Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of respiratory training for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients: a randomised clinical trial.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of respiratory training on lung function, activity tolerance and quality of life in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. BACKGROUND For patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pulmonary rehabilitation can increase activity tolerance and improve their psychological state by relieving dyspnoea and promoting their quality of life. DESIGN A randomised clinical trial was conducted in a local hospital. METHODS Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were randomly assigned to intervention (n=20) and control groups (n=20). Spirometry, six-minute walking distance and quality of life were used to assess the efficacy of respiratory training programme. RESULTS Significant improvement in lung function, including forced vital capacity (p=0.037), forced expiratory volume in one-second (p=0.006) and per cent predicted forced expiratory volume in one-second (p=0.008) in the intervention group. Regarding efficacy of the training programme for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, in forced expiratory volume in one-second (p=0.024) and per cent predicted forced expiratory volume in one-second (p=0.035), six-minute walking distance significantly increased. In addition, there were significant improvements for symptoms (p=0.018), impact (p<0.001) and total quality of life scores (p<0.001), as well as significantly decreased body mass, airflow obstruction, dyspnoea and exercise capacity index (p=0.004) in the intervention group. CONCLUSIONS A respiratory training programme for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease was found to relieve dyspnoea, maintain lung function, increase activity tolerance and improve quality of life. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Respiratory training programme can be used as a routine rehabilitation protocol for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and can be used by nurses as a reference to monitor chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients' health status.
[Epidemiological study of gestational diabetes mellitus in Taipei and factors effecting blood glucose].

The prevalence of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus has increased significantly in the last decade. Meanwhile, it has been found that patients with gestational diabetes have a greater chance of developing diabetes than normal subjects. This study was designed to survey the prevalence of GDM in metropolitan Taipei. A screening test with 50 g of glucose was performed on pregnant patients between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation, and a blood sample was collected one hour after ingestion. The subjects with a plasma glucose level over 130 g/dL were scheduled for a standard 75 g oral glucose tolerance test for diagnosis. Altogether, 872 pregnant women participated in the study. According to the WHO criteria which were published in 1985, a total of 224 (25.7%) subjects had a positive screening test. Thirty-seven (4.2%) subjects had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and five (0.6%) subjects were found to have GDM after the 75 g OGTT. Comparisons of the glucose levels of women of different ages (< 30 and > or = 30), BMI (< or = 24 and > 24), and parity (0 and > or = 1) demonstrated that women over 30, with a BMI over 24, or a parity over 1 had a significantly higher plasma glucose level than their counterparts in the screening test. Even after BMI-adjustment, the difference was still significant for the age and parity comparisons.
TMPRSS2:ERG fusion transcripts in urine from prostate cancer patients correlate with a less favorable prognosis

Rostad K, Hellwinkel OJC, Haukaas SA, Halvorsen OJ, Øyan AM, Haese A, Budäus L, Albrecht H, Akslen LA, Schlomm T, Kalland K‐H. TMPRSS2:ERG fusion transcripts in urine from prostate cancer patients correlate with a less favorable prognosis. APMIS 2009; 117: 575–82.
APOE and other loci affect age‐at‐onset in Alzheimer's disease families with PS2 mutation

