Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Crush injuries and crush syndrome — a review. Part 1: the systemic injury

Crush injuries can occur in large numbers following natural disasters or acts of war and terrorism. They can also occur sporadically after industrial accidents or following periods of unconsciousness from drug intoxication, anaesthesia, trauma or cerebral events. A common pathophysiological pathway has been elucidated over the last century describing traumatic rhabdomyolysis leading to myoglobinuric acute renal failure and a systemic ‘crush syndrome’ affecting many organ systems. If left unrecognised or untreated, then mortality rates are high. If treatment is commenced early and the systemic effects are minimised then patients are often faced with significant morbidity from the crushed limbs themselves. We have performed a thorough review of the English language literature from 1940 to 2009 investigating crush injuries and crush syndrome and present a comprehensive, two-part summary. Part 1: The systemic injury: In this part we concentrate on the systemic crush syndrome. We determine the pathophysiology, clinical and prognostic indicators and treatment options such as forced alkaline diuresis, mannitol therapy, dialysis and haemofiltration. We discuss more controversial treatment options such as allopurinol, potassium binders, calcium therapy and other diuretics. We also discuss the specific management issues of the secondary ‘renal disaster’ that can occur following earthquakes and other mass disasters. Part 2: The local injury: Here we look in more detail at the pathophysiology of skeletal muscle damage following crush injuries and discuss how to minimise morbidity by salvaging limb function. In particular we discuss the controversies surrounding fasciotomy of crushed limbs and compare surgical management with conservative techniques such as mannitol therapy, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, topical negative pressure therapy and a novel topical treatment called gastric pentadecapeptide BPC 157.
A perturbation analysis of block-sparse compressed sensing via mixed ℓ2/ℓ1 minimization

In this paper, the recovery of block-sparse signals is considered by the completely perturbed mixed l2/l1 minimization method and a sufficient condition is established to guarantee the robust recovery. The obtained result generalizes the existing result on complete perturbation to the block setting. Specially, we not only improve the condition related to block-restricted isometry property, but also better the error upper bound if the result degenerates to the general case. In addition, some numerical experiments are also carried out to demonstrate the block structure which is an important factor in the process of recovering block-sparse signals, and present outperformance of the mixed l2/l1 minimization method comparing with the l1 minimization method in the completely perturbed model.
Impact of viral infection on acute exacerbation of asthma in out-patient clinics: a prospective study.

BACKGROUND The prevalence of viral infection triggering asthma exacerbation and its impact on the symptoms and duration of exacerbation are unclear. METHODS Asthma and healthy control subjects were recruited from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University between February 2012 and February 2013. Nasal swabs were collected, and respiratory viruses were detected by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). All patients completed questionnaires and a lung function test. Some were followed up for 4 weeks, and symptom changes were evaluated via asthma diaries. RESULTS In total, 70 patients with acute asthma exacerbations were recruited. Among them, 34 patients (48.6%) completed the 4-week follow-up study. Another 65 patients with stable asthma and 134 healthy volunteers were also included in this study. The rate of positive viral detection via PCR in acute asthma exacerbation patients was 34.2% (24/70), which is significantly higher than that of stable asthma (12/65; 18.5%; P=0.038) and normal control patients (18/134; 13.4%; P<0.001). Among the viral-positive subjects, the number of viral copies was significantly higher in acute asthma exacerbation patients [(5.00±4.63) ×10(7) copies/L] (mean ± SD) than those in stable asthma patients [(1.24±1.44) ×10(6) copies/L; P<0.001] or in healthy controls [(1.44±0.44) ×10(6) copies/L; P<0.001], whose viral loads were not significantly different from one another (P=0.774). During the 4-week follow-up period, the cough scores on days 1 and 3 were significantly higher in the viral-positive group than in the viral-negative group (day 1: P=0.016; day 3: P=0.004). However, there were no significant differences between these two groups for other tested symptoms, such as dyspnea and total recovery time (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS Respiratory viruses may be involved in acute asthma exacerbations, inducing more prominent and persistent cough symptoms.
Learning Deep Autoencoders without Layer-wise Training

