Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Telehealth remote monitoring for community-dwelling older adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

OBJECTIVE To determine if self-monitoring via home-based telehealth equipment could, when combined with ongoing remote monitoring by a nurse, reduce the incidence of hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) presentations for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). SUBJECTS AND METHODS A randomized controlled trial was used to compare the outcomes for participants receiving the telehealth equipment and monitoring with those for participants in an information-only control group, over a period of 6 months. Participants receiving the telehealth intervention were taught to measure and record their vital signs (blood pressure, weight, temperature, pulse, and oxygen saturation levels) on a daily basis. These were then transmitted automatically via telephone to a secure Web site where they were monitored each day by the telehealth nurse. RESULTS The telehealth group had fewer ED presentations and hospital admissions and a reduced length of stay in comparison with the control group. These results were not statistically significant. However, the reduction in health service use was large enough to result in significant cost savings, with the annual cost savings of the telehealth group compared with the control group being $2,931 per person. CONCLUSIONS Telehealth monitoring of patient vital signs reduced health service utilization for individuals with COPD and resulted in significant cost savings. In terms of individual health benefits, improvements in participants' self-management behaviors and control over their condition was evident.
Combined Activation of Coagulation and Inflammation has an Important Role in Multiple Organ Dysfunction and Poor Outcome after Severe Trauma

Summary We tested the hypothesis that activated neutrophil-endothelial cell interaction in DIC can cause endothelial injury contributing to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) and a poor outcome after trauma. Fifty-eight severe trauma patients, 29 with DIC and 29 without DIC were studied. Serial levels of soluble L-, P-, and E-selectins, ICAM-1, VCAM-1, thrombomodulin, and neutrophil elastase were measured on days 0-4 after trauma. The numbers of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria that patients met were determined, simultaneously. In the DIC patients, higher DIC scores, lower platelet counts, and a longer duration of SIRS were found compared with the non-DIC patients. The incidence of ARDS and MODS were higher in patients with DIC than in those patients without DIC, and the DIC patients had poor outcome. Soluble L-selectin (sL-selectin) level on Day 1 in the DIC patients who died was markedly lower than those in the non-DIC patients. The levels of sPand sE-selectins, sICAM-1, and sVCAM-1 were more elevated in the patients with DIC than in those without DIC on days 2 to 4. Neutrophil elastase and sThrombomodulin levels in the DIC patients persistently increased during the study period compared to those in the non-DIC patients. Maximum DIC scores in the DIC group showed good correlations with peak levels of sICAM-1, sVCAM-1, neutrophil elastase, sThrombomodulin, and the number of dysfunctioning organs. Highly activated and sustained inflammation caused by neutrophil-endothelium interaction in DIC gives rise to MODS and poor outcome in patients with severe trauma. These results suggest a close relationship between inflammation and thrombosis in posttrauma DIC.
SIRPB1 copy‐number polymorphism as candidate quantitative trait locus for impulsive‐disinhibited personality

Impulsive‐disinhibited personality (IDP) is a behavioral trait mainly characterized by seeking immediate gratification at the expense of more enduring or long‐term gains. This trait has a major role in the development of several disinhibitory behaviors and syndromes, including psychopathy, attention‐deficit and hyperactivity disorder, cluster‐B personality disorders, criminality and alcoholism. Available data consistently support a strong heritable component, accounting for 30–60% of the observed variance in personality traits. A genome‐wide analysis of copy‐number variants was designed to identify novel genetic pathways associated with the IDP trait, using a series of 261 male participants with maximized opposite IDP scores. Quantitative trait locus analysis of candidate copy‐number variants (CNVs) was conducted across the entire IDP continuum. Functional effects of associated variants were evaluated in zebrafish embryos. A common CNV mapping to the immune‐related gene SIRPB1 was significantly associated with IDP scores in a dose‐dependent manner (β = −0.172, P < 0.017). Expression quantitative trait locus analysis of the critical region revealed higher SIRPB1 mRNA levels associated with the haplotype containing the deleted allele (P < 0.0007). Epigenetic marks highlighted the presence of two potential insulators within the deleted region, confirmed by functional assays in zebrafish embryos, which suggests that SIRPB1 expression rates are affected by the presence/absence of the insulator regions. Upregulation of SIRPB1 has been described in prefrontal cortex of patients with schizophrenia, providing a link between SIRPB1 and diseases involving disinhibition and failure to control impulsivity. We propose SIRPB1 as a novel candidate gene to account for phenotypic differences observed in the IDP trait.
HONEY BEE CONTRIBUTION TO ‘BORDÔ’ GRAPEVINE FRUIT PRODUCTION IN SOUTHERN BRAZIL

