Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dysphagia: a cost analysis of the diagnostic approach

OBJECTIVES:The initial diagnostic approach for dysphagia is controversial. The choices include barium swallow (BaS) versus esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). The aim of this study was to determine the clinical cost of establishing a diagnosis and treating dysphagia based on initial diagnostic approach (BaS vs EGD). METHODS:Clinical outcome of patients with undiagnosed dysphagia evaluated by either internists in a primary care clinic (n = 100) or gastroentrologists (n = 120) were determined based on the initial diagnostic test: BaS versus EGD. Final diagnoses in each group were determined based on any testing performed subsequent to the initial studies. Total cost in achieving the final diagnosis for each group were determined based on 2002 Medicare reimbursement cost.RESULTS:BaS (66% and 62%) and EGD (34% and 38%) were ordered in equal prevalence by gastroenterologists and internists, respectively. Final diagnoses included: benign obstruction (37% and 36%), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) (18% and 44%), achalasia (17% and 1%), nonspecific esophageal motility disorder (NSEMD) (17% and 11%), neoplasm (7% and 6%), and infectious esophagitis (4% and 2%) in subspecialty and primary care clinics, respectively. Motility disorders (NSEMD and achalasia) was diagnosed more often by gastroenterologists (40 of 120, 34%) than by internists (12 of 100, 12%) (p < 0.001). GERD was the predominant diagnosis made by internists (44 of 100, 44%) compared to gastroenterolgists (22 of 120, 18%) (p < 0.001). Although the cost of diagnosing benign obstruction was less for BaS ($73 ± 13) than EGD ($370 ± 5, p < 0.001), subsequent therapy with dilation increased the cost for barium testing first (BaS $602 ± 22 vs EGD $515 ± 5, p < 0.02). Cost of diagnosis or treatment of esophageal dysmotility (achalasia/NSEMD) was significantly (p < 0.001) less using BaS as the initial test.CONCLUSIONS:1) BaS is less costly than EGD for diagnoses and treatment involving abnormal motility. 2) Initial EGD with therapeutic intent is less costly for patients with history suggesting benign obstruction. 3) Primary care physicians identified GERD and benign obstructions as the cause of dysphagia more often in their patient group than the gastroenterologists, making EGD a reasonable initial test in this setting instead of currently practiced BaS.
All-out Test in Tethered Canoe System can Determine Anaerobic Parameters of Elite Kayakers

Abstract The aims of this study were to use a specific all-out 30-sec tethered test to determine the anaerobic parameters in elite kayakers and verify the relationship between these results and sports performance. Twelve elite slalom kayakers were evaluated. The tethered canoe system was created and used for the all-out 30-sec test application. Measurements of peak force, mean force, minimum force, fatigue index and impulse were performed. Performance evaluation was determined by measuring the time of race in a simulated race containing 24 gates on a white-water course. Blood was collected (25-µl) for analysis of lactate concentration at rest and at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10-min intervals after both the all-out test and the simulated race. The Pearson product moment correlation shows a inverse and significant relationship of peak force, mean force and impulse with time of race. Blood lactate concentrations after the all-out test and the simulated race peak at same time (4 min). Additionally, no interaction was visualized between time and all-out test/simulated race for blood lactate concentrations (P <0.365). These results suggest a relationship between the parameters of the all-out test and performance. Thus, the tethered canoe system is a useful tool for determining parameters that could be used in training control of slalom kayakers.
Cognitive Test Anxiety and Cognitive Enhancement: The Influence of Students’ Worries on Their Use of Performance-Enhancing Drugs

This online panel study (nt1 = 5,882; nt2 = 3,486 (randomly selected)) used multiple metrics to assess the prevalence of the nonmedical use of prescription medication for enhancing cognitive performance among German university students in 2010. Rare events logistic regression revealed that increased cognitive test anxiety increased the prevalence of medication use over various time windows. Negative binomial regression models showed that the higher the cognitive test anxiety, the higher the use frequencies were during the previous six months. The models controlled for expected side effects, risk attitudes, self-attributed competencies, prior medication use, sex, and age. We also discuss the study's implications.
Audio Visual Synchronization of Rhythm

