Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patient Expectations of Functional Outcomes After Rectal Cancer Surgery: A Qualitative Study

BACKGROUND: Rectal cancer patients’ expectations of health and function may affect their disease- and treatment-related experience, but how patients form expectations of postsurgery function has received little study. OBJECTIVE: We used a qualitative approach to explore patient expectations of outcomes related to bowel function after sphincter-preserving surgery for rectal cancer. DESIGN: This was a cohort study of patients who were about to undergo sphincter-preserving surgery for rectal cancer. SETTINGS: The study was conducted through individual telephone interviews with participants. PATIENTS: Twenty-six patients (14 men and 12 women) with clinical TNM stage I to III disease were enrolled. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The semistructured interview script contained open-ended questions on patient expectations of postoperative bowel function and its perceived impact on daily function and life. Two researchers analyzed the interview transcripts for emergent themes using a grounded theory approach. RESULTS: Participant expectations of bowel function reflected 3 major themes: 1) information sources, 2) personal attitudes, and 3) expected outcomes. The expected outcomes theme contained references to specific symptoms and participants’ descriptions of the certainty, importance, and imminence of expected outcomes. Despite multiple information sources and attempts at maintaining a positive personal attitude, participants expressed much uncertainty about their long-term bowel function. They were more focused on what they considered more important and imminent concerns about being cancer free and getting through surgery. LIMITATIONS: This study was limited by context in terms of the timing of interviews (relative to the treatment course). The transferability to other contexts requires further study. CONCLUSIONS: Patient expectations of long-term functional outcomes cannot be considered outside of the overall context of the cancer experience and the relative importance and imminence of cancer- and treatment-related events. Recognizing the complexities of the expectation formation process offers opportunities to develop strategies to enhance patient education and appropriately manage expectations, attend to immediate and long-term concerns, and support patients through the treatment and recovery process.
Alcohol consumption and alcohol-related problems among Vietnamese medical students.

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS This study examined prevalence and predictors of alcohol consumption and alcohol problems in a sample of medical students in Vietnam. DESIGN AND METHODS A cross-sectional survey using a multi-stage cluster sampling approach was conducted in 2007 in two universities in Vietnam. The students (n = 619, 100% response rate) completed questionnaires based on the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test. A score of >or=8 defined presence of alcohol problems. Data analyses adjusted for the cluster sampling approach. RESULTS Overall 65.5% of students had drunk alcohol during the previous year while alcohol problems were detected in 12.5%. Male students, students who reported that their family members drank and students who reported that their flat mates were drinking were more likely to be current drinkers. Male students were 14.3 times more likely to have an Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test score of >or=8 compared with female students (P = 0.005). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Intervention programs focusing on male students and their social environment are warranted. As Vietnamese society rapidly modernises prevention programs for female students may also be needed.
An analysis of the systemic aspects of rights training for people with intellectual disabilities

Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) as a group have been subject to abuse. Individuals with ID need to be made aware of their rights. The 3Rs: Rights, Respect and Responsibility Human Rights Project is promoting rights awareness in individuals with ID, their caregivers and family members. To be effeCtive, abuse prevention must include support from the whole organization and its processes. This research evaluated the impact of the 3Rs initiative on the organization. It focused particularly on descriptions of organizational change perceived by full-time staff and managers in response to the initiation of the 3Rs Project. Behavioural interviews were conducted and a thematic analysis was used to describe changes in the organizational culture and behavioural mechanisms maintaining these changes. Systemic barriers to change were also explored. The results indicate that the Association is effectively implementing and supporting the rights-based philosophy. Systemic Analysis of 3Rs Project 111
Microbiological culture analysis of the tongue anaerobic microflora in subjects with and without halitosis.

OBJECTIVE Determination of the microflora present on the tongue dorsum of subjects with and without halitosis using conventional microbiological culture methods. METHODS Twenty-one halitosis and 20 control patients were recruited using a strict clinical protocol. Samples were collected from the posterior dorsum of the tongue using a sterile brush. Each sample was vortex mixed for 30 s and serial 10-fold dilutions to 10(-7) were carried out. Samples were plated onto fastidious anaerobe agar (FAA) and FAA enriched with vancomycin. These were incubated under anaerobic conditions for 10 days at 37 degrees C. Strict anaerobes were identified by metronidazole sensitivity and bacteria were identified to genus level by a combination of colony morphology, Gram staining and biochemical and enzymatic tests (rapid ID 32 A). RESULTS The predominant species in test and control groups were Veillonella sp. and Prevotella sp. Greater species diversity was found in the halitosis samples compared with controls. The halitosis samples contained an increased incidence of unidentifiable Gram-negative rods, Gram-positive rods and Gram-negative coccobacilli. CONCLUSIONS There was no obvious association between halitosis and any specific bacterial genus. The increased species diversity found in halitosis samples suggests that halitosis may be the result of complex interactions between several bacterial species. The role of uncultivable bacteria may also be important in contributing to this process.
Twitter as Virtual Town Square: Citizen Engagement During a Nationally Televised Republican Primary Debate

