Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors influencing job satisfaction among registered nurses: a questionnaire survey in Mashhad, Iran.

BACKGROUND Job satisfaction is a critical factor in health care. Strong empirical evidence supports a causal relationship between job satisfaction, patient safety and quality of care. OBJECTIVE To determine the level of nurses' job satisfaction and its associated factors. METHOD A stratified random sample of 421 registered nurses working at a large hospital in Mashhad, Iran was surveyed. RESULT The results showed that autonomy, task requirement and work interaction had scores higher than their respective median on the subscales. There were significant differences between demographic characteristics and the autonomy, task requirement, work interaction, salary, work condition, professional development, supportive nursing management, decision making, professional status subscales and mean total job satisfaction. In univariate analysis, young age, being female and being married were significantly associated with a higher level of job satisfaction. The adjusted R(2) for this model was 0.14, indicating that the model explained 14% of the variability. The regression model was highly significant, F (4298) = 13.194, P < 0.001. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT The authors emphasise that the human resources policies and incentives need to be re-visited. Efforts undertaken to improve working conditions, supportive nursing management, improved professional status, professional development and increased salaries are some of the ways for nurse managers to improve job satisfaction.
Congenital palmar polyonychia with postaxial limb defects may be the same as the ulnar–mammary syndrome

I read, with interest, the article by Román Corona-Rivera et al. [2004], describing a female infant with 5th finger congenital palmar polyonychia (CPP) and her sister with bilateral ulnar agenesis and postaxial oligodactyly. Although the authors may be correct in suggesting that these features constitute a novel CPP-postaxial limb defect disorder, they do not discuss the phenotypic overlap with the ulnar–mammary syndrome (UMS). Duplication of the nail on the ventral (volar) surface of the 5th digit was described by Bamshad et al. [1996] in 5 of 33 members from a large UMS pedigree. Figures 3 and 4 in that paper illustrate ectopic positioning of the nail of the 5th digit and absence of the interphalangeal creases, as seen in Patient 1 reported by Román Corona-Rivera et al. [2004]. Similar dorsalization of the ventral surface of the 5th digit with duplication of the nail-bed is shown in Figure 1B in a further paper by the same group [Bamshad et al., 1999]. Deficiency of the ulna, metacarpals, and phalanges of digits 3, 4, and 5, as observed in Patient 2, is an integral feature of UMS [Bamshad et al., 1999]. Meanwhile, the absence of mammary and apocrine gland abnormalities in these siblings is consistent with the highly variable clinical expression seen in UMS, whilst the documented non-penetrance in that disorder could explain the normal phenotype in their parents. As suggested by the authors, the disorder in these children relates to a disturbance in the specification of the dorsal/ ventral axis of the forelimb. For the reasons given above, I would suggest screening TBX3 in this family.
Role of Autochthonous Filamentous Fungi in Bioremediation of a Soil Historically Contaminated with Aromatic Hydrocarbons

ABSTRACT Nine fungal strains isolated from an aged and heavily contaminated soil were identified and screened to assess their degradative potential. Among them, Allescheriella sp. strain DABAC 1, Stachybotrys sp. strain DABAC 3, and Phlebia sp. strain DABAC 9 were selected for remediation trials on the basis of Poly R-478 decolorization associated with lignin-modifying enzyme (LME) production. These autochthonous fungi were tested for the abilities to grow under nonsterile conditions and to degrade various aromatic hydrocarbons in the same contaminated soil. After 30 days, fungal colonization was clearly visible and was confirmed by ergosterol determination. In spite of subalkaline pH conditions and the presence of heavy metals, the autochthonous fungi produced laccase and Mn and lignin peroxidases. No LME activities were detected in control microcosms. All of the isolates led to a marked removal of naphthalene, dichloroaniline isomers, o-hydroxybiphenyl, and 1,1′-binaphthalene. Stachybotrys sp. strain DABAC 3 was the most effective isolate due to its ability to partially deplete the predominant contaminants 9,10-anthracenedione and 7H-benz[DE]anthracen-7-one. A release of chloride ions was observed in soil treated with either Allescheriella sp. strain DABAC 1 or Stachybotrys sp. strain DABAC 3, suggesting the occurrence of oxidative dehalogenation. The autochthonous fungi led to a significant decrease in soil toxicity, as assessed by both the Lepidium sativum L. germination test and the Collembola mortality test.
Distributional Tensor Space Model of Natural Language Semantics

