Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Imaging porcine cardiac substrate selection modulations by glucose, insulin and potassium intervention: A hyperpolarized [1‐13C]pyruvate study

Cardiac metabolism has received considerable attention in terms of both diagnostics and prognostics, as well as a novel target for treatment. As human trials involving hyperpolarized magnetic resonance in the heart are imminent, we sought to evaluate the general feasibility of detection of an imposed shift in metabolic substrate utilization during metabolic modulation with glucose–insulin–potassium (GIK) infusion, and thus the limitations associated with this strategy, in a large animal model resembling human physiology. Four [1‐13C]pyruvate injections did not alter the blood pressure or ejection fraction over 180 min. Hyperpolarized [1‐13C]pyruvate conversion showed a generally high reproducibility, with intraclass correlation coefficients between the baseline measurements at 0 and 30 min as follows: lactate to pyruvate, 0.85; alanine to pyruvate, 1.00; bicarbonate to pyruvate, 0.83. This study demonstrates that hyperpolarized [1‐13C]pyruvate imaging is a feasible technique for cardiac studies and shows a generally high reproducibility in fasted large animals. GIK infusion increases the metabolic conversion of pyruvate to its metabolic derivatives lactate, alanine and bicarbonate, but with increased variability.
Effect of Functional Overreaching on Executive Functions

The aim of this study was to investigate whether cognitive performance was a valid marker of overreaching. 10 well-trained male endurance athletes increased their training load by 100% for 2 weeks. They performed a maximal graded test, a constant speed test, a reaction time task and a computerized version of the Stroop color word-test before and after this overload period. Regarding performance results, five participants were considered as overreached and the five remaining were considered as well-trained. We found no significant differences between groups in performing the Stroop test. Noteworthy, we found a small increase in response time in the more complex condition in overreached athletes (1 188+/-261 to 1 297+/-231 ms, effect size=0.44), while it decreased moderately in the well-trained athletes (1 066+/-175 to 963+/-171 ms, effect size=-0.59). Furthermore, we found an interaction between time and group on initiation time of the reaction time task, since it increased in overreached athletes after the overload period (246+/-24 to 264+/-26 ms, p<0.05), while it remained unchanged in well-trained participants. Participants made very few anticipation errors, whatever the group or the period (error rate <2%). We concluded that an unaccustomed increase in training volume which is accompanied by a decrement in physical performance induces a deterioration of some executive functions.
A survey of paediatricians on the use of electrocardiogram for pre-participation sports screening

Abstract Aim The aim of the present study was to determine general paediatrician knowledge, practices, and attitudes towards electrocardiogram (ECG) screening in school athletes during pre-participation screening exam (PPSE). Methods Paediatricians affiliated with a tertiary children’s hospital completed a survey about ECGs for PPSE. Results In total, 205/498 (41%) responded; 92% of the paediatricians did not include an ECG as part of PPSE; 56% were aware of a case in which a student athlete in their own community had died of sudden unexplained death; 4% had an athlete in their practice die. Only 16% of paediatricians perform all 12 American Heart Association recommended elements of the PPSE. If any of these screening elements are abnormal, 69% obtain an ECG, 36% an echocardiogram, and 30% restrict patients from sports activity; 73% of them refer the patient to a cardiologist. Conclusion Most of the general paediatricians surveyed did not currently perform ECGs for PPSE. In addition, there was a low rate of adherence to performing the 12 screening elements recommended by the American Heart Association. They have trouble obtaining timely, accurate ECG interpretations, worry about potential unnecessary exercise restrictions, and cost-effectiveness. The practical hurdles to ECG implementation emphasise the need for a fresh look at PPSE, and not just ECG screening. Improvements in ECG performance/interpretation would be necessary for ECGs to be a useful part of PPSE.
Sports participation in long QT syndrome

