Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Progressive prediction of hospitalisation in the emergency department: uncovering hidden patterns to improve patient flow

Introduction One of the factors contributing to ED crowding is the lengthy delay in transferring an admitted patient from the ED to an inpatient department (ie, boarding time). An earlier start of the admission process using an automatic hospitalisation prediction model could potentially shorten these delays and reduce crowding. Methods Clinical, operational and demographic data were retrospectively collected on 80 880 visits to the ED of Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, from January 2011 to January 2012. Using these data, a logistic regression model was developed to predict patient disposition (hospitalisation vs discharge) at three progressive time points throughout the ED visit: within the first 10 min, within an hour and within 2 hours. The algorithm was trained on 50% of the data (n=40 440) and tested on the remaining 50%. Results During the study time period, 58 197 visits ended in discharge and 22 683 in hospitalisation. Within 1 hour of presentation, our model was able to predict hospitalisation with a specificity of 90%, sensitivity of 94% and an AUCof 0.97. Early clinical decisions such as testing for calcium levels were found to be highly predictive of hospitalisations. In the Rambam ED, the use of such a prediction system would have the potential to save more than 250 patient hours per day. Conclusions Data collected by EDs in electronic medical records can be used within a progressive modelling framework to predict patient flow and improve clinical operations. This approach relies on commonly available data and can be applied across different healthcare settings.
Quantitative Trait Loci for Fasting Glucose in Young Europeans Replicate Previous Findings for Type 2 Diabetes in 2q23–24 and Other Locations

Long before reaching diagnostic cutoff levels for type 2 diabetes, fasting glucose can be a powerful risk marker for this disease. We conducted a genome-wide search for fasting glucose as a quantitative trait in 412 young European sib-pairs including obese children, with adjustment for sex, age, and BMI. We identified more quantitative trait loci specific to fasting glucose and more significant than would be found by simple chance estimated by permutation tests. The strongest linkage was on chromosome 2q (logarithm of odds [LOD] = 3.00) in a region previously linked to type 2 diabetes as a disease. We also found linkage signals of fasting glucose with 7q (LOD = 2.03), 8q (1.28), 17p (2.12), 17q (1.4), and 11p (1.33). These findings suggest that the quantitative genetics of fasting glucose could contribute to the search for type 2 diabetes genes.
An Intervention To Enhance the Food Environment in Public Recreation and Sport Settings: A Natural Experiment in British Columbia, Canada.

BACKGROUND Publicly funded recreation and sports facilities provide children with access to affordable physical activities, although they often have unhealthy food environments that may increase child obesity risk. This study evaluated the impact of a capacity-building intervention (Healthy Food and Beverage Sales; HFBS) on organizational capacity for providing healthy food environments, health of vending machine products, and food policy development in recreation and sport facilities in British Columbia, Canada. METHODS Twenty-one HFBS communities received training, resources, and technical support to improve their food environment over 8 months in 2009-2010, whereas 23 comparison communities did not. Communities self-reported organizational capacity, food policies, and audited vending machine products at baseline and follow-up. Repeated-measures analysis of variance evaluated intervention impact. RESULTS Intervention and comparison communities reported higher organizational capacity at follow-up; however, improvements were greater in HFBS communities (p<0.001). Healthy vending products increased from 11% to 15% (p<0.05), whereas unhealthy products declined from 56% to 46% (p<0.05) in HFBS communities, with no changes in comparison communities. At baseline 10% of HFBS communities reported having a healthy food policy, whereas 48% reported one at follow-up. No comparison communities had food policies. CONCLUSIONS This is the first large, controlled study to examine the impact of an intervention to improve recreation and sport facility food environments. HFBS communities increased their self-rated capacity to provide healthy foods, healthy vending product offerings, and food policies to a greater extent than comparison communities. Recreation and sport settings are a priority setting for supporting healthy dietary behaviors among children.
Ethno Medical Knowledge of Plants Used By Irula Tribes, Chengal Combai, the Nilgiris, Tamilnadu