This thesis presents Distributional Tensor Space Model (DTSM) of natural language semantics. Vector-based distributional models of semantics have proven useful and adequate in a variety of natural language processing tasks, however most of them lack at least one of the following two key requirements: (1) sensitivity to structural information such as word order and (2) linguistically justified operations for semantic composition. Especially the problem of compositionality of natural language has been gaining in importance in the scientific community since 2008. The currently predominant methods are based on matrices, that is 2nd-order tensors. We propose a novel approach that offers a potential of integrating both aspects by employing 3d-order tensors that accounts for orderdependent word contexts and assigns to words characteristic matrices such that semantic composition can be realized in a linguistically and cognitively plausible way. The DTSM was evaluated on the existing reference datasets as well as on the self-initiated benchmarks that were provided for competitions at workshops co-located with top conferences in computational linguistics. The proposed model achieves state-of-the-art results for important tasks of linguistic semantics by using a relatively small text corpus, without any sophisticated preprocessing and ambitious parameter optimization.
Mother-infant interactions of medically fragile infants and non-chronically ill premature infants.

At 6 months corrected for prematurity, 41 medically fragile prematures, 20 medically fragile full-terms, and 28 prematures without chronic illnesses were observed interacting with their mothers for 1 hr. Mothers of non-chronically ill prematures gestured to and touched their infants less, were uninvolved with them for a longer time, and spent less time interacting and looking at their infants than did mothers of medically fragile infants. Medically fragile full-terms slept more than the non-chronically ill prematures. The non-chronically ill premature group played with objects more and exhibited more locomotion. Thus, the non-chronically ill prematures had more mature behaviors but less frequent interactions than did the medically fragile infants. These disparities reflect differences both in the infants' functional maturity and in maternal compensation for infant vulnerability.
Chlamydia trachomatis-Infected Epithelial Cells and Fibroblasts Retain the Ability To Express Surface-Presented Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I Molecules

ABSTRACT The obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis is the causative agent of a variety of infectious diseases such as trachoma and sexually transmitted diseases. In infected target cells, C. trachomatis replicates within parasitophorous vacuoles and expresses the protease-like activity factor CPAF. Previous studies have suggested that CPAF degrades the host transcription factors RFX5 and NF-κB p65, which are involved in the regulation of constitutive and inducible expression of major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC I). It was speculated that Chlamydia suppresses the surface presentation of MHC I in order to evade an effective immune response. Nevertheless, a recent study suggested that RFX5 and NF-κB p65 may not serve as target substrates for CPAF-mediated degradation, raising concerns about the proposed MHC I subversion by Chlamydia. Hence, we investigated the direct influence of Chlamydia on MHC I expression and surface presentation in infected host cells. By using nine different human cells and cell lines infected with C. trachomatis (serovar D or LGV2), we demonstrate that chlamydial infection does not interfere with expression, maturation, transport, and surface presentation of MHC I, suggesting functional antigen processing in bacterium-infected cells. Our findings provide novel insights into the interaction of chlamydiae with their host cells and should be taken into consideration for the design of future therapies and vaccines.
Temporal variation of tidal parameters in superconducting gravimeter time-series

Bruno Meurers,1 Michel Van Camp,2 Olivier Francis3 and Vojtech Pálinkáš4 1Department of Meteorology and Geophysics, University of Vienna, Austria. E-mail: bruno.meurers@univie.ac. at 2Royal Observatory of Belgium, 3 avenue Circulaire, B-1180 Brussels, Belgium 3Faculté des Sciences, de la Technologie et de la Communication, University of Luxembourg, 6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, L-1359 Luxembourg 4Research Institute of Geodesy, Topography and Cartography, Geodetic Observatory Pecný, Czech Republic
OUTER RETINA ANALYSIS BY OPTICAL COHERENCE TOMOGRAPHY IN CONE-ROD DYSTROPHY PATIENTS

Purpose: To analyze the outer retinal layers using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in patients with cone-rod dystrophy. Methods: The diagnosis of cone-rod dystrophy was determined by primary cone involvement or concomitant loss of both cones and rods. Electroretinography showed implicit time shift at 30-Hz flicker response and prevalent decrease of photopic over scotopic responses. Using SD-OCT, the outer retina was retrospectively evaluated in 24 eyes of 12 patients with cone-rod dystrophy. From the innermost to the outermost, the four studied hyperreflective outer retinal bands were labeled Band 1, the external limiting membrane; Band 2, the ellipsoid zone; Band 3, the interdigitation zone between the cone outer segments and the apical processes of the retinal pigment epithelium; and Band 4, the retinal pigment epithelium complex. Results: The mean age of study patients was 30 years, and the median visual acuity was 20/30. A ring maculopathy appearance involving the fovea area was observed in all study eyes. There was an absence of interdigitation zone in the entire length of SD-OCT scan, including the foveal area, in all 24 study eyes. Outside the foveal area, the external limiting membrane and ellipsoid zone were intact in all study eyes. The intensity of the ellipsoid zone was decreased in the entire length of SD-OCT scan in all study eyes. Within the foveal area, there was loss of the external limiting membrane and ellipsoid zone in 20 (83%) and 22 eyes (92%), respectively. The retinal pigment epithelium complex was identified in all study eyes. None of the study eyes revealed cystoid macular edema. Conclusion: SD-OCT scans demonstrated complete absence of the interdigitation zone in patients with cone-rod dystrophy. Consistent with the known histology of animal models of cone dystrophy, this finding may represent abnormal outer retinal morphology, including an absence of the outer segments themselves or a defective or absent interdigitation between the apical processes of the retinal pigment epithelium with the cone outer segments.
COMPARISON OF SERVICE QUALITY BETWEEN PRIVATE AND PUBLIC HOSPITALS : EMPIRICAL EVIDENCES FROM PAKISTAN

