Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A prospective randomized comparative study of high-flow nasal cannula oxygen and non-invasive ventilation in hypoxemic patients undergoing diagnostic flexible bronchoscopy.

Background Although oxygen supplementation during bronchoscopy in patients with pre-existing hypoxemia is provided, adequacy of oxygenation may not be achieved, resulting in the occurrence of respiratory failure that requires endotracheal tube intubation. The purpose of this study was to compare high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) with non-invasive ventilation (NIV) in patients with pre-existing hypoxemia undergoing flexible bronchoscopy (FB) on the ability to maintain oxygen saturation during bronchoscopy. Methods A prospective randomized study was conducted in patients who had hypoxemia [defined as partial pressure of arterial oxygen (PaO2) less than 70 mmHg at room air] and required FB for the diagnosis of abnormal pulmonary lesions. Patients were randomized to receive either HFNC or NIV during FB. The primary outcome was the lowest oxygen saturation level during FB. Results Fifty-one patients underwent randomization to HFNC (n=26) or NIV (n=25). Baseline characteristics in terms of age, Simplified Acute Physiologic Score II values, and cardiorespiratory parameters were similar in both groups. After receiving HFNC or NIV, oxygen saturation as measured by pulse oximeter (SpO2) increased to greater than 90% in all cases. During FB, although the lowest SpO2 was similar in both groups, the lowest SpO2 <90% tended to occur more often in the HFNC group (34.6% vs. 12.0%; P=0.057). In patients with baseline PaO2 <60 mmHg on ambient air, a decrease in PaO2 from preprocedure to the end of FB was less in the NIV group (-13.7 vs. -57.0 mmHg; P=0.019). After FB, the occurrence of SpO2 <90% was 15.4% and 4.0% in the HFNC group and NIV group, respectively (P=0.17). Conclusions In overall, NIV and HFNC provided the similar effectiveness in prevention of hypoxemia in hypoxemic patients undergoing FB. However, in subgroup analysis, NIV provided greater adequacy and stability of oxygenation than HFNC in patients with baseline PaO2 <60 mmHg on ambient air.
Cross-Cultural Comparison of Narratives Between English-Speaking Indian and US Children and Adults

ü INV: so when my glass fell off the table, the juice spilled all over the place. Have you ever spilled anything? CHI: mhm. CHI: I’ve spilled many glasses of water (Abstract). INV: mhm. CHI: and some juice. INV: what happened? CHI: um one time I had to run and get a towel to clean it up. INV: to clean it up. CHI: and my dad wanted me to get every drop of water. Orientation ü ü Examples Words to Describe Types Tokens Time ü ü Sometimes she cries when she gets a shot. 6 2 2 Place ü ü He got inside a swimming pool. 4 1 1 Characters ü ü Gary the beaver left his family and friends. 7 2 3 Initiating Event ü “Beaver mistakenly gets picked up by the crane and is sent to the city” – Did the narrator mention this event? (Yes/No) Complicating Actions Storybook ü ü Out of 11 complicating actions, how many did the narrator mention? 1. Beaver sees a dog/chased by a dog 2. Alligator is in pool & beaver swims to other side 3. Sees beavers of his own kind 4. Beaver chased out by the zookeeper and/or girl 5. Beaver jumps into lake 6. Beaver goes through a pipe/drainage
Deliberation, Incivility, and Race in Electoral Campaigns