Although greedy layer-wise pre-training has achieved a lot of success in deep neural networks, due to the locality of the method, higher layers of the network may not learn representations that are useful for the original input. In this work, a novel unsupervised joint training method that tries to integrate multiple single layer training objectives into one global objective is proposed. It not only mimics the layer-wise training scheme locally, but also adjusts all the weights together based on the reconstruction loss from end-to-end. Results show that it extracts more representative features and achieves better classification results in the unsupervised setting, and also achieves comparable performance in the supervised setting as compared to the greedy layer-wise approach while being faster.
Aortic stiffness and aerobic exercise: mechanistic insight from microarray analyses.

INTRODUCTION/PURPOSE Regular aerobic exercise reduces aortic stiffness. However, the mechanisms by which chronic exercise lowers arterial stiffness are not known. To determine the molecular mechanisms of these changes, the alteration of gene expression in the aorta by aerobic exercise training was measured with the microarray technique. METHODS/RESULTS The differences in expression levels of 3800 genes in the abdominal aorta of sedentary control rats (8 wk old) and exercise-trained rats (8 wk old, treadmill running for 4 wk) were compared by the microarray analysis. Aortic pulse wave velocity (PWV) was lower and systemic arterial compliance was higher (both P < 0.05) in the exercise-trained group than in the control group. Of the 323 genes that displayed differential expression (upregulation of 206 genes and downregulation of 117 genes), a total of 29 genes (24 upregulated and 5 downregulated genes) were identified as potential candidate genes that may be involved in vasodilation and arterial destiffening. Using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, we confirmed the results of microarray analysis that prostaglandin EP2 receptor (PGE-EP2R), prostaglandin EP4 receptor (PGE-EP4R), C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP), and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) genes were differentially expressed. Furthermore, there were modest correlations between arterial stiffness and levels of these factors. Differential expression of eNOS gene was further verified at protein level by using Western blot analysis. CONCLUSION These results suggest that exercise training induces the altered expression in several genes including prostaglandin, CNP, and nitric oxide in the aorta and that these molecular changes (particularly eNOS as its protein expression was altered) may contribute, at least in part, to the beneficial effect of exercise training on aortic stiffness.
Mammography screening of women in their 40s

In March 1997, the American Cancer Society (ACS) updated its recommended mammography screening interval for women ages 40–49 years from once every 1 to 2 years to once every year. At the same time, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which had previously not recommended routine screening of women in their 40s, began recommending screening at 1 to 2‐year intervals. These events occurred during the data collection phase of a prospective study of mammography screening and, thereby, provided an unexpected opportunity to examine the potential influences of changing guidelines on women's beliefs about how frequently they should obtain screening exams.
Observation of nonlinear localized modes in an electrical lattice.

We study a discrete electrical lattice where the dynamics of modulated waves can be modeled by a generalized discrete nonlinear Schrodinger equation that interpolates between the Ablowitz-Ladik and discrete-self-trapping equations. Regions of modulational instability (MI) are investigated and experimentally, we observe that MI can develop even for continuous waves with frequencies higher than the linear cutoff frequency of the lattice. These results are confirmed by the observation of ''staggered'' localized modes. Experimentally, it is finally shown that unlike envelope solitons, which can be observed close to the zero-dispersion point, the staggered modes experience strong lattice effects.
Peak athletic performance and ageing: Evidence from baseball

Abstract Baseball players exhibit a pattern of improvement and decline in performance; however, differing lengths of careers and changes in rules and characteristics of the game complicate assessments of age-related effects on performance. This study attempts to isolate the impact of age on several player skills while controlling for relevant outside factors using longitudinal data from 86 seasons of Major League Baseball. The results indicate that players age in different skills in accord with studies of ageing in other athletic contests. For overall performance, multiple-regression estimates indicate that hitters and pitchers peak around the age of 29 – later than previous estimates. Athletic skills such as hitting and running peak earlier than skills that rely heavily on experience and knowledge, such as issuing and drawing walks.
The effect of tourists’ perceptions of a tourism product on memorable travel experience: Implications for destination branding

