotheses related to the association between company characteristics and the voluntary dissemination of financial information on the Internet based on industry type and country. A cross-section of all 128 companies currently listed on the stock exchange of the selected GCC countries were determined. A hierarchical forward stepwise in logistic regression was undertaken to assess whether voluntary dissemination of financial information on the Internet was related to firm size, leverage, and profitability. Our results revealed that the probability of a firm to publish financial information on the Internet does not only depend on individual characteristic, but on a combination of interaction effects among firm characteristics (size, leverage, and profitability), industry type, and country.
NMDA receptor subunit‐dependent modulation by conantokin‐G and Ala(7)‐conantokin‐G

The modulation of recombinant NMDA receptors by conantokin‐G (con‐G) and Ala(7)‐conantokin‐G (Ala(7)‐Con‐G) was investigated in Xenopus oocytes injected with capped RNA coding for NR1 splice variants and NR2 subunits using the two‐electrode voltage clamp technique. Glutamate exhibited a marginally higher apparent affinity for NR2A‐containing receptors than NR2B‐containing receptors, regardless of the NR1 subunit present. Conantokins were bath applied to give cumulative concentration responses in the presence of 3 and 30 μm glutamate. Both contantokins exhibited biphasic concentration‐response relationships at NR2A‐containing NMDA receptors, producing potentiation at low conantokin concentrations and inhibition at high concentrations. These effects were stronger with glutamate concentrations near its EC50, and less marked at saturating concentrations. In contrast, the conantokin concentration‐response relation was monophasic and inhibitory at NR2B‐containing receptors. We conclude that the combinations of subunits that comprise the NMDA receptor complex influence conantokin and glutamate affinities and the nature of the responses to conantokins.