Abstract Untreated congenital long QT syndrome may result in potentially lethal ventricular tachycardia. In the most common type, risk of such an event has been linked to exercise. This originally resulted in very restrictive guidelines for sports participation in affected individuals. Although the complex interactions of a specific genotype, modifying cofactors, and risk are only now being explored, scientific evidence based on clinical experience now suggests that in many instances such restrictive guidelines are unwarranted. In particular, patients with this condition who are compliant with β-blocker therapy and who have never had symptoms during exertion are now enjoying the benefits of athletic activity.
The Structure of a Group of Adult Disabled Patients Treated Dentally Under General Anesthesia

Abstract Introduction. Adult disabled people, including mentally handicapped ones, constitute a very serious medical problem in both general and specialist medical care, including dentistry. Dental treatment under general anesthesia is the most recommended for this group of patients. Aim. The aim of this study was to analyze the structure of a group of adult disabled patients treated dentally under general anesthesia. Material and methods. The study was conducted among 147 disabled people, 61 females and 86 males aged 18-56 (the average age − 26.69) from the Lubelskie Voivodeship, qualified for dental treatment under general anesthesia. The survey was basedon interviews with the family members or social workers. The questionnaire included the information concerning general diseases, age, gender, place of residence and the kind of care (family or social welfare institutions). Special attention was paid to the previous dental treatment performed in outpatient clinics or under general anesthesia. Results. The study involved a group of 147 people, including 58.50% males and 41.50% females. The average age of the patients was 26.69 ± 6.41 years (ranged from18 to 56). The patients from a big city accounted for 40.14%, 23.13% of the subjects came from a small town, and 36.73% of the people came from the village. The largest group of patients included people with mental disabilities − 54.43%. Most people (87.76%) lived with their family, while 12.24% were the residents of social welfare institutions. The analysis of the data reveals that for 89.80% of patients, it was their first dental treatment under general anesthesia, and for 10.20%, a subsequent one. Studies have shown that early treatment in outpatient clinics wasperformed in only 27.21% of treated people, while 72.79% have never been treated in a dental surgery. Conclusions. Mentally handicapped people were the largest group of patients treated dentally under general anesthesia. Patients living in the urban areas and under the care of families were more often treated dentally under general anesthesia. Because of the lack of cooperation between disabled patients and the dentist, the complete dental treatment under general anesthesia is the most effective therapy. Adult disabled patients require special dental care.
An overview of network virtualization and cloud network as a service

Cloud computing services delivery and consumption model is based on communication infrastructure (network). The network serves as a linkage between the end‐users consuming cloud services and the providers of data centers providing the cloud services. In addition, in large‐scale cloud data centers, tens of thousands of compute and storage nodes are connected by a data center network to deliver a single‐purpose cloud service. To this end, some questions could be raised, such as the following: How do network architectures affect cloud computing? How will network architecture evolve to support better cloud computing and cloud‐based service delivery? What is the network's role in reliability, performance, scalability, and security of cloud computing? Should the network be a dumb transport pipe or an intelligent stack that is cloud workload aware? This paper focuses on the networking aspect in cloud computing and shall provide insights to these questions. Researchers can use this paper to accelerate their research on devising mechanisms for the following: (i) provisioning cloud network as a service and (ii) engineering network of data centers. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Skin characteristics: normative data for elasticity, erythema, melanin, and thickness at 16 different anatomical locations

The clinical use of non‐invasive instrumentation to evaluate skin characteristics for diagnostic purposes and to evaluate treatment outcomes has become more prevalent. The purpose of this study was to generate normative data for skin elasticity, erythema (vascularity), melanin (pigmentation), and thickness across a broad age range at a wide variety of anatomical locations using the Cutometer® (6 mm probe), Mexameter®, and high‐frequency ultrasound in a healthy adult sample.
Retrospective study of technical aspects and complications of endoscopic submucosal dissection for laterally spreading tumors of the colorectum.

