Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting and Reducing Driving Mishaps Among Drivers With Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE Two aims of this study were to develop and validate A) a metric to identify drivers with type 1 diabetes at high risk of future driving mishaps and B) an online intervention to reduce mishaps among high-risk drivers. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS To achieve aim A, in study 1, 371 drivers with type 1 diabetes from three U.S. regions completed a series of established questionnaires about diabetes and driving. They recorded their driving mishaps over the next 12 months. Questionnaire items that uniquely discriminated drivers who did and did not have subsequent driving mishaps were assembled into the Risk Assessment of Diabetic Drivers (RADD) scale. In study 2, 1,737 drivers with type 1 diabetes from all 50 states completed the RADD online. Among these, 118 low-risk (LR) and 372 high-risk (HR) drivers qualified for and consented to participate in a 2-month treatment period followed by 12 monthly recordings of driving mishaps. To address aim B, HR participants were randomized to receive either routine care (RC) or the online intervention “DiabetesDriving.com” (DD.com). Half of the DD.com participants received a motivational interview (MI) at the beginning and end of the treatment period to boost participation and efficacy. All of the LR participants were assigned to RC. In both studies, the primary outcome variable was driving mishaps. RESULTS Related to aim A, in study 1, the RADD demonstrated 61% sensitivity and 75% specificity. Participants in the upper third of the RADD distribution (HR), compared with those in the lower third (LR), reported 3.03 vs. 0.87 mishaps/driver/year, respectively (P < 0.001). In study 2, HR and LR participants receiving RC reported 4.3 and 1.6 mishaps/driver/year, respectively (P < 0.001). Related to aim B, in study 2, MIs did not enhance participation or efficacy, so the DD.com and DD.com + MI groups were combined. DD.com participants reported fewer hypoglycemia-related driving mishaps than HR participants receiving RC (P = 0.01), but more than LR participants receiving RC, reducing the difference between the HR and LR participants receiving RC by 63%. HR drivers differed from LR drivers at baseline across a variety of hypoglycemia and driving parameters. CONCLUSIONS The RADD identified higher-risk drivers, and identification seemed relatively stable across time, samples, and procedures. This 11-item questionnaire could inform patients at higher risk, and their clinicians, that they should take preventive steps to reduce driving mishaps, which was accomplished in aim B using DD.com.
A transmission rate scheduling scheme for multimedia services in wireless CDMA networks

Current wireless multimedia applications may require different quality of service (QoS) measures such as throughput, packet loss rate, delay, and delay jitter. In this paper, we propose a transmission rate scheduling scheme for code division multiple access (CDMA) networks that can provide absolute QoS guarantees. The scheduling scheme uses several M/D/1 queues, each representing a different service class, and allocates a transmission rate to each queue so as to satisfy the different QoS requirements. In addition, the scheduling scheme provides relative differentiated services among the different service classes so that the network operator is able to tune QoS ratios between these classes independent of the class loads. An optimization problem is proposed that maximizes the transmission rate allocations among mobile stations (MSs). Analysis and simulation results are used to illustrate the viability of the scheduling scheme. Such a scheme can be applied in the emerging DS (differentiated services) Internet.
Limitations of genotyping based on amplicon melting temperature.

We have read with interest the recent reports of Marziliano et al. (1) and Pirulli et al. (2), who used melting temperature assays to genotype different types of mutations. Because detection of the underlying mutation is only indirect in these methods, they differ in their molecular detection principle from hybridization probe-based genotyping (3) or allele-specific amplification coupled to SYBR-green I detection (4). Indirect detection methods demand extra caution in the assignment of genotypes solely on the basis of product melting temperature ( T m). From a theoretical standpoint, some genotypes will not be detected. The UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1 (UGT1A1) (TA)n insertion/deletion polymorphism is of significance for the manifestation of Gilbert disease (3)(5). TA repeats are intrinsically unstable, and, therefore, it is not surprising that five to eight TA repeats occur in humans and have functional significance (5). The method of Marziliano et al. (1) uses T m as a measure of amplicon length to discover the UGT1A1 promoter genotype. In the described assay, a 2-bp difference is detected by the resulting T m shift in a 130-bp amplicon. A similar technique was successfully used in the screening for a 9-bp deletion in a 55-bp PCR amplicon (6). However, for the assay of Marziliano et al. (1), it has to be noted that using …
The relationship between professional communication competences and nursing performance of critical care nurses in South Korea

BACKGROUND Ineffective communication of critical care nurses can lead to higher levels of burnout and negatively affect quality of patient care and patient outcomes such as higher mortality. AIM The purpose of this study is to describe the relationship between professional communication competences and nursing performance of critical care nurses in South Korea. METHOD This cross-sectional study collected data on 197 intensive care unit staff nurses in 3 tertiary academic medical centres in South Korea from July to November 2014. RESULTS In the hierarchical regression analysis, the professional communication competences were the only significant predictors of nursing performance after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. In addition, the greater professional communication competences of nurses were associated with being older and having a higher education level, more years of overall clinical and intensive care unit experience, and a higher monthly salary. CONCLUSION Our findings indicate that communication skills-related training should be included in the practical education to improve nursing performance for the quality of intensive care. Further research is needed to identify the comprehensive factors on professional communication competences of nurses in intensive care units.
Ultrasound assessment of injury to the posterior ligamentous complex in patients with mild thoracolumbar fractures

