Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Refractory effects of the N1 event-related potential in experienced cochlear implant patients

Abstract Objective: To determine if cochlear implant (CI) patients exhibit a temporal processing deficit for auditory stimuli, by examining refractory effects of the N1 event-related potential (ERP) component. Design: CI patients and normally-hearing controls were tested in an auditory refractory period paradigm while ERP recordings were collected across the scalp. Participants were presented with brief 500-Hz tones that were separated by inter-stimulus intervals (ISIs) of 500, 1000, or 3000 ms. The amplitude of the N1 was examined as a function of ISI within each group. Study sample: Ten adult CI patients and 13 age-matched normally-hearing controls were tested. Patients had long-lasting severe or profound sensorineural hearing loss prior to implantation, and a minimum of two years experience with CI activation. Results: Unlike normally-hearing controls, CI users showed no refractory effect for tones at 500 ms ISIs compared to 1000 ms. However, similar to controls, recovery from refractoriness was observed in anterior locations at 3000 ms. Conclusion: The refractory period threshold, defined as the minimum ISI where different N1 amplitudes are elicited, is greater than 1000 ms in CI patients; at least double that of normally-hearing controls.
Epidural analgesia for labor pain: whose choice?

Objective. To test the hypothesis that the decision to use epidural analgesia during labor is influenced not only by the woman and her background but also by the local cultural practice in the delivery unit. Design. Population‐based cohort study. Setting. All delivery units in Sweden. Population. A nationwide sample of 2,529 women. Methods. Data were collected by questionnaires in early pregnancy and two months after birth, and from the Swedish Medical Birth Register. Logistic regression analysis was conducted, adjusted for gestational age, induction of labor and infant birthweight. Main outcome measures. Epidural analgesia during labor. Results. The odds of having an epidural analgesia were more than twice as high in the Stockholm region (odds ratio (OR) 2.4; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.7–3.4) and three times higher in middle‐north Sweden (OR 3.0; 95% CI 1.7–5.3) compared with the south of Sweden. Of the maternal factors, nulliparity was the strongest predictor (OR 6.3; 95% CI 5.1–7.9), followed by a prenatal belief that epidural analgesia would be needed (OR 3.5; 95% CI 2.8–4.4). Conclusion. The hypothesis of the study was confirmed. The woman and her background as well as the local cultural practice in the delivery unit matter with regard to the use of epidural analgesia.
Results of Nurse Navigator Follow-up After Positive Colorectal Cancer Screening Test: A Randomized Trial

Background: Follow-up after a positive colorectal cancer screening test is necessary for screening to be effective. We hypothesized that nurse navigation would increase the completion of colonoscopy after a positive screening test. Methods: This study was conducted between 2008 and 2012 at 21 primary care medical centers in western Washington State. Participants in the Systems of Support to Increase Colorectal Cancer Screening study who had a positive fecal occult blood test (FOBT) or flexible sigmoidoscopy needing follow-up were randomized to usual care (UC) or a nurse navigator (navigation). UC included an electronic health record–based positive FOBT registry and physician reminder system. Navigation included UC plus care coordination and patient self-management support from a registered nurse who tracked and assisted patients until they completed or refused colonoscopy. The primary outcome was completion of colonoscopy within 6 months. After 6 months, both groups received navigation. Results: We randomized 147 participants with a positive FOBT or sigmoidoscopy. Completion of colonoscopy was higher in the intervention group at 6 months, but differences were not statistically significant (91.0% in navigation group vs 80.8% in UC group; adjusted difference, 10.1%; P = .10). Reasons for no or late colonoscopies included refusal, failure to schedule or missed appointments, concerns about risks or costs, and competing health concerns. Conclusions: Navigation did not lead to a statistically significant incremental benefit at 6 months. Impact: Follow-up rates after a positive colorectal cancer (CRC) screening test are high in a health care system where UC included a registry and physician reminders. Because of high follow-up rates in a health care system where UC included a registry and physician reminders, and small sample size, we cannot rule out incremental benefits of nurse navigation.
Immunization of Chickens with VP2 Protein of Infectious Bursal Disease Virus Expressed in Arabidopsis thaliana

