Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Re: varicocele in brothers of patients with varicocele.

In the article "Varicocele in Brothers of Patients With Varicocele,(1)" the authors have addressed an interesting clinical question: does having a brother with varicocele exposes a person to a higher risk of having the same disease? Nevertheless, this study cannot answer the above question due to the following reasons: First, according to the methods section, this study is case-control. In case-control studies, controls should be disease-free when they are included. The outcome in this study is having varicocele and we see that 10% of controls suffer from this condition. Apparently, the authors have excluded infertile persons from control group, while varicocele is the outcome of interest in this research, but not infertility.
Direct Writing By Way of Melt Electrospinning

Melt electrospun fibers of poly(ϵ-caprolactone) are accurately deposited using an automated stage as the collector. Matching the translation speed of the collector to the speed of the melt electrospinning jet establishes control over the location of fiber deposition. In this sense, melt electrospinning writing can be seen to bridge the gap between solution electrospinning and direct writing additive manufacturing processes.
A review of the safety of 50% nitrous oxide/oxygen in conscious sedation

Few studies into conscious sedation with 50% nitrous oxide/oxygen premix (50% N2O/O2) have been conducted in accordance with Good Clinical Practice in Clinical Trials. Of the 140 articles retained in this review, the incidence of adverse events (AEs) varied in the range of 0 – 68% according to the indications. When other drugs and/or local anaesthesia were used concomitantly, the relative risk for nausea and vomiting increased whereas it decreased for vertigo or hallucinations. Only one study examined potential causal relationship between serious AEs and the 50% N2O/O2 gas itself, giving a risk for a serious AE directly due to the gas of 3/10,000 administrations. No analysis of the effect of the method of administration was possible, nor could conclusions be drawn relating to the risk of occupational exposure.
Alterations in substrate utilization in the reperfused myocardium: a direct analysis by 13C NMR.

An alternative 13C NMR method which allows direct determination of substrate oxidation in tissue for up to three competing 13C-enriched substrates is presented. Oxidation of competing substrates can be measured by 13C NMR spectroscopy under non-steady-state conditions if the relative areas of the glutamate C3 and C4 resonances can be determined. The accuracy of this measurement is limited during brief exposure to 13C-enriched substrates because of the low enrichment in the C3 carbon. The glutamate C4 resonance from a tissue sample which has oxidized a combination of [1,2-13C]acetate (or a uniformly enriched fatty acid mixture) and [3-13C]lactate appears as a nine-line resonance consisting of four multiplet components: a singlet (C4S), two doublets with differing one-bond coupling constants (C4D34 and C4D45), and a quartet (C4Q). It is shown that the sum of the C4S + C4D34 resonance areas versus the C4D45 + C4Q resonance areas directly reports the relative utilization of [3-13C]lactate versus [1,2-13C]acetate, respectively, regardless of citric acid cycle intermediate pool sizes or carbon flux through anaplerotic reactions. We also show that homonuclear 13C decoupling of the glutamate C2 resonance collapses the C3 resonance multiplet into an apparent triplet (actually, a singlet plus a doublet); the relative area of the singlet component reflects the amount of unlabeled acetyl-CoA entering the cycle. The method has been used to determine the contribution of lactate/acetate/glucose to acetyl-CoA in normoxic and reperfused rat hearts. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Dermatological complications and safety of anti-TNF treatments

