Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementing family communication pathway in neurosurgical patients in an intensive care unit

Abstract Objective: Family-centered care provides family members with basic needs, which includes information, reassurance, and support. Though national guidelines exist, clinical adoption often lags behind in this area. The Geisinger Health System developed and implemented a program for reliable delivery of best practices related to family communication to patients and families admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Method: Using a quasiexperimental study design and the 24-item Family Satisfaction in the Intensive Care Unit questionnaire (FSICU–24©) to determine family satisfaction, we measured the impact of a “family communication pathway” facilitated by tools built into the electronic health record on the family satisfaction of neurosurgical patients admitted to the ICU. Results: There was no statistically significant difference noted in family satisfaction as determined by FSICU–24 scores, including the Care and Decision Making constructs between the pre- and post-intervention pilot population. The percentage of families reporting the occurrence of a family conference showed only minimal improvement, from 46.5% before to 52.5% following the intervention (p = 0.565). This was mirrored by low numbers of documented family conferences by providers, suggesting poor uptake despite buy-in, use of electronic checklists, and repeated attempts at education. Significance of results: This paper reviews the challenges to and implications for implementing national guidelines in the area of family communication in an ICU coupled with the principles of clinical reengineering.
Human papillomaviruses in anogenital warts in children: typing by in situ hybridisation.

OBJECTIVE--To identify the types of human papillomaviruses found in anogenital warts in children and to relate these to clinical and social information. DESIGN--In situ hybridisation using biotin labelled DNA probes to 11 types of human papillomavirus was performed on biopsy specimens from 17 children with anogenital warts. SETTING--Nuffield department of pathology and the department of dermatology, Oxford. PATIENTS--Children in one group were referred by general practitioners or paediatricians to the dermatology department, where biopsies were performed. The other children were seen in four different hospitals, and biopsy specimens were submitted to the laboratory at the physician's or pathologist's request. RESULTS--Of the 17 biopsy specimens, 10 contained cells positive with a probe to a genital human papillomavirus type (types 6 or 11), while six were positive with a skin virus type (types 2 or 3). One was negative. The virus type present bore no relation to the site or appearance of the warts. The virus type did, however, appear to correlate with groups of children. Skin types were commoner in older children (over 4 years), in those with a relative who had skin warts, and in children with warts elsewhere; there was no relation with the child's sex and no suspicion of sexual abuse in these children. These circumstances suggested non-sexual transmission, such as autoinoculation. In contrast, genital types were commoner in girls, in children under 3 years, in children with relatives with genital warts, and in those with no warts elsewhere. Nevertheless, there was suspicion or evidence of sexual abuse in only half these children, suggesting that other routes of transmission--for example, perinatal--might have been implicated. CONCLUSION--Anogenital warts in children may contain either skin or genital wart virus type. Although the type of human papillomavirus present may give some indication of the likely mode of transmission, this can be interpreted only in conjunction with all available clinical and social information. The type of virus does not provide proof of the presence or absence of sexual transmission.
The Reliability and Validity of Fatigue Measures During Multiple-Sprint Work: An Issue Revisited

Glaister, M, Howatson, G, Pattison, JR, and McInnes, G. The reliability and validity of fatigue measures during multiple-sprint work: an issue revisited. J Strength Cond Res 22(5): 1597-1601, 2008-The ability to repeatedly produce a high-power output or sprint speed is a key fitness component of most field and court sports. The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of eight different approaches to quantify this parameter in tests of multiple-sprint performance. Ten physically active men completed two trials of each of two multiple-sprint running protocols with contrasting recovery periods. Protocol 1 consisted of 12 × 30-m sprints repeated every 35 seconds; protocol 2 consisted of 12 × 30-m sprints repeated every 65 seconds. All testing was performed in an indoor sports facility, and sprint times were recorded using twin-beam photocells. All but one of the formulae showed good construct validity, as evidenced by similar within-protocol fatigue scores. However, the assumptions on which many of the formulae were based, combined with poor or inconsistent test-retest reliability (coefficient of variation range: 0.8-145.7%; intraclass correlation coefficient range: 0.09-0.75), suggested many problems regarding logical validity. In line with previous research, the results support the percentage decrement calculation as the most valid and reliable method of quantifying fatigue in tests of multiple-sprint performance.
Color Doppler ultrasonography in ocular Behçet's disease.