Healthcare sector of a country needs special attentions from the government as quality of healthcare provides hope and relief to the patients and their dependents. It also helps to maintain a healthy human capital that contributes in the development of the country. Now quality has become an icon for customers while availing any services or buying a product and it is also a strategic advantage for the organizations to gain success and remain competitive in the market by delivering superior quality of services or products based on customer requirements. The objective of this study is to compare the quality of healthcare services delivered by the public and private hospitals to gain patient satisfaction in Pakistan. For this purpose ‘SERVQUAL’ instrument was used to measure the patient’s perception about service quality delivered by these hospitals. Five service quality dimensions; empathy, tangibles, assurance, timeliness and assurance were used in order to measure the patient’s perceptions about the service quality of public and private hospitals located in the 2nd largest city Lahore, Pakistan . Due to the nature of this study only those respondents were included in the study having perceptions about both the hospitals. Therefore, 320 questionnaires were selected for this study. Results showed that private hospitals are delivering better quality of services to their patients as compared to public hospitals.
Opioids for the palliation of breathlessness in terminal illness.

BACKGROUND Breathlessness is a common symptom in people with advanced disease. The most effective treatments are aimed at treating the underlying cause of the breathlessness but this may not be possible and symptomatic treatment is often necessary. Strategies for the symptomatic treatment of breathlessness have never been systematically evaluated. Opioids are commonly used to treat breathlessness: the mechanisms underlying their effectiveness are not completely clear and there have been few good-sized trials in this area. OBJECTIVES To determine the effectiveness of opioid drugs given by any route in relieving the symptom of breathlessness in patients who are being treated palliatively. SEARCH STRATEGY An electronic search was carried out of Medline, Embase, Cinahl, the Cochrane library, Dissertation Abstracts, Cancercd and SIGLE. Review articles and reference lists of retrieved articles were hand searched. Date of most recent search: May 1999 SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised double-blind, controlled trials comparing the use of any opioid drug against placebo for the relief of breathlessness were included. Patients with any illness suffering from breathlessness were included and the intervention was any opioid, given by any route, in any dose. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Studies identified by the search were imported into a reference manager database. The full texts of the relevant studies were retrieved and data were independently extracted by two reviewers. Studies were quality scored according to the Jadad scale. The primary outcome measure used was breathlessness and the secondary outcome measure was exercise tolerance. Studies were divided into non-nebulised and nebulised and were analysed both separately and together. A qualitative analysis was carried out of adverse effects of opioids. Where appropriate, meta-analysis was carried out. MAIN RESULTS Eighteen studies were identified of which nine involved the non-nebulised route of administration and nine the nebulised route. A small but statistically significant positive effect of opioids was seen on breathlessness in the analysis of studies using non-nebulised opioids. There was no statistically significant positive effect seen for exercise tolerance in either group of studies or for breathlessness in the studies using nebulised opioids. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS There is evidence to support the use of oral or parenteral opioids to palliate breathlessness although numbers of patients involved in the studies were small. No evidence was found to support the use of nebulised opioids. Further research with larger numbers of patients, using standardised protocols and with quality of life measures is needed.
Aetiology of neonatal sepsis in Blantyre, Malawi: 1996–2001

Abstract Aim: The aim of this retrospective study was to report causes, antibiotic resistance and outcome of neonatal sepsis (often fatal in developing countries) in Malawi. Methods: All blood and cerebrospinal fluid isolates collected between January 1996 and December 2001 from inpatients aged 0–30 days with suspected sepsis at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre, Malawi were reviewed. In vitro resistance to antibiotics commonly used in Malawi was assessed. Case fatality rate was analysed with respect to age, bacterial pathogen and infection site. Results: A total of 801 bacteria were isolated from 784 neonates over 6 years—599 isolates from blood and 202 from cerebrospinal fluid. Overall, 54% of bacteria were gram-positive and 46% gram-negative. The commonest causes of neonatal sepsis were group B Streptococcus (17%) and non-typhoidal Salmonella (14%). In vitro antibiotic susceptibility to the first-line antibiotic combination of penicillin and gentamicin was 78% for all isolates, but in vitro sensitivities to gentamicin for Klebsiella spp and non-typhoidal Salmonella were only 33% and 53%, respectively. In-hospital case fatality rate was known for only 301 cases and was high at 48%. Group B Streptococcus was associated with the best outcome. Mortality was significantly higher if presentation was in the 1st week of life or if sepsis was caused by gram-negative bacteria. The causes of neonatal sepsis in this population show a different pattern from other studies in developing countries.
Dietary-resistant starch and glucose metabolism