Abstract Transgenic plants represent a safe, effective, and inexpensive way to produce vaccines. The immunogenicity of VP2 protein of an infectious bursal disease (IBD) virus variant E isolate expressed in transgenic Arabidopsis thaliana was compared with a commercial vaccine in specific-pathogen-free broiler chickens. The VP2 coding sequence was isolated and integrated into A. thaliana genome by Agrobacterium tumefaciens–mediated transformation. Soluble VP2 expressed in transgenic plants was used to immunize chickens. Chickens receiving oral immunization with plant-derived VP2 at 1 and 3 wk of age had an antibody response using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and 80% protection against challenge infection at 4 wk. Chickens primed with a commercial vaccine at 1 wk followed by an oral booster with VP2 expressed in plants at 3 wk of age showed 90% protection. Chickens immunized with a commercial vaccine at 1 and 3 wk showed 78% protection. Results supported the efficacy of plant-produced VP2 as a vaccine against IBD.
Outcome of one-year of specialist care of patients with type 2 diabetes: a multi-center prospective survey (JDDM 2).

OBJECTIVE Specialist care is reportedly associated with favorable therapeutic results, although detailed outcomes of recent large-scale prospective surveys of specialist care have yet to be published. The goal of this study was to elucidate the effects of one year's specialist care on the management of type 2 diabetes. PATIENTS AND METHODS A multi-centered, prospective observational study was undertaken. 754 type 2 diabetes patients, who made their first visit to one of eleven participating outpatient clinics specializing in diabetes care, were enrolled. Routine structured diabetes care according to established guideline, including diabetes self-management education, was provided to all patients at each clinic visit. Parameters relating to glycemic control, serum lipids, blood pressure, patient follow-up status and others were followed for twelve months. RESULTS The HbA(1C) level had improved significantly from 8.4+/-2.2% at baseline to 6.8+/-1.2% after six months and was 7.0+/-1.3% after twelve months (mean+/-SD). The higher the baseline HbA(1C) level, the greater the subsequent improvement. Moreover, the most dramatic improvements in HbA(1C) levels were seen within the first three months. The proportion of patients satisfying all of the therapeutic goals was extremely low at baseline and remained at less than 10% after twelve months of specialist care. CONCLUSIONS Diabetic patients under specialist care experienced substantial improvement, especially in glycemic control, as early as a few months after the first visit. However, 35 percent of patients dropped out during the 12-month study period and this is one area that needs to be improved.
Muscle activation in therapeutic exercises to improve trunk stability.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relative activation amplitudes from 3 abdominal and 2 trunk extensor muscle sites in healthy subjects performing the pelvic tilt, abdominal hollowing, and level 1 of the trunk stability test (TST level 1) exercises and to compare the activation amplitudes among muscle sites and exercises. DESIGN Prospective comparative study. SETTING Motion Analysis Research Center, Dalhousie University, Canada. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-four healthy men (mean age, 30 +/- 8.1 yr [SD]) without low back pain. INTERVENTIONS Subjects performed 3 exercises in a balanced order, repeating each exercise 5 times while surface electromyography (EMG) was recorded from the 5 muscle sites. Exercises were divided into 2 phases: movement and stabilization. The root-mean-square amplitude of the EMG for each phase was calculated and normalized to the maximal voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC) amplitude for each muscle. A 2-factor repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) tested the muscle by exercise interaction and the main effects for each phase separately. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Normalized activation amplitude was the main dependent variable. Ensemble-average curves were calculated to examine the phasing of activation. RESULTS ANOVA showed a statistically significant interaction (p < .05) for both phases, indicating the 3 exercises recruited the 5 muscle sites using different patterns of relative activation. The external oblique (EO) muscle site was activated to higher amplitudes than the other 4 sites in all 3 exercises for both phases. The highest activity was recorded from the EO during the pelvic tilt, just more than 25% of MVIC. The only exercise to recruit the erector spinae to significantly higher amplitudes than the multifidus site was the TST level 1. CONCLUSIONS Study exercises were not interchangeable for the patterns of trunk muscle activation amplitudes. The exercises did not recruit the abdominal muscles to adequate levels for strengthening for this healthy sample; however, all 5 muscle sites were activated, forming the basis of a stabilizing exercise approach.
Motivations and mitigating business limitations in Scottish rural home-based businesses

