Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Stress on Mothers of Hospitalized Children in a Hospital in Iran

Objective Hospitalization of a child can cause severe anxiety and stress in the parents, especially for the mother. This stress consequently affects the treatment course of the child. Hereby, we investigate the impact of different stressors in mothers of hospitalized children. Materials & Methods In this cross-sectional study, 225 mothers of hospitalized children in the pediatric ward of Besat hospital were randomly selected and studied. Data collection tool was a two-part questionnaire gathered by interviewing the mother. The first part included demographic information of the patients. The second part included questions regarding stressors in four different categories; child-related factors, environmental factors, socioeconomic factors and health professional factors. SPSS 16.5 was used for statistical analysis and data were analyzed by one way ANOVA and T test. Results In the child-related factor category, fear of child death (84%); in the socioeconomic factor category, fear of disease in the other siblings (84%); in the environmental factor category, unpleasant odors in the ward (56%); and in the health professional category, not enough explanation about inserting IV lines, (54.2%) constituted the most important factors. There was a meaningful correlation between the stressors and the mothers’ age and occupation, child age, days of hospitalization, types of admission and health insurance coverage, but there was no meaningful correlation between stressors and other factors. Conclusion Professional and in depth training programs should be provided for health care providers and nursing staff regarding dealing with mothers of hospitalized children.
Adverse neuropsychiatric effects of cytomegalovirus prophylaxis with valaciclovir in renal transplant recipients.

BACKGROUND Valaciclovir (VACV) has been reported to induce adverse neuropsychiatric effects (ANE), especially in patients with renal failure, but few data are available for renal transplant recipients (RTR). METHODS We conducted a retrospective study in RTR given VACV as cytomegalovirus prophylaxis, from January 1999 to December 2000, to define the incidence rate, type and outcome of VACV-induced ANE, and to identify risk factors for ANE. The VACV-induced ANE were defined as neuropsychiatric disorders justifying VACV dose reduction or withdrawal. Patients with and without VACV-induced ANE were compared by univariate and multivariate analysis. RESULTS In all, 167 RTR were included, of whom 25 (15%) displayed VACV-induced ANE (mainly hallucinations and confusion), which occurred with a mean of 4 days after the start of VACV. ANE were reversible in all cases. Multivariate analysis showed that delayed graft function (DGF) was the main risk factor for VACV-induced ANE [Odds ratio (OR): 12.1; 95% CI = 3.4-43.4; P = 0.0001]. All VACV doses given to patients with ANE were in accordance with the current recommended adaptation to estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR). CONCLUSION In RTR, VACV-induced ANE are significantly frequent but reversible. DGF occurrence is the main risk factor for these ANE. In RTR with DGF, the recommended doses for GFR below 10 ml/min might be too high. Several strategies, in RTR with DGF, might lower the risk of ANE, including reduction of the currently recommended VACV dosage, delayed VACV introduction until improvement of renal function, or use of another anti-cytomegalovirus drug.
Using a 3D hand motion controller in a virtual power wheelchair simulator for navigation-reaching

This study evaluated the use of a 6 degree-of-freedom hand motion controller as an interface for implementing a reaching component to the miWe powered wheelchair simulator. We determined concordance of task times, number of movements, and task behaviours between simulator (VR) and the real world (RW) in three navigation-reaching tasks. Task times and number of joystick and reaching movements were greater overall in VR than in RW. Collisions and reaching errors were more numerous in VR and 15 of 22 behaviours across three tasks were concordant between VR and RW. We concluded that PW users approached tasks with similar strategies in VR, but had more difficulty completing tasks, compared to RW.
Motivational factors influencing teaching (FIT) as a career: An empirical study of the expatriate teachers in the Emirates