color-blind rhetoric in the judiciary and legislature, including the 1993. ,'/)11711 fl, Reno decision that reversed minority-majority electoral districting (and IhUII weakened the power of the African American vote) (Kousser 1974; Klinkner nnd Smith 1999)' Certainly, the restriction ofAfrican American voters in Florida dur­ ing the 2000 presidentiai election seems eerily similar to the post-Redemption purging of thousands of black voters in that state. Moreover, the Voting Ri! (htl Act of 1965 would seem to be vulnerable, because many of its provisions arc cI"o pendent on Congress for renewal. Yet, the history of U.S. disfranchisement also gives some grounds for optI­ mism. Although former slaves were abandoned by the national state and opposed by white supremacists, they were still able to defend their rights for a generatic m. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, despite the racially linked problems (If poverty and unemployment and the continued blight of urban racial segrc! (n· tion, black Americans are much more powerful that their nineteenth-century counterparts. Compared with 1900, the average black income relative to aver­ age white income has doubled (T. Shapiro 2005). While most police forces were all-white in 1900, they are now integrated nationwide. Nevertheless, one lesson of the post-Reconstruction era is that even in a historical democracy such as United States ofAmerica, there is no inherent reason to assume that the proccs~ of democratization will inexorably progress (O'Donnell, Schmitter, and head 1986). CHAPTU nVIN
Densely Based Multi-Scale and Multi-Modal Fully Convolutional Networks for High-Resolution Remote-Sensing Image Semantic Segmentation

Automatic and accurate semantic segmentation from high-resolution remote-sensing images plays an important role in the field of aerial images analysis. The task of dense semantic segmentation requires that semantic labels be assigned to each pixel in the image. Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have proven to be powerful tools for image classification, and they have been adopted in the remote-sensing community. But many limitations still exist when modern CNN architectures are directly applied to remote-sensing images, such as gradient explosion when the depth of the network increases, over-fitting with limited labeled remote-sensing data, and special differences between remote-sensing images and natural images. In this paper, we present a novel architecture that combines the thought of dense connection and fully convolutional networks, referred as DFCN, to automatically provide fine-grained semantic segmentation maps. In addition, we improve DFCN with multi-scale filters to widen the network and to increase the richness and diversity of extracted information, making the network more powerful and expressive than the naive convolution layer. Furthermore, we investigate a multi-modal network that incorporates digital surface models (DSMs) into a DFCN structure, and then we propose dual-path densely convolutional networks where the encoder consists of two paths that, respectively, extract features from spectral data and DSMs data and then fuse them. Finally, through conducting comprehensive experimental evaluations on two remote sensing benchmark datasets, we test our proposed models and compare them with other deep networks. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed approaches; they can achieve competitive performance compared with the current state-of-the-art methods.
A Web-Based Physical Activity Portal for Individuals Living With a Spinal Cord Injury: Qualitative Study

Background The population with a spinal cord injury (SCI) largely remains inactive following discharge from rehabilitation despite evidence on the benefits of physical activity. These individuals need to develop skills to self-manage their condition in order to prevent secondary comorbidities and rehospitalization. A Web-based physical activity portal can address this need. Few Web-based interventions incorporate theoretical frameworks, behavior change techniques, and modes of delivery into their design. Objective This study aimed to identify the preferred features of a Web-based self-management physical activity portal through stakeholder engagement with individuals with a spinal cord injury and health care professionals (HCPs). Methods An interpretative phenomenology methodology and participatory design, along with an integrated knowledge translation approach, were used to conduct this study. Convenience sampling was used to recruit individuals with an SCI living in the community, who were either interested or already engaging in physical activity, and HCPs working with individuals with an SCI, from three city-based rehabilitation sites. Individual 1-hour sessions involving navigation of an existing website and a semistructured interview were conducted with all participants. Individuals with an SCI completed a demographics questionnaire prior to the individual sessions, while demographic information of the HCPs was collected during their interviews. Additionally, all participants were asked a question on their intention to use or recommend a portal. An in-depth thematic analysis was used to derive themes from participants’ responses. Results Thirteen individuals with an SCI and nine HCPs participated in the study. Five core themes emerged: (1) knowledge: guidance and barrier management; (2) possibility of achievement: the risks and benefits of physical activity and modelling; (3) self-regulation strategies: action planning, goal setting, tracking, rewards, and reminders; (4) interactivity: peers and professionals; and (5) format: appearance, language, and ease of use. The mean (median) ratings of the likelihood of promoting and using a Web-based portal tailored to individuals’ needs were 9.00 (8.78) and 7.75 (7.88) for HCPs and individuals with an SCI, respectively. Conclusions This study highlights features of an online self-management platform that can provide individuals with an SCI the motivation and volition to engage in physical activity. These findings will inform the design of a Web-based self-management physical activity portal to increase physical activity adherence and behavior change.
Regulating Monopolistic ISPs Without Neutrality