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyse how tourists’ perceptions of a destination’s tourism product influences memorable tourism experiences and how gender differences influence tourists’ perceptions of tourism product. To achieve these objectives, Uganda, one of the developing economies in East Africa, was chosen. The five A’s of tourism product was used as a basis for the questionnaire construction and data was analysed. Explanatory research design within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis - a structural equation modelling technique was adopted using the AMOS 18 program. A sample of 501 respondents consisting of tourists departing Uganda through Entebbe International Airport was used. Results showed that both the measurement and structural models exhibited better model fit indices. Overall, tourists’ perceptions of the retained four dimensions of tourism product (Attractions, ancillary services, amenities and accommodation) had a positive effect on memorable travel experience. Additionally, the independent T-test for gender and tourists’ perceptions of Uganda’s tourism product showed that on average, females had a positive evaluation of Uganda tourism product compared to their male counterparts. However, the observed difference was not significant. It is recommended that destination management organisations pay attention to infrastructure, particularly transport that links potential and actual tourists to key tourism attractions. This is likely to enhance positive perceptions and was found to positively influence memorable travel experience. Other implications for destination branding are discussed.
Silica and Aluminum in Drinking Water and Cognitive Impairment in the Elderly

&NA; We studied the relation between silica and aluminum levels in drinking water and the risk of cognitive impairment using data from a population‐based survey of 3,777 French subjects age 65 years and older. We also studied the effect of pH and the concentrations of calcium, magnesium, fluorine, zinc, copper, and iron. We used a mixed effects logistic regression adjusting for age, sex, educational level, and occupation of the subjects. We confirmed the inverse relation previously found between calcium level and cognitive impairment. We found no important association between cognitive impairment and fluorine, magnesium, iron, copper, or zinc. The association between cognitive impairment and aluminum depended on the pH and the concentration of silica: high levels of aluminum appeared to have a deleterious effect when the silica concentration was low, but there was a protective effect when the pH and the silica level were high. The threshold for an aluminum effect, however, was very low (3.5 &mgr;g per liter) and did not support the hypothesis of a deleterious effect for only high levels of aluminum.
Inuit dietary patterns in modern Greenland

Objectives. The purpose of the study was to apply two different approaches of dietary pattern definition to data from Greenland and to analyse the contemporary dietary patterns of the Inuit in Greenland in relation to urbanization and socio-economic positions. Study design. Cross-sectional population survey. Methods. A total of 2,247 Inuit aged 18+ from 15 towns and villages in West Greenland (25% of all communities) were interviewed about their diet as part of a general health survey. A 67-item Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) with portion sizes was used as the survey instrument. The analyses were based on 2,026 individuals who reported realistic daily energy intakes. Dietary patterns were determined by two different methods: a factor-cum-cluster analysis, and a normative approach based on adherence to dietary recommendations. Results. The 2 approaches resulted in 6 respective and 5 partly overlapping dietary patterns. The distribution of patterns varied significantly according to age, gender, urbanization and socio-economic position. A healthy diet was most often reported by women aged 35+, who lived in towns and who belonged to the upper social stratum; an unhealthy diet was reported by young men and women irrespective of urbanization or social position; and a traditional diet was reported increasingly with age, among village residents and by hunters/fishermen and their families. Conclusions. The two methodological approaches gave comparable results. The normative approach can be extended to other data sets and its results are directly applicable to dietary intervention, while the data-driven approach can identify novel patterns but is tied to the actual data set.
KNOWN SECONDARY CONTACT AND RAPID GENE FLOW AMONG SUBSPECIES AND DIALECTS IN THE BROWN‐HEADED COWBIRD