ABSTRACT:This study aimed to investigate the motivational factors that lead to choice of teaching career in expatriate teachers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). A UAE version of the Factors Influencing Teaching (FIT)-Choice scale (Watt & Richardson, 2007) was developed following the pre-testing strategies used by Dillman (2000), Heinz (2013) and Sharif (2014) and applied to identify the factors that most influenced the expatriates choose teaching as a career in the UAE. In a proposed and successfully tested model in this study, altruistic &/or intrinsic and extrinsic factors were found to be the mediator in the relationship between prior teaching & learning experience and social influence, and choice of a teaching career. Some gender differences were observed in case of four factors, ie, fall back career, work with children and adolescents, salary and prior teaching and learning experiences, and implications were discussed. For recruitment campaigns, strategies based on this study findings and understanding of the expatriate teachers’ motivations to adopt teaching as a career in the UAE were discussed. Due to the fact that the most recent study by LinkedIn among 380 million global members highlighted the UAE to be the most popular destination for expatriates surpassing Australia, Canada and Singapore (Maceda, 2015), the findings of this study can be considered to be of value to: (a) altruistically/intrinsically motivated professionals who are international-minded and seeking greener pastures in the UAE, and (b) the UAE policymakers who are working hard to fill the demand-supply gap drawing the attention of expatriates with the right skills and expertise. Finally, the research attempts in this study are seemingly unique in the sense that no previous study on teaching motivation had a combined focus on ‘in-service’, ‘expatriate teachers’ and UAE using FIT-Choice scale.
Accuracy and Precision of the Amadeus Microkeratome in Producing LASIK Flaps

Purpose To evaluate the accuracy and precision of corneal flap thickness following laser in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) performed using the 140-, 160-, and 180-&mgr;m heads for the Amadeus microkeratome (AMO, Irvine, CA). Setting The study took place at the Cullen Eye Institute, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston. Methods In this prospective study, using the Amadeus microkeratome, LASIK flaps were cut in 51 right eyes and 50 left eyes with the 140-&mgr;m head, 25 right eyes and 25 left eyes with the 160-&mgr;m head, and five right eyes and one left eye with the 180-&mgr;m head. The same microkeratome blade was used for bilateral cases with the right eyes always undergoing surgery first. Eyes were grouped by order of blade use for statistical analysis. The effect of preoperative corneal thickness, keratometry values, blade oscillation and translation speeds, and blade reuse on flap thickness was evaluated. Results Mean flap thicknesses were 153 ± 18 &mgr;m (range 97–187 &mgr;m) OD and 134 ± 25 &mgr;m (range 79–174 &mgr;m) OS for the 140-&mgr;m head; 182 ± 26 &mgr;m (range 105–220 &mgr;m) OD and 163 ± 29 &mgr;m (range 105–216 &mgr;m) OS for the 160-&mgr;m head; and 235 ± 24 &mgr;m (range 198–258 &mgr;m) for the 180-&mgr;m head. Flap thickness was significantly thicker for the first eyes cut (right eyes) and was positively correlated with increasing corneal thickness in both eyes. For the first eyes cut, flap thickness was also significantly thicker than the labeled thickness specified by the manufacturer. Conclusions With the Amadeus microkeratome, LASIK flap thickness correlated with central corneal thickness for the 140-&mgr;m head. Reuse of the microkeratome blades produced significantly thinner LASIK flaps on second eyes cut.
Brain activity associated with fear renewal

