Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolving vendor market for HITECH-certified ambulatory EHR products.

BACKGROUND The ambitious goals of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act require rapid development and certification of new ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) products. OBJECTIVES To examine where the vendor market for EHR products stands now and the policy issues emerging from the market's evolution. STUDY DESIGN Descriptive study with policy analysis. METHODS We had 3 main sources of information: (1) documents describing this evolving market, which is not well represented in peer-reviewed literature; (2) operational data on certified ambulatory EHR products and their use by Medicareeligible professionals attesting for meaningful use payments from January 2011 to October 2012; and (3) telephone interviews with 10 vendors that account for 57% of the market. RESULTS Those attesting for Medicare meaningful use payments used ambulatory EHRs from 353 different vendors, although 16 firms accounted for 75% of the market. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index showed the ambulatory EHR market to be highly competitive, particularly for practices of 50 or fewer professionals. The interviewed vendors and the external analysts agreed that stage 1 requirements set a relatively low bar for market entry, but that likely will change as requirements get more demanding. CONCLUSIONS The HITECH Act met its initial goals to motivate growth of diverse ambulatory EHR products. A market shakeout may emerge, though current data reveal no signs of it. Policy makers can influence the shape and value of such a shakeout, and the extent of disruption, through their approach to certification and "usability" and "interoperability" strategies and requirements.
Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) anabolism in Cupriavidus necator cultivated at various carbon-to-nitrogen ratios: insights from single-cell Raman spectroscopy

Abstract. Cupriavidus necator accumulates large amounts of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (PHB), a biodegradable substitute for petroleum-based plastics, under certain nutrient conditions. Conventional solvent-extraction-based methods for PHB quantification only obtain average information from cell populations and, thus, mask the heterogeneity among individual cells. Laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy (LTRS) was used to monitor dynamic changes in the contents of PHB, nucleic acids, and proteins in C. necator at the population and single-cell levels when the microorganism cells were cultivated at various carbon-to-nitrogen ratios. The biosynthetic activities of nucleic acids and proteins were maintained at high levels, and only a small amount of PHB was produced when the bacterial cells were cultured under balanced growth conditions. By contrast, the syntheses of nucleic acids and proteins were blocked, and PHB was accumulated in massive amount inside the microbial cells under nitrogen-limiting growth circumstances. Single-cell analysis revealed a relatively high heterogeneity in PHB level at the early stage of the bacterial growth. Additionally, bacterial cells in populations at certain cultivation stages were composed of two or three subpopulations on the basis of their PHB abundance. Overall, LTRS is a reliable single-cell analysis tool that can provide insights into PHB fermentation.
Job-to-job flows and inflation: Evidence from administrative data in New Zealand

Job-to-job flows, characterised as the number of workers moving from one job to another without a spell of unemployment, have attracted renewed attention in the academic, and policy literature in recent years. In this note, I use the administrative Linked Employee and Employer Data (LEED) to create novel measure of job-to-job flows for New Zealand, and then examine their forecasting performance for non-tradable inflation and wage growth in New Zealand. Job-to-job flows outperform other measures at every forecast horizon. In this note, I also argue that job-to- job flows are an indirect measure of ‘marginal cost’, and deserve closer attention in understanding inflation dynamics. Job-to-job flows have been increasing very slowly since the recession of 2008-2009, and this is one contributing explanation for the low wage growth and inflation outcomes observed in recent years.
Turtle mimetic soft robot with two swimming gaits

This paper presents a biomimetic turtle flipper actuator consisting of a shape memory alloy composite structure for implementation in a turtle-inspired autonomous underwater vehicle. Based on the analysis of the Chelonia mydas, the flipper actuator was divided into three segments containing a scaffold structure fabricated using a 3D printer. According to the filament stacking sequence of the scaffold structure in the actuator, different actuating motions can be realized and three different types of scaffold structures were proposed to replicate the motion of the different segments of the flipper of the Chelonia mydas. This flipper actuator can mimic the continuous deformation of the forelimb of Chelonia mydas which could not be realized in previous motor based robot. This actuator can also produce two distinct motions that correspond to the two different swimming gaits of the Chelonia mydas, which are the routine and vigorous swimming gaits, by changing the applied current sequence of the SMA wires embedded in the flipper actuator. The generated thrust and the swimming efficiency in each swimming gait of the flipper actuator were measured and the results show that the vigorous gait has a higher thrust but a relatively lower swimming efficiency than the routine gait. The flipper actuator was implemented in a biomimetic turtle robot, and its average swimming speed in the routine and vigorous gaits were measured with the vigorous gait being capable of reaching a maximum speed of 11.5 mm s−1.
Interpersonal trauma exposure and cognitive development in children to age 8 years: a longitudinal study