ABSTRACT- The production of fruits and seeds of many crops is increased when bees visit their flowers pollinating them. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of different pollination treatments on ‘Bordo’ grapevine ( Vitis labrusca L.) fruit quantity and quality. Quantitative and qualitative fruit production parameters of plants visited by Apis mellifera L. , manually self- and cross-pollinated plants and plants without pollination were analyzed and compared. Fruit production was high for all treatments and all fruits presented four seeds per fruit, on average, confirming that this grape cultivar is autogamous. However, fruit set after spontaneous self-pollination was statistically lower than that of all other treatments, and pollination by A. mellifera showed the highest fruit production. Furthermore, pollination by honey bees resulted in increased biomass, reflected on fruit weight, but the content of soluble solids remained unchanged. The results of this study showed that there is no need of pollinators for fruit production of ‘Bordo’ cv. , but the presence of these agents, in particular
Highly selective hydroxylation of benzene to phenol by wild-type cytochrome P450BM3 assisted by decoy molecules.

Phenol is a key intermediate in industry for the synthesis of drugs, dyes, and functional polymers. Because phenol is currently produced by the cumene process, which involves high energy consumption and significant formation of side products such as acetone and methylstyrene, direct hydroxylation of benzene has attracted much attention as an alternative method of production. The direct hydroxylation of benzene to phenol using a variety of catalysts, electrochemical oxidation systems, and photochemical systems has thus been extensively investigated. In contrast to many oxidation reactions at high temperature, monooxygenases in nature, such as cytochrome P450, efficiently catalyze the oxidation of inert alkanes and aromatic compounds under mild conditions. Thus, various engineered enzymes have been constructed by site-directed mutagenesis, random mutagenesis, and chemical modification. Biocatalysts for exclusive hydroxylation of the benzene ring using natural enzymes, if they could be developed, would be ideal systems for the production of phenol. Herein we report an efficient and selective hydroxylation of benzene to phenol catalyzed by wild-type cytochrome P450BM3 (P450BM3) with the assistance of decoy molecules. We and Zilly et al. have recently developed a simple and unique system for the hydroxylation of gaseous alkanes, such as propane and butane, catalyzed by wild-type P450BM3. Wild-type P450BM3 exclusively catalyzes the hydroxylation of long-alkyl-chain fatty acids and never hydroxylates small alkanes, because the active site of P450BM3 is optimized for the hydroxylation of fatty acids (Figure 1a, upper) and the first step of the catalytic cycle of P450BM3 starts only when a fatty acid binds to the substrate binding site of P450BM3, which is accompanied by the removal of the water molecule coordinated to the heme iron (Figure 1b, left). However, in the presence of perfluorinated carboxylic acids (PFCs) as inert dummy substrates (decoy molecules), gaseous alkanes can be hydroxylated by wild-type P450BM3. The decoy molecules initiate the activation of molecular oxygen in the same manner as long-alkyl-chain fatty acids and induce the generation of compound I (Figure 1b, right). Because the C F bonds of PFCs are not oxidizable, compound I exclusively hydroxylates gaseous alkanes. Moreover, shortalkyl-chain PFCs partially occupy the substrate binding site of P450BM3 to afford a space for small alkanes, which leads to efficient hydroxylation of the small alkanes (Figure 1a, lower). This attractive advantage encouraged us to perform benzene hydroxylation for the selective production of phenol. The hydroxylation of benzene by P450BM3 was examined by employing a series of PFCs (PFC8–PFC12; Table 1). The catalytic turnover rates of phenol formation were very much
Conversations with my washing machine : an inthe-wild study of demand-shifting with self-generated energy Conference or Workshop Item

