Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of test stress during an objective structured clinical examination.

OBJECTIVE The existence of test stress has been widely reported among professional students. To our knowledge, no studies exist that explore student stress response to objective structured clinical examinations. The aim of this study was to evaluate possible correlations between stress and objective structured clinical examination performance in a sample of chiropractic students. METHODS A total of 116 students completed a 2-part questionnaire to assess test stress and the physiological symptoms and signs of stress. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, and diastolic were measured during the physical examination laboratory class within the first 3 weeks and then again just prior to their objective structured clinical examination in week 5. Statistical tests were then performed for questionnaire data, heart rate and blood pressure differences, and correlation between the objective structured clinical examination grade and symptoms and signs. RESULTS Questionnaire results showed that 5.1%-22.4% of students sometimes or often felt a certain degree of stress. More than 50% had 1 or more physiological symptoms and signs of stress. The objective structured clinical examination heart rate (75.23 ± 11.20 vs 68.16 ± 8.82, p < .001), systolic blood pressure (120.43 ± 9.59 vs 114.97 ± 11.83, p < .001), and diastolic blood pressure (73.00 ± 7.93 vs 69.32 ± 7.76, p < .001) were significantly higher than baseline. There were also negative linear correlations between objective structured clinical examination grades and physiological symptoms and signs and between objective structured clinical examination grades and feeling statement score. CONCLUSION The results support our hypothesis that chiropractic students experience stress when performing the objective structured clinical examination and that high levels of stress had a negative impact on performance.
Implementation of HaemScreen, a workplace‐based genetic screening program for hemochromatosis

There is debate as to whether community genetic screening for the mutation(s) causing hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) should be implemented, due to issues including disease penetrance, health economic outcomes, and concerns about community acceptance. Hemochromatosis is a common preventable iron overload disease, due in over 90% of cases to C282Y homozygosity in the HFE gene. We are, therefore, piloting C282Y screening to assess understanding of genetic information and screening acceptability in the workplace setting. In this program, HaemScreen, education was by oral or video presentation in a group setting. C282Y status was assessed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and melt‐curve analysis on DNA obtained by cheek‐brush sampling. Of eligible participants, 5.8% (1.5–15.8%) attended information and screening sessions, of whom 97.7% (5571 individuals) chose to be tested. Twenty‐two C282Y (1 : 253) homozygotes were identified and offered clinical follow‐up. There were 638 heterozygotes (1 : 8.7). The determinants for participation have been analyzed in terms of the principles outlined in the Health Belief Model. Widespread screening for HH is readily accepted in a workplace setting, and a one‐to‐many education program is effective. The level of participation varies greatly and the advertizing and session logistics should be adapted to the specific features of each workplace.
Exercise Prevents Upregulation of RyRs–BKCa Coupling in Cerebral Arterial Smooth Muscle Cells From Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Objective—Regular exercise is an effective nonpharmacological means of preventing and controlling hypertension. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying its effects remain undetermined. The hypothesis that hypertension increases the functional coupling of large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (BKCa) channels with ryanodine receptors in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) as a compensatory response to an increase in intracellular Ca2+ concentration in cerebral artery smooth muscle cells was assessed here. It was further hypothesized that exercise training would prevent this increase in functional coupling. Approach and Results—SHR and Wistar–Kyoto (WKY) rats were randomly assigned to sedentary groups (SHR-SED and WKY-SED) and exercise training groups (SHR-EX and WKY-EX). Cerebral artery smooth muscle cells displayed spontaneous transient outward currents at membrane potentials more positive than −40 mV. The amplitude of spontaneous transient outward currents together with the spontaneous Ca2+ sparks in isolated cerebral artery smooth muscle cells was significantly higher in SHR-SED than in WKY-SED. Moreover, hypertension displayed increased whole-cell BKCa, voltage-gated Ca2+ channel, but decreased KV currents in cerebral artery smooth muscle cells. In SHRs, the activity of the single BKCa channel increased markedly, and the protein expression of BKCa (&bgr;1, but not &agr;-subunit) also increased, but KV1.2 decreased significantly. Exercise training ameliorated all of these functional and molecular alterations in hypertensive rats. Conclusions—These data indicate that hypertension leads to enhanced functional coupling of ryanodine receptors–BKCa to buffer pressure–induced constriction of cerebral arteries, which attributes not only to an upregulation of BKCa &bgr;1-subunit function but also to an increase of Ca2+ release from ryanodine receptors. However, regular aerobic exercise efficiently prevents augmented coupling and so alleviates the pathological compensation and restores cerebral arterial function.
Left ventricular dynamics during early recovery from maximal exercise in boys and men.