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS Laterally spreading tumors - non granular type (LST-NG) are more often considered candidates for endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) than laterally spreading tumors - granular type (LST-G), because of their higher potential for submucosal invasion. However, ESD for LST-NG can be technically difficult. The aim of our study was to compare our ESD results for LST-NG and for LST-G. PATIENTS AND METHODS Ninety-nine LST-NG and 169 LST-G measuring 20 mm in size or more were removed by ESD. We retrospectively evaluated the clinicopathological features of the tumors and treatment results (en bloc resection rate, procedure time and speed, rate of use of ancillary devices, and complication and recurrence rates). RESULTS Histopathology revealed that there were more submucosally invasive lesions in the LST-NG than in the LST-G group (28 % vs. 9 %; P < 0.0001). The en bloc resection rate, en bloc R0 resection rate, and en bloc curative resection rate of LST-NG were similar to those of LST-G (LST-NG: 99 %, 98 %, and 88 %; LST-G: 99 %, 98 %, and 91 %). In LST-NG, the median procedure time tended to be longer (LST-NG: 69 min; LST-G: 60 min) and the median procedure speed was slower (LST-NG: 0.15 cm (2)/min; LST-G: 0.25 cm (2)/min; P < 0.0001). Use of ancillary devices was higher for LST-NG (38 % vs. 15 % for LST-G; P < 0.0001), as was the perforation rate (5.1 % vs. 0.6 % for LST-G; P = 0.027). No recurrence was seen in either group. CONCLUSIONS ESD was an effective treatment method for both LST-NG and LST-G. However, the degree of technical difficulty appears higher for LST-NG than for LST-G lesions, as shown by the lower dissection speed and higher perforation rate. ESD for LST-NG should probably be performed by those with significant experience of colorectal ESD.
Effects of behavioral intervention on plasma cortisol and lymphocytes in breast cancer patients: An exploratory study

In order to evaluate the effects of a behavioral intervention on endocrine and immunological parameters, 24 breast cancer patients were investigated after standard surgical treatment of their tumors and without adjuvant tumor treatment. Of these, 14 patients were allocated to the intervention group and 10 patients served as controls. Interventions were conducted once a week over a period of 10 weeks. To determine short‐ and longer‐term intervention effects on plasma concentration of cortisol and lymphocyte numbers, blood samples were taken before and after the second and 10th session. Psychological variables such as illness‐related coping showed no changes within the intervention period (10 weeks). However, there were short‐ (pre‐ versus post sessions) and longer‐term (9 weeks) reductions in plasma levels of cortisol in the intervention group. In parallel to the reduced plasma concentration of cortisol, a short‐term increase of lymphocyte numbers after the second and the 10th session, as well as an increase over a period of nine weeks in the intervention group, was observed. This data indicate that behavioral intervention influences endocrine and immunological functions in breast cancer patients.
Exposure to flour dust in South African supermarket bakeries: modeling of baseline measurements of an intervention study.

INTRODUCTION Exposure to flour dust has been reported as an important risk factor for allergic respiratory disease among bakery workers. A high prevalence of allergic sensitization and asthma was recently reported in South African supermarket bakeries. The aim of this study was to conduct a detailed exposure assessment of these bakeries so as to provide the baseline for a broader intervention study. METHODS A total of 211 full-shift personal samples were collected on randomly selected individuals within five different job categories in 18 bakeries. The samples were analyzed for particulate mass and specific flour dust allergens (wheat, rye, and fungal alpha-amylase). Exposure models were developed using job, bakery size, tasks, and specific ingredients used. Bakery and worker were regarded as random effect components. RESULTS Bread bakers had the highest average (geometric mean) exposures (1.33 mg m(-3) flour dust particulate, 13.66 microg m(-3) wheat allergens, and 5.14 microg m(-3) rye allergens). For alpha-amylase allergens, most samples were below the limit of detection for several occupational titles. In the mixed effect models, the significant predictors of elevated exposure to inhalable dust particulate as well as wheat and rye allergen concentrations were large bakery size, bread baking, and use of cereal flours, while tasks such as confectionery work were negatively correlated with these exposure metrics. Weighing tasks and use of premix products were associated with increased exposure to fungal alpha-amylase. A high correlation between particulate dust and wheat (r = 0.84) as well as rye (r = 0.86) was observed, with a much lower correlation between particulate dust and fungal alpha-amylase (r = 0.33). Overall, a low proportion (39%) of bakery stores implemented various control measures to reduce dust exposures in the bakeries. CONCLUSIONS This study confirms that current exposure control strategies in supermarket bakery stores are inadequate in reducing dust exposures to protect the health of bakery workers.
Espondilolistese em frango de corte no Brasil