Several kindreds of Volga German (VG) ancestry have a single PS2 mutation that causes an autosomal dominant form of Alzheimer's disease (AD). These families show a wide range in age‐at‐onset, which suggests the existence of modifying factors other than the PS2 mutation. To examine evidence for a genetic basis of variation in onset age, we performed a Bayesian oligogenic segregation and linkage analysis on nine VG families confirmed to have at least one affected PS2 carrier. This analysis simultaneously estimated the effects of APOE and PS2 and the number and effects of additional loci affecting AD age‐at‐onset. In addition, a family effect accounted for shared environmental effects. This analysis approach has the advantage of full use of the complete pedigree structure, as well as use of information on unsampled individuals with phenotypic data. These analyses provide evidence that APOE plays a small, but significant, role in modifying the age‐at‐onset in these VG families. The effects estimated for the APOE ε3 and ε4 genotypes were consistent with those estimated in previous analysis of late‐onset AD families, with evidence for a dose‐dependent relationship between number of ε4 alleles and age‐at‐onset. We estimated an ∼83% posterior probability of at least one modifier locus in addition to APOE, and that the fraction of the variance in age‐at‐onset attributable to PS2, APOE, other loci, and family effects is ∼70, ∼2, ∼6.5, and ∼8.5%, respectively. These results provide evidence that APOE and other loci modify onset in AD caused by PS2 mutation. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bile Salt Sulphates in Cholestasis

Abstract. Bile salt sulphates were determined in serum and urine of 40 patients with severe cholestasis due to extrahepatic obstruction, hepatitis, cirrhosis and metastases of the fiver. Mono‐, di‐ and tri‐sulphates of bile salts were identified by column chromatography following intravenous administration of 14C‐cholate. Quantitative analysis was done by gas‐liquid chromatography following solvolysis. In our patients more than 50% of the bile salts excreted by the urine were sulphated (76.9% mono‐sulphates, 21.3% di‐sulphates, 1.8% tri‐sulphates). In contrast less than 10% of serum bile salts were sulphated. Therefore the renal clearance of bile salt sulphates was more than 15 times greater than the clearance of non‐sulphated bile salts. There were no significant differences in patients with extrahepatic obstruction, hepatitis, cirrhosis and metastases of the liver. – It is concluded that urinary excretion of mono‐ and di‐sulphates of bile salts represents an important excretory mechanism in patients with cholestatic liver disease. In most patients only trace amounts of tri‐sulphated bile salts were excreted in the urine.
Forensic data acquisition from cloud‐of‐things devices: windows Smartphones as a case study

The continued amalgamation of cloud technologies into all aspects of our daily lives and the technologies we use (i.e. cloud‐of‐things) creates business opportunities, security and privacy risks, and investigative challenges (in the event of a cybersecurity incident). This study examines the extent to which data acquisition from Windows phone, a common cloud‐of‐thing device, is supported by three popular mobile forensics tools. The effect of device settings modification (i.e. enabling screen lock and device reset operations) and alternative acquisition processes (i.e. individual and combined acquisition) on the extraction results are also examined. Our results show that current mobile forensic tool support for Windows Phone 8 remains limited. The results also showed that logical acquisition support was more complete in comparison to physical acquisition support. In one example, the tool was able to complete a physical acquisition of a Nokia Lumia 625, but its deleted contacts and SMSs could not be recovered/extracted. In addition we found that separate acquisition is needed for device removable media to maximize acquisition results, particularly when trying to recover deleted data. Furthermore, enabling flight‐mode and disabling location services are highly recommended to eliminate the potential for data alteration during the acquisition process. These results should provide practitioners with an overview of the current capability of mobile forensic tools and the challenges in successfully extracting evidence from the Windows phone platform. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Spin waves modes in cobalt nanowires arrays

Electrodeposited arrays of ferromagnetic nanowires (NWs) have been largely studied during the two last decades. The NWs effective uniaxial magnetic anisotropy along their axis is a key parameter, which strongly influences their static and dynamic magnetic behaviors. This anisotropy, for a given material, can be controlled by the packing density of the cylinders; this feature is, for instance, expected to be used in microwave absorption devices. These geometrical parameters influence the dipolar interactions between the NWs, proportional to both the magnetization and to the packing density, that become particularly intense when the spacing between the NWs is smaller than the length of one nanowire. Moreover, the respective roles of the crystalline anisotropy and the shape anisotropy are crucial. When they compete (add), the result is a reduction (increase) of the overall anisotropy. In Co-base nanowire arrays, the presence of a defined crystalline anisotropy and texture contributes significantly to determine the magnetization response.
Wound complications after hand assisted laparoscopic surgery.