Background Childhood trauma exposure has been associated with deficits in cognitive functioning. The influence of timing of exposure on the magnitude and persistence of deficits is not well understood. The impact of exposure in early development has been especially under-investigated. This study examined the impact of interpersonal trauma exposure (IPT) in the first years of life on childhood cognitive functioning. Methods Children (N=206) participating in a longitudinal birth cohort study were assessed prospectively for exposure to IPT (physical or emotional abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, witnessing maternal partner violence) between birth and 64 months. Child intelligent quotient (IQ) scores were assessed at 24, 64 and 96 months of age. Race/ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, maternal IQ, birth complications, birth weight and cognitive stimulation in the home were also assessed. Results IPT was significantly associated with decreased cognitive scores at all time points, even after controlling for socio-demographic factors, maternal IQ, birth complications, birth weight and cognitive stimulation in the home. IPT in the first 2 years appeared to be especially detrimental. On average, compared with children not exposed to IPT in the first 2 years, exposed children scored one-half SD lower across cognitive assessments. Conclusion IPT in early life may have adverse effects on cognitive development. IPT during the first 2 years may have particular impact, with effects persisting at least into later childhood.
Magnesium Gluconate Offers No More Protection than Magnesium Sulphate Following Diffuse Traumatic Brain Injury in Rats

Objective: Previous studies have demonstrated that magnesium salts, including the sulphate and chloride forms, are neuroprotective following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Recently, studies in cardiac ischaemia/reperfusion injury have demonstrated that the gluconate salt of magnesium may provide superior protection against oxidative damage and postischaemic dysfunction than MgSO4. We have therefore compared the efficacy of both MgSO4 and magnesium gluconate (MgGl2) on outcome following diffuse TBI in rats. Methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were injured using the 2-metre impact acceleration model of diffuse TBI. At 30 min after injury, animals were administered with either 250μmoles/kg i.v. MgSO4, MgGl2, or equal volume saline vehicle. Thereafter, animals were assessed for motor and cognitive outcome using the rotarod and Barnes maze, respectively, or their brains removed at 3 days after TBI and used for histological examination. Results: Treatment with either magnesium salt significantly improved functional outcome as compared to vehicle treated controls. Similarly, treatment with either magnesium salt attenuated the degree of histological dark cell change at 3 days after TBI relative to the vehicle treated animals. There were no significant differences between the magnesium treated groups. Conclusions: We conclude that MgSO4 and MgGl2 are equally neuroprotective following TBI. Our results suggest that MgGl2 may only be more effective in conditions that produce ischaemia, where high concentrations of reactive oxygen species are generated.
A new in vivo fluorimetric technique to measure growth of adhering phototrophic microorganisms

We developed a noninvasive rapid fluorimetric method for the investigation of growth of adhering (benthic) phototrophic microorganisms. The technique is based on the sensitive detection of the in vivo fluorescence of chlorophylls chlorophyll a and bacteriochlorophyll a and monitors increases in signal over time as an indicator for growth. The growth fluorimeter uses modulated excitation light of blue-light-emitting diodes and a photodiode as the detector. The light-emitting diodes are mounted geometrically in an aluminum housing for efficient and uniform illumination of the bottoms of the growth containers. The fluorimeter was characterized with respect to detection limit and dynamic range. This system is capable of resolving in vivo chlorophyll a concentrations of 0.5 (mu)g liter(sup-1) in cyanobacteria and 0.03 (mu)g liter(sup-1) in diatoms as well as in vivo bacteriochlorophyll a concentrations in phototrophic bacteria of 0.3 (mu)g liter(sup-1), which points to an extremely high sensitivity compared with that of similar available techniques. Thus, the new fluorimeter allows the determination of growth at extremely low cell densities. The instrument was used successfully to measure the growth of several adhering isolates of the filamentous cyanobacterium Microcoleus chthonoplastes from benthic microbial mats in seawater of different salinities. The data obtained demonstrate broad growth responses for all strains, which thus can be characterized as euryhaline organisms.
Fingerprint verification system: A non-minutiae based approach

In this paper, a new method for fingerprint verification, based on the features extracted from both spectrum and direction domains of fingerprints, is introduced. In this method, the spectrum of fingerprint is divided to sectors with equal number of pixels and for each sector, the respected average and standard deviation is calculated. The resulting feature vector for any fingerprint is used to calculate the distance measure of two fingerprints. Also a value is assigned to the similarity of the Block Directional Field (BDF) of two fingerprints. The fusion of the above mentioned distance and similarity of BDF's is used to verify an input fingerprint image. This method does not need any preprocessing step and due to simplicity, the speed of verification is high. Also, in spite of other image-based methods, this method does not need any reference point to be detected. The experiments show better results for verification accuracy in comparison with the most important methods presented in the literature.
A modified affine phase-based estimator for non-invasive vascular ultrasound elastography using coherent plane wave compounding and transverse oscillation imaging