It has been reported that tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors have adverse side-effects including infections, malignancies, demyelinating disease, and induction of autoimmune conditions. Dermatological complications of anti-TNF therapy include injection site reactions, cutaneous infections, allergic rashes, psoriasis, non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), and rare reports of lupus-like syndrome, erythema multiforme (EM), Steven’s Johnson syndrome (SJS), and toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN). Currently, there are four TNF inhibitors approved by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA): etanercept (Enbrel; Amgen, Thousand Oaks, California, USA, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Philadelphia, USA), infliximab (Remicade; Centacor, Horsham, Philadelphia, USA), adalimumab (Humira; Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, Illinois, USA), and certolizumab pegol (Cimzia; UCB, Smyrna, Georgia, USA). They are prescribed for and have revolutionised the treatment of various immune-mediated inflammatory disorders, most notably Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Almost 2 million patients worldwide have been treated with them since their introduction.1 Although TNF inhibitors exhibit impressive efficacy, a number of dermatological complications exist: injection site reactions, allergic rashes, cutaneous manifestations of infusion reactions, cutaneous infections, psoriasis, NMSCs, and rare lesions including lupus-like syndrome, EM, SJS, TEN, and cutaneous vasculitis. Indeed, two recent prospective studies of 289 and 150 rheumatological patients started on TNF inhibitors found that 23–25% had a dermatological complication.2 3 The following is a review of safety data based upon reports from the FDA, review articles, company data, and reports from the German Register and from the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register (BSRBR). Management of these reactions is presented extensively elsewhere and briefly discussed in each section, the final table, and the conclusion. Injection site reactions occur with the use of etanercept, adalimumab and certolizumab pegol. Signs and symptoms include redness, itching, bruising, pain, swelling and/or irritation at the site of injection. These occurred more often …
Dimensions of child maltreatment and children's adjustment: Contributions of developmental timing and subtype

This investigation examined the dimensions of developmental timing, subtype, and severity of maltreatment and their relations with child adaptation. The 814 children who participated in a summer day camp, 492 of whom were maltreated and 322 of whom were nonmaltreated comparison children, were assessed by camp counselors on their internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, aggressive, withdrawn, and cooperative behavior, and on personality dimensions of ego resiliency and ego control, and were rated by peers on disruptive, aggressive, and cooperative behavior. The severity within each subtype of maltreatment and the developmental period in which each subtype occurred were examined through hierarchical regression analyses. Additionally, children with similar timing or subtype patterns were grouped to explore diversity in outcomes. Results highlighted the role of severity of emotional maltreatment in the infancy–toddlerhood period and physical abuse during the preschool period in predicting externalizing behavior and aggression. Severity of physical neglect, particularly when it occurred during the preschool period, was associated with internalizing symptomatology and withdrawn behavior. Additionally, maltreatment during the school-age period contributed significant variance after earlier maltreatment was controlled. Chronic maltreatment, especially with onset during infancy–toddlerhood or preschool periods, was linked with more maladaptive outcomes. The implications of measuring multiple dimensions for improving research in child maltreatment are discussed.
Cost-Effectiveness of Optimizing Acute Stroke Care Services for Thrombolysis

Background and Purpose— Thrombolysis in acute stroke is effective up to 4.5 hours after symptom onset but relies on early recognition, prompt arrival in hospital, and timely brain scanning. This study aimed to establish the cost-effectiveness of increasing thrombolysis rates through a series of hypothetical change strategies designed to optimize the acute care pathway for stroke. Methods— A decision-tree model was constructed, which relates the acute management of patients with suspected stroke from symptom onset to outcome. Current practice was modeled and compared with 7 change strategies designed to facilitate wider eligibility for thrombolysis. The model basecase consisted of data from consenting patients following the acute stroke pathway recruited in participating hospitals with data on effectiveness of treatment and costs from published sources. Results— All change strategies were cost saving while increasing quality-adjusted life years gained. Using realistic estimates of effectiveness, the change strategy with the largest potential benefit was that of better recording of onset time, which resulted in 3.3 additional quality-adjusted life years and a cost saving of US $46 000 per 100 000 population. All strategies increased the number of thrombolysed patients and the number requiring urgent brain imaging (by 9% to 21% dependent on the scenario). Assuming a willingness-to-pay of US $30 000 per quality-adjusted life year gained, the potential budget available to deliver the interventions in each strategy ranged from US $50 000 to US $144 000. Conclusions— These results suggest that any strategy that increases thrombolysis rates will result in cost savings and improved patient quality of life. Healthcare commissioners could consider this model when planning improvements in stroke care.
Low-Complexity Turbo Multiuser Detection for Coded CDMA

