Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The risk of acquiring bacterial meningitis following surgery in Denmark, 1996–2009: a nationwide retrospective cohort study with emphasis on ear, nose and throat (ENT) and neurosurgery

SUMMARY This paper estimates the risk of bacterial meningitis following surgery between 1996 and 2009 in Denmark. We conducted two retrospective nationwide cohort studies; first by linking notified bacterial meningitis cases to the National Patient Registry to see how many had undergone a surgical procedure; second, we scrutinized notified bacterial meningitis cases to see if the clinician suspected a surgical procedure to be the aetiology. We found that ear, nose and throat surgery had an 11-fold, and neurosurgery a sevenfold, increased risk compared to the reference group in the first 10 days following surgery. Streptococcus pneumoniae was the pathogen most often involved. Operation procedures involving penetration of dura mater was associated with increased risk for post-operative bacterial meningitis. In absolute numbers we found few bacterial meningitis cases after surgery; however, patients undergoing certain surgical procedures are at-risk and should be considered when national vaccination guidelines are revised.
Atropine Inhibits the Increase in Gastric Emptying During Hypoglycemia in Humans

OBJECTIVE To study the effect of a cholinergic muscarinic blockade on the gastric emptying rate during insulin-induced hypoglycemia in healthy subjects. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In eight healthy subjects, the rate of gastric emptying of an isotope-labeled meal was assessed by a scintigraphic technique during normoglycemia and hypoglycemia with simultaneous infusion of either atropine or saline. Blood glucose concentrations were controlled by an insulin-glucose clamp. RESULTS The median time for emptying 50% of the liquid phase from the stomach (T50) was 24.9 min (range 13.9−120.0) during normoglycemia compared with 8.1 min (range 3.6−16.5) during hypoglycemia without atropine infusion (P = 0.0005). The T50 for the solid phase was 26.8 min (range 9.7−74.0) and 43.1 min (range 29−57.8), respectively (P = 0.007). During hypoglycemia with atropine infusion, T50 was 40.7 min (range 10.0−120.0) for the liquid phase and 111.4 min (range 38.9−120.0) for the solid phase, not statistically different from normoglycemic examinations. CONCLUSIONS Cholinergic muscarinic blockade with atropine inhibits the increase in gastric emptying during hypoglycemia. Vagal activity seems to be an important determinant of gastric emptying during hypoglycemia.
Free Energy Fluctuations for Directed Polymers in Random Media in 1 + 1 Dimension

We consider two models for directed polymers in space‐time independent random media (the O'Connell‐Yor semidiscrete directed polymer and the continuum directed random polymer) at positive temperature and prove their KPZ universality via asymptotic analysis of exact Fredholm determinant formulas for the Laplace transform of their partition functions. In particular, we show that for large time τ, the probability distributions for the free energy fluctuations, when rescaled by τ1/3, converges to the GUE Tracy‐Widom distribution.
Estrogen receptor β– an independent prognostic marker in estrogen receptor α and progesterone receptor‐positive breast cancer?

Both subtypes of estrogen receptor (ER), ERα and ERβ, are normally present in the mammary gland. The role of ERα as a prognostic marker in breast cancer is well established due to the beneficial effect of providing tamoxifen as adjuvant therapy. The role of ERβ, however, is less clear. To gain insight into the importance of ERβ in breast cancer, 145 primary breast cancers were examined by immunohistochemistry for ERβ, and the expression level was compared with ERα and progesterone receptor (PR) status. Especially, we wanted to examine the significance of ERβ in the contrasting ERα+/PR+ and ERα−/PR− subgroups. In the ERα+/PR+ subgroup (dual positive), the survival difference between patients with low, medium and high ER β level was statistically significant (p = 0.004), with more than 70% of patients with medium and high ERβ levels surviving 100 months, compared with less than 30% in the group with low ERβ level. Further, for ERα+/PR+ patients there was a reduced risk of fatal outcome by multivariate analysis with increasing ERβ levels (p(trend) < 0.01 [univariate analysis]; p(trend) = 0.05 [multivariate analysis]). The risk was 31% and 27% for medium and high ERβ levels, respectively, compared with low ERβ level, adjusting for standard prognostic factors such as tumor diameter, nuclear tumor grade (quantified by mean nuclear area), lymph node status, and patient age at operation. For patients with ERα−/PR− tumors (dual negative), however, there was no association between ERβ levels and patient outcome. Our findings indicate that ERβ expression provides independent prognostic information for breast cancers with ERα/PR‐positive status, a feature typical among screen‐detected breast cancers. The role of ERβ needs to be further evaluated especially in this group of breast cancers.
Relationship between the size of patency file and apical extrusion of sodium hypochlorite.