Eight 28-day-old broiler chickens of both sexes were examined. Clinical signs, gross findings, radiological, and histopathological changes were described. Spondylolisthesis was characterized by dorsal displacement of the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae, resulting in compression of the spinal cord. The major clinical manifestation was paraplegia. Risk factors such as genetics, nutrition, stress, rate of growth, and age were discussed.
Using HLA loci to inform ancestry and health in Polynesian and Maori populations.

Human leukocyte antigens (HLA) are important genetic markers of tissue identity and accurately reflect ancestral history. The work reported in this paper provides a detailed description of HLA polymorphism in Polynesian and Maori individuals in relation to other populations. Our study concerns HLA classes I and II antigens in Polynesian (N = 36) and Maori (N = 114) subjects genotyped at two digit resolution by New Zealand Blood Service Laboratory in Auckland using polymerase chain reaction-sequence specific oligonucleotide and PCR-SSP technologies. We have also compared our data with those from other Austronesian-speaking Mongoloid and Papuan-speaking Australoid populations in order to test previously published account of the origin of Proto-Polynesians via gender-biassed gene flow between these two ancestral populations. We use principal coordinate analysis for this purpose, arguing this approach to be superior to tree-based methods, because of factors associated with population history and admixture. Our data are in general agreement with earlier work and reflect received wisdom on the dual origin of Proto-Polynesians. They also show the way in which the genetic make-up of Polynesian and Maori subjects is changing due to intermarriage with Europeans.
Marital Status and Occupation versus Serum Total Cholesterol and HDL – Cholesterol Levels in Healthy Adults from Kano Metropolis, Nigeria

The influence of marital status and occupation on serum total cholesterol (TC) and high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL – CH) concentrations was studied in sixty one (61) adult male and female Hausa subjects aged 20 – 50 years. Irrespective of marital status and occupation, female subjects had higher mean serum TC and HDL – CH levels than male subjects. Married subjects of both sexes had higher mean serum TC and HDL – CH levels than their non – married counterparts. Male subjects (students) had significantly (p Keywords: Occupation, Cholesterol, Kano, Serum Lipid
ETUS: An enhanced triple umpiring system for security and performance improvement of mobile ad hoc networks

A mobile ad hoc network is a self‐created, self‐organized and self‐administering set of nodes connected via wireless links without the aid of any fixed infrastructure or administrator. Protecting the network layer from malicious attacks is an important and challenging issue in both wired and wireless networks and the issue becomes even more challenging in the case of wireless mobile ad hoc networks. In this paper we propose a solution using a triple umpiring system (TUS), which provides security for routing and data‐forwarding operations. In our system each node's behaviour from source to destination is closely monitored by a set of three umpires. If any misbehaviour is noticed, umpires flag off the guilty node from the circuit. We have proposed two enhancements to the basic TUS for salvaging the circuit during disruptions in route reply and data‐forwarding phases. The model with these two enhancements is called ETUS. We have implemented TUS and ETUS by modifying the popular Ad hoc On‐Demand Distance Vector protocol. Extensive simulation studies using QualNet 5.0 establish the soundness of the proposal. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evaluation of signalling loads in a cognitive network management architecture