This is the first mapping study of the brain activity associated with the renewal of an extinguished conditioned response. Rats were given radiolabeled fluorodeoxyglucose, a glucose analog, to map brain effects of an extinguished tone during context‐dependent renewal of conditioned fear. A tone conditioned stimulus was paired with a footshock unconditioned stimulus in a first context, followed by conditioned response extinction in a second context and conditioned response renewal in a third context. Control rats were treated identically, except that tone and shock were presented pseudorandomly. Compared with control subjects, rats with conditioned response renewal had increased tone‐evoked fluorodeoxyglucose uptake in the auditory system (auditory cortex, medial geniculate, inferior colliculus and lateral lemniscal nuclei), as well as somatic and visceral sensory nuclei (external cuneate, spinal trigeminal, solitary tract and vestibular nuclei). In addition, perirhinal cortex, anterior lateral hypothalamus and ventrolateral periaqueductal gray showed conditioned response renewal effects. Brain–behavior correlations indicated that the activity of the external cuneate nucleus strongly predicted the conditioned response in the renewal group. It is suggested that context‐dependent fear renewal is associated with (1) tone‐evoked activation of the excitatory conditioned stimulus representation in the auditory system, (2) associative activation of the unconditioned stimulus representation in somatic and visceral sensory nuclei in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus, and (3) neural activation of the perirhinal cortex, hypothalamus and periaqueductal gray. These findings support Pavlov's stimulus‐substitution theory as a neural mechanism contributing to the renewal effect.
High muscle blood flows are not attenuated by recruitment of additional muscle mass.

Recent studies have demonstrated that single-leg knee extensor (KE) exercise elicits high mass-specific blood flow (Q) which, if incremented toward maximum, in the presence of additional muscle recruitment would soon outstrip the heart's pumping capacity and blood pressure would fall. Thus incremental KE exercise provides the opportunity to determine the intensity at which, if at all, quadriceps muscle hemodynamics are altered during incremental exercise that involves a substantially greater muscle mass. Leg Q was measured during incremental KE exercise and again with superimposed incremental two-legged knee extensor exercise with incremental arm cranking (A+L) in trained subjects (n = 5). Leg Q and vascular conductance (VC) increased with work rate (WR) to reach high levels [Q = 385.7 +/- 26 and 342.3 +/- 15 ml.min-1.100 g-1 for KE and A+L exercise, respectively; VC at 90% of maximum WR (WRmax) = 79 +/- 5 and 75 +/- 6 ml.min-1. mmHg-1 for KE and A+L exercise, respectively], but the Q/WR and VC/WR relationships in KE and A+L exercise were not different. Maximum O2 consumption (VO2max) and the VO2max/WR relationship of the quadriceps were also unaffected by the additional muscle mass recruited. Despite a significantly greater net femoral venous norepinephrine (NE) outflow at both 90 and 100% of WRmax in A+L exercise (WRmax = 4,216 +/- 1,601 and 901 +/- 99 ng/ml for A+L and KE exercise, respectively; P < 0.05), leg Q continued to rise linearly with WR. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A Mean-Field Game of Evacuation in Multilevel Building

This paper puts forward a simple mean-field game that captures some of the key dynamic features of crowd and pedestrian flows in multilevel building evacuations. It considers both microscopic and macroscopic route choice by strategic agents. To achieve this, we use mean-field differential game with local congestion measure based on the location of the agent in the building. Including the local mean-field term and its evolution along the path causes a sort of dispersion of the flow: the agents will try to avoid high density areas in order to reduce their overall walking costs and queuing costs at the stairs and exits. Each agent state is represented by a center of a box that follows a simple first-order dynamical system in an Euclidean space. Each agent will move to one of the closest exits that is safer and with less congested path. First, we formulate the problem and derive optimality equations using maximum principle and dynamic programming with boundary conditions. Second, well posedness and existence results are provided. Numerics and simulations are carried out to illustrate mean-field equilibria of a safer evacuation process. Finally, the methodology is shown to be flexible enough to include movement noises and stochastic structural component of the building.
Unicompartmental knee replacement. A minimum 15 year followup study.