We analyze geographic variation in morphology for Sierra Nevadan populations of Brown‐headed Cowbirds (Molothrus ater) in relation to two levels of geographic structure of populations: 1) subspecies and 2) vocal dialects. Two morphologically distinct subspecies occupy opposite slopes of the Sierra Nevada: M. a artemisiae on the east slope is larger than M. a. obscurus on the west slope, and its juveniles have predominantly white versus yellow rictal (bill) flanges. Populations of obscurus moved into California from the lower Colorado River around 1900 and invaded the western Sierra during the 1930's. A relatively constant type of flight whistle occurs in obscurus populations up to 700 km apart, but east‐slope artemisiae are divided into many distinct dialects. The means of seven morphological measurements and of principal component 1 (i.e., body size) for 2,287 individuals show similar clinal patterns for adult males, yearling males, and females over a 60‐km north–south transect along the eastern Sierra Nevada: large sizes occur at the southernmost study site at Bishop, decrease clinally to the north to Mammoth Lakes, and then increase clinally to the north from Mammoth Lakes to the northernmost site at Lee Vining. This reversal in cline slope is reiterated for variation in the frequency of white‐flanged juveniles.
Randomized controlled phase II trial of glatiramer acetate in ALS

The authors conducted a randomized controlled trial to test the safety and immunology of glatiramer acetate in ALS. Twenty treated patients were randomly assigned to daily or biweekly injections. Ten control patients were selected from another trial and followed up concurrently. Injection reactions were the only common adverse event (p = 0.01). Treated patients showed enhanced lymphocyte proliferation (p = 0.02). The safety profile and immune effects support conducting larger trials of dose selection and efficacy.
Prevalence and risks for sexually transmitted infections among a national sample of migrants versus non-migrants in China

This study aims to describe and compare the gender-specific prevalence of chlamydia and gonorrhoea, sexual behaviours and experiences, and risk factors associated with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among migrants versus rural and urban non-migrants in China. Data were abstracted from the Chinese Health and Family Life Survey conducted from 1999 to 2000, which provided a nationally representative adult (ages 20–64 years) sample. STI results were determined using a urine-based nucleic acid amplification assay. The prevalence of chlamydia for migrant women was triple that of rural non-migrant women. Migrants were more likely to engage in STI-associated risk behaviours than non-migrants (e.g. receiving money for sex). Among migrants, women were more likely than men to have STIs. The high STI prevalence among migrants highlights an urgent need to implement comprehensive prevention and intervention programmes targeting the cultural, social and structural needs of migrants in the city, especially migrant women.
Obese binge eaters: metabolic characteristics, energy expenditure and dieting

Synopsis The study was carried out in two groups of massively obese women with BMI values who were to undergo bariatric surgery. The patients were evaluated for weight variability and for the presence and the frequency of binge eating. Body composition, resting energy expenditure (REE) and metabolic parameters were also measured. When non-bingeing individuals were compared with patients who met Binge Eating Disorder criteria, no differences in body composition, fat distribution, REE values and concentrations of serum lipids, insulin and thyroid hormones were found. On the other hand, weight variability due to reduced diet in the subjects' lifetime was significantly higher. This study does not support the hypothesis that in massively obese women binge eating is somehow induced by a reduced energy expenditure.
In Vivo Cytotoxicity Studies of Amaryllidaceae Alkaloids

The plant family Amaryllidaceae is recognizable for its esthetic floral characteristics, its widespread usage in traditional medicine as well as its unique alkaloid principles. Few alkaloid-producing families rival the Amaryllidaceae in terms of the diversity of its structures as well as their wide applicability on the biological landscape. In particular, cytotoxic effects have come to be a dominant theme in the biological properties of Amaryllidaceae alkaloids. To this extent, a significant number of structures have been subjected to in vitro studies in numerous cell lines from which several targets have been identified as promising chemotherapeutics. By contrast, in vivo models of study involving these alkaloids have been carried out to a lesser extent and should prove crucial in the continued development of a clinical target such as pancratistatin. This survey examines the cytotoxic effects of Amaryllidaceae alkaloids in vivo and contrasts these against the corresponding in vitro effects.
Criteria for Metabolic Control and Intervention in Diabetes