The Internet and social media create a geographically independent virtual town square (Kavanaugh, Perez-Quinones, Tedesco, & Sanders, 2010) that transforms citizen participation in political discourse. In our study, we examine over 185,420 publically available Twitter messages (hashtag #CNNDebate) during a Republican Primary Debate in November 2011, hosted by CNN and viewed by over 3.5 million individuals in the United States. Through analysis of how individuals use the syntactical features of Twitter such as @-mentions, @Reply’s, hashtags, links and retweets we identify how civic discourse occurs at different phases of a televised debate. Understanding how individuals engage with each other in an open forum has broad implications for understanding social media’s effect on civic engagement and information diffusion among elected officials, candidates and citizens. Our findings suggest that a significant number of the syntactical features specific to Twitter such as retweeting, @reply’s and hashtags are utilized to relay information, engage in discourse and create new threads of discourse related to issues that are brought up during the debate.
Reducing Food Waste in Large-Scale Institutions and Hospitals: Insights From Interviews With Danish Foodservice Professionals

This study aimed to explore and understand foodservice professionals’ experiences and perceived barriers toward strategies of reducing food waste in large scale institutional kitchens. Explorative semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with eight foodservice professionals from four different foodservice institutions. Interviews were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. The results revealed nine main themes: forecasting and portion flexibility, routine monitoring, current strategies in use, enhancing internal awareness, collaboration through communication, taking on responsibility, attitude and habits, regulatory constraints and competing priorities. These findings highlight the importance of understanding barriers to overcoming the challenges foodservice professionals face in reducing food waste.
Pretreatment prostate‐specific antigen velocity is associated with development of distant metastases and prostate cancer mortality in men treated with radiotherapy and androgen‐deprivation therapy

In men with prostate cancer, pretreatment prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) velocity (PSAV) has been demonstrated as a predictor of biochemical and survival outcomes in patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (RP). The utility of pretreatment PSAV in predicting outcomes after radiotherapy (RT), with or without androgen‐deprivation therapy (ADT), is less certain. This study was undertaken to determine whether pretreatment PSAV is associated with biochemical disease‐free survival, patterns of recurrence, and survival outcomes in men treated with radiation therapy and ADT.
Real-time eye feature tracking from a video image sequence using Kalman filter

Monitoring eye movements using video cameras has the advantage of being nonintrusive, inexpensive and automated. The main objective of this paper is to propose an efficient approach for real-time eye feature tracking from a sequence of eye images. To this end, first we formulate a model for eye feature tracking, which relates the measurements from the eye images to the tracking parameters. In our model, the center of the iris is chosen as the tracking parameter vector and the gray level centroid of the eye is chosen as the measurement vector. In our procedure for evaluating the gray level centroid, the preprocessing step such as edge detection and curve fitting need to be performed only for the first frame of the image sequence. A discrete Kalman constructed for the recursive estimation features, while taking into account the measurement noise. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy aspects and the real-time applicability of the proposed approach.
Value of FDG PET/Contrast-Enhanced CT in Initial Staging of Colorectal Cancer - Comparison with Contrast-Enhanced CT.

BACKGROUND FDG PET/CT is at an equivocal stage to recommend for staging of colorectal cancer as compared to contrast-enhanced CT (ceCT). This study was intended to evaluate the value of FDG PET/ceCT in colorectal cancer staging as compared to ceCT alone. MATERIALS AND METHODS PET/ceCT was performed for 61 colorectal cancer patients who were prospectively enrolled in the study. Three patients were excluded due to loss to follow-up. PET/ceCT findings and ceCT results alone were read separately. The treatment planning was then determined by tumor board consensus. The criteria for T staging were determined by the findings of ceCT. Nodal positive by PET/ceCT imaging was determined by visual analysis of FDG uptake greater than regional background blood pool activity. The diagnostic accuracy of T and N staging was determined only in patients who received surgery without any neoadjuvant treatment. RESULTS Of 58 patients, there were 40 with colon cancers including sigmoid cancers and 18 with rectal cancers. PET/ceCT in pre-operative staging detected bone metastasis and metastatic inguinal lymph nodes (M1a) that were undepicted on CT in 2 patients (3%), clearly de ned 19 equivocal lesions on ceCT in 18 patients (31%) and excluded 6 metastatic lesions diagnosed by ceCT in 6 patients (10%). These resulted in alteration of management plan in 15 out of the 58 cases (26%) i.e. changing from chemotherapy to surgery (4), changing extent of surgery (9) and avoidance of futile surgery (2). Forty four patients underwent surgery within 45 days after PET/CT. The diagnostic accuracy for N staging with PET/ceCT and ceCT alone was 66% and 48% with false positive rates of 24% (6/25) and 76% (19/25) and false negative rates of 47% (9/19) and 21% (4/19), respectively. All of the false negative lymph nodes from PET/ceCT were less than a centimeter in size and located in peri-lesional regions. The diagnostic accuracy for T staging was 82%. The sensitivity of the peri-lesional fat stranding sign in determining T3 stage was 94% and the specificity was 54%. CONCLUSIONS Our study suggested promising roles of PET/ceCT in initial staging of colorectal cancer with better diagnostic accuracy facilitating management planning.
B‐cell epitopes of antigenic proteins in Leishmania infantum: an in silico analysis

Serodiagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis is often hindered by cross‐reactions to other parasitic diseases. Identifying specific B‐cell epitopes in proteins is therefore important for immunodiagnostics, as well as for disease control by vaccines. This study aimed to identify linear and conformational B‐cell epitopes and to evaluate the secondary structure of antigen proteins in Leishmania infantum using in silico analysis. Linear epitopes were predicted using the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource (IEDB), BepiPred and BcePred programs. The conformational B‐cell epitopes were identified using the CBTOPE server. The combination of the predictions using IEDB, BepiPred and BcePred generated 148 linear epitopes from the calpain‐like cysteine peptidase (CP), thiol‐dependent reductase 1 (TDR1) and HSP70 proteins. In total, 164 conformational epitopes were predicted, mostly located in the linear epitope region. The predicted epitopes are located in α helix and random coil regions in the thiol‐dependent reductase 1 and HSP70 proteins. New linear and conformational B‐cell epitopes of L. infantum proteins were identified in silico, and the prediction using various programs ensures greater accuracy of the results, as suggested by confirmation of previously identified HSP70 epitopes.
Leadership and Cultural Change: Necessary Components of a Lean Transformation

Some of the presenters at the Lean Construction Institute’s 2010 and 2011 Lean Congresses reported that organizations on Lean Construction journeys must undergo a cultural change as an essential element of their transformation (Giuzio 2010, Lichtig 2010, Angelo 2010, Izuierdo 2010, Montero 2010). Some also identified effective leadership as an important element of successful cultural change (Giuzio 2011, Lichtig 2011, Angelo 2011, Reiser 2011, Laski 2011, McCready 2011, Lindsey 2011). Some companies have detoured from Lean because they didn't know how to make the cultural change necessary to create company-wide transformation (Beaudoline 2011, Heger 2011, Knapp 2011, Fauchier 2011, Osterling 2011, Robinson 2011, Holzemer 2011, Moore 2011). What is “cultural change” and "effective leadership" in the context of a Lean Construction transformation? This paper describes the preliminary results of research relating to the cultural change of construction companies on Lean journeys. It addresses leadership’s role in making a cultural change to Lean. The paper is based on presentations by Lean practitioners, interviews with CEOs, project managers, superintendents and others who have been on Lean Construction journeys as well as a literature search of organizational development models that could help construction leaders create the cultural change necessary to sustain Lean. The paper identifies a model, borrowed from research related to high performance teams, which could help support a Lean transformation.
Efficient approximate robust MPC based on quad-tree partitioning

Recently, the approximate solutions to the infinite horizon min-max model predictive control with a time-varying terminal cost and constraint have been explicitly characterized in the form of a piecewise affine (PWA) state feedback law defined on an orthogonal partition of the state-space [M.T. Cychowski, T. O'Mahony, 2005]. The advantage of this formulation is the reduction in online computational complexity which amounts to the evaluation of a PWA function in the control unit. This paper extends the authors work in "efficient off-line solutions to robust model predictive control using orthogonal partitioning". In order to accommodate a wider class of systems, a nominal performance cost is chosen to substitute the "worst-case" one in the existing MPC technique. Robust exponential stability of the controller is established by means of satisfaction of certain linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). The proposed approach is applied to control a current loop of a permanent-magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) and an uncertain double integrator
A microRNA panel to discriminate carcinomas from high-grade intraepithelial neoplasms in colonoscopy biopsy tissue