BACKGROUND Sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl) is the most widely used endodontic irrigant because of its excellent antimicrobial, organic tissue dissolving, and lubricating properties. However, it is highly cytotoxic to the periapical tissues. AIM This study evaluated in vitro the extrusion of 5.25% NaOCl through the apical foramina of mesiobuccal (MB) root canals of maxillary first molars in two experimental conditions: Before apical debridement and after apical debridement with different instrument sizes to ensure direct access to the apical foramen (apical patency). MATERIALS AND METHODS Coronal accesses were prepared in 17 teeth and the apical foramina of the distobuccal and palatal root canals were sealed. The teeth were held in acrylic receptacles with the roots turned upwards to reproduce their position in the maxillary dental arch. The receptacles were filled with a starch/KI solution (a reagent that changes its color to blue after contacting NaOCl) covering the roots. The experiment had two phases: P1: Irrigation of the MB canals with 5.25% NaOCl without previous establishment of apical patency; P2: Canal irrigation after use of size 10 K-file and size 15 Flexofile as patency files. Only specimens with no NaOCl extrusion in P1 were assigned to P2. NaOCl was delivered pressureless at the canal entrance. The moment that the starch/KI solution contacted NaOCl was captured on digital photographs. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS There was no NaOCl extrusion in nine specimens in P1, but all of these teeth had irrigant extrusion in P2. The 5.25% NaOCl used as an endodontic irrigant showed great capacity to extrude beyond both intact and small-sized apical foramina of MB root canals of maxillary first molars.
Temperament Style and Substance Abuse Characteristics

The relationship of temperament to different patterns and types of alcohol abuse has received much attention over the last decade in order to provide clues to matching patients optimally to treatment strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of temperament with a number of relevant substance abuse characteristics in a substance abusing population. One hundred forty-five male veterans were interviewed on their lifetime use of substances and on their psychiatric symptoms, problems associated with use, context, and family history of substance abuse. Subjects filled out the TPQ and the MPQ, which were subjected to factor analysis and revealed four factors: (1) Negative Affectivity/Impulsivity, (2) Positive Affectivity/Sociability, (3) Persistence/Achievement, and (4) Constraint. There was partial support for the hypotheses. Impulsivity was negatively correlated with age of onset and positively correlated with substance-related problems and a family history of substance abuse. Subjects with a history of depression scored significantly lower on the Positive Affectivity/Sociability factor than those who had not experienced a significant depression. Individuals who used alone scored lower on this factor than those who used in social contexts. The temperament factors of Persistence/Achievement and Constraint were, for the most part, unrelated to substance abuse.
Haploinsufficiency for one COL3A1 allele of type III procollagen results in a phenotype similar to the vascular form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome type IV.

Mutations in the COL3A1 gene that encodes the chains of type III procollagen result in the vascular form of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), EDS type IV, if they alter the sequence in the triple-helical domain. Although other fibrillar collagen-gene mutations that lead to allele instability or failure to incorporate proalpha-chains into trimers-and that thus reduce the amount of mature molecules produced-result in clinically apparent phenotypes, no such mutations have been identified in COL3A1. Furthermore, mice heterozygous for Col3a1 "null" alleles have no identified phenotype. We have now found three frameshift mutations (1832delAA, 413delC, and 555delT) that lead to premature termination codons (PTCs) in exons 27, 6, and 9, respectively, and to allele-product instability. The mRNA from each mutant allele was transcribed efficiently but rapidly degraded, presumably by the mechanisms of nonsense-mediated decay. In a fourth patient, we identified a point mutation, in the final exon, that resulted in a PTC (4294C-->T [Arg1432Ter]). In this last instance, the mRNA was stable but led to synthesis of a truncated protein that was not incorporated into mature type III procollagen molecules. In all probands, the presenting feature was vascular aneurysm or rupture. Thus, in contrast to mutations in genes that encode the dominant protein of a tissue (e.g., COL1A1 and COL2A1), in which "null" mutations result in phenotypes milder than those caused by mutations that alter protein sequence, the phenotypes produced by these mutations in COL3A1 overlap with those of the vascular form of EDS. This suggests that the major effect of many of these dominant mutations in the "minor" collagen genes may be expressed through protein deficiency rather than through incorporation of structurally altered molecules into fibrils.
Checklists, safety, my culture and me

The world is not flat. Hierarchy is a fact of life in society and in healthcare institutions. National, specialty-specific and institutional cultures may play an important role in shaping today's patient -safety climate. The influence of power distance on safety interventions is under-studied. Checklists may make power distance-hampered negotiations easier by providing a standardised aviation-like framework for communications and by democratising the environment. By using surveys and simulation, we might discover patterns of potentially hidden yet problematic interactions that might foster maintenance of the error swamp. We need to understand how people interact as members of a group as this is crucial for the development of generalisable safety interventions.
EMNIST: Extending MNIST to handwritten letters