In this project, a low complexity iterative receiver structure is implemented for decoding the multiuser information in a convolutionally coded synchronous CDMA system in MATLAB. The receiver performs two successive soft output decisions achieved by a soft-input soft output (SISO) multiuser detector and a bank of single user SISO channel decoders, through an iterative process. Such a low complexity SISO multiuser detector is implemented using soft interference cancellation followed by a linear minimum mean square error (MMSE) filtering. SISO channel decoder is developed using log-MAP algorithm. Another low complexity SISO multiuser detector called soft interference cancellation-matched filter (SIC-MF) multiuser detector that skips the linear MMSE filtering stage is also simulated. Simulation results show that at high signal to noise ratio, the performance of both iterative receivers approaches single user performance, but the SIC-MMSE SISO multiuser detector performs better than SIC-MF SISO multiuser detector because it suppresses the residual interference in the channel using the linear MMSE filtering.
EFFECT OF HYPERGLYCEMIA ON POSTPRANDIAL LIPID PROFILE IN TYPE 2 DIABETES

Summary The present study was done to evaluate the effect of hyperglycemia on postprandial serum lipid level in 25 diabetic subjects. The results were compared with 20 healthy subjects. Blood samples were collected for estimating serum lipid level (serum cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL-C, HDL-C) and plasma glucose in fasting as well as post prandial condition. Mean serum cholesterol, LDL and TG were found to be significantly higher (p<0.001) while HDL-C was lower in diabetic cases than the control group in both condition. All the diabetic patients were found to have (p<0.001) increased lipid levels (except HDL-C was decreased) in post prandial condition as compared to the fasting sample. This result indicates that measurement of postprandial lipidemia rather than of fasting plasma TG would be a good atherogenic indicator particularly in hyperglycemic condition.
Metric Reasoning About λ-Terms: The General Case (Long Version)

In any setting in which observable properties have a quantitative flavour, it is natural to compare computational objects by way of \emph{metrics} rather than equivalences or partial orders. This holds, in particular, for probabilistic higher-order programs. A natural notion of comparison, then, becomes context distance, the metric analogue of Morris' context equivalence. In this paper, we analyze the main properties of the context distance in fully-fledged probabilistic $\lambda$-calculi, this way going beyond the state of the art, in which only affine calculi were considered. We first of all study to which extent the context distance trivializes, giving a sufficient condition for trivialization. We then characterize context distance by way of a coinductively defined, tuple-based notion of distance in one of those calculi, called $\Lambda^\oplus_! $. We finally derive pseudometrics for call-by-name and call-by-value probabilistic $\lambda$-calculi, and prove them fully-abstract.
Audit procedures in the National Breast Screening Study: mammography interpretation.

Audit procedures for mammography interpretation in a national breast cancer screening program are described. Agreement between radiologists at five screening centers and a single reference radiologist was evaluated based on mammograms at initial screen in 739 women not known to have breast cancer and 204 breast cancer cases detected at or within a year of initial screen. Kappa statistics, used to measure agreement in the interpretation of mammograms between the reference and center radiologists beyond that attributable to chance, were 0.409 in women not known to have breast cancer, 0.472 in women with diagnosed breast cancer, and 0.493 for all women with p less than . 0001 for all three categories. To our knowledge, this is the first report presenting measures of agreement made systematically, simultaneously, and on a continuing basis, during a screening program for quality assurance.
The Early Iron Age in the extreme south : some patterns and problems

L'auteur resume les conditions paleoenvironnementales (paysages, climat, flore et faune) de l'extreme sud de l'Afrique australe, particulierement du Natal, en considerant celles qui ont ou n'ont ete attractives pour les populations de l'Age du Fer ancien. A partir de ce cadre ecologique, il propose de dresser un schema de la diffusion, du developpement et des caracteristiques de l'Age du Fer ancien dans cette region en parallele avec la diffusion de la famille des langues bantoues
Effect of Probiotics on the Growth and Survival of Penaeus monodon (Fabricius)

