Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diabetic foot infections: stepwise medical and surgical management

Foot complications are common among diabetic patients; foot ulcers are among the more serious consequences. These ulcers frequently become infected, with potentially disastrous progression to deeper spaces and tissues. If not treated promptly and appropriately, diabetic foot infections can become incurable or even lead to septic gangrene, which may require foot amputation. Diagnosing infection in a diabetic foot ulcer is based on clinical signs and symptoms of inflammation. Properly culturing an infected lesion can disclose the pathogens and provide their antibiotic susceptibilities. Specimens for culture should be obtained after wound debridement to avoid contamination and optimise identification of pathogens. Staphylococcus aureus is the most common isolate in these infections; the increasing incidence of methicillin‐resistant S. aureus over the past two decades has further complicated antibiotic treatment. While chronic infections are often polymicrobial, many acute infections in patients not previously treated with antibiotics are caused by a single pathogen, usually a gram‐positive coccus. We offer a stepwise approach to treating diabetic foot infections. Most patients must first be medically stabilised and any metabolic aberrations should be addressed. Antibiotic therapy is not required for uninfected wounds but should be carefully selected for all infected lesions. Initial therapy is usually empirical but may be modified according to the culture and sensitivity results and the patient's clinical response. Surgical intervention is usually required in cases of retained purulence or advancing infection despite optimal medical therapy. Possible additional indications for surgical procedures include incision and drainage of an abscess, debridement of necrotic material, removal of any foreign bodies, arterial revascularisation and, when needed, amputation. Most foot ulcers occur on the plantar surface of the foot, thus requiring a plantar incision for any drainage procedure.
Mediation in the shadow of an audience: How third parties use secrecy and agenda-setting to broker settlements

How does mediation work? Uncertainty is one of the main rationalist explanations for war. When a leader faces domestic pressure and mediation involves secrecy and agenda-setting, mediation by a third party in crisis bargaining can reduce the risk of war by reducing uncertainty and locking in concessions. As a result, mediation improves the prospects for peace at the price of costlier settlements, and should talks fail, the leader and her audience are more likely to win in any ensuing war. The theory holds implications for mediation, audience costs, and democracies in showing that an enemy with no audience costs can demonstrate resolve credibly in mediation. The argument is also closely related to the delegation literature, in showing that when a principal faces external pressure, she can reduce her risk of worse outcomes by delegating to an uninformed agent who, with considerable discretion, can extract credible information from an adversary.
Sequences and expression of pyruvate dehydrogenase genes from Pseudomonas aeruginosa

A mutant of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, OT2100, which appeared to be defective in the production of the fluorescent yellow-green siderophore pyoverdine had been isolated previously following transposon mutagenesis (T. R. Merriman and I. L. Lamont, Gene 126:17-23, 1993). DNA from either side of the transposon insertion site was cloned, and the sequence was determined. The mutated gene had strong identity with the dihydrolipoamide acetyltransferase (E2) components of pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) from other bacterial species. Enzyme assays revealed that the mutant was defective in the E2 subunit of PDH, preventing assembly of a functional complex. PDH activity in OT2100 cell extracts was restored when extract from an E1 mutant was added. On the basis of this evidence, OT2100 was identified as an aceB or E2 mutant. A second gene, aceA, which is likely to encode the E1 component of PDH, was identified upstream from aceB. Transcriptional analysis revealed that aceA and aceB are expressed as a 5-kb polycistronic transcript from a promoter upstream of aceA. An intergenic region of 146 bp was located between aceA and aceB, and a 2-kb aceB transcript that originated from a promoter in the intergenic region was identified. DNA fragments upstream of aceA and aceB were shown to have promoter activities in P. aeruginosa, although only the aceA promoter was active in Escherichia coli. It is likely that the apparent pyoverdine-deficient phenotype of mutant OT2100 is a consequence of acidification of the growth medium due to accumulation of pyruvic acid in the absence of functional PDH.
Evaluation of family treatment models for eating disorders.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Interest in the effectiveness of family interventions for eating disorders has increased over the past 5 years. This review considers the theoretical justification and current evidence base for the use of family treatments for eating disorders in children and adolescents. RECENT FINDINGS Family-based treatment is the best studied treatment. It has the strongest evidence base for effectiveness for anorexia nervosa in adolescents. Family-based treatment can be delivered in several formats and doses, and preliminary data suggest it can be disseminated by training and manuals. There is a more limited evidence base demonstrating the usefulness of family interventions for bulimia nervosa in adolescents. SUMMARY The implications of the findings of this review are that family interventions are the current first-line treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa and promising for adolescent bulimia nervosa. Pilot studies suggest that family interventions can be disseminated in diverse clinical settings.
A Combination Therapy of Gemcitabine With Immunotherapy for Patients With Inoperable Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