The MNIST dataset has become a standard benchmark for learning, classification and computer vision systems. Contributing to its widespread adoption are the understandable and intuitive nature of the task, the relatively small size and storage requirements and the accessibility and ease-of-use of the database itself. The MNIST database was derived from a larger dataset known as the NIST Special Database 19 which contains digits, uppercase and lowercase handwritten letters. This paper introduces a variant of the full NIST dataset, which we have called Extended MNIST (EMNIST), which follows the same conversion paradigm used to create the MNIST dataset. The result is a dataset that constitutes a more challenging classification task involving letters and digits, and one that shares the same image structure and parameters as the original MNIST task, allowing for direct compatibility with all existing classifiers and systems. Benchmark results using an online ELM algorithm are presented along with a validation of the conversion process through the comparison of the classification results on NIST digits and the MNIST digits.
Growing up with a single mother and life satisfaction in adulthood: A test of mediating and moderating factors

Single parenthood is increasingly common in Western societies but only little is known about its long-term effects. We therefore studied life satisfaction among 641 individuals (ages 18–66 years) who spent their entire childhood with a single mother, 1539 individuals who spent part of their childhood with both parents but then experienced parental separation, and 21,943 individuals who grew up with both parents. Individuals who grew up with a single mother for their entire childhood and to a lesser degree also individuals who experienced parental separation showed a small but persistent decrease in life satisfaction into old age controlling childhood socio-economic status. This decrease was partly mediated by worse adulthood living conditions related to socio-economic and educational success, physical health, social integration, and romantic relationship outcomes. No moderation by age, gender, and societal system where the childhood was spent (i.e. western oriented FRG or socialist GDR) was found.
Polarized excitons in nanorings and the optical Aharonov-Bohm effect

The quantum nature of matter lies in the wave function phases that accumulate while particles move along their trajectories. A prominent example is the Aharonov-Bohm phase, which has been studied in connection with the conductance of nanostructures. However, optical response in solids is determined by neutral excitations, for which no sensitivity to magnetic flux would be expected. We propose a mechanism for the topological phase of a neutral particle, a polarized exciton confined to a semiconductor quantum ring. We predict that this magnetic-field induced phase may strongly affect excitons in a system with cylindrical symmetry, resulting in switching between ``bright'' exciton ground states and novel ``dark'' states with nearly infinite lifetimes. Since excitons determine the optical response of semiconductors, the predicted phase can be used to tailor photon emission from quantum nanostructures.
Atrial Fibrillation in Patients Hospitalized With Heart Failure: Patient Characteristics and Outcomes From the HEARTS Registry

Effect of atrial fibrillation (AF) on short- and long-term outcomes in heart failure (HF) is controversial. Accordingly, we examined this relationship in a national multicenter project using data from the Hearts Function Assessment Registry Trial in Saudi Arabia that studied the clinical features and outcomes of patients admitted with de novo and acute on chronic HF. Out of 2593 patients with HF, 449 (17.8%) had AF at presentation. Patients with AF were more likely to be males and older (mean age 65.2 ± 15.0 vs 60.5 ± 14.8 years) to have a history of ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation (3.1% vs 1.9%) or cerebrovascular accident (15.0% vs 8.5%). However, they were less likely to have diabetes (66.0% vs 55.9%) or coronary artery disease (55.6% vs 42.3%). The 1-, 2-, and 3-year crude mortality rates were significantly higher in patients with AF (23.2% vs 18.3%, 27.4% vs 22.3%, and 27.8% vs 23.2%, respectively). However, there was no significant difference in mortality after adjusting for covariates. Thus, in patients admitted with HF, AF upon presentation was not associated with increased mortality.
Intervening in the Lives of Gang Members in Denver: A Pilot Evaluation of the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver

Abstract There are over one million gang members in the United States, but effective practices and programs to facilitate disengagement from gangs are rare. This first aim of this article was to introduce the intervention strategy of the Gang Reduction Initiative of Denver (GRID), a public agency operating at the core of a network of partners seeking to reduce gang violence in Denver. GRID uses a multidisciplinary team approach with coordinated and individualized case management and street outreach workers to facilitate disengagement from gangs and desistance from crime. The second aim of this article was to report the results of a pilot project evaluation, which entailed baseline interviews with 57 clients and follow-up interviews with 20 clients. Reductions in gang status, gang embeddedness, and offending were observed, as well as positive client–outreach relationships. The final aim was to report the steps toward establishing a foundation to conduct a full-scale evaluation. Most responses to gangs are considered promising because they have not been subject to rigorous evaluation. GRID aims to stand in contrast to most of the current inventory of justice evaluations of gang interventions through a process and impact evaluation consisting of random assignment to treatment and control groups.
Estimating Winter Wheat Leaf Area Index From Ground and Hyperspectral Observations Using Vegetation Indices