This paper details a qualitative exploratory study of rural home-based businesses. Little is known about the formation or operation of home-based businesses in rural areas despite their high incidence rate. In-depth cases are presented and, by employing a methodology designed to elicit rich narratives, the stories of eight participants are told. Emergent themes include the motivations for and the realities of operating a rural home-based business, the importance of contextual factors, and the use of technology.
Remanufacturing lotsizing with stochastic lead-time resulting from stochastic quality of returns

In the current paper, we model the duration of recovery of used products as a variable that depends on each unit’s quality. Because of the uncertainty related to returned units’ quality, the necessary time for the recovery of a lot is a random variable. We provide analytical expressions for the optimisation of recovery planning decisions under different assumptions regarding quality and demand characteristics. In addition, through an extensive numerical study, we examine the impact of the different parameters on the necessity to consider explicitly the stochastic nature of recovery lead-time. Moreover, we discuss the advisability of establishing procedures for the classification of returns according to their quality condition. As our findings indicate, overlooking quality uncertainty can increase related costs considerably because of poor process coordination. Furthermore, ignoring variability may result in undue overestimation of the efficiency of lot-sizing policies. On the other hand, the establishment of quality assessment procedures is worthwhile only when the stochastic behaviour of quality cannot be taken into account explicitly.
Dietary fructose, carbohydrates, glycemic indices and pancreatic cancer risk: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.

BACKGROUND Dietary carbohydrates, glycemic load and glycemic index have been hypothesized to influence pancreatic cancer risk, but epidemiological studies have been inconsistent. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies to clarify these results. METHODS PubMed and several other databases were searched for prospective studies of intake of carbohydrates, glycemic index and glycemic load and pancreatic cancer up to September 2011. Summary relative risks were estimated using a random effects model. RESULTS Ten cohort studies (13 publications) were included in the meta-analysis. The summary relative risk (RR) per 10 glycemic index units was 1.02 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.93-1.12, I(2) = 0%], per 50 glycemic load units was 1.03 (95% CI: 0.93-1.14, I(2) = 10%), per 100 g/day of total carbohydrates was 0.97 (95% CI: 0.81-1.16, I(2) = 35%), and per 25 g/day of sucrose intake was 1.05 (95% CI: 0.85-1.23, I(2) = 53%). A positive association was observed with fructose intake, summary RR = 1.22 (95% CI: 1.08-1.37, I(2) = 0%) per 25 g/day. CONCLUSIONS This meta-analysis does not support an association between diets high in glycemic index, glycemic load, total carbohydrates or sucrose and pancreatic cancer risk. The finding of an increased risk with fructose intake warrants further investigation in studies with better adjustment for confounding and in non-American populations.
Neighbour recognition by resident males in the banded wren, Thryothorus pleurostictus, a tropical songbird with high song type sharing