Domestic microgeneration is the onsite generation of lowand zero-carbon heat and electricity by private households to meet their own needs. In this paper we explore how an everyday household routine – that of doing laundry – can be augmented by digital technologies to help households with photovoltaic solar energy generation to make better use of self-generated energy. This paper presents an 8-month inthe-wild study that involved 18 UK households in longitudinal energy data collection, prototype deployment and participatory data analysis. Through a series of technology interventions mixing energy feedback, proactive suggestions and direct control the study uncovered opportunities, potential rewards and barriers for families to shift energy consuming household activities and highlights how digital technology can act as mediator between household laundry routines and energy demand-shifting behaviors. Finally, the study provides insights into how a “smart” energy-aware washing machine shapes organization of domestic life and how people “communicate” with their washing machine. Author
An Adaptive Learning System with Learning Style Diagnosis based on Interface Behaviors

Each learner has different preferences and needs. Therefore, it is very crucial to provide the different styles of learners with different learning environments that are more preferred and more efficient to them. This paper reports a study of the intelligent learning environment where the learner’s preferences are diagnosed, and then user interfaces are customized in an adaptive manner to accommodate the preferences. A learning system with a specific interface has been devised based on the learning-style model by Felder & Silverman, so that different learner preferences are revealed through user interactions with the sys-tem. Using this interface, learning styles are diagnosed from learner behavior patterns on the interface using Decision Tree approach. Index Terms — Adaptive Learning System. Adaptive User Interface. Learner Modeling.
Safety and Efficacy of New Anticoagulation Strategies in Patients Undergoing Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is one of the most common types of sustained cardiac arrhythmia in the United States. Anticoagulation is given to patients with this arrhythmia to prevent thromboembolic complications. Anticoagulation is especially important for patients who undergo radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFA), because of the fine balance required to prevent post-procedural thromboembolic events and intra-procedure bleeding complications. RFA anticoagulation standard of care includes uninterrupted warfarin (UW) or interrupted warfarin (IW) with heparin bridging. Contemporary anticoagulation protocols are scant, in flux, and poorly validated. We compared two postablation anticoagulation strategies: new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) such as dabigatran or rivaroxaban versus the current standard (UW/IW) to determine the efficacy and safety of the new anticoagulant strategies. We conducted a single center retrospective study of 161 procedures with RFA. The procedures were allocated by anticoagulation strategy to either NOACs or the current standard. The number of thromboembolic events and bleeding complications post procedure, during hospitalization, and 30 days post procedure were collected. A total of 161 procedures were included: 95 received the NOAC strategy and 66 received the standard of care anticoagulation strategy. There was only one thromboembolic event in the interrupted group for Coumadin (3.7%) compared to none in the uninterrupted Coumadin and NOAC therapy (p1⁄4 0.221). There were no statistically significant differences between major and minor bleeding among the three groups (p1⁄4 0.2 and p1⁄4 0.4 respectively). There were fewer total complications in NOACs: 8.4% compared to 32% for IW and 13% for UW (po0.04). In addition, the length of stay for both groups demonstrated a shorter hospitalization for the NOAC strategy of 0.67 days compared to the standard strategy of 2. 07þ 2.4 in the IW group and 0. 92þ 1.2 in the UW group (po0.002). In patients undergoing AF ablation, NOACs appear to be efficacious and safe compared to the current standard of care, associated with a significantly lower length of stay.
Effective Supply Chain Configurations in the Business Context of China