Net neutrality has recently been heavily debated as a potential regulation of the Internet. This debate is centered around the argument whether the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should be allowed to provide differentiated services over the Internet. Advocates of net neutrality have expressed concerns about the ISPs’ pricing power, which might be used to discriminate Content Providers (CPs), and consequently destroy innovations at the edge of the Internet and hurt users’ utilities. However, without service differentiation, ISPs do not have incentives to expand infrastructure capacities and provide quality of services, which will eventually impair the development of the future Internet. Although market competition among the ISPs would alleviate the problem and reduce the need for net neutrality regulations, the problem is more severe in monopolistic markets, e.g., rural access markets where natural monopolies exist due to high deployment costs and appropriate regulations are most in need. We study the service differentiation offered by a monopolistic ISP and find that the ISP’s profit-optimal strategy makes a free ordinary service damaged good, which hurts the welfare of CPs and their users. Instead of imposing net neutrality regulations, we propose a more flexible and lenient policy framework that generalizes net neutrality regulations. We believe that by allowing ISPs to differentiate services under a well-designed policy constraint, the utility of the entire Internet ecosystem could be greatly improved.
Effect of Surgical Setting on Hospital-Reported Outcomes for Elective Lumbar Spinal Procedures: Tertiary Versus Community Hospitals

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. Objective: As hospital compensation becomes increasingly dependent on pay-for-performance and bundled payment compensation models, hospitals seek to reduce costs and increase quality. To our knowledge, no reported data compare these measures between hospital settings for elective lumbar procedures. The study compares hospital-reported outcomes and costs for elective lumbar procedures performed at a tertiary hospital (TH) versus community hospitals (CH) within a single health care system. Methods: Retrospective review of a physician-maintained, prospectively collected database consisting of 1 TH and 4 CH for 3 common lumbar surgeries from 2015 to 2016. Patients undergoing primary elective microdiscectomy for disc herniation, laminectomy for spinal stenosis, and laminectomy with fusion for degenerative spondylolisthesis were included. Patients were excluded for traumatic, infectious, or malignant pathology. Comparing hospital settings, outcomes included length of stay (LOS), rates of 30-day readmissions, potentially preventable complications (PPC), and discharge to rehabilitation facility, and hospital costs. Results: A total of 892 patients (n = 217 microdiscectomies, n = 302 laminectomies, and n = 373 laminectomy fusions) were included. The TH served a younger patient population with fewer comorbid conditions and a higher proportion of African Americans. The TH performed more decompressions (P < .001) per level fused; the CH performed more interbody fusions (P = .007). Cost of performing microdiscectomy (P < .001) and laminectomy (P = .014) was significantly higher at the TH, but there was no significant difference for laminectomy with fusion. In a multivariable stepwise linear regression analysis, the TH was significantly more expensive for single-level microdiscectomy (P < .001) and laminectomy with single-level fusion (P < .001), but trended toward significance for laminectomy without fusion (P = .052). No difference existed for PPC or readmissions rate. Patients undergoing laminectomy without fusion were discharged to a facility more often at the TH (P = .019). Conclusions: We provide hospital-reported outcomes between a TH and CH. Significant differences in patient characteristics and surgical practices exist between surgical settings. Despite minimal differences in hospital-reported outcomes, the TH was significantly more expensive.
Stirred Suspension Bioreactor Culture of Porcine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are an attractive cell source for regenerative medicine and the development of therapies, as they can proliferate indefinitely under defined conditions and differentiate into any cell type in the body. Large scale expansion of cells is limited in adherent culture, making it difficult to obtain adequate cell numbers for research. It has been previously shown that stirred suspension bioreactors (SSBs) can be used to culture mouse and human stem cells. Pigs are important pre-clinical models for stem cell research. Therefore, this study investigated the use of SSBs as an alternative culture method for the expansion of iPSCs. Using an established porcine iPSC line as well as a new cell line derived and characterized in the current study, we report that porcine iPSCs (piPSCs) can grow in SSB while maintaining characteristics of pluripotency and karyotypic stability similar to cells grown in traditional two-dimensional static culture. This culture method provides a suitable platform for scale up of cell culture to provide adequate cell numbers for future research applications involving porcine induced pluripotent stem cells.
Hecke–Clifford algebras and spin Hecke algebras, II: The rational double affine type