Objectives: Dendritic cell (DC) therapy frequently induces a measurable immune response. However clinical responses are seen in a minority of patients, presumably due to insufficient expansion of antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) capable of eradicating tumor cells. To increase therapeutic efficacy of DC-based vaccination, we have undertaken the first clinical trial involving a combination therapy of gemcitabine (GEM) with immunotherapy for patients with inoperable locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Methods: Patients (n = 5) received the treatment course, which consisted of intravenous GEM administration at 1000 mg/m2 (day 1) and the endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle injection of OK432-pulsed DCs into a tumor, followed by intravenous infusion of lymphokine-activated killer cells stimulated with anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody (CD3-LAKs) (day 4), at 2-week intervals. Results: No serious treatment-related adverse events were observed during the study period. Three of the 5 patients demonstrated effective responses to this clinical trial; 1 had partial remission and 2 had long stable disease more than 6 months. In the patient with partial remission, it has been shown that DC-based vaccination combined with GEM administration induces tumor antigen-specific CTLs. Conclusion: This combined therapy was considered to be synergistically effective and may have a role in the therapy of pancreatic cancer for inducing tumor antigen-specific CTLs.
Venture Capital and Innovation: Evidence from European Economic Area Countries

The paper examines the long-run relationship between venture capital and innovation in the 19 European Economic Area (EEA) countries over the period 1989–2014. We use three different indicators of venture capital (VC), such as VC at early stage investment, VC at later stage investment, and VC total investment, and seven different indicators of innovation, such as patents-residents, patents-nonresidents, patents-total, research and development expenditure, researchers in research and development activities, high-technology exports, and scientific and technical journal articles, to examine this long-run relationship. Using cointegration technique, the study warrants the support of long-run relationship between venture capital and innovation in few cases, typically with reference to a particular VC indicator and innovation indicator. Expending the Granger causality test, the study finds the presence of both bidirectional and unidirectional causality between venture capital and innovation. However, these results vary from country-to-country within the EEA countries, depending upon the types of VC indicator and innovation indicator that we use in a particular empirical exploration process. The policy implication of this study is that the economic policies should recognize the differences in the venture capital and innovation in order to maintain the sustainable development in these EEA countries.
A 1 V, compact, current-mode neural spike detector with detection probability estimator in 65 nm CMOS

In this paper, we describe a novel low power, compact, current-mode spike detector circuit for real-time neural recording systems where neural spikes or action potentials (AP) are of interest. Such a circuit can enable massive compression of data facilitating wireless transmission. This design operates by approximating the popularly used nonlinear energy operator (NEO) through standard current mode analog blocks that can operate at low voltages. To reduce sensitivity of threshold setting, this work uses a current-mode oscillator based detection probability estimator (DPE) to reject false positives caused by the background noise. The circuit is implemented in a 65 nm CMOS process and occupies 200 μm × 150 μm of chip area. Operating from a 1 V power supply, it consumes about 88 nW of static power and 10 nJ of dynamic energy per input spike.
Lack of an Association between the TGFBR1*6A Variant and Colorectal Cancer Risk

Purpose: Recently a common variant of the TGFBR1 gene, TGFBR1*6A, has been proposed to act as a low-penetrance tumor susceptibility allele for colorectal cancer, but data from published studies with individually low statistical power are conflicting. To further evaluate the relationship between TGFBR1*6A and colorectal cancer risk, we have conducted a large case-control study and a meta-analysis of previously published studies. Experimental Design: A total of 1,042 colorectal cancer cases and 856 population controls were genotyped for the TGFBR1*6A polymorphism. Previously published case-control studies of the relationship between TGFBR1*6A and colorectal cancer were identified, and a meta-analysis was conducted. Results: We found no evidence that homozygosity, heterozygosity or carrier status for the TGFBR1*6A allele confers an increased risk of colorectal cancer; respective odds ratios (OR) were 1.05 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.83-1.32], 0.82 (95% CI, 0.34-1.99), and 0.92 (95% CI, 0.74-1.15), respectively. A meta-analysis of our case-control study and seven other studies that provided data on 2,627 colorectal cancer cases and 3,387 controls also yielded no evidence that possession of the TGFBR1*6A allele is associated with an elevated risk of colorectal cancer; pooled estimate of the OR were 1.20 (95% CI, 0.64-2.24) for homozygosity, 1.11 (95% CI, 0.96-1.29) for heterozygosity, and 1.13 (95% CI, 0.98-1.30) for carriers of TGFBR1*6A. Conclusion: Current data provide limited support for the hypothesis that sequence variation in TGFBR1 defined by the TGFBR1*6A allele confers an elevated risk of colorectal cancer.
Performance analysis of adaptive algorithms for removal of low frequency noise from ECG signal

Electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is the electrical activity of the human heart. The ECG contains important information about the overall performance of the human cardiac system. Therefore, accurate examination of the ECG signal is very important but challenging task. ECG signal is often very low amplitude and contaminated with different types of noises due to its measurement process e.g. power line interference, amplifier noise and baseline wander. Baseline wander is a type of biological noise caused by the random movement of patient during ECG measurement and distorts the ST segment of the ECG waveform. In this paper, we present a comprehensive comparative study of five widely used adaptive filtering algorithms for the removal of low frequency noise. We perform extensive experiments on the Physionet MIT BIH ECG database and compare the signal to noise ratio (SNR), convergence rate, and time complexity of these algorithms. It is found that modified LMS has better performance than others in terms of SNR and convergence rate.
Transitions in the Concept of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a worldwide problem with significant physical, psychological, and social impacts. Despite its prevalence and cost, the phenomenon is not well understood. An inductive method of concept analysis was used to study the concept of chronic, non-cancerous pain in adults. A random sample of nursing, psychology, and neurophysiology literature published over a 30-year period (1969 through 1999) was used to generate a consensual definition of chronic pain. The transition in the attributes, antecedents, consequences, related concepts, and surrogate terms of chronic pain is described, and the implications of the findings for practice and research are discussed.
Diaspora growth and aggregate remittances: an inverted-U relationship?

ABSTRACT This paper presents a model in which remittances stem from a decision made jointly by a family coalition of multiple migrants and non-migrants, allowing two alternative interpretations: migrants’ altruism or bargaining power. The model predicts that aggregate remittances first increase, reach a maximum, and then decrease as the emigration ratio (migrants/non-migrants) increases. An alternative model of loan repayment arrangement between each migrant and her parents, predicts that aggregate remittances grow monotonously with the emigration ratio. Testing both predictions on a macroeconomic bilateral dataset we find evidence in favour of the first model and an inverted-U relationship between aggregate remittances and the emigration ratio, with a maximum reached at a value of 0.5. Since many small ‘MIRAB’ island nations are close to or even above this threshold value, this finding is highly relevant for them since they may experience declining aggregate remittances as the diaspora grows further.
eGovernance and Online Service Delivery in Estonia

Estonia's use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the public sector is regularly highlighted as an innovative model worth emulating. Despite this, research into the Estonian governance and inter-governmental cooperation model is limited, with most being 5-10 years old. In addition, recent literature reviews point to a limited understanding of technology use in public service delivery and the role played by governance, intergovernmental decision making and cooperation when introducing ICT solutions and online services to citizens. As part of a larger qualitative, multi-country comparison, this article analyses the Estonian approach to electronic governance (eGovernance) and inter-governmental cooperation. Initial findings highlight the strength of the Estonian tradition of politically driven and motivated public sector modernisation, a consensus seeking and inter-governmental approach to eGovernment, trust between actors, the role of informal networks and cooperation with the private sector. The Estonian case thus supports academic arguments in favour of a strong eGovernance model and a high level of inter-governmental cooperation and decision making. While successful in relation to ICT infrastructure, standards, rollout to key enablers and internet voting (iVoting), the article highlights the potential benefits of formalising informal networks and streamline the governance model to minimize the risk of failure if consensus cannot be reached, if personal and institutional capacities and contacts does not exist.
Perception vs. Circumstances of the Child Sexual Abuse Event in Relation to Depression and Post-traumatic Stress Symptomatology

The study examined the impact of the circumstances of childhood sexual abuse on post-traumatic stress symptoms and depression among female adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The sample consisted of 225 Israeli women divided into two groups according to the identity of the perpetrator (nonfamily perpetrator versus a family member perpetrator). A self-report questionnaire was used consisting of the following scales: demographic variables, the Traumatic Events Questionnaire, Childhood Sexual Experiences Scale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale, and Depression Scale. The findings indicated that the identity of the offender significantly differed between groups only if intercourse had occurred. Women who experienced coerced intercourse scored significantly higher on depression and post-traumatic stress compared to those who experienced other forms of childhood sexual abuse.
Automatic registration of remote sensing image with moderate resolution

For automatic registration of remote sensing image, Image feature points extraction is the major difficulty because of its low level automation and slow computation speed. The effect is not ideal for applying point extraction algorithms of general pictures directly to remote sensing image feature point extraction. Focusing on the characteristics of remote sensing image, this paper puts forward corresponding improved methods. Firstly, the reference image is acquired automatically, then the image enhancement used histogram equalization is done for each band, at last, the image pyramids are built, and feature points are extracted band by band, layer by layer with the SIFT algorithm based on GPU. Results compared with Erdas Software show that the registration accuracy and speed are improved conspicuously.
Sparsity and low-rank amplitude based blind Source Separation

