Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiotherapy postgraduate studies in South Africa: Facilitators and barriers

Aim To investigate the facilitators and barriers to attaining a postgraduate physiotherapy degree in South Africa. Methods A quantitative, cross-sectional design using an internet-based survey was employed. The population of the study included all qualified physiotherapists who had completed community service and who were on the South African Society of Physiotherapy e-mailing list at the time of the study. Results In all, 425 valid responses were received. The study participants were predominantly white women with a mean age of 36.9 and the majority were working in private practice. A total of 20.5% of respondents had completed a master’s or doctoral degree in physiotherapy, while a further 13% of respondents were registered for a postgraduate degree in physiotherapy at the time of the study. Study participants who had obtained a postgraduate degree identified the same main barriers (namely cost/lack of financial support, family commitments and lack of time) and the same main facilitators (namely gaining of expertise, fulfilment of a personal goal and improvement of patient care) as participants who had not obtained a postgraduate degree. Participants who had not obtained a postgraduate degree were significantly more likely (p < 0.05) to report concerns regarding their own ability and a lack of motivation as barriers to further study. Conclusion South African physiotherapists with and without a postgraduate degree reported common facilitators and barriers to pursuing postgraduate studies. In order to ensure that a greater number and diversity of physiotherapists see postgraduate studies as a worthwhile career option, stakeholders in health and education in both the South African public and private sectors need to be engaged to limit the barriers to postgraduate study and seek novel methods of making postgraduate study a more attractive option from a personal development and career perspective.
Efficient Injection and Detection of Out-of-Plane Spins via the Anomalous Spin Hall Effect in Permalloy Nanowires

We report a novel mechanism for the electrical injection and detection of out-of-plane spin accumulation via the anomalous spin Hall effect (ASHE), where the direction of the spin accumulation can be controlled by manipulating the magnetization of the ferromagnet. This mechanism is distinct from the spin Hall effect (SHE), where the spin accumulation is created along a fixed direction parallel to an interface. We demonstrate this unique property of the ASHE in nanowires made of permalloy (Py) to inject and detect out-of-plane spin accumulation in a magnetic insulator, yttrium iron garnet (YIG). We show that the efficiency for the injection/detection of out-of-plane spins can be up to 50% of that of in-plane spins. We further report the possibility to detect spin currents parallel to the Py/YIG interface for spins fully oriented in the out-of-plane direction, resulting in a sign reversal of the nonlocal magnon spin signal. The new mechanisms that we have demonstrated are highly relevant for spin torque devices and applications.
Comparison of Vitamin D Level of Children with Severe Early Childhood Caries and Children with No Caries

Aim To compare the levels of vitamin D in children with severe early childhood caries (SECC) and children without caries and to determine the association of vitamin D deficiency and SECC. Materials and methods A total of 30 children each from case (with caries) and control group (without caries) of age between 3 and 6 years were selected from the Department of Pedo-dontics and Preventive Dentistry, Faculty of Dental Sciences, SGT University, Gurugram. Caries status of the children was recorded using decayed, extracted, and filled teeth (deft) index. Blood samples for serum 25(OH) vitamin D were taken from each child. All the data collected were compiled and subjected to appropriate statistical analysis. Results Case group has mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D level of 12.19 ng/mL [4.37 standard deviation (SD), 95% confidence interval of 10.5-13.8] and control group has mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D level of 20.11 ng/mL (4.12 SD, 95% confidence interval of 18.56-21.65). When the mean levels of serum 25(OH) vitamin D were compared between case and control groups, there was a statistically significant difference (p-value <0.0001). Simple linear regression in case group shows statistically significant inverse correlation between vitamin D levels and SECC (p-value<0.0001). Conclusion Our results showed that vitamin D deficiency is risk factor both for incidence of dental caries and for its severity in children. Clinical significance Vitamin D deficiency is an important modifiable risk factor for dental caries in children. Hence, by supplementing vitamin D in children and preventing the deficiency of vitamin D, dental caries can be prevented. How to cite this article: Chhonkar A, Gupta A, Arya V. Comparison of Vitamin D Level of Children with Severe Early Childhood Caries and Children with No Caries. Int J Clin Pediatr Dent 2018;11(3):199-204.
How EFL College Learners Perceive CBI Experience

This study examined EFL college-level learners’ perception toward the contentbased instruction (CBI) by focusing on their participation in and expectation on the courses practiced in a strong form of CBI. Having analyzed the data collected from a questionnaire, observation and interview, the study found that the participants, 39 students who enrolled in two different CBI courses at a university in South Korea, put top priority on the enhancement of content-knowledge considering their CBI course as a content-course, not as a language-course. Second, the participants seemed to prefer participation opportunities induced by a required and prepared speaking task such as presentation through which they can practice a formal speech appropriate for their education experience and cognitive maturity. They also seemed to favor instructor-initiated interaction rather than being put into pairor group-discussion between and among themselves. Third, the lack of participation was mainly attributed to the lack of understanding contents rather than lack of language skills. Based on the research findings, the study made suggestions on how to offer CBI courses more effectively for a particular group of EFL college-level learners who already earned basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS), yet to reach cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP).
“Free But Not Fair”: A Critical Review of Access to Equal Education for Deaf Children in Sri Lanka