PURPOSE The aim of this prospective study was to assess the ocular hemodynamic changes in patients with Behcet's disease who had involvement of the posterior segment by color Doppler ultrasonography. METHODS The present study was carried out in 32 eyes of 24 patients with ocular Behcet's disease and 42 eyes of 21 persons as a healthy age-matched control group. In order to detect the hemodynamic changes in ocular Behcet's disease, peak systolic and end-diastolic velocities (PSV, EDV; cm/sec), resistive and pulsatile indices (RI, PI), and PSV/EDV ratio of central retinal artery (CRA), short posterior ciliary artery (PCA) and ophthalmic artery (OA) were determined. RESULTS The mean PSV and EDV (8.1+/-2.6 and 2.7+/-0.1 cm/sec, respectively) in the CRA were significantly lower in patients with Behcet's disease than in healthy controls (11.5+/-2.2 and 3.5+/-1.0 cm/sec, respectively, p<0.001). For the PCA, these values (12.7+/-4.2 and 4.3+/-1.1 cm/sec, respectively) were significantly lower in the patient group than in the control the group (18.2+/-4.2 and 6.1+/-2.5 cm/sec, respectively, p<0.001). In the patient group, a statistically significant decrease compared to the control group was detected in the mean PSV of the OA (31.8+/-8.2 and 35.8+/-0.6 cm/sec, respectively, p<0.02). However, no significant difference in the other parameters of these vessels was observed between groups. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate the presence of some circulatory changes in the flow velocities of the CRA, PCA and OA in patients with Behcet's disease when compared with control subjects.
Pharmacokinetics of Gentamicin C1, C1a, and C2 in Beagles after a Single Intravenous Dose

ABSTRACT The pharmacokinetics of gentamicin C1, C2, and C1a were studied in six beagles after administration of gentamicin at 4 mg/kg of body weight as a single intravenous bolus dose. Plasma concentrations of the gentamicin components were analyzed with a novel high-performance liquid chromatography method capable of identifying and quantifying each of the components. The pharmacokinetic analysis of the plasma concentration-versus-time data was performed using the noncompartmental approach. The results indicated significant differences in the pharmacokinetic characteristics between the gentamicin components C1, C1a, and C2. The mean residence times of gentamicin C1, C1a, and C2 were 81 ± 13, 84 ± 12, and 79 ± 13 min (mean ± standard deviation), respectively. The half-lives of the respective components were 64 ± 12, 66 ± 12 and 63 ± 12 min. Clearance (CL) of gentamicin C1, 4.62 ± 0.71 ml min−1 kg−1, was significantly higher (P = 0.0156) than CL of gentamicin C1a, 1.81 ± 0.26 ml min−1kg−1, and C2, 1.82 ± 0.25 ml min−1 kg−1. Similarly, the volume of distribution at steady state (Vss) of gentamicin C1, 0.36 ± 0.04 liter kg−1, was significantly higher (P = 0.0156) than the Vss of gentamicin C1a, 0.14 ± 0.01 liter kg−1, and C2, 0.15 ± 0.02 liter kg−1. Tissue binding was considered the most likely cause for the difference. The difference may have clinical and toxicological significance.
Registration of multiple temporally related point sets using a novel variant of the coherent point drift algorithm: application to coronary tree matching