Future networks will need to accommodate a significantly augmented user demand, mainly stemming from the wireless and mobile domains. In general, the emerging radio landscape will comprise multiple, collaborating radio access networks (RANs) able to operate a plethora of diverse radio access technologies (RATs), variant types of mobile terminals (MTs), with the ability to choose among various supported RANs/RATs and, in addition, both devices and networks with dynamic spectrum access capabilities that allow the sharing and/or optimization of spectrum usage among different systems. The above will stress network operators for developing mechanisms to confront the challenges and to leverage the opportunities posed by such a versatile radio environment. In particular, the situation calls for adaptive and flexible management paradigms that are able to dynamically manage network elements and terminals, thus ensuring the great availability and efficient usage of spectrum and other radio resources. Framed within the above, this paper considers a cognitive network management architecture, which is destined for optimized management of future wireless networks operating in versatile radio environments, and presents a performance evaluation methodology, which was set up for measuring the signalling loads that the operation of the architecture will bring to the managed network. The methodology is analytically described, and useful results with respect to the signalling load produced for management signalling purposes in an indicative scenario are presented and analysed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Emergency Response in Resource-poor Settings: A Review of a Newly-implemented EMS System in Rural Uganda

Abstract Introduction The goal of an Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system is to prevent needless death or disability from time-sensitive disease processes. Despite growing evidence that these processes contribute significantly to mortality in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), there has been little focus on the development of EMS systems in poor countries. Problem The objective of this study was to understand the utilization pattern of a newly-implemented EMS system in Ruhiira, Uganda. Methods An EMS system based on community priorities was implemented in rural Uganda in 2009. Six months of ambulance logs were reviewed. Patient, transfer, and clinical data were extracted and analyzed. Results In total, 207 cases were reviewed. Out of all transfers, 66% were for chief complaints that were obstetric related, while 12% were related to malaria. Out of all activations, 77.8% were for female patients. Among men, 34% and 28% were related to malaria and trauma, respectively. The majority of emergency transfers were from district to regional hospitals, including 52% of all obstetric transfers, 65% of malaria transfers, and 62% of all trauma transfers. There was no significant difference in the call to arrival on scene time, the time to scene or the scene to treatment time during the day and night (P > .05). Cost-benefit analysis revealed a cost of $89.95 per life saved with an estimated $0.93/capita to establish the system and $0.09/capita/year to maintain the system. Conclusion Contrary to current belief, EMS systems in rural Africa can be affordable and highly utilized, particularly for life-threatening, nontrauma complaints. Construction of a simple but effective EMS system is feasible, acceptable, and an essential component to the primary health care system of LMICs. Stewart De RamirezS, DollJ, CarleS, AnestT, AriiM, HsiehYH, OkongoM, MoreskyR, SachsSE, MillinM. Emergency response in resource poor-settings: a review of a newly-implemented EMS system in rural Uganda. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2014;29(3):1-6 .
The variable anatomy of the nerve to the extensor carpi radialis brevis

The origin and course of the nerve to the extensor carpi radialis brevis are closely related to the lateral aspect of the elbow joint and proximal portion of the radius—both of which are frequent sites of pathology and surgical treatment. The specific origin of the nerve supply to the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle has been attributed variably by diverse anatomic and clinical texts to be the radial nerve, its deep branch or its superficial branch. This study was undertaken to determine the most common source of the nerve to the extensor carpi radialis brevis, as well as the most predictable topographic site of its origin. A total of 111 limbs were dissected, with the most common origin (56.7%) found to be the deep radial nerve, followed by the superficial branch of the radial nerve (31.5%), and least frequently from the bifurcation of the radial nerve into its superficial and deep branches (11.7%). This nerve branch was found to arise in most individuals within one centimeter of the distal edge of the humeroradial joint and to pass distally about 3.5 centimeters before entrance into the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle. © 1993 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.