The culture of shrimps received maximum importance due to its unique taste, high nutritive value and persistent demand in the world market. In recent years, the diseases of shrimp hindered the development of shrimp culture. In the present study an attempt has been made to culture the giant tiger shrimp, P.monodon in 12 ponds each with 0.6ha near Vellapallam village of Sirkali taluk, Nagai district, Tamilnadu. The use of probiotic bacteria in aquaculture has tremendous scope and the study of the application of probiotics in aquaculture has a glorious future. In the present study the probiotics, viz., Super biotic, Super Ps, Zymetin and Mutagen was applied in culture ponds (”A” section) of P. monodon which is compared with ”B” section ponds without probiotic treatment. Growth and survival rate of the ponds which was applied (”A” section) with probiotics was higher than that of ”B” section ponds. The bacterial population decreased at the end of culture in ”A” section ponds, but in ”B” section the bacterial population was not showing a significant decrease. Black gill, white gut and fungal diseases were recorded in ”B” section ponds. But these diseases were not that much reported in probiotic treated (”A” section) ponds. The general conclusion obtained from the present study is that the probiotic plays a vital role in growth, survival and disease resistance of the animal by maintaining good water quality parameters throughout the culture period. It is clear from the bacterial colony data that green colony dominated only in the ”B” section ponds. So it can be recommended that the probiotics can be very well utilized for the shrimp ponds to get maximum growth and survival.
Deregulation of miR-128 in Ovarian Cancer Promotes Cisplatin Resistance

Objective Platinum-based chemotherapy is the standard treatment in advanced ovarian cancer, but most patients will relapse with drug-resistant disease. MicroRNAs have been demonstrated to function in chemoresistance in cancers. In this study, we focused on the role of miR-128 in cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer. Materials and Methods The expression of miR-128 RNA and its targeted genes, the polycomb ring finger oncogene Bmi-1 and ATP-binding cassette subfamily C member 5 (ABCC5), were investigated in the epithelial ovarian cancer cells and ovarian carcinomas. Results miR-128 expression was significantly reduced in the cisplatin-resistant human epithelial ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3/CP compared with parental SKOV3 cells and decreased upon treatment with cisplatin in a concentration-dependent manner in SKOV3, OVCAR3, and PEO14 cells. Overexpression of miR-128 resensitized SKOV3/CP cells to cisplatin and reduced the expression of cisplatin-resistant–related proteins ABCC5 and Bmi-1, whereas miR-128 inhibitors increased cisplatin resistance in SKOV3 cells. Cisplatin combined with miR-128 agomirs inhibited the growth of SKOV3/CP xenograft tumors more effectively than cisplatin alone. Diminished expression of ABCC5 and Bmi-1 and higher cisplatin concentrations were observed in tumor tissue of mice treated with miR-128 agomirs in addition to cisplatin. Conclusions Taken together, our findings suggest that miR-128 may act as a promising therapeutic target for improvement of tumor sensitivity to cisplatin.
Relative Importance of Pay Level Satisfaction, Career Development Opportunities, and Supervisor Support in Perceived Organizational Support

This paper presents the relative impact of supervisor support, pay level satisfaction & career growth opportunities on the development of perceived organizational support (POS) of employees. Survey data were collected from banking sector professionals working in the branches of four major private commercial banks of Pakistan in Hazara Division. The findings of this study highlighted that “career growth opportunities” is a stronger predictor of POS than supervisor support and pay level satisfaction. The results suggest that organizational leaders must adequately address employee needs through the effective use of different human resource practices including fair rewards, effective leader-member relationship and proper career growth opportunities. These programs bring about perceived organizational support which in turn can lead to positive organizational outcomes.
Saddle Nose Reconstruction with Bone Graft in Multiple Facial Fracture Patients