We present a novel algorithm for the registration of multiple temporally related point sets. Although our algorithm is derived in a general setting, our primary motivating application is coronary tree matching in multi-phase cardiac spiral CT. Our algorithm builds upon the fast, outlier-resistant Coherent Point Drift (CPD) algorithm, but incorporates temporal consistency constraints between the point sets, resulting in spatiotemporally smooth displacement fields. We preserve the speed and robustness of the CPD algorithm by using the technique of separable surrogates within an EM (Expectation-Maximization) optimization framework, while still minimizing a global registration cost function employing both spatial and temporal regularization. We demonstrate the superiority of our novel temporally consistent group-wise CPD algorithm over a straightforward pair-wise approach employing the original CPD algorithm, using coronary trees derived from both simulated and real cardiac CT data. In all the tested configurations and datasets, our method presents lower average error between tree landmarks compared to the pairwise method. In the worst case, the difference is around few micrometers but in the better case, our method divides by two the error from the pairwise method. This improvement is especially important for a dataset with numerous outliers. With a fixed set of parameter that has been tuned automatically, our algorithm yields better results than the original CPD algorithm which shows the capacity to register without a priori information on an unknown dataset.
Residential Proximity to Major Roads and Preterm Births

Background: Preterm births cause a large public-health burden, and air pollution is considered to be a potential risk factor. We evaluated the association between proximity to major roads (as an index for air pollution) and preterm births, classified by gestational age and specific clinical manifestations. Methods: Data on parental information and birth outcomes were extracted from the database maintained by the perinatal hospital in Shizuoka, Japan. We restricted the analysis to mothers who delivered liveborn single births from 1997 to 2008 (n = 14,226). Using the geocoded residential information, each birth was classified on its proximity to major roads. We estimated the multivariate-adjusted odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the association of proximity to major roads with preterm births, using logistic regression. Results: We found positive associations between proximity to major roads and preterm births at all gestational ages. Living within 200 m increased the risk of births before 37 weeks by 1.5 times (95% CI = 1.2–1.8), birth before 32 weeks by 1.6 times (1.1–2.4), and births before 28 weeks by 1.8 times (1.0–3.2). Proximity specifically increased the risk of preterm births with preterm premature rupture of the membranes and with pregnancy hypertension. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that exposure to traffic-related air pollution increases even the risk of preterm births of less than 30 weeks' gestational age and proposes a possible mechanism.
Small temporal pole encephalocele: A hidden cause of “normal” MRI temporal lobe epilepsy

Small temporal pole encephalocele (STPE) can be the pathologic substrate of epilepsy in a subgroup of patients with noninformative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Herein, we analyzed the clinical, neurophysiologic, and radiologic features of the epilepsy found in 22 patients with STPE, and the frequency of STPE in patients with refractory focal epilepsy (RFE).
&dgr;‐Opioid Receptor Activation Mimics Ischemic Preconditioning in the Canine Heart

&NA; The role of &dgr;‐opioid receptors in mediating ischemic preconditioning (IPC) in rats, rabbits, and pigs has been well‐established; however, no studies have been performed in dogs. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to determine if activation of &dgr;‐opioid receptors can mimic the cardioprotective effects of IPC in the canine heart and to determine if a nonselective opioid receptor antagonist could block IPC. All dogs were subjected to 60 minutes of left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery occlusion and 3 hours of reperfusion. Ischemic preconditioning was produced by one 5‐minute period of ischemia 10 minutes before LAD coronary artery occlusion. Infarct size (IS) expressed as a percent of the area at risk (AAR; IS/AAR) was determined by triphenyltetrazolium staining. Two selective &dgr;‐opioid receptor (DOR) agonists, TAN‐67 and BW373U86, were administered by intracoronary infusion for 30 minutes before LAD occlusion and the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone was administered 30 minutes before IPC. Both TAN‐67 and BW373U86 produced significant reductions in IS/AAR similar to that of IPC (control: 28 ± 2.1; TAN: 12.3 ± 2.2; IPC: 9.3 ± 3.0: BW: 11.7 ± 2.6). Naloxone attenuated the effect of IPC (control: 28 ± 2.1; naloxone: 18.2 ± 4.5). These results suggest that opioid receptors are important in IPC in dogs, and stimulation of &dgr;‐opioid receptors with selective agonists can mimic the cardioprotective effects of IPC and may have therapeutic potential.
Dual Transforming Activities of the FUS (TLS)-ERG Leukemia Fusion Protein Conferred by Two N-Terminal Domains of FUS (TLS)