The first special school for children with disabilities in Sri Lanka opened over 100 years ago, in 1912. Over the years, a number of students with disabilities have gone on to tertiary education. However, deaf sign language users appear to have been left behind: To date, no deaf learner accessing education exclusively through Sri Lankan Sign Language has entered a local university. This chapter begins with a critical review of the trajectory of educational provision for deaf children followed by an appraisal of the contributions made by the Sri Lankan deaf associations toward increasing education access for deaf children. This leads to an analysis of the audiological and speech-language therapy services available within the school context and an evaluation of the limited but growing local “insider” research on deaf education. The chapter ends with reflections and recommendations for ensuring full and equal access to education for deaf children by 2030.
A Skeleton-Based Model for Promoting Coherence Among Sentences in Narrative Story Generation

Narrative story generation is a challenging problem because it demands the generated sentences with tight semantic connections, which has not been well studied by most existing generative models. To address this problem, we propose a skeleton-based model to promote the coherence of generated stories. Different from traditional models that generate a complete sentence at a stroke, the proposed model first generates the most critical phrases, called skeleton, and then expands the skeleton to a complete and fluent sentence. The skeleton is not manually defined, but learned by a reinforcement learning method. Compared to the state-of-the-art models, our skeleton-based model can generate significantly more coherent text according to human evaluation and automatic evaluation. The G-score is improved by 20.1% in human evaluation.
Automated Dental Image Analysis by Deep Learning on Small Dataset

Dental radiography provides important evidence for clinical diagnosis, treatment and quality evaluation. Much effort has been spent on developing digitalized dental X-ray image analysis systems for clinical quality improvement. In this paper, we present the datasets, procedures, and results conducted to evaluate dental treatment qualities using periapical dental X-ray images taken before and after the operations. In order to support dentists to make clinical decisions, we propose a tool pipeline for automated clinical quality evaluation. We build a dataset with 196 patients' periapical dental radiography images before and after the treatments. Radiography images are labelled as cases that are `getting better', `getting worse' and `have no explicit change' by designated dental experts. Our proposal includes an automatic method with the medical knowledge to crop the ROIs for clinical evaluation – the apical adjacent regions, and then pairs of ROIs are fed into a CNN to train the model for automated clinical quality evaluation. Our approach achieves the F1 score of 0.749, which is comparable to the performance of expert dentists and radiologists.
Therapeutic doses of neostigmine, depolarising neuromuscular blockade and muscle weakness in awake volunteers: a double‐blind, placebo‐controlled, randomised volunteer study

Neostigmine reverses non‐depolarising neuromuscular blockade, but may cause muscle weakness when administered after full recovery of neuromuscular function. We hypothesised that neostigmine in therapeutic doses impairs muscle strength and respiratory function in awake healthy volunteers. Twenty‐one volunteers were randomised to receive two doses of either intravenous (i.v.) neostigmine 2.5 mg with glycopyrrolate 450 μg (neostigmine group, n = 14) or normal saline 0.9% (placebo group, n = 7). The first dose was administered immediately after obtaining baseline measurements, and the second dose was administered 15 min later. All 14 volunteers in the neostigmine group received the first dose, mean (SD) 35 (5.8) μg.kg−1, but only nine of these volunteers agreed to receive the second dose, 34 (3.5) ? g.kg‐1. The primary outcome was hand grip strength. Secondary outcomes were train‐of‐four ratio, single twitch height, forced expiratory volume in 1 s, forced vital capacity, forced expiratory volume in 1 s/forced vital capacity ratio, oxygen saturation, heart rate and mean arterial pressure. The first dose of intravenous neostigmine with glycopyrrolate resulted in reduced grip strength compared with placebo, −20 (20) % vs. +4.3 (9.9) %, p = 0.0016; depolarising neuromuscular blockade with decreased single twitch height, −14 (11) % vs. −3.8 (5.6) %, p = 0.0077; a restrictive spirometry pattern with decreased predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s, −15 (12) % vs. −0.47 (3.4) %, p = 0.0011; and predicted forced vital capacity, −20 (12) % vs. −0.59 (3.2) %, p < 0.0001 at 5 min after administration. The second dose of neostigmine with glycopyrrolate further decreased grip strength mean (SD) −41 (23) % vs. +1.0 (15) %, p = 0.0004; single twitch height −25 (15) % vs. −2.5 (6.6) %, p = 0.0030; predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s −23 (24) % vs. −0.7 (4.4) %, p = 0.0063; and predicted forced vital capacity, −27.1 (22.0) % vs. −0.66 (3.9) %, p = 0.0010. Train‐of‐four ratio remained unchanged (p = 0.22). In healthy volunteers, therapeutic doses of neostigmine induced significant and dose‐dependent muscle weakness, demonstrated by a decrease in maximum voluntary hand grip strength and a restrictive spirometry pattern secondary to depolarising neuromuscular blockade.
Interdisciplinary case discussions as a training modality to teach cultural formulation in child mental health

The DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) may become an important tool to help operationalize culture in the clinical realm. However, challenges exist in teaching its use to avoid the risk of stereotyping and oversimplification, which could result in misunderstanding and stigma. The aim of this article is to document whether the CFI can be taught using regular Interdisciplinary Case Discussion Seminars (ICDSs), proposed as continuing education in child mental health and as part of clinical rotations for new trainees. During a two-year evaluative research project, ICDSs were held monthly in three different primary care settings servicing recent immigrants in Montreal, Canada. ICDSs were recorded and analyzed to examine their effect on the cultural formulation process and focus groups were conducted to explore the subjective experience of the participant trainees and professionals. Results suggest that ICDSs are a helpful way to teach the use of the CFI. The group discussions helped participants to better capture the complexity of the cultural and social experience of the child and family by moving away from simple identity assignations, supporting an inquiry into structural dimensions, and considering stigma and inequality in their formulation. The multiple levels of diversity (individual, disciplinary, and interinstitutional) represented in the discussion groups helped clinicians to understand the cultural formulation as situated in a specific relational context and a particular moment and, in so doing, helped trainees to avoid cultural formulations that essentialize culture.
The use of Xbox Kinect™ in a Paediatric Burns Unit

Background The popularity of video game use in burns rehabilitation has grown because, in addition to facilitating maintenance of range of motion (ROM), the virtual imaging characteristics of these games provide distraction from pain. Objectives The effect of using Xbox Kinect™ as an adjunct to physiotherapy in a Paediatric Burns Unit (PBU) has not been established. This study aimed to investigate the effect of using the Xbox Kinect™ on outcomes of children in the PBU at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital. Methods This non-equivalent, post-test only control group study took place over a period of 14 months. The control group received standard physiotherapy management and the experimental group received standard physiotherapy management and additional Xbox Kinect™. Outcome measures were ROM, Activities Scale for Kids (ASK©p) and a modified Wong-Baker FACES® enjoyment rating scale. Outcomes were assessed at discharge and then 1 week post-discharge at the usual follow-up appointment. Results Sixty-six children participated in this study. More than 50% of the burns were because of hot water, followed by flame burns (30%) and electrical burns (12%). The addition of Xbox Kinect™ was effective in achieving higher active ROM (AROM) between discharge and follow-up (p < 0.01). Fun and enjoyment (p < 0.01) was found to be significantly higher in the children who participated in Xbox Kinect™. Total body surface area (TBSA%) (p = 0.03), age (p = 0.05) and AROM (p = 0.04) were significantly associated with ASK©p scores. Conclusion The use of the Xbox Kinect™ has been shown to be a beneficial and useful adjunct to burns rehabilitation in this paediatric burns population. Clinical implications Currently, there is limited information and research on interventions for children with burns in South Africa. The addition of Xbox Kinect™ to standard physiotherapy in-patient care was both enjoyable and effective and should be considered where funding is available.
Analysis of the Metabolic Characteristics of Serum Samples in Patients With Multiple Myeloma

Aims: This study aimed to identify potential, non-invasive biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring of the progress in multiple myeloma (MM) patients. Methods: MM patients and age-matched healthy controls (HC) were recruited in Discovery phase and Validation phase, respectively. MM patients were segregated into active group (AG) and responding group (RG). Serum samples were collected were conducted to non-targeted metabolomics analyses. Metabolites which were significantly changed (SCMs) among groups were identified in Discovery phase and was validated in Validation phase. The signaling pathways of these SCMs were enriched. The ability of SCMs to discriminate among groups in Validation phase was analyzed through receiver operating characteristic curve. The correlations between SCMs and clinical features, between SCMs and survival period of MM patients were analyzed. Results: Total of 23 SCMs were identified in AG compared with HC both in Discovery phase and Validation phase. Those SCMs were significantly enriched in arginine and proline metabolism and glycerophospholipid metabolism. 4 SCMs had the discriminatory ability between MM patients and healthy controls in Validation phase. Moreover, 12 SCMs had the ability to discriminate between the AG patients and RG patients in Validation phase. 10 out of 12 SCMs correlated with advanced features of MM. Moreover, 8 out of 12 SCMs had the negative impact on the survival of MM. 5′-Methylthioadenosine may be the only independent prognostic factor in survival period of MM. Conclusion: 10 SCMs identified in our study, which correlated with advanced features of MM, could be potential, novel, non-invasive biomarkers for active disease in MM.
Microwave ablation of benign breast tumors: a prospective study with minimum 12 months follow-up