Ultrasound elastography is used to characterize biomechanics of the tissue using motion estimations. A non-rigid model is likely more suitable to characterize complex tissue motions. In this paper, we proposed a modified affine phase-based estimator (APBE) on the application of cross-sectional noninvasive vascular elastography (NIVE). Considering coherent plane wave compounding (CPWC) and TO imaging, CPWC&TO images were obtained. And a time-ensemble approach and an incompressibility constraint were introduced into the original APBE. In the simulation study, the modified APBE provided the least estimation error. For in vitro experiments, the modified APBE provided the higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a homogeneous phantom. For a heterogeneous phantom with a soft inclusion, the modified APBE provided the higher SNR and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Overall, the performance of the modified APBE outperformed the original APBE.
Lipreading Recognition Based on SVM and DTAK

To enhance recognition accuracy of isolated words identification with small samples in lipreading, SVM is first introduced to act as classifier in this paper. As SVM is based on structural risk minimization, it solves the problem of pattern recognition under small samples, on the other hand, it avoids the unreasonable hypothesis in traditional classifier. To meet the requirement of fixed input feature dimensionality in SVM, several input feature dimensionality normalization methods were discussed and compared. including 3-4-3 data segmenting method, HMM based method and DTAK(Dynamic Time Alignment Kernel) based method. Two experiments were performed on the bimodal database, In the first experiment different input feature normalization algorithm were compared on SVM. Experiments showed that DTAK based normalization achieved the best result. in the second experiments SVM was compared with HMM under different number samples occasion. Experimental results showed that SVM performs better than HMM under small samples.
Corneal Cell Survival in Adenovirus Type 19 Infection Requires Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase/Akt Activation

ABSTRACT Adenovirus type 19 is a major cause of epidemic keratoconjunctivitis, the only ocular adenoviral infection associated with prolonged corneal inflammation. In this study, we investigated the role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and Akt and their downstream targets in adenovirus infection, and here we report the novel finding that adenovirus type 19 utilizes the PI3K/Akt pathway to maintain corneal fibroblast viability in acute infection. We demonstrate phosphorylation of GSK-3β and nuclear translocation of the p65 subunit of NF-κB, both downstream targets of the PI3K/Akt pathway, in adenovirus-infected corneal fibroblasts in a PI3K-dependent manner. Inhibition of PI3K had no effect on early viral gene expression, suggesting normal viral internalization, but pretreatment with the PI3K inhibitor LY294002 or overexpression of dominant negative Akt induced early cytopathic effect and caspase-mediated cell death in adenovirus-infected cells. Early cell death could be circumvented despite LY294002 by overexpression of constitutively active Akt. Furthermore, we show an interaction between cSrc and the p85 regulatory subunit of PI3K in infected cells through a phosphorylation-dependent mechanism. The results presented in this paper provide the first direct evidence that PI3K-mediated Akt activation in adenovirus-infected corneal cells may contribute to viral pathogenesis by the prolongation of cell viability.
Does religious observance promote health? mortality in secular vs religious kibbutzim in Israel.