One hundred forty Marmor cemented unicompartmental knee replacements were inserted in 103 patients between 1975 and 1982. Fifty-two patients were women and 51 were men. One hundred twenty-five were medial compartment knee replacements and 15 were lateral knee replacements. At minimum 15 year followup 34 patients with 48 knee replacements were living; only four patients with four knee replacements were lost to followup. Average preoperative and final followup Hospital for Special Surgery knee scores were 57 and 82 points, respectively for the knees of living patients. Average preoperative and final followup Knee Society clinical and Knee Society functional scores were 31 and 42, and 85 and 71 points, respectively. For all knees, 10.2% (14 knees) were revised [4.4% (six knees) for tibial loosening, 5.1% (seven knees) for disease progression, and . 7% (one knee) for pain]. For patients living 15 years, 12.5% (six knees) were revised [2.1% (one knee) for tibial loosening, and 10.4% (five knees) for disease progression]. Revision for failure of fixation of these unicompartmental replacements was comparable with that reported for fixed bearing total knee replacement. Disease progression (46%; 62 of 136 knees) and tibial subsidence with wear (10.4%; 15 of 136 knees, five of which required revision) were the major long term problems in this group of patients.
Action of morpholinos in Ciona embryos

Summary: First, using morpholino against lacZ, we demonstrate that the morpholino specifically suppresses the translation of the gene introduced exogenously into Ciona eggs. Second, using morpholino against an alkaline phosphatase gene, we show that the morpholino suppresses the translation of the endogenous gene as well. Third, using morpholino against β‐catenin gene, we confirm that the suppression by the morpholino can be rescued by injection of β‐catenin mRNA. All of these results indicate that morpholino act in Ciona embryos to specifically block the function of endogenous genes as well as exogenously introduced genes. genesis 30: 103–106, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The dual function of the splenic marginal zone: essential for initiation of anti‐TI‐2 responses but also vital in the general first‐line defense against blood‐borne antigens

The splenic marginal zone (S‐MZ) is especially well equipped for rapid humoral responses and is unique in its ability to initiate an immune response to encapsulated bacteria (T‐cell independent type 2 (TI‐2) antigens). Because of the rapid spreading through the blood, infections with blood‐borne bacteria form a major health risk. To cope with blood‐borne antigens, a system is needed that can respond rapidly to a great diversity of organisms. Because of a number of unique features, S‐MZ B cells can respond rapid and efficient to all sorts of blood‐borne antigens. These unique features include a low blood flow microenvironment, low threshold for activation, high expression of complement receptor 2 (CR2, CD21) and multireactivity.
Primary and secondary metabolites of an European edible mushroom and its nutraceutical value: Suillus bellinii (Inzenga) Kuntze

Abstract In this work, we report the study on the composition in primary and secondary metabolites of the polar and less-polar fractions obtained from the fruiting bodies of Suillus bellinii (Inzenga) Kuntze collected from Central Italy. Thirteen compounds were identified through a series of classical chromatographic methods and through spectroscopic techniques (nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS)), namely suillin (1), ergosterol (2), glutamic acid (3), isoleucine (4), leucine (5), threonine (6), tyrosine (7), valine (8), D-mannitol (9), sucrose (10), D-sorbitol (11), fumaric acid (12) and alanine (13). These results allowed us to make specific considerations about the possible applications of this mushroom, which vary from medicine, due to the high cytotoxic and antitumor properties of suillin (1), to nutritional values, due to the presence of essential nutrients as amino acids and pre-vitamin D2 (ergosterol), together with low-calories sweeteners, confirming the close association between the identified components and the health-promoting properties of this species.
Telomere length measurements using digital fluorescence microscopy.