The notion of rational spin double affine Hecke algebras (sDaHa) and rational double affine Hecke-Clifford algebras (DaHCa) associated to classical Weyl groups are introduced. The basic properties of these algebras such as the PBW basis and Dunkl operator representations are established. An algebra isomorphism relating the rational DaHCa to the rational sDaHa is obtained. We further develop a link between the usual rational Cherednik algebra and the rational sDaHa by introducing a notion of rational covering double affine Hecke algebras.
The stubbornness of authoritarianism: autocracy-to-autocracy transitions in the world between 2000 and 2015

Abstract Whilst much of the contemporary debate on regime change remains concentrated on transitions to and from democracy, this paper focuses on autocracy-to-autocracy transitions, a relatively understudied but particularly relevant phenomenon. Building on an updated typology of non-democratic regimes and through a qualitative case-by-case assessment, the present paper identifies 21 transitions from one dictatorship to another, out of 32 cases of autocratic breakdown during the 2000–15 period. Hence, after the fall of a dictatorship, the installation of a new authoritarian regime was almost twice as likely as democratization. Accordingly, the paper focuses on the 21 recorded autocracy-to-autocracy transitions and examines in which non-democratic regimes a transition from an autocracy to another is more likely to occur, which peculiar forms of authoritarian rule tend to be installed, and the specific ways in which the dismantling of the previous existing authoritarian rule is achieved.
PalmNet: Gabor-PCA Convolutional Networks for Touchless Palmprint Recognition

Touchless palmprint recognition systems enable high-accuracy recognition of individuals through less-constrained and highly usable procedures that do not require the contact of the palm with a surface. To perform this recognition, methods based on local texture descriptors and convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are currently used to extract highly discriminative features while compensating for variations in scale, rotation, and illumination in biometric samples. In particular, the main advantage of CNN-based methods is their ability to adapt to biometric samples captured with heterogeneous devices. However, the current methods rely on either supervised training algorithms, which require class labels (e.g., the identities of the individuals) during the training phase, or filters pretrained on general-purpose databases, which may not be specifically suitable for palmprint data. To achieve a high-recognition accuracy with touchless palmprint samples captured using different devices while neither requiring class labels for training nor using pretrained filters, we introduce PalmNet, which is a novel CNN that uses a newly developed method to tune palmprint-specific filters through an unsupervised procedure based on Gabor responses and principal component analysis (PCA), not requiring class labels during training. PalmNet is a new method of applying Gabor filters in a CNN and is designed to extract highly discriminative palmprint-specific descriptors and to adapt to heterogeneous databases. We validated the innovative PalmNet on several palmprint databases captured using different touchless acquisition procedures and heterogeneous devices, and in all cases, a recognition accuracy greater than that of the current methods in this paper was obtained.
Tourists’ willingness to pay for upstream restoration and conservation measures