A total of 22 species of plants used by Irula community people are described based on ethnomedical field survey. These plants belong to 17 families and are used to treat a wide range of discomforts like cough, cold, body ache, earache, stomachache, headache, diarrhea, snake bite, rheumatism etc. the botanical names, followed by their local names have also been given.
Global Psychometric Evaluation of the Clinical Skills Self‐Efficacy Scale in Moshi, Tanzania

AIM The aim was to psychometrically evaluate the Clinical Skills Self‐Efficacy Scale in a population of nursing students in Tanzania. BACKGROUND Nursing is interested in the understanding of health care and nursing practices globally and across cultural boundaries. Globalization has profound economic, political, cultural, spiritual, and psychological effects. METHOD Psychometric evaluation: Item analysis, reliability and validity were assessed. RESULTS Two factors had eigenvalues greater than 1.00. These two factors accounted for 57 percent of total variance explained. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated for the two subscales and found to be: Subscale 1, . 84; Subscale 2, . 74. There was also evidence of construct validity. CONCLUSION Future research should focus on investigating the relationship between increased self‐efficacy and the successful transferal of clinical skills learned in a simulated laboratory to the clinical setting.
Politics of preferential development: Trans-global study of affirmative action and ethnic conflict in Fiji, Malaysia and South Africa

The book is a critical examination of affirmative action, a form of preferential development often used to address the situation of disadvantaged groups. It uses a trans-global approach, as opposed to the comparative approach, to examine the relationship between affirmative action, ethnic conflict and the role of the state in Fiji, Malaysia and South Africa. While affirmative action has noble goals, there are often intervening political and ideological factors in the form of ethno-nationalism and elite interests, amongst others, which potentially undermine fair distribution of affirmative action resources. The book examines the affirmative action philosophies and programs of the three countries and raises pertinent questions about whether affirmative action has led to equality, social justice, harmony and political stability and explores future possibilities. “Steven Ratuva provides a brilliant critical study, not just of affirmative action policy and practice in three very different postcolonial contexts, but of the very complex matters of principle, justification and ideology that are involved more generally. It is an invaluable contribution to the literature on this important topic. ” - Dr Stephanie Lawson, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University. “Scholarly and provocative, Steven Ratuva’s Politics of Preferential Development is an original and insightful comparative contribution to the growing literature on affirmative action around the world. ” - Dr Ralph Premdas, Professor of Public Policy, University of West Indies; Former Professor, University of California Berkeley and University of Toronto.
Fingerprint Reference-Point Detection

A robust fingerprint recognition algorithm should tolerate the rotation and translation of the fingerprint image. One popular solution is to consistently detect a unique reference point and compute a unique reference orientation for translational and rotational alignment. This paper develops an effective algorithm to locate a reference point and compute the corresponding reference orientation consistently and accurately for all types of fingerprints. To compute the reliable orientation field, an improved orientation smoothing method is proposed based on adaptive neighborhood. It shows better performance in filtering noise while maintaining the orientation localization than the conventional averaging method. The reference-point localization is based on multiscale analysis of the orientation consistency to search the local minimum. The unique reference orientation is computed based on the analysis of the orientation differences between the radial directions from the reference point, which are the directions of the radii emitted from the reference point with equivalent angle interval, and the local ridge orientations along these radii. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed algorithm can consistently locate a unique reference point and compute the reference orientation with high accuracy for all types of fingerprints.
Business Model Design Using Business Process Modelling: Case Of Slovenian Transport Logistics Cluster Creation