ABSTRACT The FUS (TLS)-ERG chimeric protein associated with t(16;21)(p11;q22) acute myeloid leukemia is structurally similar to the Ewing’s sarcoma chimeric transcription factor EWS-ERG. We found that both FUS-ERG and EWS-ERG could induce anchorage-independent proliferation of the mouse fibroblast cell line NIH 3T3. However, only FUS-ERG was able to inhibit the differentiation into neutrophils of a mouse myeloid precursor cell line L-G and induce its granulocyte colony-stimulating factor-dependent growth. We constructed several deletion mutants of FUS-ERG lacking a part of the N-terminal FUS region. A deletion mutant lacking the region between amino acids 1 and 173 (exons 1 to 5) lost the NIH 3T3-transforming activity but retained the L-G-transforming activity. On the other hand, a mutant lacking the region between amino acids 174 and 265 (exons 6 and 7) lost the L-G-transforming activity but retained the NIH 3T3-transforming activity. These results indicate that the N-terminal region of FUS contains two independent functional domains required for the NIH 3T3 and L-G transformation, which we named TR1 and TR2, respectively. Although EWS intrinsically possessed the TR2 domain, the EWS-ERG construct employed lacked the EWS sequence containing this domain. Since the TR2 domain is always found in chimeric proteins identified from t(16;21) leukemia patients but not in chimeric proteins from Ewing’s sarcoma patients, it seems that the TR2 function is required only for the leukemogenic potential. In addition, we identified three cellular genes whose expression was altered by ectopic expression of FUS-ERG and found that these are regulated in either a TR1-dependent or a TR2-dependent manner. These results suggest that FUS-ERG may activate two independent oncogenic pathways during the leukemogenic process by modulating the expression of two different groups of genes simultaneously.
Polymorphism of a complex resistance gene candidate family in wild populations of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) in Argentina: comparison with phenotypic resistance polymorphism

Fifteen populations of wild bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), located in three provinces in Argentina, were analysed for their polymorphism for a complex resistance gene candidate (RGC) family clustered on the genome and for resistance phenotypes to strains of Colletotrichum lindemuthianum. Results indicate that RGC polymorphism is high. Population structure obtained for markers related to resistance was compared to population structure obtained for RAPD markers in order to infer the evolutionary forces driving polymorphism for resistance in wild populations at both molecular and phenotypic levels. Hierarchical analysis of differentiation showed that, within provinces, populations were differentiated for RAPD as well as for molecular and phenotypic markers of resistance. In contrast, provinces were differentiated only for RAPD and RGC markers and not for resistance phenotypes. The discrepancies found between diversity structures for molecular markers (RAPD and RGCs) and for resistance phenotypes suggest an effect of selection and indicate that diversity for resistance may not be driven by the same selective forces at the molecular and phenotypic levels. We further discuss whether specific selective forces are exerted on RGC markers and underline the importance of spatial scale of analysis for demonstrating an impact of selection.
Rigid-body character of the SO4 groups in celestine, anglesite and barite

The crystal srucnres of natural celestine (Srt.m)S04, anglesite @be.eSre. er)SO+, and barite (Bao.geSro.or)SOa have been refined in space group Pbnm lu{lizing rotating anode, Iv[o X-ray diffraction data from single crystals. Unit-cell parameten for celestine are a 6.8671(7), b 8.3545(8), and c 5.3458(6) A, for anglesite, a 6.9549(9), b 8.472(l), and c 5.3973(8) A, and for baite, a 7.154(l), b 8.879Q), and c 5.454(1) A. Strucnral data are presented for these sulfates with geatly improved precision over previous studies owing to high peak+o-background intensity ratios and precise analytical absorption corrections. The final model R(F) values are 0.025, 0.041, and 0.019, for celestine, anglesite, and barite, respectively. The average bond-distance from divalent cation to the nearest twelve oxygen atoms is 2.827(l) A in celestine, 2.864(5) A in anglesite, and 2.951(2) A in barite. Theavera9e sulfur-to-oxygen bond distance is 1.475(2) Ancelestine, 1.476(6) A in anglesite, arndl.476(2) Anbarite. The sulfate tetrahe&a in each structwe show very similar distortions that are attributed to the bonding of the various oxygen atoms to the divalent cations, which is similal in each structure. Thus, the different metal cations do not seem to a.ffect the size or shape of the sulfate tetrahe&a. An analysis of the displacement parameters suggests that the SOa groups behave as rigid molecular units, with an apparent shortening of the S-O bonds of 0.008-O.010 A.
Antigenicity, function, and conformation of synthetic oligopeptides corresponding to amino-terminal sequences of wild-type and mutant matrix proteins of vesicular stomatitis virus