Purpose of reviewRecent findings in animal models suggest that resistant starch is beneficial for both body weight regulation and glycaemic control. The purpose of this review is to summarize the current evidence and recommendations in humans. Recent findingsWhen resistant starch replaces available carbohydrate in a meal, postprandial glycaemia is reduced. There are some data to suggest that resistant starch may affect glycaemia even when the available carbohydrate portion remains constant; however, there is inconsistency in the literature. Recent animal data suggest that chronic resistant starch feeding upregulates glucagon-like peptide 1 expression in the large bowel with concomitant increases in neuropeptide expression in the hypothalamus, combining to result in weight loss and improvements in glycaemic control. However, to date there is no evidence for this in humans. SummaryResistant starch may have a role in glycaemic control in healthy individuals and those with type 2 diabetes; however, there are limited interventional trials in humans to support this. There are no data concerning resistant starch feeding in human diabetes and as such no health recommendation can be made.
Governance strategies in local government: A study of the governance of municipal corporations in a Swedish municipality

Municipal corporations can be seen as a method of disintegrating municipal operations, but retaining control through those corporations. We assume that the municipal influence of the corporation can be described through the concept of governance strategy. Through a case study of seven corporations in one Swedish municipality, we found that emphasis was put on corporate strategy as a governance mechanism and that the board only retained a latent capacity. Furthermore, financial control and executive compensation were hardly ever used as governance mechanisms, which led us to formulate the 'chamber concert' hypothesis: the use of governance mechanisms is influenced by traditions, norms, knowledge and governance needs.
GABAergic and non‐GABAergic projections of accessory optic nuclei, including the visual tegmental relay zone, to the nucleus of the optic tract and dorsal terminal accessory optic nucleus in rat

This study examines the non‐γ‐amino butyric acid (GABA)ergic (group I neurons) and GABAergic neurons (group II neurons) of the accessory optic system projecting to the nucleus of the optic tract (NOT)/dorsal terminal nucleus (DTN) of the accessory optic system in rat. These nuclei include the dorsal (MTNd) and ventral (MTNv) divisions of the medial terminal nucleus, the lateral terminal nucleus, the interstitial nucleus of the superior fasciculus, the posterior fibers, and the visual tegmental relay zone. GABAergic neurons of these nuclei that do not target the NOT/DTN (group III neurons) have also been observed. The fluorescent retrograde tracer fluoro‐gold was injected into the pretectum, targeting the NOT/DTN and the tissue prepared immunocytochemically to reveal neurons containing the neurotransmitter GABA.
First trimester screening for Down syndrome and assisted reproduction: no basis for concern

In pregnancies obtained after assisted reproduction the false‐positive rate of second trimester Down syndrome (DS) screening is increased by 1.5–3‐fold. This may cause an increase in the number of amniocenteses and the fetal loss rate. The present study for the first time examined whether assisted reproductive technologies affect the results of first trimester screening. The markers PAPP‐A, free β‐hCG and the nuchal translucency (NT) thickness were examined at 12–14 weeks' gestation. Screening markers in 47 in vitro fertilisation (IVF), 63 ovulation induction (OI) and 3026 spontaneously conceived singleton pregnancies were compared. The MoM (multiples of the median) value in the IVF pregnancies was 1.02 (95% CI: 0.85–1.22) for PAPP‐A, 1.14 (95% CI: 0.95–1.37) for β‐hCG and 0.97 (95% CI: 0.89–1.05) for NT; the MoM value in the OI pregnancies was 0.89 (95% CI: 0.76–1.05) for PAPP‐A, 1.08 (95% CI: 0.93–1.25) for β‐hCG and 1.02 (95% CI: 0.95–1.11) for NT. The first trimester marker values in assisted reproductive pregnancies and spontaneously conceived pregnancies were not significantly different. Estimated false‐positive rates for a risk cut‐off of 1:400 varied from 4.7% in IVF pregnancies to 5.1% in OI pregnancies. Therefore the false‐positive rate in Down syndrome screening should be independent of the method of conception. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.