In the pursuit of enhanced competitiveness organisations are today searching for innovative business models in order to foster economic benefits. In Slovenia, several clusters are being formed, including the Slovenian Transport Logistics Cluster (STLC) as one of the most important. The STLC is currently in the stage of dynamic growth, demanding business model formation and adequate informatisation. The main goal of the paper is to present the STLC business model creation, bridging the gap between Supply Chain Management (SCM) and e-Logistics. The business model creation is presented in several phases. The first phase involves business modelling of the existing business processes of organisations (AS-IS model). The results of the first phase allow an in-depth view of the STLC that is used in the future in the business model setup. Next, TO-BE processes are created which are to be implemented and supported via informatisation. Business model should enable homogenous and transparent business activity between cluster members. The purposes of the business model creation is to standardize business processes, allow cost cutting and improve business performance, reduce operating times, support asset management, and trace shipments which are the basics of economic competitiveness.
TerraSAR-X interferometry for surface deformation monitoring on periglacial area

Arctic and mountainous periglacial areas are subject to intense freezing cycles and characterized by remarkable surface displacement. We used TerraSAR-X interferometry to analyze the seasonal surface displacement on two regions in Alaska and Switzerland. In both cases, TerraSAR-X interferograms with an 11 days time interval are computed in series in order to maximize coherence. Seasonal subsidence maps highlight surface displacements of several centimeters while time-series show non-linear behaviors of the movements.
RDCurve: A Nonparametric Method to Evaluate the Stability of Ranking Procedures

Great concerns have been raised about the reproducibility of gene signatures based on high-throughput techniques such as microarray. Studies analyzing similar samples often report poorly overlapping results, and the p-value usually lacks biological context. We propose a nonparametric ReDiscovery Curve (RDCurve) method, to estimate the frequency of rediscovery of gene signature identified. Given a ranking procedure and a data set with replicated measurements, the RDCurve bootstraps the data set and repeatedly applies the ranking procedure, selects a subset of k important genes, and estimates the probability of rediscovery of the selected subset of genes. We also propose a permutation scheme to estimate the confidence band under the Null hypothesis for the significance of the RDCurve. The method is nonparametric and model-independent. With the RDCurve, we can assess the signal-to-noise ratio of the data, compare the performance of ranking procedures in term of their expected rediscovery rates, and choose the number of genes to be reported.
Targeted gene therapy and cell reprogramming in Fanconi anemia

Gene targeting is progressively becoming a realistic therapeutic alternative in clinics. It is unknown, however, whether this technology will be suitable for the treatment of DNA repair deficiency syndromes such as Fanconi anemia (FA), with defects in homology‐directed DNA repair. In this study, we used zinc finger nucleases and integrase‐defective lentiviral vectors to demonstrate for the first time that FANCA can be efficiently and specifically targeted into the AAVS1 safe harbor locus in fibroblasts from FA‐A patients. Strikingly, up to 40% of FA fibroblasts showed gene targeting 42 days after gene editing. Given the low number of hematopoietic precursors in the bone marrow of FA patients, gene‐edited FA fibroblasts were then reprogrammed and re‐differentiated toward the hematopoietic lineage. Analyses of gene‐edited FA‐iPSCs confirmed the specific integration of FANCA in the AAVS1 locus in all tested clones. Moreover, the hematopoietic differentiation of these iPSCs efficiently generated disease‐free hematopoietic progenitors. Taken together, our results demonstrate for the first time the feasibility of correcting the phenotype of a DNA repair deficiency syndrome using gene‐targeting and cell reprogramming strategies.
Optimization of parameters for 3-D reconstruction with uncalibrated monoplane angiograms

A method about optimization of parameters for 3-D reconstruction with uncalibrated monoplane angiograms is presented in this paper. Based on the model of monoplane angiographic system, variables concerning about the precision of reconstruction are discussed. Distance between initial image and projection of reconstructed 3-D model is employed to formulate objective function. Adaptive simulated annealing algorithm is utilized to solve the problem of optimization. Experiments on angiograms are presented. The results show that the method greatly improves the accuracy of 3-D reconstruction.
Genome-Wide Mapping of Boundary Element-Associated Factor (BEAF) Binding Sites in Drosophila melanogaster Links BEAF to Transcription