The use of sound feedback to assist in learning and correcting motor skills has some innate advantages. For example, sound leaves a person's eyes free for important tasks like avoiding obstacles, and ample psychological evidence shows a connection between the synthesis and perception of motion and sound. When motion is periodic, as it is with most forms of human locomotion, the sound feedback should also be periodic, i.e., rhythmic and synchronized to a person's motion. We present a method to track an athlete performing a known movement in real-time using an RGB-D camera. We use a Kalman filter in conjunction with iterative closest point to synchronize incoming data against a known movement pattern and produce a musical rhythm. The athlete and the rhythm move in phase with one another. We call this process rhythmic sonification. We demonstrate our method by tracking and rhythmically sonifying an advanced in-line speed skating movement called double-push. Rhythmically sonified feedback provides a new opportunity to teach and reinforce this and other athletic skills.
Effect of mineralocorticoid receptor blockade on the renal renin–angiotensin system in Dahl salt-sensitive hypertensive rats

Background The (pro)renin receptor exists in the kidney, blood vessels and the heart. (Pro)renin binds to the receptor and induces tissue injuries directly, completely independent of angiotensin II (Ang II). The renal renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system is activated in salt-sensitive hypertensive rats with in-vitro studies showing aldosterone increases angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) activity, renin production and angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) activity. However, the effect of blockade of mineralocorticoid receptor on the renal (pro)renin receptor, angiotensinogen, ACE and AT1R in Dahl salt-sensitive rats is unknown. Methods The following parameters were measured in Dahl salt-sensitive rats and in Dahl salt-resistant rats fed high-salt or low-salt diets and treated for 8 weeks with or without eplerenone (100 mg/kg per day, orally): blood pressure, plasma renin activity, plasma aldosterone concentration, kidney weight and Ang II contents, urinary protein excretion, glomerular injury (assessed by semiquantitative morphometric analysis) and levels of expression in the kidney of (pro)renin receptor protein and messenger RNA (mRNA) for angiotensinogen, ACE and AT1R. Results Dahl salt-sensitive rats fed a high-salt diet had increased kidney/body weight (175%) and urinary protein excretion (886%) and decreased plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone concentration. The rats developed progressive sclerotic and proliferative glomerular changes, concomitant with increased expression of renal (pro)renin receptor protein and mRNA levels of angiotensinogen, ACE and AT1R and kidney Ang II content. Treatment with eplerenone in Dahl salt-sensitive rats was associated with significant improvements in kidney to body weight ratio, urinary protein excretion and renal injury scores and decreased renal (pro)renin receptor protein expression and angiotensinogen and AT1R mRNA levels and kidney Ang II content. Conclusion A high salt diet increased the renal renin–angiotensin system, whereas blockade of mineralocorticoid receptors attenuated renal injuries by decreasing the activity of tissue renin–angiotensin system in Dahl salt-sensitive rats.
Spoken Arabic Digits recognition using MFCC based on GMM

Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is a conventional method for speech recognition, known for its effectiveness and scalability in speech modeling. This paper presents automatic recognition of the Spoken Arabic Digits based on (GMM) classifier and the leading approach for speech recognition features extraction Delta-Delta Mel- frequency cepstral coefficients (DDMFCC). The experimental results give the best result with the obtained parameters; they achieve a 99.31% correct digit recognition dataset which is very satisfactory compared to previous work on spoken Arabic digits speech recognition.
Naive T Cells in the Gut of Newly Diagnosed, Untreated Adult Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Background:The phenotype of the T-cell subpopulations and their related cytokine networks in the gastrointestinal mucosa of patients with inflammatory bowel disease can potentially be used as a predictive value for clinical course and response to therapy. Here, we analyzed T-cell subpopulations in newly diagnosed, untreated adult patients and correlated them with clinical presentation. Methods:Mucosal biopsies from duodenum, ileum, and colon mucosa of patients with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis and controls were obtained. The simple endoscopy score in Crohn's disease and the full Mayo score in ulcerative colitis were used to score disease activity. Mucosa-infiltrating T cells were characterized by flow cytometric immunophenotyping and were stimulated to assess cytokine secretion. Results:Based on the expression of the maturation and activation markers CD45RA and CD27, we identified 4 different profiles. Profile A contained mainly CD45RA+CD27+ naive T cells; profile B contained mainly CD45RA−CD27+ central memory T cells; profile C contained mainly CD45RA−CD27− effector memory T cells; and profile D consisted of similar percentages of these aforementioned subpopulations. Profile A was only observed in the ileum/colon of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, associated with upper gastrointestinal location and perianal disease in Crohn's disease and expressed more tumor necrosis factor &agr; and less interferon &ggr;. In contrast, profile D was restricted to controls. There was no correlation between the different T-cell profiles and endoscopic disease activity. Conclusions:Newly diagnosed patients with inflammatory bowel disease display different T-cell maturation profiles in the gut mucosa, corresponding to distinct cytokine responses. Follow-up studies are needed to determine whether the profiles associate with clinical course and response to therapy.
Phase I trial of lenalidomide and CCI-779 in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma: evidence for lenalidomide-CCI-779 interaction via P-glycoprotein.

PURPOSE Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable plasma-cell neoplasm for which most treatments involve a therapeutic agent combined with dexamethasone. The preclinical combination of lenalidomide with the mTOR inhibitor CCI-779 has displayed synergy in vitro and represents a novel combination in MM. PATIENTS AND METHODS A phase I clinical trial was initiated for patients with relapsed myeloma with administration of oral lenalidomide on days 1 to 21 and CCI-779 intravenously once per week during a 28-day cycle. Pharmacokinetic data for both agents were obtained, and in vitro transport and uptake studies were conducted to evaluate potential drug-drug interactions. RESULTS Twenty-one patients were treated with 15 to 25 mg lenalidomide and 15 to 20 mg CCI-779. The maximum-tolerated dose (MTD) was determined to be 25 mg lenalidomide with 15 mg CCI-779. Pharmacokinetic analysis indicated increased doses of CCI-779 resulted in statistically significant changes in clearance, maximum concentrations, and areas under the concentration-time curves, with constant doses of lenalidomide. Similar and significant changes for CCI-779 pharmacokinetics were also observed with increased lenalidomide doses. Detailed mechanistic interrogation of this pharmacokinetic interaction demonstrated that lenalidomide was an ABCB1 (P-glycoprotein [P-gp]) substrate. CONCLUSION The MTD of this combination regimen was 25 mg lenalidomide with 15 mg CCI-779, with toxicities of fatigue, neutropenia, and electrolyte wasting. Pharmacokinetic and clinical interactions between lenalidomide and CCI-779 seemed to occur, with in vitro data indicating lenalidomide was an ABCB1 (P-gp) substrate. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a clinically significant P-gp-based drug-drug interaction with lenalidomide.
Compensation of Escape Direction in Unilaterally Cercus-ablated Crickets, Gryllus bimaculatus, is Associated with the Distance Walked during Recovery Period