This paper presents a new method for blind source separation problem in reverberant environments with more sources than microphones. Based on the sparsity property in the time-frequency domain and the low-rank assumption of the spectrogram of the source, the STRAUSS (SparsiTy and low-Rank AmplitUde based Source Separation) method is developed. Numerical evaluations show that the proposed method outperforms the existing multichannel NMF approaches, while it is exclusively based on amplitude information.
In Life-Lines of Spanish Students with Disabilities during Their University Trajectory

The authors conducted this study at a Spanish university to find out what barriers and aids students with disabilities identified during their university trajectories. The authors used a biographical narrative method, and specifically, life histories. Our analysis concentrated on the life-lines and interviews, showing the histories of three students with disabilities. We analyzed data through a narrative system, approaching each life history separately and making a global analysis of it. The results section presents the university trajectory of three students with disability, Javier, Luz María and José Manuel. Each student made a personal narration of his own university experience in a first-person history, describing aids and barriers. The conclusions discuss the main barriers and facilitators each student perceived at the university and suggest the potential of this technique for construing life histories.
Joint optimization of modified ideal radio mask and deep neural networks for monaural speech enhancement

Monaural speech enhancement is a key yet challenging problem in speech area, which is always used as a pre-processing step of robust speech processing. Deep learning has proved to be very successful for solving this issue. In this paper, a new approach for enhancing the noisy speech in a single channel recording is presented. We propose a modified ideal ratio mask (IRM) which calculated by normalized cross-correlation coefficient (NCCC). Then, we jointly optimize the modified ideal ratio mask and deep neural network (DNN). Evaluation experiments on TIMIT database with 20 noise types at different signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared with the reference DNN-based enhancement approaches, no matter whether the noise matched the training set or not.
Glutamate Does Not Mediate Acute Neuronal Damage after Spreading Depression Induced by O2/Glucose Deprivation in the Hippocampal Slice

This study argues that, in contrast to accepted excitotoxicity theory, O2/glucose deprivation damages neurons acutely by eliciting ischemic spreading depression (SD), a process not blocked by glutamate antagonists. In live rat hippocampal slices, the initiation, propagation, and resolution of SD can be imaged by monitoring wide-band changes in light transmittance (i.e., intrinsic optical signals). Oxygen/glucose deprivation for 10 minutes at 37.5°C evokes a propagating wave of elevated light transmittance across the slice, representing the SD front. Within minutes, CA1 neurons in regions undergoing SD display irreversible damage in the form of field potential inactivation, swollen cell bodies, and extensively beaded dendrites, the latter revealed by single-cell injection of lucifer yellow. Importantly, glutamate receptor antagonists do not block SD induced by O2/glucose deprivation, nor do they prevent the resultant dendritic beading of CA1 neurons. However, CA1 neurons are spared if SD is suppressed by reducing the temperature to 35°C during O2/glucose deprivation. This supports previous electrophysiologic evidence in vivo that SD during ischemia promotes acute neuronal damage and that glutamate antagonists are not protective of the metabolically stressed tissue. The authors propose that the inhibition of ischemic SD should be targeted as an important therapeutic strategy against stroke damage.
The ECAT EXACT HR: Performance of a New High Resolution Positron Scanner

Objective The ECAT EXACT HR is a newly designed CTI–Siemens PET scanner with high spatial resolution. Its physical performance with respect to resolution, count rate efficiency, and scatter was investigated and evaluated with phantom studies. Materials and Methods The new tomograph consists of three rings of 112 BGO block detectors (50 mm x 23 mm x 30 mm deep) each, covering an axial field of view of 15 cm with a patient port of 56 cm diameter. Each block is sawed into an 8 x 7 matrix giving 24 detector rings with 784 crystals each. Results Total sensitivity for a 20 cm cylinder phantom is 177 kcps/μCi/ml in two-dimensional (2D) mode and increases to 1.46 Mcps/μCi/ml in 3D mode. Count rate performance was investigated for different low energy discriminator thresholds. Smaller detector blocks improve noise equivalent counts by ∼50% compared with the EXACT system both in 2D and in 3D mode. Scatter fractions vary in 2D from 0.09 to 0.13 for energy thresholds from 450 to 250 keV for line sources in a 20 cm diameter phantom. In 3D mode an increase of scatter by a factor of 3 is observed. Transaxial spatial resolution varies from 3.6 mm full width at half-maximum (FWHM) at the center to 4.5 mm FWHM tangentially and 7.4 mm FWHM radially at R = 20 cm. Average axial resolution changes from 4.0 mm FWHM at center to 6.7 mm FWHM at R = 20 cm. Conclusion Due to its special properties, the EXACT HR can be equally applied to routine clinical brain and whole-body imaging and to noninvasive experimental studies of regional tracer concentrations in medium-sized animals.