Increasingly, global Flat Panel Display (FPD) manufacturers for computer, monitor and TV face growing business opportunities with an expanding global market. At the same time, with the continuous influx of competitors the overall prices of computer and TV have showed downward trends. In this environment it is critical for FPD manufacturers to manage efficiencies in terms of cost, delivery, and quality. The realistic options for overall cost reduction in the value chains are: (1) manufacturing productivity enhancement through workers’ learning curve; (2) product process improvement through better operational systems; (3) effective outsourcing for the backend assembly and logistical processes. This paper examined the strategic and operational issues related to efficient supply chain configurations between set-makers and back-end suppliers. For this purpose, this paper analyzed specific issues related to FPD manufacturers that operate in China according to the Chinese government rules and operational constraints. Specifically, we have examined supply chain integration practices through Low Cost Module strategy which includes the movement of its production facilities in China and integration of upstream and downstream suppliers. In this way, case firm has achieved the geographical integration with its suppliers. We also list key strategic challenges for supply chain configuration with suppliers in this industry and their practical options for their competitive advantages.
Virus‐inhibiting surgical glove to reduce the risk of infection by enveloped viruses

Needle puncture and other accidents that occur during surgery and other procedures may lead to viral infections of medical personnel, notably by hepatitis C (HCV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), now that hepatitis B can be prevented by vaccination. A new surgical glove called G‐VIR, which contains a disinfecting agent for enveloped viruses, has been developed. Herpes simplex type 1 (HSV) was used as a standard enveloped virus in both in vitro and in vivo tests of the virucidal capacity of the glove. Bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) and feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) were used as models for HCV and HIV, respectively. For in vitro study, a contaminated needle was passed through a glove and residual virus was titrated; for in vivo studies, animals were stuck with a contaminated needle through a glove. Despite variation in virus enumeration inherent in the puncture technique, statistical evaluation showed that infection was reproducibly and substantially reduced by passage through the virucidal layer. For BVDV, the amount of virus passing through the virucidal glove was reduced in 82% of pairwise comparisons with control gloves that lacked the virucidal agent; when plaque counts were adjusted to a common dilution, the median count for the virucidal glove was on the average reduced >10‐fold. In experiments in which the proportion of wells infected with FIV was measured, the ratio of TCID50 values (control glove to G‐VIR) was >15, and probably much higher. For HSV, the amount of virus passing through the virucidal glove was reduced in 81% of comparisons with control gloves; the median of adjusted plaque counts was reduced on the average approximately eightfold or ninefold. In vivo tests with FIV and HSV in cats and mice, respectively, found smaller percentage reductions in infection than the in vitro tests but confirmed the virucidal effect of the gloves. J. Med. Virol. 69:538–545, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Interferometric Meteor Head Echo Observations 1 using the Southern Argentina Agile Meteor Radar 2 ( SAAMER ) 3

D. Janches, Space Weather Lab. , Mail Code 674, GSFC/NASA, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (diego.janches@nasa.gov) W. Hocking, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Western Ontario, Canada (whocking@uwo.ca) S. Pifko, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, CA, USA (spifko@stanford.edu) J. L. Hormaechea, Estacion Astronomica Rio Grande, Rio Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina (jlhor@earg.gov.ar) D. C. Fritts, Gats Inc., Boulder CO, 8030 (dave@gats-inc.com) C. Brunini, Departamento de Ciencias Astronomicas y Geofisicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, La Plata, Argentina (claudiobrunini@yahoo.com) R. Michell and M. Samara, SowthWest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX (rmichell@swri.edu; msamara@swri.edu)
Factors Associated with Stress Among B . Sc . Nursing Students