PURPOSE Hand assisted laparoscopic surgery (HALS) provides benefits similar to standard laparoscopy but generally requires a larger incision. We assessed the nature of and risk factors for incisional complications after HALS. MATERIALS AND METHODS All patients who underwent HALS at our institution from February 1997 through December 2003 were included in a prospective and retrospective review to assess postoperative wound complications. Literature regarding wound complications associated with open surgery and standard laparoscopy was reviewed. RESULTS A total of 424 consecutive procedures performed on 422 patients were evaluated. Postoperative HALS incision site complications included 29 infections (6.8%), 15 hernias (3.5%) and 2 dehiscences (0.5%). Multivariate logistic regression models revealed that HALS incision site hernias were associated with current or past tobacco smoking (6.0%, p = 0.04), with a trend toward significance for diabetes mellitus (14%, p = 0.07), male gender (5.3%, p = 0.08) and renal failure (16%, p = 0.08). HALS incision site infections were associated with omission of perioperative antibiotics (13%, p = 0.007), obesity (12%, p = 0.03) and increased operative time (252 vs 222 minutes in patients with and without infection, respectively, p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS Our findings suggest that wound infections and hernias occur less frequently with HALS than with open surgery, but more often than with standard laparoscopy. Certain patient comorbidities (eg obesity), modifiable risk factors (eg smoking status) and procedural variables (eg omission of perioperative antibiotics or length of procedure) may adversely influence HALS wound complications. This information can be used to decide between HALS and standard laparoscopic approaches in particular patients.
Novel Amplitude Scaling method for bilinear frequency Warping-based Voice Conversion

In Frequency Warping (FW)-based Voice Conversion (VC), the source spectrum is modified to match the frequency-axis of the target spectrum followed by an Amplitude Scaling (AS) to compensate the amplitude differences between the warped spectrum and the actual target spectrum. In this paper, we propose a novel AS technique which linearly transfers the amplitude of the frequency-warped spectrum using the knowledge of a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)-based converted spectrum without adding any spurious peaks. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in avoiding a perceptual impression of wrong formant location (due to perfect match assumption between the warped spectrum and the actual target spectrum in state-of-the-art AS method) leading to deterioration in converted voice quality. From subjective analysis, it is evident that the proposed system has been preferred 33.81 % and 12.37 % times more compared to the GMM and state-of-the-art AS method for voice quality, respectively. Similar to the quality conversion trade-offs observed by other studies in the literature, speaker identity conversion was 0.73 % times more and 9.09 % times less preferred over GMM and state-of-the-art AS-based method, respectively.
Cutting Edge: The Transcription Factor Bob1 Counteracts B Cell Activation and Regulates miR-146a in B Cells

Mice lacking the lymphocyte-specific transcription factor Bob1 (also called OBF-1 or OCA-B) fail to generate germinal centers and a robust Ig response. We show that peripheral B cells in Bob1−/− mice bear characteristics of chronically activated or anergic-like B cells and identify the immunosuppressive microRNA-146a, together with other microRNAs, as novel transcriptional targets of Bob1. The inability to restrict B cell signaling could contribute to the immunodeficient phenotype of these mice and is consistent with an important role for Bob1 in suppressing B cell activation in vivo.
Pharmacokinetics of potassium clavulanate in combination with amoxicillin in pediatric patients

Two dosages of a liquid suspension formulation of amoxicillin and potassium clavulanate were tested in 34 infants and children. The smaller dosage resulted in suboptimal plasma concentrations. With a greater dosage (3.3 mg of clavulanate per kg and 13.3 mg of amoxicillin per kg), the mean peak plasma concentrations were 1.6 micrograms clavulanic acid per ml and 4.9 micrograms amoxicillin per ml.
Wireless Location Uses Geometrical Transformation Method With Single Propagation Delay: Model and Detection Performance