ABSTRACT Insulator elements play a role in gene regulation that is potentially linked to nuclear organization. Boundary element-associated factors (BEAFs) 32A and 32B associate with hundreds of sites on Drosophila polytene chromosomes. We hybridized DNA isolated by chromatin immunoprecipitation to genome tiling microarrays to construct a genome-wide map of BEAF binding locations. A distinct difference in the association of 32A and 32B with chromatin was noted. We identified 1,820 BEAF peaks and found that more than 85% were less than 300 bp from transcription start sites. Half are between head-to-head gene pairs. BEAF-associated genes are transcriptionally active as judged by the presence of RNA polymerase II, dimethylated histone H3 K4, and the alternative histone H3.3. Forty percent of these genes are also associated with the polymerase negative elongation factor NELF. Like NELF-associated genes, most BEAF-associated genes are highly expressed. Using quantitative reverse transcription-PCR, we found that the expression levels of most BEAF-associated genes decrease in embryos and cultured cells lacking BEAF. These results provide an unexpected link between BEAF and transcription, suggesting that BEAF plays a role in maintaining most associated promoter regions in an environment that facilitates high transcription levels.
The study on exploring the user satisfaction of easy teaching web of Taipei by information-seeking and technology acceptance model

E-learning has become a new technology in the educational field recently because of development of information communication technology. Therefore, the Department of Education, Taipei City Government constructed a digital platform based on the internet, named Easy Teaching Web of Taipei (ET Web), for teachers and academic staffs to surf in 2003. For the purpose of analyzing the effectiveness of the ET Web, the technological acceptance model (TAM) and information-seeking model, the Big Six, have been employed in this study. There are 318 valid samples totally selected randomly from members in the ET Web to fill out a pencil-paper questionnaire. The result shows that the perception of ease use (PEOU) can predict the perception of use (PU), the attitude toward using (ATU), and the Big Six. Meanwhile, PU can predict ATU. In addition, the user scarification can be predicted by ATU, and Big Six respectively. According to results of this study, we find the ET Web can promote the satisfaction of users by improving the easy use of the system.
Re-conceptualising the concept of a nexus? A survey of 12 Scottish IS/IM academics’ perceptions of a nexus between teaching, research, scholarship and consultancy

The discussion into nexes between teaching, research and scholarship continues to expand. Positivistic studies have attempted to ‘measure’ research output to evaluate teaching performance. Interpretive-based studies suggest staff perceive a nexus to exist. This paper investigates the perceptions of academic staff with regards the nexes between teaching, research, scholarship and consultancy when informing teaching. Qualitative data were obtained via 12 semi-structured interviews with Information Systems/Information Management academics from both a teaching and a research-led university in Scotland. This study suggests that a perceived nexus exists between research and consultancy and it is bi-directional. The area of scholarship was perceived to be problematic. Teaching practice was perceived to be informed by both the processes and products of research and consultancy, but research and consultancy practices were not thought to be informed by teaching. When conceptualising a nexus, a process view, rather than a substantive view, may be more productive.
Double jeopardy upon resumé screening: When achmed is less employable than Aïsha.

Applicants belong to multiple categories (e.g., male, ethnic minority) and a complex set of factors affects category activation and inhibition when making hiring decisions. Two field experiments with recruiters who regularly engage in resume screening showed that the role of multiple categories (applicants’ ethnicity and sex) in discrimination depended on job type and prejudice. Specifically, in both low- and high-demand (i.e., complex) jobs, Arab women were rated more favorably than Arab men, particularly when considering levels of client contact. Across both studies, recruiters high in explicit ethnic prejudice were discriminatory only when applicants’ job qualifications fit the job position less, lending support for the attributional-ambiguity effect. Implicit attitudes did not play a strong role. Our study findings point to the complex nature of multiple categorization effects in the hiring process. Implications are considered as to how to avert hiring discrimination during resume screening
gga-miR-375 Plays a Key Role in Tumorigenesis Post Subgroup J Avian Leukosis Virus Infection