BACKGROUND The ends of chromosomes (telomeres) are important to maintain chromosome stability, and the loss of telomere repeat sequences has been implicated in cellular senescence and genomic instability of cancer cells. The traditional method for measuring the length of telomeres (Southern analysis) requires a large number of cells (>10(5)) and does not provide information on the telomere length of individual chromosomes. Here, we describe a digital image microscopy system for measurements of the fluorescence intensity derived from telomere repeat sequences in metaphase cells following quantitative fluorescence in situ hybridization (Q-FISH). METHODS Samples are prepared for microscopy using Q-FISH with Cy3 labeled peptide nucleic acid probes specific for (T(2)AG(3))(n) sequences and the DNA dye DAPI. Separate images of Cy3 and DAPI fluorescence are acquired and processed with a dedicated computer program (TFL-TELO). With the program, the integrated fluorescence intensity value for each telomere, which is proportional to the number of hybridized probes, is calculated and presented to the user. RESULTS Indirect tests of our method were performed using simulated as well as defined tests objects. The precision and consistency of human telomere length measurements was then analyzed in a number of experiments. It was found that by averaging the results of less than 30 cells, a good indication of the telomere length (SD of 10-15%) can be obtained. CONCLUSIONS We demonstrate that accurate and repeatable fluorescence intensity measurements can be made from Q-FISH images that provide information on the length of telomere repeats at individual chromosomes from limited number of cells.
FPGA-based acceleration of FDAS module using OpenCL

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project will be the world largest radio telescope array. With the growth of the number of antennas, the signals that need to be processed increase dramatically. One import element of the SKA central signal processor (CSP) package is pulsar search. This paper focuses on the FPGA-based acceleration of the frequency-domain acceleration search (FDAS) module, part of SKA pulsar search. In FDAS, the frequency-domain input signals have to be processed by 85 421-tap FIR filters within a short time limit and for thousands of input arrays. Because of the large scale of input length and FIR filter size, even high-end FPGA devices cannot parallelize the task completely. We start by investigating both time-domain FIR filter (TDFIR) and frequency-domain FIR filter (FDFIR) to tackle the FDAS task. We applied the overlap-add algorithm (OLA) to split the coefficient array of TDFIR and the overlap-save algorithm (OLS) to split the input signals of FDFIR. To achieve fast prototyping design, we applied OpenCL, which is a high-level FPGA development technique, to develop high-end FPGAs. The performance and power consumption are evaluated and compared with GPU results, which is achieved by porting FPGA-based OpenCL kernels. The experimental evaluation shows that the FD solution is very competitive in terms of performance, with a clear energy consumption advantage over the GPU solution.
Genomewide SNP assay reveals mutations underlying Parkinson disease

Technologies that allow genotyping of more than 100,000 polymorphisms in a single assay enable the execution of genomewide SNP (GWSNP) association studies to identify common genetic variants underlying traits. Less appreciated is the ability of GWSNP assays to map and directly identify rare mutations that cause disease. Here we show the use of this approach in identifying rare structural mutations involved in disease using a large cohort of Parkinson disease (PD) patients and neurologically normal controls by examination of genotype data and copy number metrics. This approach revealed a patient with homozygous mutation at the PARK2 locus. In addition, two heterozygous deletion mutations and five heterozygous duplication mutations within PARK2 were identified in PD subjects and controls. All mutations were confirmed by independent gene dosage experiments. These data demonstrate the utility of this approach in the direct detection of mutations that underlie disease. Hum Mutat 29(2), 315–322, 2008. Published 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Basal lamina formation at the site of spinal cord transection

The pia‐glial basal lamina (BL) at the site of spinal cord injury could be an important physical impediment to central nervous system regeneration. We used an epithelial BL‐specific immunohistochemical stain to determine the location of the pia‐glial BL after spinal cord transection.
Identity and initial structure in inter-firm alliances: a social identity perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how firms use the identities of their alliance partners in choosing initial governance structures in strategic alliances. It proposes that social identity from the perspective of an established firm participating in an inter-firm alliance can be constructed on the basis of ownership categories and market categories of the firm’s alliance partners. Design/methodology/approach – The study focusses on a sample of 478 alliances involving 36 focal firms in the US semiconductor industry over a nine-year period (1995-2003). The sample is analyzed using logistic regression methods. Findings – The author finds evidence suggesting that joint venture (JV) structures are more likely when an alliance has more partners that identify as privately held firms or subsidiaries of other firms. The results also suggest that JV structures are more likely when an alliance involves strong product market identity with partners and less likely when an alliance involves strong geogr.