Guidelines for optimal management of diabetes advocate comprehensive strategies to treat all established risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD). The targets for treatment should be optimization of glycemie control, weight reduction, lowering of elevated blood pressure, correction of lipid abnormalities, and stopping smoking. Recently, strong evidence has emerged to demonstrate that poor glycemic control is a powerful predictor for excess CHD risk (1,2). The fact that dyslipidemia and hypertension are frequent in NIDDM patients at the time of diagnosis indicates that these risk factors may cause damage for years before the actual diagnosis of NIDDM. This article highlights the current background knowledge for the guidelines of therapeutic strategies for dyslipidemias in NIDDM.
Hydrogen retention in beryllium: concentration effect and nanocrystalline growth

We herein report on the formation of BeD2 nanocrystalline domes on the surface of a beryllium sample exposed to energetic deuterium ions. A polycrystalline beryllium sample was exposed to D ions at 2 keV/atom leading to laterally averaged deuterium areal densities up to 3.5 1017 D cm−2, and studied using nuclear reaction analysis, Raman microscopy, atomic force microscopy, optical microscopy and quantum calculations. Incorporating D in beryllium generates a tensile stress that reaches a plateau at ≈1.5 1017 D cm−2. For values higher than 2.0 1017 cm−2, we observed the growth of ≈90 nm high dendrites, covering up to 10% of the surface in some zones of the sample when the deuterium concentration was 3 × 1017 D cm−2. These dendrites are composed of crystalline BeD2, as evidenced by Raman microscopy and quantum calculations. They are candidates to explain low temperature thermal desorption spectroscopy peaks observed when bombarding Be samples with D ions with fluencies higher than 1.2 1017 D cm−2.
Diagnosis and treatment of hind limb muscle strain injuries in 22 dogs

Summary The anamnesis was obtained from the medical records of 22 dogs diagnosed with hind limb muscle strain injury over a four-year period. The signalment, history, diagnostic imaging and clinical findings, treatment and outcome are described. The affected dogs were primarily from large breeds. Although only a few clients reported a specific injury, 11 dogs were admitted for an acute onset of lameness of unknown origin. The hip adductor muscles were affected in 21 dogs, and 11 dogs had previously undergone orthopaedic surgery of the affected limb. The dogs were primarily diagnosed by physical examination, although the diagnosis was confirmed with ultrasound imaging in the two most recent cases. Neither concurrent orthopaedic nor neurological disease was found during the study period in four of 22 dogs, and another three dogs had only mild radiographic coxofemoral osteoarthritis that did not cause any clinical signs during the study period. All of the dogs were treated medically with some combination of rest, physical therapy, methocarbamol, and a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID). The injury-associated lameness improved, or completely resolved, with conservative, non-surgical therapy in most dogs. Of the 15 dogs available for follow-up (mean 577 days), eight had complete resolution of their clinical signs, two showed significant improvement, and one showed some improvement. Muscle strain injury may be an under-diagnosed cause or contributor to acute hind limb lameness in large breed dogs, either alone or following orthopaedic surgery.
Occurrence of shigatoxinogenic Escherichia coli O157 in Norwegian cattle herds

To investigate if there is a reservoir of Escherichia coli O157 in Norwegian cattle, faecal samples from 197 cattle herds were screened for E. coli O157 by the use of immunomagnetic separation (IMS) and PCR during the 1995 grazing season. Six E. coli O157[ratio ]H-isolates were detected in two herds, one isolate in one and five in the other. The isolates carried the stx1, stx2, and eae genes, and a 90 MDa virulence plasmid. They were toxinogenic in a Vero cell assay. From 57 other herds, 137 faecal samples were positive for stx1 and/or stx2 genes detected by PCR run directly on IMS-isolated material. Among these samples, stx2 were the most widely distributed toxin encoding genes. No difference was found among milking cows and heifers in the rate of stx1 and/or stx2 in positive samples.