Objective It is a challenge to differentiate invasive carcinomas from high-grade intraepithelial neoplasms in colonoscopy biopsy tissues. In this study, microRNA profiles were evaluated in the transformation of colorectal carcinogenesis to discover new molecular markers for identifying a carcinoma in colonoscopy biopsy tissues where the presence of stromal invasion cells is not detectable by microscopic analysis. Methods The expression of 723 human microRNAs was measured in laser capture microdissected epithelial tumours from 133 snap-frozen surgical colorectal specimens. Three well-known classification algorithms were used to derive candidate biomarkers for discriminating carcinomas from adenomas. Quantitative reverse-transcriptase PCR was then used to validate the candidates in an independent cohort of macrodissected formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded colorectal tissue samples from 91 surgical resections. The biomarkers were applied to differentiate carcinomas from high-grade intraepithelial neoplasms in 58 colonoscopy biopsy tissue samples with stromal invasion cells undetectable by microscopy. Results One classifier of 14 microRNAs was identified with a prediction accuracy of 94.1% for discriminating carcinomas from adenomas. In formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded surgical tissue samples, a combination of miR-375, miR-424 and miR-92a yielded an accuracy of 94% (AUC=0.968) in discriminating carcinomas from adenomas. This combination has been applied to differentiate carcinomas from high-grade intraepithelial neoplasms in colonoscopy biopsy tissues with an accuracy of 89% (AUC=0.918). Conclusions This study has found a microRNA panel that accurately discriminates carcinomas from high-grade intraepithelial neoplasms in colonoscopy biopsy tissues. This microRNA panel has considerable clinical value in the early diagnosis and optimal surgical decision-making of colorectal cancer.
Boundary Layer Flow of a Casson Nanofluid past a Vertical Exponentially Stretching Cylinder in the Presence of a Transverse Magnetic Field with Internal Heat Generation/Absorption

 Abstract — An analysis is carried out to investigate the effect of magnetic field and heat source on the steady boundary layer flow and heat transfer of a Casson nanofluid over a vertical cylinder stretching exponentially along its radial direction. Using a similarity transformation, the governing mathematical equations, with the boundary conditions are reduced to a system of coupled, non –linear ordinary differential equations. The resulting system is solved numerically by the fourth order Runge – Kutta scheme with shooting technique. The influence of various physical parameters such as Reynolds number, Prandtl number, magnetic field, Brownian motion parameter, thermophoresis parameter, Lewis number and the natural convection parameter are presented graphically and discussed for non – dimensional velocity, temperature and nanoparticle volume fraction. Numerical data for the skin – friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and the local Sherwood number have been tabulated for various parametric conditions. It is found that the local Nusselt number is a decreasing function of Brownian motion parameter Nb and the thermophoresis parameter Nt.
Metabolomics-Coupled Functional Pharmacology of Chlorophyll Compounds Isolated From the Leaves of Ficus Exasperata Vahl (Moraceae) Provides Novel Pathways on Myometrial Activity

New chlorophyll derivatives (pheophytins along with pheophorbide derivatives) were isolated from the leaves of Ficus exasperata and were found to have varying effects on uterine contractility. The current study was therefore aimed at the utilization of mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy coupled with isolated uterine tissue assay as a platform to assist in the determination of the mechanism of activity of the isolated chlorophyll compounds from the plant F exasperata. The pheophytin and pheophorbide compounds (200 µg/mL) were added to the isolated uterine tissues. Mice uteri, treated with the pheophytin compounds, and the physiological buffer in which the uterine tissues were immersed, were rapidly collected and analyzed using high-resolution Fourier transform mass spectrometry and proton (1H) nuclear magnetic resonance for bioinformatics study. Resulting data were analyzed via pairwise chemometric comparison models, with P < . 05 considered statistically significant. Primary signaling pathways found to be correlated with the pheophytins in this study included cyclic adenosine monophosphate, dopamine, extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1/2, and glutamate pathways.
Ocular motor abnormalities in ataxia telangiectasia

Although abnormal eye movements are a prominent feature of ataxia telangiectasia, the characteristics of the oculomotor dysfunction in the disease have been reported only in small groups of patients. We have examined eye movements clinically in 56 patients with ataxia telangiectasia, and obtained electrooculographic recordings of eye movements in 33 subjects. Deficits were observed in the eye movement systems that stabilize images on the retina, including pursuit, gaze holding, convergence, vestibular and optokinetic slow phases, and cancellation of vestibular slow phases. Abnormalities in the systems that maintain fixation and shift gaze were also prominent, including abnormal reflexive and voluntary saccades (characterized by prolonged latency, hypometric amplitude, and the use of head movements to initiate gaze shifts), impaired fixation, and a reduction in vestibular and optokinetic quick phases. The abnormalities in image stabilization most likely result from dysfunction in the cerebellar flocculus and paraflocculus. The basis of the saccadic and fixation disturbance is less certain but may be the result of abnormal supranuclear control of the superior colliculus resulting from dysfunction in the cerebellar vermis or the basal ganglia.