Abstract Continuous wildlife loss worldwide and in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya in particular motivated this study. Degradation of ecosystem services in the Mara basin is a cause of increasing pressure on the wildlife of the reserve. Wildlife tourists in the downstream area of the basin are beneficiaries of ecosystem services, particularly stream flow and water quality, provided in the upstream water catchment. This study aimed to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) of wildlife tourists to cofinance conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the Mara River Basin. The contingent valuation method was used with a valuation scenario framed in a payment for ecosystem services (PES) scheme. The relationship between WTP and several socio-economic variables was captured by an ordered logistic regression model. The mean WTP was estimated at US$41.6 (KES = 4314.8), with a potential annual revenue of over $US 3.5 million alone from tourists staying inside the reserve. This study contributes to clarifying the feasibility of a PES scheme in the Mara River Basin complementing former studies concerned with the willingness to accept conservation and restoration measures in the upstream of the basin. The study closes an important knowledge gap and paves the way for an institutional solution enabling PES implementation in the basin.
The Associations of Internal Audit Quality with Job Burnout and Job Satisfaction Based on Theory of Reasoned Action

Among the important determinants of long term survival in public shareholding companies, is the quality of internal audit, which is considered among the primary factors affecting the financial information credibility. For this, it is necessary to identify the factors that influence the quality of internal audit, such as internal auditor behavior in the audit process. It is equally important to develop a framework for its determination and to address the factors. Accordingly, this paper developed a theoretical framework to identify individual factors - job burnout and job satisfaction - and their influence on dysfunctional audit behavior. The primary aim of this paper is to explain the motivation behind engaging in dysfunctional behaviors in the internal audit environment. Therefore, it provided theoretical evidences about the risk associated with the dysfunctional behaviors that are expected to lead to reduced internal audit quality. In addition, empirical evidence to address the concerns of the Jordanian regulatory authorities of audit quality in the public shareholding companies indicates additional directions for future studies.
Seed bank heterogeneity and its association with vegetation and micro-environmental variables in a secondary forest in Kyoto city, Japan

: Buried seeds in forest soils have attracted attention as a natural greening material, making predic-tions of their number and spatial distribution important. We aim to assess the degree of variation in forest seed bank characteristics based on a nested sampling approach. The study was conducted in a secondary forest that consists of four patch types (conifer, canopy gap, deciduous broadleaf tree, and evergreen broadleaf tree) in a 100-m slope. Three 5 × 5 m plots containing three 20 × 20 cm quadrats were established under each patch type. We obtained soil samples from a depth of 0 ― 5 cm, and seedling emergence was monitored over 5 months. In total, 116 seeds germinated (6.4 ／ L), and twenty-five species were identified, with a dominance of the shrub Eurya japonica and the conifer Chamaecyparis obtusa . Variations in seed bank density were small between patches but were large between plots within the same patch type, and the latter accounted for approximately half of the total variances. The seed bank density tended to decrease in high-light environments (Indirect Site Factor ＝ 0.12 ― 0.16) and increase in plots with high densities of acorn-producing overstory trees, although there were also substantial within-plot variations in seed bank density, and further studies are necessary to confirm the results. Our simple method of nested sampling and statistical analysis for evaluating spatial heterogeneity of forest seed bank and for analyzing correlations with vegetation and micro-environmental factors are useful for considering effective sampling strategies of forest for revegetation practices.
Licensing Effect in Consumer Choice

Most choices in the real world follow other choices or judgments. The authors show that a prior choice, which activates and boosts a positive self-concept, subsequently licenses the choice of a more self-indulgent option. The authors propose that licensing can operate by committing to a virtuous act in a preceding choice, which reduces negative self-attributions associated with the purchase of relative luxuries. Five studies demonstrate the proposed licensing effect of a prior commitment to a virtuous act on subsequent choice. Consistent with the authors' theory, the preference for an indulgent option diminishes if the licensing task is attributed to an external motivation. The authors also report a mediation analysis in support of their theoretical explanation that the licensing effect operates by providing a temporary boost in the relevant self-concept.