Inspired by recent promotions of wireless location services and applications, this paper develops a simple model for detecting a mobile caller location with low implementation complexity and promising accuracy. The model that is described in this paper employs the geometrical transformation method with single propagation delay measurement. Depending on the number of available surrounding base transceiver stations (BTSs), a set of the pseudodistances and pseudodistance differences is provided through the geometrical distances between the home and multiple foreign BTSs, which is called the geometrical transformation method. Accordingly, the mobile caller location can be detected using the circular location technique and the hyperbolic location technique. The major benefit of the proposed model is that during a call to detect the mobile caller's location, the use of geometrical transformation allows us to overcome the location handover problem. A forcing handover in a global system for mobile communications (GSM) network or a three-way soft handover in a universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) network, for example, occurs when detecting the location when a standard model that is based on the measurement of the propagation delay is utilized. Comparing the standard model with the proposed model, the former needs at least three propagation delays that were simultaneously measured from at least three BTSs, whereas the latter needs only a single propagation delay that was measured from the home BTS. Moreover, in the case where we do not have a priori information of a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) error, a deterministic parameter that is related to the propagation delay is defined. This parameter is shown as limited a priori information for calibrating the coarse resolution in the proposed location model, which is caused by the NLOS error. To have significant findings, we conduct a practical experiment in an urban environment based on a 1.8-GHz commercial cellular network. In the five-BTS case where the location error is less than 300 m, the probability of location error that the proposed model with a bit period of 1/2 achieved is greater than 0.85. Although the performance of the proposed location model does not satisfy the U.S. Federal Communications Commission Enhanced 911 (FCC E-911) requirements, it is a good solution for the deployment of wireless location services and applications.
A GIS Based Approach for Assessing the Association between Air Pollution and Asthma in New York State, USA

Studies on asthma have shown that air pollution can lead to increased asthma prevalence. The aim of this study is to examine the association between air pollution (fine particulate matter (PM2.5), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and ozone (O3)) and human health (asthma emergency department visit rate (AEVR) and asthma discharge rate (ADR)) among residents of New York, USA during the period 2005 to 2007. Annual rates of asthma were calculated from population estimates for 2005, 2006, and 2007 and number of asthma hospital discharge and emergency department visits. Population data for New York were taken from US Bureau of Census, and asthma data were obtained from New York State Department of Health, National Asthma Survey surveillance report. Data on the concentrations of PM2.5, SO2 and ground level ozone were obtained from various air quality monitoring stations distributed in different counties. Annual means of these concentrations were compared to annual variations in asthma prevalence by using Pearson correlation coefficient. We found different associations between the annual mean concentration of PM2.5, SO2 and surface ozone and the annual rates of asthma discharge and asthma emergency visit from 2005 to 2007. A positive correlation coefficient was observed between the annual mean concentration of PM2.5, and SO2 and the annual rates of asthma discharge and asthma emergency department visit from 2005 to 2007. However, the correlation coefficient between annual mean concentrations of ground ozone and the annual rates of asthma discharge and asthma emergency visit was found to be negative from 2005 to 2007. Our study suggests that the association between elevated concentrations of PM2.5 and SO2 and asthma prevalence among residents of New York State in USA is consistent enough to assume concretely a plausible and significant association.
Large‐scale propagation of four undifferentiated human embryonic stem cell lines in a feeder‐free culture system

We describe an improved and more robust protocol for transfer and subsequent propagation of human embryonic stem cells under feeder‐free conditions. The results show that mechanical dissociation for transfer of the human embryonic stem cells to Matrigel™ resulted in highest survival rates. For passage of the cultures on the other hand, enzymatic dissociation was found to be most efficient. In addition, this method reduces the time, work, and skills needed for propagation of the human embryonic stem cells. With the present protocol, the human embryonic stem cells have been cultured under feeder‐free conditions for up to 35 passages while maintaining a normal karyotype, stable proliferation rate, and high telomerase activity. Furthermore, the feeder‐free human embryonic stem cell cultures express the transcription factor Oct‐4, alkaline phosphatase, and cell surface markers SSEA‐3, SSEA‐4, Tra 1‐60, Tra 1‐81, and formed teratomas in severe combined immunodeficient mice. This method provides distinct advantages compared with previous protocols and make propagation of human embryonic stem cells less laborious and more efficient. Developmental Dynamics 233:1304–1314, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Applying Memory Forensics to Rootkit Detection