The matrix (M) protein of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) has a major antigenic determinant (epitope 1) that maps to a region extending from amino acids 19 through 43 and transcription-inhibition activity that maps to the first 43 N-terminal amino acids (J.R. Ogden, R. Pal, and R. R. Wagner, J. Virol. 58:860-868, 1986). The M protein of temperature-sensitive mutant tsO23(III) is devoid of epitope 1 and transcription-inhibition activity and substitutes glutamic acid for glycine at amino acid 21 as well as having amino acid substitutions at positions 111 and 227 (K. Morita, R. Vanderoef, and J. Lenard, J. Virol. 61:256-263, 1987). We undertook to map more precisely epitope 1 and the transcription-inhibition region of VSV M protein by means of synthetic oligopeptides generated by an automated solid-phase protein synthesizer. A pentadecapeptide designated PI(wt, Gly21), corresponding to amino acids 17 to 31 of wild-type (wt) M protein, strongly bound monoclonal antibody MAb2 (directed to epitope 1); however, an analogous pentadecapeptide with glutamic acid substituted for glycine at position 21, designated PII(tsO23, Glu21), completely failed to recognize MAb2. Polyclonal antibody raised in rabbits immunized with PI(wt, Gly21) reacted strongly with wt M protein, the homologous pentadecapeptide, and, to a lesser extent, PII(tsO23, Glu21). Anti-PII(tsO23, Glu21) failed to recognize PI(wt, Gly21) or wt M protein. Anti-PI(wt, Gly21) competed efficiently for binding of MAb2 to wt M protein and was as effective as MAb2 in reversing inhibition of VSV transcription by wt M protein. Neither PI(wt, Gly21) nor PII(tsO23, Glu21) exhibited any ability to inhibit VSV transcription. However, a lysine-rich oligopeptide, PII(Met1-Leu20), corresponding to the first 20 N-terminal amino acids of wt M protein, and polylysine itself did inhibit VSV transcription, albeit much less efficiently than native wt M protein. Monospecific polyclonal antibody directed to the 20-mer oligopeptide PIII(Met1-Leu20) reversed transcription inhibition by M protein in a dose-dependent manner almost identical to that of anti-PI(wt, Gly21) and epitope 1-specific MAb2. Examination by circular dichroism spectropolarimetry revealed significant differences in the conformation of the two pentadecapeptides attributable to the Gly in equilibrium Glu amino acid substitution at position 21.
Cutting Latency Tail: Analyzing and Validating Replication without Canceling

Response time variability in software applications can severely degrade the quality of the user experience. To reduce this variability, request replication emerges as an effective solution by spawning multiple copies of each request and using the result of the first one to complete. Most previous studies have mainly focused on the mean latency for systems implementing replica cancellation, i.e., all replicas of a request are canceled once the first one finishes. Instead, we develop models to obtain the response-time distribution for systems where replica cancellation may be too expensive or infeasible to implement, as in “fast” systems, such as web services, or in legacy systems. Furthermore, we introduce a novel service model to explicitly consider correlation in the processing times of the request replicas, and design an efficient algorithm to parameterize the model from real data. Extensive evaluations on a MATLAB benchmark and a three-tier web application (MediaWiki) show remarkable accuracy, e.g., 7 (4 percent) average error on the 99th percentile response time for the benchmark (respectively, MediaWiki), the requests of which execute in the order of seconds (respectively, milliseconds). Insights into optimal replication levels are thereby gained from this precise quantitative analysis, under a wide variety of system scenarios.