Background: Saddle nose deformities mostly result from trauma. Most reports of saddle nose correction after trauma relate to isolated fractures, but in this article the experience of the authors is presented in relation to bone grafting for the correction of the saddle nose in multiple facial fracture patients. Objectives: The current study aimed to report the results of a protocol for choosing the source of bone graft for dorsal nasal bone grafting in acute trauma patients with multiple facial fractures. Patients and Methods: In a retrospective study, archived files of maxillofacial trauma patients who were treated between 2005 and 2012 at Mashhad Emdad hospital (a level one trauma center) were reviewed. Cases were selected in which a traumatic saddle nose deformity concomitant with other facial fractures had been corrected with dorsal nasal bone grafting. The donor site, type of fixation, access to the dorsum of the nose, associated facial fractures, shape of the graft (cantilever or L-shaped), and plane of dissection in the dorsum of the nose (subperiosteal or subcutaneous) were assessed. Results: There were 11 patients treated using this method. The male-to-female ratio was 7:5. One miniscrew with the lag technique was the preferred method for the fixation of the dorsal nasal bone graft. Splitcalvarial bone graft was the most commonly used type of bone graft. An open rhinoplasty approach and maxillary degloving were two commonly used incisions, and the most commonly associated fractures were maxillary Lefort fractures. The cantilever design was used in eight patients for the correction of the saddle nose deformity, and in four patients the bone graft was inserted into the nose in the subcutaneous plane. Conclusions: Saddle nose reconstruction with bone graft in multiple facial fracture patients is a predictable method if surgical accesses to the region are carefully designed, considering the accompanying fractures.
Ultrastructural Identification of the Basal-Granulated Cells in the Duodenum of Albino Rat

The fine structure of the crypt epithelium of the duodenal mucosa in albino rats was studied to represent the types and distribution of the basal-granulated or endocrine cells. Twenty male animals were used. Perfusion-fixation was made and samples of duodenal mucosa were taken and processed to prepare epon-embedded specimens for examination by a transmission electron microscope. Cells containing membrane-bound granules were seen in the crypt epithelium. They were identified to be basal-granulated cells. Six different types of such cells were demonstrated. All of the cells were of the closed type. The possible functional significance of these closed cell types was discussed. Correlation among the distributions of such cells in the intestine of albino rat might enable the physiologists, internists and other research workers to study several biologically active peptides with well-established functions other than those which have long been investigated.
Multimodal human-computer interaction for enhancing customers' decision-making and experience on B2C e-commerce websites

The main aim of this thesis was to identify, complement and refine the factors that contribute to users’ intention to purchase, satisfaction and attitude toward using a particular B2C online environment, as well as the causal relationships between these factors. A systematic literature review on Information System (IS), Market Research, and User Experience (UX), which has informed the design and development of a pilot study, has been conducted. Results have led to the conception of an online shopping decision-making (OSDM) model called ‘Episodic UX Model on Decision-Making’ (EUX-DM). It has been developed by integrating the established Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as well as Information System Success Model (ISSM), and emerging UX models, and Expectation-Confirmation Theory (ECT). Results from analysing 305 responses to the web-based questionnaire aimed to evaluate EUX-DM verified its validity. In addition, after investigating the users’ preferences for the possible modifications related to the use of visual avatar in a particular B2C eCommerce website for information presentation, another research focus has been placed on identifying the real conversational functions and their related communicational behaviour in designing male and female visual avatars’ facial expressions and body gestures. Following this, four different types of information presentations have been developed to be used in a contrived B2C online shopping environment, namely: (i) 2D static graphical and textual information, (ii) non-expressive avatars, (iii) avatars with facial expressions, (iv) and avatars with facial expressions and body gestures information presentations. Consequently, these information presentations were empirically investigated through two experimental studies. The outcomes of these studies indicated that the gender of the avatar and participants were found to be insignificant factors for any of the measured qualities, and the use of visual avatars with animated facial expressions and body gestures positively influenced customers’ usage attitude, intention to purchase and satisfaction.