UNLABELLED A transient increase in left ventricular emptying has been reported in adults during the early recovery from submaximal upright exercise. PURPOSE To investigate whether this "overshoot" occurs also after maximal exercise, and whether it is an age-related phenomenon. METHODS Ten healthy young men (mean age: 22.5 +/- 1.5 yr) and 17 healthy prepubertal boys (11.5 +/- 0.8 yr) performed an upright cycle test until exhaustion. Respiratory gas exchange, heart rate, left ventricular dimensions (two-dimensional echocardiography method) as well as blood pressures (manual sphygmomanometry) were assessed and systemic vascular resistances were calculated at rest, during the final minute of the test, and during a 10-min recovery period. RESULTS An improvement of cardiac emptying, characterized by a decrease in left ventricular end-systolic diameter, was observed in adults only. Moreover, during the first minute of recovery, a larger decrease in heart rate -21.8 +/- 7.6% and -13.7 +/- 6.3 beat.min, respectively, in children and adults, P < 0.01) and a larger increase in systemic vascular resistance (+24.1 +/- 18.2% and +6.4 +/- 12.6%, P < 0.05) were observed in the boys rather than in the adults. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that a higher increase in cardiac afterload and a more prominent decrease in heart rate may be responsible in part for the absence of cardiac overshoot in children.
In Vivo Measurements of the Insertion Depth of Cochlear Implant Arrays Using Flat-Panel Volume Computed Tomography

Objective: The development of a procedure for the measurement of insertion depth angles of cochlear implant electrode arrays based on flat-panel computed tomography (FPCT) and the application of this technique to in vivo postoperative images. Background: The knowledge of the insertion depth angle of electrode arrays is relevant for the preservation of low-frequency residual hearing and for optimizing speech coding strategies. Until now, the angular position of electrodes was derived from 2-dimensional radiographs. Method: In the present study, 3-dimensional (3D) radiographs provided by FPCT were used to determine the insertion depth according to angular electrode positions with higher accuracy. For this purpose, a new evaluation procedure was designed and applied to radiographs of 15 cochlear implant patients. Results: In contrast to 2-dimensional radiographs, the obtained 3D images show all 3 semicircular channels and therefore allow the determination of a clear reference, which is required for precise insertion angle measurements. Furthermore, the presented FPCT radiographs visualize distinct electrodes. Despite the constant length of the implanted electrode arrays, we have found a considerable variation of measured insertion depth angles, which is consistent with published observations on the variability and the gender dependence of the size of human cochleae. Conclusion: FPCT provides 3D high-resolution radiographic data that enable the determination of the insertion depth angle with high accuracy and, potentially, an angle determination of individual electrodes. Therefore, this low-dose technique is especially appropriate for postoperative investigations after cochlea implantation.
Marking in marker dates: towards an archaeology with historical precision

Abstract This paper examines certain dates, derived ultimately from tree‐ring studies, which seem likely to occur and recur in the archaeological record. These ‘marker dates’ should be noted carefully by archaeologists, since their existence may well be reflected in archaeological evidence. Some of these dates can be linked with volcanic eruptions, their dust veils, and evidence from other sources, such as ice‐cores. The paper provides documentation for marker dates at AD 536, 44 BC and 208 BC. Two possible earlier examples are considered, at 1159–1141 BC and 1628–1624 BC. They may perhaps be linked with archaeological events in the Mediterranean and China, e.g. the end of the Shang, the collapse of Mycenae, the Thera eruptions, but because of the poor chronological controls it is at present impossible to prove the case.
Vision-based posture detection and tracking for interactive scenarios

The thesis here present is about the perception of the human body and the environment with means of computer vision and the analysis of these information for applications in the field of human robot interaction. The discussion will mostly be about real-world scenarios involving the observation of real humans; that means we will have to deal with an ever-changing and dynamic environment and possibly large variations in the appearance of an object to be observed. This poses a huge challenge to automated vision techniques. Additional constraints can ease the problem, but also make the resulting system less flexible. The presented work combines various techniques from computer vision and optimization theory. The scenarios that are addressed are wide spread: worker safety in an industry environment, interacting with a mobile robot and even understanding the relevance of gestures for learning in children. The common ground for all these scenarios is the fact that methods from computer vision are applied to enable or to understand an interaction between humans among themselves and humans and machines.
Application-specific instruction set processor for H.264 on-chip encoder

H.264 is the latest standard for video compression. The H.264 encoder is often regarded as a heavy application for most of the modern SoC (system-on-chip) systems. Thus many of them implement H.264 with ASICs. Although the ASIC-based approach can benefit from low power consumption, area minimization, and high performance, it suffers from the lack of flexibility which increases NRE cost and time-to-market. As an alternative solution, ASIP-based designs have been suggested to alleviate the problems of ASIC approaches. However, ASIP approach also suffers from its insufficient computing power to run H.264. In this paper, we propose an ASIP solution which partially incorporates ASIC-style complex instruction to boost up the performance. Our architecture shows the similar area cost and performance as compared to full ASIC-based designs, but exhibits 52% better performance as compared to TI DSP. It also runs 9 times faster for fully optimized x264 on Pentium D.
AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS FOLLOWING IN UTERO EXPOSURE TO ANTIEPILEPTIC DRUGS