Several studies and reviews have suggested that the ability to discriminate between neighbours and strangers decreases as neighbour song repertoire size and song type sharing increase. We tested the recognition capabilities of territorial male banded wrens by comparing the aggressive approach responses of focal birds to three playback treatments: shared song types sung by an adjacent neighbour (neighbour song), shared song types sung by unfamiliar birds (mimic song), and unshared song types sung by unfamiliar birds (unfamiliar song). All three treatments for each male were broadcast from the same location on the territorial boundary shared with the appropriate neighbour. As expected, focal males responded nonaggressively to the neighbour treatment and aggressively to the unfamiliar song treatment. The approach response to the mimic treatment was statistically indistinguishable from the unfamiliar treatment and significantly higher than the neighbour treatment, suggesting that most males were able to recognize unfamiliar singers even when the song types played were very similar to those of their neighbours. The relative strength of responses to the mimic varied: some males treated the mimic song with low aggression levels typical of responses to neighbour song. Repertoire sizes of focal and neighbour birds, the fraction of song types shared among neighbouring males, and the similarity of neighbour and mimic song types did not explain this variation. Therefore, within the short 3-min period of our playback experiments, some birds may have used repertoire composition as a recognition cue and confused the mimic with the neighbour. Copyright 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Customer segmentation on mobile online behavior

Nowadays customers are becoming more and more personalized when enjoying various mobile online services, which highlights the importance of customer segmentation based on customers' online behavior records. In this study, we propose a segmentation method that 1) divides the customer behavior sequences into cycles; 2) characterizes customers' cyclical behaviors based on the probability density distributions from the temporal dimension and frequency dimension, which could investigate the customer behaviors more comprehensively; 3) calculate the customer similarity by computing the difference of the distributions; 4) adopts the k-medoid clustering algorithm to classify the customers based on the similarity matrix. The segmentation method is applied to a mobile online behavior dataset. The results of experiments indicate the relationship and typical customer usage regulations among various mobile e-commerce service groups, which will be informative for enterprises to understand their customers and improve their service quality.
LMI-based fuzzy chaotic synchronization and communications

Addresses synthesis approaches for signal synchronization and secure communications of chaotic systems by using fuzzy system design methods based on linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). By introducing a fuzzy modeling methodology, many well-known continuous and discrete chaotic systems can be exactly represented by Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy models with only one premise variable. Following the general form of fuzzy chaotic models, the structure of the response system is first proposed. Then, according to the applications of synchronization to the fuzzy models that have common bias terms or the same premise variable of drive and response systems, the driving signals are developed with four different types: fuzzy, character, crisp, and predictive driving signals. Synthesizing from the observer and controller points of view, all types of drive-response systems achieve asymptotic synchronization. For chaotic communications, the asymptotical recovering of messages is ensured by the same framework. It is found that many well-known chaotic systems can achieve their applications on asymptotical synchronization and recovering messages in secure communication by using either one type of driving signals or all. Several numerical simulations are shown with expected satisfactory performance.
Demagnetization conditions comparison for line-start permanent magnet synchronous motors

To avoid the demagnetization risk, the largest demagnetization magnetic field is needed to be accurately predicted. Larger demagnetization field may occur under the starting process, or the abnormal operation conditions including out of step, three-phase short circuit, open-phase and reclosing of a line-start permanent magnet synchronous motor (LSPMSM). According to the partial demagnetization unconsidered by the traditional method, the time-stepping finite element method is adopted to take the irreversible demagnetization effect of each permanent magnet element into account under the demagnetization conditions. By the method, the irreversible demagnetization situations and the influencing factors, such as load factor and inertia moment factor, are analyzed. The more serious operation factors under every demagnetization condition are gained. Through the comparison of the performances after demagnetization under different conditions, the most serious demagnetization is occurred in the heavy-load starting process.
Analysis of Resonance Problems of Arbitrarily Complicated Transmission Line Cavities by Using Complex Phase Angle Theory

A novel theory of complex phase angle is presented to deal with the resonance problems of an arbitrarily complicated transmission line cavity effectively, which merges various losses of transmission lines (including source and load losses) in the imaginary part of the complex phase angle. This letter shows that the real part of the complex phase angle $ theta ^prime $ determines the resonant frequency and the imaginary part $ theta ^prime prime $ relates to the quality factor $Q$ of the transmission line cavity physically. A loaded transmission line resonance cavity is given to illustrate the application and validation of the complex phase angle theory.
Power management with energy harvesting from a headphone jack