Growing numbers of studies have focused on evaluating the ability of vegetation indices (VIs) to predict biophysical parameters such as leaf area index (LAI) and chlorophyll. In this study, empirical models were used to estimate winter wheat LAI based on three spectral indices [the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the modified simple ratio index (MSR), and the modified soil-adjusted vegetation index (MSAVI)], and three band-selection approaches (the conventional approach, the red edge approach, and the best correlated approach), which were used to calculate VIs. The aim was to enhance the relationships between the indices and LAI values by improving the band-selection approaches so as to produce a suitable VI for winter wheat LAI estimation. Using hyperspectral airborne data and ground-measured spectra as well as ground LAI measurements collected during two field campaigns, winter wheat LAIs were estimated and validated using different VIs calculated by different band combinations. Our results showed that the MSAVI provided the best LAI estimations when using ground measured spectra with R2 over 0.74 and RMSE less than 0.98. The NDVI provided the most robust estimation results across different sites, years, and sensors, although it was not adequate for LAI estimation of moderately dense canopies due to the saturation that occurred when LAI ) 3. The MSR demonstrated more severe scattering and lower predictive accuracy than the NDVI and, therefore, was not a perfect solution to the saturation issue. In addition, it was also shown that the best correlated approach improved the predictive power of the indices and revealed the importance of red edge bands for LAI estimation; meanwhile, the red edge approach (based on the reflectance at 705 and 750 nm) was not always superior to the conventional approach (based on the reflectance at 670 and 800 nm). The results were promising and should facilitate the use of VIs in crop LAI measurements.
Can motor recovery in stroke patients be predicted by early transcranial magnetic stimulation?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We used transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex to evaluate the functional state of corticospinal pathways innervating the first dorsal interosseous muscle of the hand in 26 patients suffering from a first-ever ischemic stroke in the middle cerebral artery territory. METHODS All patients had complete hand palsy and were tested within the first 24 hours from stroke onset. Patients were also tested clinically with the MRC, Rankin, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) stroke scales at day 1 and with MRC and NIH scales and the Barthel Index at day 14. Electrophysiological testing was repeated at day 14. Patients were divided into three subgroups according to the amplitude of the maximal response (motor evoked potential [MEP]) evoked at day 1. RESULTS After 2 weeks, all 6 patients with initial MEPs > 5% maximum motor response (Mmax) showed some first dorsal interosseous muscle motor function recovery, whereas 19 of 20 patients with initially absent or small (< 5% Mmax) MEPs were left with complete hand palsy. There were strong positive correlations between MEP amplitude at day 1 and MRC and Barthel Index scores at day 14. However, measurement of central motor conduction time proved to be of little prognostic value. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that early-performed transcranial magnetic stimulation is a valuable prognostic tool for motor recovery from stroke and that relatively preserved MEP amplitude shortly after stroke is a better prognostic factor than normal central motor conduction time.
Retrospective analysis of western Canada's veterinary profession for the period 1991 to 2007.

Veterinary directories from Canada's 4 western provincial veterinary associations provided source data for compiling demographic profiles of the veterinary profession for the years 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2007. From 1991 to 2007 the number of veterinary practitioners in western Canada increased by 1197 (79%), for a net gain of 75 veterinarians/y. Of these, 786 (66%) were companion animal (CA) practitioners, 184 (15%) mixed animal (MA) practitioners, 96 (8%) food animal (FA) practitioners, and 131 (11%) were classified as "Other. " The number of veterinary clinics also increased over this same period by 301 (38%), of which 266 (88%) were CA practices, 5 (2%) MA practices, and 31 (10%) FA practices. The majority of CA (75%), MA (68%), and FA (86%) practices had ≤ 2 veterinarians.
Treosulfan‐based conditioning regimen for allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in children with sickle cell disease

Although allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) still represents the only consolidated possibility of cure for sickle cell disease (SCD) patients, its use has been limited by the risk of morbidity and mortality associated with conventional myeloablative therapy. The introduction of treosulfan to replace busulfan in conditioning regimens has recently been explored by virtue of its lower toxicity profile. We report our experience with a treosulfan/thiotepa/fludarabine conditioning for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)‐matched sibling or unrelated donor‐HSCT in 15 children with SCD, and compare patient outcomes with those of a historical cohort (15 patients) given a busulfan‐based regimen. Engraftment was achieved in 28 out of 30 patients (93%), with one case of graft failure in either group. The conditioning regimen was well tolerated in both groups, with no cases of grade III‐IV regimen‐related toxicity. The 7‐year overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) for the whole cohort were 100% and 93%, respectively, with a 93% DFS in both busulfan and treosulfan groups. No SCD‐related adverse events occurred after engraftment in patients with complete or mixed donor chimerism. This retrospective analysis suggests that a treosulfan‐based conditioning regimen is able to ensure engraftment with excellent OS/DFS and low regimen‐related toxicity in patients with SCD.