There is evidence that in utero exposure to teratogenic substances such as thalidomide and alcohol may increase the risk of developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD)1 and that prenatal development may be a critical time. Animal model, case study, and retrospective reports have demonstrated that exposure to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in utero may also carry an increased risk for the development of ASD.2–5 ### Methods. The Liverpool and Manchester Neurodevelopment group is currently undertaking a prospective study to investigate the effects of exposure to AEDs in utero. Between 2000 and 2006, 620 women were recruited from antenatal clinics in both Liverpool and Manchester. Information has been collected on 632 live births; 296 births were to women with epilepsy (including 6 twin pairs), 249 of whom were exposed to AEDs at the beginning of gestation. Within the exposed group, 64 children were exposed to sodium valproate (VPA), 44 to lamotrigine (LTG), 76 to carbamazepine (CBZ), 14 to other monotherapy treatments, and 51 to polytherapy treatments. The remaining 47 births were to women with epilepsy who were not on medication. In addition, information has been collected on 336 live births (including two twin pairs) born to women without epilepsy who were not …
Chemical Composition of the Fixed and Volatile Oils of Nigella sativa L. from Iran

Abstract The chemical composition of the extracted fixed oil (total fatty acid composition) and volatile oil of Nigella sativa L. seeds grown in Iran were determined by GC and GC/MS. Eight fatty acids (99.5%) and thirty- two compounds (86.7%) have been identified in the fixed and volatile oils, respectively. The main fatty acids of the fixed oil were linoleic acid (55.6%), oleic acid (23.4%), and palmitic acid (12.5%). The major compounds of the volatile oil were trans-anethole (38.3%), p-cymene (14.8%), limonene (4.3%), and carvone (4.0%).
[Enough resources to the care of the elderly?].

BACKGROUND The increasing numbers of elderly in need of basic medical and nursing care challenges prioritization and quality assurance within the Norwegian health care system. MATERIAL AND METHODS A questionnaire on health care to patients aged 75 years or older was sent to 2103 doctors and nurses employed in hospitals and primary community care. RESULTS 67% returned the questionnaire. 92% of the nurses and 79% of the doctors stated that lack of resources related to all levels of medical and nursing care for ill elderly patients cause personal strain. Personnel shortage, lack of time and lack of money were the three most frequently mentioned causes of unsatisfactory coverage of basic needs. 29% said they experience reduced quality of medical treatment weekly or daily, while 25% stated that they meet reduced quality of diagnostics just as frequently. Even more often, the respondents experienced unsatisfactory coverage of hygiene and nutrition, but social needs and exercise were the most neglected areas. Nurses and doctors employed in nursing care institutions most frequently expressed that lack of resources have serious consequences for patients aged 75 years or older. INTERPRETATION Basic medical care for elderly ill patients is not sufficient with respect to diagnostics and medical treatment. In particular, nursing care and meeting the individuals' psychosocial needs are not prioritised highly enough. Both doctors and nurses frequently describe shortage of time as a problem. Poorly organized medical care, including lack of coordination, seems to be a continuous problem in health care for the elderly.
Paradoxical worsening of tuberculosis in HIV-infected persons.

OBJECTIVE To determine the incidence of paradoxical worsening of tuberculosis (TB) in HIV-infected persons. DESIGN Observational cohort study. SETTING Public, urban TB clinic. PATIENTS HIV-infected persons treated for TB between January 1, 1996, and December 31, 1999, and followed through June 30, 2000. INTERVENTION Patients received standard anti-TB therapy. Antiretroviral therapy was provided by primary medical providers. Patients receiving antiretroviral therapy were given nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors alone or highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART; nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors in combination with a protease inhibitor or a nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Paradoxical worsening of TB. RESULTS There were 82 TB cases in 76 patients. Paradoxical worsening was identified in 6 of 82 cases (7%; 95% confidence interval, 3 to 15%). Paradoxical worsening occurred in 3 of 28 cases (11%) in patients receiving HAART and in 3 of 44 cases (7%) in patients not receiving antiretroviral therapy (p = 0.67). Cases complicated by paradoxical worsening were more likely to have both pulmonary and extrapulmonary disease at initial diagnosis than cases without paradoxical worsening (83% vs 24%; p = 0.006). TB relapse occurred in 2 of 6 cases (33%) in patients with paradoxical worsening and in 4 of 76 cases (5%) in patients without paradoxical worsening (p = 0.06). CONCLUSIONS Paradoxical worsening of TB occurred less frequently than in previous reports and was not associated with HAART. Paradoxical worsening also appeared to be associated with an increased risk of TB relapse. Further studies are warranted to better characterize the risk factors for paradoxical worsening and the appropriate duration of anti-TB therapy in patients in whom it occurs.
A New Framework for Cognitive Mobility of Visually Impaired Users in Using Tactile Device