This paper presents a high-efficiency rectifier and low-dropout regulator (LDO) for a body area network. The rectifier receives signal for energy harvesting, and the LDO is employed to generate stable supply voltage. The rectifier uses bootstrapped capacitors and adaptive voltage controller to reduce threshold voltage and to improve further the power conversion efficiency (PCE). The LDO combines voltage buffer, pole-zero tracking, and pseudo resistor technologies to achieve low quiescent current and precise output voltage. This chip has been fabricated by using the TSMC 0.18 μm 1P6M CMOS technology. The core area is 0.1 mm2. Circuit-level simulation reveals that the PCE of the proposed rectifier is 90.7% when the input peak-to-peak voltage is 2.3 V, the output load is 2 kΩ, and the quiescent current of LDO is 15.27 μA.
Interleukin 3: A differentiation and growth factor for the mouse mast cell that contains chondroitin sulfate E proteoglycan.

Mouse mast cells were differentiated and grown by culturing bone marrow cells in medium containing 2 X 10(-10) M purified interleukin 3 (IL 3). The cells obtained were similar in ultrastructure, membrane antigen phenotype, proteoglycan type, and lipid products generated upon immunologic activation to mast cells differentiated in culture by WEHI-3-conditioned medium (WEHI-3-CM) and by concanavalin A (Con A) splenocyte-conditioned medium. Phenotypically, these cells expressed IgE receptors and H-2 antigens and were recognized by a monoclonal antibody (B23.1) that did not react with mouse serosal heparin-containing mast cells. The classic phenotypic markers of mouse T cells or macrophages were not detected. The mouse mast cells differentiated with IL 3 as well as those differentiated in WEHI-3-CM incorporated [35S]sulfate into a nonheparin proteoglycan of 150,000 to 200,000 m.w. Most of the 35S-labeled macromolecules were degraded by chondroitinase ABC to yield only two disaccharides, which co-chromatographed on ascending thin layer chromatography with delta Di-4S and delta Di-diSE; thus, the proteoglycan in these cells is composed of chondroitin sulfate E glycosaminoglycans. After sensitization with monoclonal IgE, washing, and antigen activation, the IL 3 differentiated cells released the preformed mediator beta-hexosaminidase and generated and released two major classes of lipid mediators. The quantities of leukotriene C4 (LTC4), leukotriene B4 (LTB4), and platelet-activating factor (PAF-acether) generated/10(6) cells were 17, 3.0, and 3.1 ng, respectively. The ratio of these three lipid mediators was similar to that obtained from mast cells differentiated in WEHI-3-CM and in Con A-conditioned medium. Thus, T cell-derived IL 3 is the component present in the conditioned media that is required for differentiation and growth of the subclass of mast cells containing chondroitin sulfate E proteoglycan, designated E-MC. The IL 3-dependent E-MC may represent the in vitro counterpart of the T-cell-dependent mucosal mast cell, suggesting in turn that the production of LTC4 and LTB4 and of PAF-acether may play a role in adaptive intestinal immunity to helminthic parasites.
EphrinB2 coordinates the formation of a morphological boundary and cell epithelialization during somite segmentation

During early morphogenesis, tissue segregation is often accompanied by changes in cell shape. To understand how such coordination is regulated, somitogenesis was used as a model. When a somite forms in the anterior end of the presomitic mesoderm, an intersomitic boundary (gap) emerges, and it is rapidly followed by cell epithelialization at this border. It has been known that the gap formation is regulated by intercellular signals. We here demonstrate that cMeso-1, the chicken homolog of mouse Mesp2, up-regulates EphA4 in the cells located posteriorly to a forming boundary. This in turn activates EphrinB2-reverse signals in the anteriorly juxtaposed cells, where the EphrinB2 signal is sufficient to cause a gap formation and cell epithelialization cell-autonomously. During these processes, Cdc42 needs to be repressed via tyrosine phosphorylation of EphrinB2. This is the first demonstration that Ephrin-reverse signal acts as a platform that couples distinct morphogenetic changes in cell polarity and tissue shape.