Abstract Purpose: This prospective study was to evaluate clinical outcomes of microwave ablation (MWA) of benign breast tumors with minimum 12 months follow up. Methods: With approval of the institutional ethics committee and written informed consent, 56 patients with 107 biopsy-proved breast benign tumors were recruited from November, 2013 to April, 2017. MWA with ultrasound (US) guidance was performed under local anesthesia. During the procedure, pull-back technique was used for tumors larger than 1.0 cm in diameter and hydro-dissection technique was used for tumors adjacent to skin, pectoralis and areola. Clinical outcomes were followed up by physical examination and medical images including US, contrast enhanced US and MR. Results: The maximum diameter of these tumors was 1.6 ± 0.8 cm. MWA was successfully performed with the median 120 s of duration (ranging 20–1100 s). Technical success was achieved in all patients. At the median follow-up of 20.5 months (ranging 12–53 months), the mean volume reduction ratios (mVRRs) of tumors were 77.1 ± 8.2%, 84.3 ± 10.6%, 93.3 ± 8.2% at follow-up of 12, 18, 24 months (p < .0001), respectively. Compared with 92% of masses were palpable before ablation, mass palpabilities were 40%, 11%, 5% at follow-up of 12, 18, 24 months (p < .001), respectively. Cosmetic satisfaction was reported excellent or good in 100% of patients. Conclusions: As a safe and effective minimally invasive modality for inactivating benign breast tumors in situ, MWA achieved optimistic clinical outcomes on volume reduction and cosmetic satisfaction after minimum 12 months follow-up.
The system‐neurophysiological basis for how methylphenidate modulates perceptual–attentional conflicts during auditory processing

The ability to selectively perceive and flexibly attend to relevant sensory signals in the environment is essential for action control. Whereas neuromodulation of sensory or attentional processing is often investigated, neuromodulation of interactive effects between perception and attention, that is, high attentional control demand when the relevant sensory information is perceptually less salient than the irrelevant one, is not well understood. To fill this gap, this pharmacological‐electroencephalogram (EEG) study applied an intensity‐modulated, focused‐attention dichotic listening paradigm together with temporal EEG signal decomposition and source localization analyses. We used a double‐blind MPH/placebo crossover design to delineate the effects of methylphenidate (MPH)—a dopamine/norepinephrine transporter blocker—on the resolution of perceptual–attentional conflicts, when perceptual saliency and attentional focus favor opposing ears, in healthy young adults. We show that MPH increased behavioral performance specifically in the condition with the most pronounced conflict between perceptual saliency and attentional focus. On the neurophysiological level, MPH effects in line with the behavioral data were observed after accounting for intraindividual variability in the signal. More specifically, MPH did not show an effect on stimulus‐related processes but modulated the onset latency of processes between stimulus evaluation and responding. These modulations were further shown to be associated with activation differences in the temporoparietal junction (BA40) and the superior parietal cortex (BA7) and may reflect neuronal gain modulation principles. The findings provide mechanistic insights into the role of modulated dopamine/norepinephrine transmitter systems for the interactions between perception and attention.
On a New Improvement-Based Acquisition Function for Bayesian Optimization

Bayesian optimization (BO) is a popular algorithm for solving challenging optimization tasks. It is designed for problems where the objective function is expensive to evaluate, perhaps not available in exact form, without gradient information and possibly returning noisy values. Different versions of the algorithm vary in the choice of the acquisition function, which recommends the point to query the objective at next. Initially, researchers focused on improvement-based acquisitions, while recently the attention has shifted to more computationally expensive information-theoretical measures. In this paper we present two major contributions to the literature. First, we propose a new improvement-based acquisition function that recommends query points where the improvement is expected to be high with high confidence. The proposed algorithm is evaluated on a large set of benchmark functions from the global optimization literature, where it turns out to perform at least as well as current state-of-the-art acquisition functions, and often better. This suggests that it is a powerful default choice for BO. The novel policy is then compared to widely used global optimization solvers in order to confirm that BO methods reduce the computational costs of the optimization by keeping the number of function evaluations small. The second main contribution represents an application to precision medicine, where the interest lies in the estimation of parameters of a partial differential equations model of the human pulmonary blood circulation system. Once inferred, these parameters can help clinicians in diagnosing a patient with pulmonary hypertension without going through the standard invasive procedure of right heart catheterization, which can lead to side effects and complications (e.g. severe pain, internal bleeding, thrombosis).