This paper proposes a novel framework for a better understanding of human cognitive locomotion and its interaction with the new tactile technologies that assist mobility and the acquisition of spatial knowledge in the absence of sight [case of visually impaired people (VIP), seniors, etc.]. Unlike the existing mobility models, the proposed framework encompasses four elements: 1) walking with obstacle avoidance, 2) orientation, 3) spatial awareness, and 4) actual physical displacement, and is based on the concept of the tactile gist, a refreshable (dynamic) egocentric tactile representation of the perceived scene. The relevance of the tactile gist concept for achieving the assistance of human mobility has been evaluated with three basic original spatial experiments (homing with obstacle avoidance, localization of a passage and its size estimation, and navigation in an apartment) using a purposely designed perception-movement platform and a touch stimulating tangible wearable refreshable device. The collected results show that the tactile gist might be considered as a scene representation and should be integrated into an assistive device for sightless people. The proposed approach may impact the design of mobility aids for VIP as it reinforces their natural mobility skills and may lead to new mobility strategies of VIP in (un-)known environment.
Cortisol levels and time-discounting of monetary gain in humans

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between cortisol levels and preference to a small immediate over a larger delayed monetary reward. The degree of preference to a small immediate reward (a time-discounting rate) was investigated with an economic decision-making task in which each subject made an inter-temporal choice between (a) 10 000 yen available immediately and (b) an equal or larger amount of money after a delay of one year. The time-discounting rate was defined as [the required minimal amount of the delayed monetary gain for (b) to be preferred]-10 000/10 000. Low cortisol levels were shown to associate with a large time-discounting rate, indicating that subjects with low cortisol levels may be impulsive in inter-temporal choice.
Gender‐specific disease modification by NOS3

Recent evidence suggests that the pulmonary phenotypes of both sickle cell disease (SCD) and cystic fibrosis (CF) are modified by genetic variants of constitutive nitric oxide synthases (NOS). Initial studies have shown associations of repeat polymorphisms in NOS1 with the fraction of exhaled NO in both conditions and additionally with acute chest syndrome (ACS) in SCD (Sullivan et al, 2001), as well as the rate of airway colonization with certain pathogens (Grasemann et al, 2000) and the decline in pulmonary function (Texereau et al, 2004) in CF patients. Sharan et al (2004) extended the view of the role of NOS genetics in SCD by showing that the T-786C polymorphism in the NOS3 gene, which, similar to NOS1, also encodes for a NOS isoform that is constitutively expressed in the airways, was also associated with ACS in patients with SCD. Of interest, this association was only seen in female but not male SCD patients (Sharan et al, 2004). Therefore, as the authors conclude, NOS3 T-786C may be the first polymorphism identified to function as a gender-specific modifier in SCD. We find this observation is interesting, as it parallels recent findings from our group in patients with CF. In this investigation, we studied the E298D variant in NOS3 in CF and found a significant association of this genetic marker with both exhaled NO and colonization of airways with Pseudomonas aeruginosa but, similar to the findings of Sharan et al (2004) in SCD, this association was only seen in female but not male patients (Grasemann et al, 2003). These differences between sexes could possibly be explained by modulation of NOS3 activity through circulating oestrogen, resulting in differences of NO formation in pulmonary vascular endothelium between females and males. Exhaled NO is significantly lower in healthy females compared with males, and in the case of relative NO deficiency, such as in SCD and CF, NOS3 variants associated with altered response to female hormones may then be relevant for the pathophysiology of the disease. Therefore, it is of interest to know, whether Dr Sharan and colleagues had the opportunity to perform an analysis of the frequency of ACS in prepubertal SCD females in relation to NOS3 genotype. If the relative risk for females carrying the C-786 allele is only increased after the onset of puberty, this may give rise to the underlying biological mechanisms of the genetic association found.
A fully packaged true time delay module for a K-band phased array antenna system demonstration

A 1-to-64 [6-bit(2/sup 6/)] optical true-time delay module is designed, fabricated, and packaged for squint-free beam steering in phased array antennas, providing linear time delays ranging from 0 to 443.03 ps. The phases versus RF frequencies are measured to verify that the time delay is independent of RF frequencies. The optical true-time delay module is integrated into a K-band (18-26.5 GHz) phased-array antenna system. Far-field patterns at different frequencies over the entire K-band are measured and compared with simulated results to verify the system's wide instantaneous RF bandwidth. The Q factor is measured to be 10.20 of the true-time delay optical link transmitting 2.5-Gb/s random digital signal.