Stress is a universal phenomenon and an unavoidable part of human life. In professional courses like nursing, initial period of course is stressful and it adversely affects the emotional, physical, social, and academic functions of the student nurses. A descriptive study was conducted among all the B. Sc. Nursing students studying in B. Sc. Nursing College Dibrugarh to find the level of stress and the factors associated with stress among them and it was found that majority of 85% students had above normal stress, 13% had normal stress and 2% had severe stress. Among the factors contributing to stress, the academic factors had maximum contribution (40%), followed by intrapersonal factors (30%). The environmental factor had only 21% contribution whereas the interpersonal factors contributed minimally (9%). Stress has become a chronic and pervasive condition in the world today. Every person experience different forms of stress throughout their life, therefore a student nurse is no exception as she has to adjust to an entirely new environment on joining the course in nursing. Certainly stress in the college setting cannot be eliminated, but preparing the student nurses to manage it properly can do a better task.
STATE CAPACITY, DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC GOOD PRODUCTION

The institutional literature on development has emphasized the need to check abuse of power, but overlooked whether the state has power in the first place. Bridging the state capacity and collective action literatures, we argue that since public goods critical for development, such as public health provision, constitute collective action problems (CAPs), and solving CAPs in groups the size of countries requires state high infrastructural power that makes individual behaviour observable/legible, so that it can be monitored and compliance enforced. It is only when democracy is institutionalized within such a state that it can have a positive effect on public goods provision. We test this argument using a novel measure of accumulated infrastructural power – the age, extent and quality of cadastral records – for over 1,000 years for 155 countries. Our analysis shows that this variable has an independent positive effect on infant and child mortality, and it also conditions the effect of democracy. This research has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 339571) and the Swedish Research Council (grant agreement D0112101). The authors thank Robert Ellisa for excellent research assistance. Marina Nistotskaya The Quality of Government Institute Department of Political Science University of Gothenburg marina.nistotskaya@pol.gu. se Michelle D’Arcy Department of Political Science Trinity College Dublin darcym1@tcd.ie
Pilot Scale Investigatons of the Removal of Carbon Dioxide from Hydrocarbon Gas Streams Using Polyethylene – Polybutyleneteraphtalate ( POLYACTIVE ® ) Thin Film Composite Membranes

The focus of this contribution is the separation of carbon dioxide from biogas and hydrocarbon containing gaseous reaction products using a high flux flat sheet membrane. The thin selective layer of the membranes is made from the commercial blockcopolymer Polyactive®. The membrane : Present address: Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, Institute of Coastal Research, Max-Planck Straße 1, D 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
Urban policies and neoliberalism in South Africa : The context of a scientific debate

“. what I still had to understand – and it wasn’t something that happened immediately – was that it is ridiculous to rail against something that revolts you if you fail to even lift a finger to fight against it. If I came to even slightly “commit myself” (.) [it is] because I was averse to such absurdity: to curse fate and build another life through writing, while doing nothing to build this life anew. All in all, less a matter of passion than logic. ”
Exploring Malaria Developmental Expression Profiles Using Wavelet Analysis and Support Vector Machine

As a new central platform in functional genomics, high-throughput microarray technology allows a systems-level investigation of fundamental biological processes. Among various microarray analyses, timeseries analysis presents a computational challenge due to the intrinsic nature of high dimensionality. In this paper we propose a novel approach to combine wavelet analysis with support vector machine learning scheme. This approach is able to extract gene features in both time and frequency domains and to reduce dimensionality. The data set includes the expression profiles of over 4,000 genes in malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, during a 48-hour intraerythrocytic developmental cycle. After wavelet decomposition, higher-order statistics are employed to analyze wavelet coefficients and to build feature vectors. Our preliminary analysis of 14 functional classes shows that transcriptional regulation and developmental progression are highly correlated. Novel malarial genes have been identified based on the tempo-specific patterns and further bioinformatics data-mining. Classifying novel “hypothetical proteins” to network modules enables a targeted functional characterization, as for a parasite with multiple hosts and a dynamic life cycle, “when and where” to initiate wet-lab experiments is of critical importance. Key-Words: malaria, microarray, time series, wavelet, SVM, systems biology, gene networks