Abstract In response to an air puff stimulus, intact crickets, Gryllus bimaculatus, make an escape almost 180° opposite to the stimulus source. In order to verify our previous hypothesis that a self-stimulation of the wind-sensory system is necessary for a compensational recovery of the escape direction (behavioral compensation) in unilaterally cercus-ablated crickets, we investigated the relationship between the conditions of rearing after a unilateral cercal ablation and the degree of behavioral compensation. A unilaterally cercus-ablated cricket reared in a large cage to permit free locomotion showed a significantly higher degree of recovery of escape direction compared with those reared under restrained conditions in a small glass vial. However, the degree of behavioral compensation in a cricket reared alone in a large cage was smaller than that of crickets reared in a cage of the same size with 5–6 other cercus-ablated crickets. Mutual stimulation possibly increased the extent of locomotion of crickets reared in a group and improved the degree of compensational recovery of the escape direction. To ascertain this, the distance a cricket moved during the recovery period was associated with the degree of compensational change of the escape direction. The result suggests that the degree of compensation of the escape direction clearly depended on the distance walked by the crickets. The compensation seemed not to be caused by other factors such as chemical ones in the case of group rearing because forced locomotion induced by touch stimulation on the body surface was solely effective in improving the escape direction.
Google Searches around Analyst Recommendation Revisions: Evidence from the Taiwan Stock Market

We set out in this study is to investigate the impact of Google search volume on stock prices around periods of recommendation revision announcements made by securities firms in the Taiwan stock market. Our results reveal that for upgrade announcements, the Internet searches that are initiated by investor attention lead to only a temporary increase in positive price pressure around the revision announcement periods, whereas the price effect of the informed component extracted from the Google searches is found to be persistent. We also find that trading volume reflects more of the upcoming news around the revision announcement periods. Our results suggest that at least some retail investors will employ a search engine to obtain valid firm-specific information relating to the recommendation revisions.
EVALUATING AN INSTRUMENT TO MEASURE CUSTOMERS' SATISFACTION WITH INTERN ET BANKING APPLICATIONS: A QUALITATIVE APPROACH

Custom er satisfaction is an important measure that can affect success of internet-based banking applications. Thus, measurement of customer satisfaction is critical and has far reaching implications for banks in terms of retaining customer loyalty. In this article, we report our experience of evaluating an instrument to measure customers’ satisfaction with internet banking applications by developing a model from a synthesis of relevant streams of literature and following a rigorous qualitative process. The instrument includes 24 items and operationalises 9 factors comprising customer satisfaction with internet banking applications. Development of the instrument is significant because bank management can use it as a diagnostic tool to identify the areas of their internet banking offerings in which further improvements are required. The approach adopted in the instrument development can impact the e-business discipline because scholars can apply the process reported in this article for developing sound instruments for other online applications.
Adolescent injury risk behavior

Health-risk behaviors that contribute to the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among adolescents and young adults are often established during adolescence and extended into adulthood. Unintentional motor vehicle injury is the leading cause of mortality in childhood and adolescence in developed countries. This review presents some of the risk factors found in research on unintentional injury and death in adolescence, including risk factors for siblings and adolescents with intellectual disability. These findings should be connected with the findings of a recent study that showed that about one third of all unintentional childhood injury deaths in the United States were preventable. For injury prevention to take place and being effective a multidisciplinary approach is needed to identify host, agent and environmental factors using epidemiology research and biomechanics. In the population of adolescents with intellectual disability there has been little research on injury epidemiology or injury prevention and the service provider will need to focus and educate staff on this issue in order to prevent injury that can result in further disability.
PU.1-deficient mice are resistant to thioacetamide-induced hepatic fibrosis: PU.1 finely regulates Sirt1 expression via transcriptional promotion of miR-34a and miR-29c in hepatic stellate cells