Volatile memory dump and its analysis is an essential part of digital forensics. Among a number of various software and hardware approaches for memory dumping there are authors who point out that some of these approaches are not resilient to various anti-forensic techniques, and others that require a reboot or are highly platform dependent. New resilient tools have certain disadvantages such as low speed or vulnerability to rootkits which directly manipulate kernel structures e.g. page tables. A new memory forensic system - Malware Analysis System for Hidden Knotty Anomalies (MASHKA) is described in this paper. It is resilient to popular anti-forensic techniques. The system can be used for doing a wide range of memory forensics tasks. This paper describes how to apply the system for research and detection of kernel mode rootkits and also presents analysis of the most popular anti-rootkit tools.
Why Simple Verb Forms Can Be So Difficult to Spell: The Influence of Homophone Frequency and Distance in Dutch

Two experiments are reported in which the determinants of spelling errors on homophonous verb forms in Dutch were studied. Both experiments indicated that errors were determined by the frequency relationship between the two homophonous forms and the distance between the verb and the word determining its spelling. We propose an interference model for spelling in which a phonologically driven retrieval process is the locus of the frequency effect and a morphosyntactically driven computational component can account for the distance effect. Alternative explanations are also explored.
A National Study of the Relationship of Care Site HIV Specialization to Early Adoption of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy

Background:Little is known about characteristics of organizations that predict early adoption of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for persons with HIV infection. Objectives:To describe characteristics of sites where HIV care is provided and to assess site characteristics that predict early adoption of HAART. Design:Cross-sectional analysis of survey data from patients, HIV physicians, and medical directors. Patients and Setting:Participants in the HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study, a national probability sample of persons with HIV who received outpatient care in the continental United States during 1996. Main Outcome Measure:Rates of exposure to HAART by December 1996. Results:Nationally, 79% of patients were treated at sites specializing in HIV care (HIV sites). Over 90% of patients were cared for by physicians who were experts in HIV care, either infectious disease specialists (46%) or general medicine experts (45%). Adjusted rates of exposure to HAART by December 1996 varied from 0.02 to 0.79 across sites (mean rate, 0.33). In multivariable models, HIV specialization (odds ratio [OR], 3.6; P < 0.001), total patient volume of more than 20,000 visits a year (OR, 2.1; P < 0.01), and educational level of the zip code in which the site was located (OR, 1.2 for each 10% increase in college education) were associated with higher rates of exposure to HAART. These effects persisted after adjustment for physician HIV expertise. Site effects were more important than physician effects in explaining rates of exposure to HAART. Conclusion:In 1996 there were wide variations in rates of HAART use by site of care. Low-volume sites that do not specialize in HIV care should take measures to ensure that HIV expertise is available to their patients.
Standardization of Nucleic Acid Tests for Clinical Measurements of Bacteria and Viruses

ABSTRACT Nucleic acid-based tests for infectious diseases currently used in the clinical laboratory and in point-of-care devices are diverse. Measurement challenges associated with standardization of quantitative viral load testing are discussed in relation to human cytomegalovirus, BK virus, and Epstein-Barr virus, while the importance of defining the performance of qualitative methods is illustrated with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and influenza virus. The development of certified reference materials whose values are traceable to higher-order standards and reference measurement procedures, using, for instance, digital PCR, will further contribute to the understanding of analytical performance characteristics and promote clinical data comparability.