OBJECTIVES This study assessed the association of Jewish religious observance with mortality by comparing religious and secular kibbutzim. These collectives are highly similar in social structure and economic function and are cohesive and supportive communities. METHODS In a 16-year (1970 through 1985) historical prospective study of mortality in 11 religious and 11 matched secular kibbutzim in Israel, 268 deaths occurred among 3900 men and women 35 years of age and older during 41347 person-years of observation. RESULTS Mortality was considerably higher in secular kibbutzim. Cox proportional hazards analysis was used to adjust for age and the matched design; rate ratios were 1.67 (95% confidence interval [CI]=1.17, 2.39) for men, 2.67 (95% CI=1.55, 4.60) for women, and 1.93 (95% CI=1.44, 2.59) overall. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis of birth cohorts confirmed the association. The lower mortality in religious kibbutzim was consistent for all major causes of death. CONCLUSIONS Belonging to a religious collective was associated with a strong protective effect not attributable to confounding by sociodemographic factors. Elucidation of mechanisms mediating this effect may provide etiologic insights and leads for intervention.
A volume loading test for the detection of hypovolemia and dehydration.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES There is a need for simple method allowing detection of dehydration and hypovolemia. Based on a new theory of homeostatic blood states, we hypothesized that hemodilution following standardized crystalloid fluid bolus can be used to discriminate between baseline normohydration and dehydration, also normovolemia and hypovolemia. METHODS Computer simulations based on previously published kinetic data were used to define the best time points for discrimination between baseline normohydration and dehydration, also normovolemia and hypovolemia. Hemodilution was compared at the proposed timing in 20 volunteers who received 40 infusions of Ringer's solution of 25 mL/kg during 30 minutes. RESULTS Simulations indicated that preexisting hypovolemia could be best detected at the end of infusion, while dehydration 20-30 min later. In baseline hypovolemia, the peak reduction of hemoglobin concentration was 16.0% at the end of infusion, while it was only 11.8%, when participants were normovolemic (P<0.004). In baseline dehydration, the residual hemodilution was 8.6%, when measured 30 min after the end of infusion. It was only 3.1% in baseline normohydration (P<0.006). CONCLUSIONS In response to fluid load, the baseline dehydration exaggerates the lowering of residual hemoglobin in respect to baseline. Meanwhile, baseline hypovolemia exaggerates the lowering of peak hemoglobin concentration. The volume loading test that deploys interpretation of hemoglobin dynamics in response to the test volume load could possibly serve as an easily available guide to indicate an individual patient's baseline hydration state and volemia. The introduction of continuous noninvasive monitoring of hemoglobin concentration would expand the applicability of the new method.
Loss of chromosome band 8q24 in sporadic osteocartilaginous exostoses

We have karyotyped eight sporadic osteocartilaginous exostoses (OCE), a tumor type not characterized cytogenetically before. Five tumors had only normal karyotypes, whereas three displayed the following abnormal karyotypes: 46,XY,del(8)(q24.1); 46,XX,del(8)(q22), t(8;14)(q24. 1;q32); and 46,XY,der(8)t(1;8)(q21;q24), inv(12)(p1 1q13). All three aberrant cases thus had structural rearrangements leading to loss of the distal part of 8q. This is of particular interest because multiple OCE are part of the disease phenotype in patients with the autosomal dominant tricho‐rhino‐phalangeal syndrome type II (TRP II), many of whom have constitutional loss of genetic material from 8q24.1. We hypothesize that band 8q24.1 harbors a tumor suppressor gene, the homozygous inactivation of which is important in the genesis of both inherited and sporadic OCE. In the familial form, i.e., in TRP II, loss or functional inactivation of one allele is inherited and only the second mutation is due to a somatic event, whereas both mutations are somatic in the sporadic forms. This hypothesis can be tested by analysis of sporadic and inherited OCE for homozygous loss of 8q24 material with molecular genetic techniques. Genes Chrom Cancer 9:8‐12 (1994). ©1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Producer’s Self-Declared Wind Energy ECO-Labeling Consequences on the Market: A Canadian Case Study

The demand for environmental labels is increasingly becoming important for consumers to differentiate products and to make an informed choice. This study reports the findings of a business case study in Nova Scotia (Canada) that demonstrates how renewable wind energy and wind labeling can extend the competitive advantage of a producer. By using qualitative case study techniques, the study generates evidence which suggests on the firm level that wind energy and labelling influences competitive advantage of firms, can dictate a premium price, can differentiate products, yet achieve a low-cost advantage. Wind labels also have the potential to drive the supply chain’s environmental value to the consumer as the end user by requiring the distribution chain to follow good environmental practices. On the consumer level, in terms of label information, whereby product qualities cannot be evaluated by a search prior to purchase or by experience after purchase, eco-friendliness of the product can take predominance. Not all consumers will buy eco-friendly eggs; instead, there are other factors that drive consumers, such as their opinions towards wind technology, consumer psychographics, personality, and other behavioural determinants and, hence, attract a strong niche market. Finally, for the trust in labels, though the producer does not have third party accreditation, the labels work for them, through the means-end chain analysis where egoistic and altruistic intentions persuade environmental behaviour. As such, this study highlights the probability that in principle, there appears to be an opportunity for wind labelling to be successful; in practice, wind labelling is bound to attract a particular niche market through differentiation strategies.
Improving event detection for audio surveillance using Gabor filterbank features

Acoustic event detection in surveillance scenarios is an important but difficult problem. Realistic systems are struggling with noisy recording conditions. In this work, we propose to use Gabor filterbank features to detect target events in different noisy background scenes. These features capture spectro-temporal modulation frequencies in the signal, which makes them suited for the detection of non-stationary sound events. A single-class detector is constructed for each of the different target events. In a hierarchical framework, the separate detectors are combined to a multi-class detector. Experiments are performed using a database of four different target sounds and four background scenarios. On average, the proposed features outperform conventional features in all tested noise levels, in terms of detection and classification performance.