Avian leukosis is a neoplastic disease caused in part by subgroup J avian leukosis virus J (ALV-J). Micro ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) play pivotal oncogenic and tumour-suppressor roles in tumour development and progression. However, little is known about the potential role of miRNAs in avian leukosis tumours. We have found a novel tumour-suppressor miRNA, gga-miR-375, associated with avian leukosis tumorigenesis by miRNA microarray in a previous report. We have also previously studied the biological function of gga-miR-375; Overexpression of gga-miR-375 significantly inhibited DF-1 cell proliferation, and significantly reduced the expression of yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) by repressing the activity of a luciferase reporter carrying the 3′-untranslated region of YAP1. This indicates that gga-miR-375 is frequently downregulated in avian leukosis by inhibiting cell proliferation through YAP1 oncogene targeting. Overexpression of gga-miR-375 markedly promoted serum starvation induced apoptosis, and there may be the reason why the tumour cycle is so long in the infected chickens. In vivo assays, gga-miR-375 was significantly downregulated in chicken livers 20 days after infection with ALV-J, and YAP1 was significantly upregulated 20 days after ALV-J infection (P<0.05). We also found that expression of cyclin E, an important regulator of cell cycle progression, was significantly upregulated (P<0.05). Drosophila inhibitor of apoptosis protein 1 (DIAP1), which is related to caspase-dependent apoptosis, was also significantly upregulated after infection. Our data suggests that gga-miR-375 may function as a tumour suppressor thereby regulating cancer cell proliferation and it plays a key role in avian leukosis tumorigenesis.
Molecular monitoring of T‐cell chimerism early after allogeneic stem cell transplantation may predict the occurrence of acute GVHD grades II–IV

Abstract: Mixed chimerism (MC) within CD4+ and CD8+ T cell days 7 and 10 after allogeneic stem cell transplantation (SCT) was compared with the occurrence of acute graft‐vs.‐host disease (GVHD) in 34 patients after SCT. Acute GVHD was diagnosed in 22 patients within the first 3 months after SCT, 15 of these developed acute GVHD grades II–IV. The difference in the clearance rate of host T cell between the two days were compared. We found a significantly higher risk (p = 0.005) for developing acute GVHD grades II–IV in patients with complete donor CD4+ T‐cell chimerism day 7 after SCT together with patients who increased 50% or more in donor CD4+ T cells between days 7 and 10 after SCT. Our data suggest that molecular monitoring of MC early after transplantation may be useful as a diagnostic tool in predicting the occurrence of moderate to severe acute GVHD after SCT.
Emotional Intelligence, Work, and Psychological Outcomes in a Public Service Context

This study examines the role of emotional intelligence in the relationship between work context (conceptualised as job demands and job resources) and psychological outcomes (conceptualised as engagement and psychological well-being) in a sample of public sector employees (N=459). The Job Demands-Resources Scale (Rothmann et al., 2006), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (Schaufeli et al., 2002), the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985), the Affectometer 2 (Kammann & Flett, 1983), and the Emotional Intelligence Scale (Schutte et al., 1998) were implemented in a cross-sectional design. Regression analyses showed that emotional intelligence had main effects on psychological outcomes. Emotional intelligence also moderated the effects of work context factors on psychological outcomes. Emotional intelligence is a valuable personal resource to cultivate for facilitation of psychological well-being in the workplace.
Sensorless control in multi-motors electric drives with high dynamic and rigid coupling

In this article we'll tackle the control of multi-motors electric drives with high dynamic, with rapid changes in torque and speed, with rigid coupling of motors, where the control strategy is FOC (Field Oriented Control) for each drives and the distributed control in local network using the CanOpen protocol. In the surface mining industry, from which the electric drive application for this article is selected, the general trend is toward using asynchronous motors with short-circuit rotor, due to the advantages of this motor both in terms of design and operation. In order to achieve the variable speed, must be used the static frequency converters with sensorless control, where speed is estimated using a Model References Adaptive Control Estimator. Following these directions a functional application was implemented and tested in practice.