PU box binding protein (PU.1) is a critical transcription factor involved in many pathological processes. However, its exact role in activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and liver fibrosis was rarely reported. Here, we found that, in HSCs of PU.1+/− mice, Sirt1 mRNA expression was not changed but Sirt1 protein was significantly increased, suggesting its promoting role in Sirt1 translation. We then isolated HSCs from wild-type (WT) and PU.1+/− mice, and the pcDNA-PU.1 expression vector was transfected into PU.1+/− HSCs. We checked the levels of miR-34a and miR-29c, two Sirt1-targetting miRNAs, and protein levels of PU.1 and Sirt1. The results showed that miR-34a/-29c were significantly reduced and Sirt1 protein was increased in PU.1+/− HSCs, compared with WT HSCs. Besides, PU.1 overexpression inversed the reduction in miR-34a/-29c levels and the increase in Sirt1 protein in both PU.1+/- HSCs and WT HSCs. Additionally, ChIP-quantitive real-time PCR (qPCR) assay comfirmed that PU.1 was directly bound to both the promoter regions of miR-34a and miR-29c. Importantly, PU.1 overexpression promoted the proliferation, migration, activation, oxidative stress and inflammatory response in WT HSCs, while the promotion could be inversed by either overexpression of Sirt1 or inhibition of miR-34a/-29c. Moreover, animal model of liver fibrosis was established by intraperitoneal injections of thioacetamide (TAA) in WT and PU.1+/− mice, respectively. Compared with the WT mice, PU.1+/− mice displayed a lower fibrotic score, less collagen content, better liver function, and lower levels of oxidative stress and inflammatory response. In conclusion, PU.1 suppresses Sirt1 translation via transcriptional promotion of miR-34a/-29c, thus promoting Sirt1-mediated HSC activation and TAA-induced hepatic fibrosis.
Simulating individual work trips for transit-facilitated accessibility study

To measure job accessibility, person-based approaches have the advantage to capture all accessibility components: land use, transportation system, individual’s mobility and travel preference, as well as individual’s space and time constraints. This makes person-based approaches more favorable than traditional aggregated approaches in recent years. However, person-based accessibility measures require detailed individual trip data which are very difficult and expensive to acquire, especially at large scales. In addition, traveling by public transportation is a highly time sensitive activity, which can hardly be handled by traditional accessibility measures. This paper presents an agent-based model for simulating individual work trips in hoping to provide an alternative or supplementary solution to person-based accessibility study. In the model, population is simulated as three levels of agents: census tracts, households, and individual workers. And job opportunities (businesses) are simulated as employer agents. Census tract agents have the ability to generate household and worker agents based on their demographic profiles and a road network. Worker agents are the most active agents that can search jobs and find the best paths for commuting. Employer agents can estimate the number of transit-dependent employees, hire workers, and update vacancies. A case study is conducted in the Milwaukee metropolitan area in Wisconsin. Several person-based accessibility measures are computed based on simulated trips, which disclose low accessibility inner city neighborhoods well covered by a transit network.
Crime, Security and Information Communication Technologies: The Changing Cybersecurity Threat Landscape and Its Implications for Regulation and Policing

Networked digital technologies have transformed crime to a point that ‘cybercrime’ is here to stay. In the future, society will be forced to respond to a broad variety of networked crimes that will increase both the complexity of crime investigation and prevention, whilst also deepening the regulative challenges. As cybercrime has become an inescapable feature of the Internet landscape, constructive management and system development to mitigate cybercrime threats and harms are imperatives. This chapter explores the changing cybersecurity threat landscape and its implications for regulation and policing. It considers how networked and digital technologies have affected society and crime; it identifies how the cybersecurity threat and crime landscape have changed and considers how digital technologies affect our ability to regulate them. It also suggests how we might understand cybercrime before outlining both the technological developments that will drive future cybercrime and also the consequences of failing to respond to those changes.
FACES on FACEBOOK: A Study of Self-presentation and Social Support on Facebook

The study is to examine if self-presentation is related to the use of Facebook and social support sought and received on Facebook among university students. The Symbolic Interactionism and the Uses and Gratifications theory were used. Questionnaire survey was conducted with a non-random sample of 202 undergraduates from the Department of Applied Social Studies at City University of Hong Kong to find out the patterns of usage on Facebook, and the relationship between self-presentation and social support on Facebook. It was reported that students tended to interact with friends rather than have self-updates on Facebook. Besides, students were found to be consistent in shaping their behaviors and presenting themselves according to their desired image. Furthermore, supplication as looking weak was found to have the greatest expectation in seeking and receiving the total social support on Facebook. The level of satisfaction on what students were received on Facebook was in moderate, towards satisfied.