Objective To assess the value of ultrasonographic imaging of the posterior ligamentous complex (PLC) to diagnose ligamentous injuries, in patients with mild thoracolumbar fractures. Methods Patients with thoracolumbar fractures were included in this prospective study. Patients underwent palpation of the midline of the back, and ultrasonography was performed over the entire thoracolumbar region by an experienced sonographer. A team that included a musculoskeletal radiologist, an orthopaedic surgeon and a sonographer assessed the ultrasound results. Ultrasonographic and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings were jointly evaluated in a subgroup of patients who were able to fund MRI analysis. Conflicts regarding the results were resolved by a majority vote. Results A total of 21 patients participated in the study, all of whom exhibited abnormal ultrasonographic echogenicity on the supraspinous or interspinous ligaments. Three patients were diagnosed with a rupture of the supraspinous ligament. In 15/17 (88.2%) patients, interspinous ligament injuries were detected caudally to the injured vertebrae. Conclusions Ultrasound examination is a reliable complementary diagnostic tool to identify PLC injuries in patients with mild thoracolumbar fractures.
Demand Response in Data Centers Through Energy-Efficient Scheduling and Simple Incentivization

To cope with the explosive growth of the Internet, data centers, which primarily serve as its cloud computing infrastructures, are also growing at a fast rate. These data centers typically serve both real-time delay-sensitive jobs and deferrable but deadline-oriented jobs. They exhibit two fundamental properties, which make them particularly suitable for implementing a Demand Response (DR) strategy. First, they are big consumers of electricity, and second, they deal with time-flexible loads. We consider a data center where the various diverse services are deployed in different tiers to capture some of the intricacies of real operations focusing on deferrable jobs. To tackle resource provisioning for deferrable jobs, we leverage Receding Horizon Control (RHC) based scheduling. We formulate and solve the optimal server provisioning problem in two different ways, namely, minimization of operational cost and joint minimization of capital and operational cost, for server provisioning at different tiers, based on a discrete-time model. We then propose and evaluate a simple and effective mechanism to facilitate more renewable integration into the grid through providing monetary incentives on deadline deferral. We show that our proposed method achieves significantly good performance with respect to various important performance parameters of the system.
Concurrent validity of the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index in Scleroderma.

OBJECTIVE To establish the concurrent validity of the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ) Disability Index in systemic sclerosis (SSc; scleroderma). METHODS Eighty subjects with SSc completed the HAQ Disability Index questionnaire. An occupational therapist, who was blind to the subjects' responses, observed each subject's performance on 10 of the items. RESULTS Paired t-tests showed significant differences between the observer and subjects' responses for tying shoes, buttoning, gripping, and walking. Intra-class correlations between observer and subjects ranged from 0.38 to 0.76. CONCLUSION The results support the validity of the HAQ Disability Index in patients with systemic sclerosis.
The reconstruction of virtual cuneiform fragments in an online environment

Reducing the time spent by experts on the process of cuneiform fragment reconstruction means that more time can be spent on the translation and interpretation of the information that the cuneiform fragments contain. Modern computers and ancillary technologies such as 3D printing have the power to simplify the process of cuneiform reconstruction, and open up the field of reconstruction to non-experts through the use of virtual fragments and new reconstruction methods. In order for computers to be effective in this context, it is important to understand the current state of available technology, and to understand the behaviours and strategies of individuals attempting to reconstruct cuneiform fragments. This thesis presents the results of experiments to determine the behaviours and actions of participants reconstructing cuneiform tablets in the real and virtual world, and then assesses tools developed specifically to facilitate the virtual reconstruction process. The thesis also explores the contemporary and historical state of relevant technologies. The results of experiments show several interesting behaviours and strategies that participants use when reconstructing cuneiform fragments. The experiments include an analysis of the ratio between rotation and movement that show a significant difference between the actions of successful and unsuccessful participants, and an unexpected behaviour that the majority of participants adopted to work with the largest fragments first. It was also observed that the areas of the virtual workspace used by successful participants was different from the areas used by unsuccessful participants. The work further contributes to the field of reconstruction through the development of appropriate tools that have been experimentally proved to dramatically increase the number of potential joins that an individual is able to make over period of time.
Optimal Distributed Generation Allocation in Distribution Systems for Loss Minimization

An efficient analytical (EA) method is proposed for optimally installing multiple distributed generation (DG) technologies to minimize power loss in distribution systems. Different DG types are considered, and their power factors are optimally calculated. The proposed EA method is also applied to the problem of allocating an optimal mix of different DG types with various generation capabilities. Furthermore, the EA method is integrated with the optimal power flow (OPF) algorithm to develop a new method, EA-OPF which effectively addresses overall system constraints. The proposed methods are tested using 33-bus and 69-bus distribution test systems. The calculated results are validated using the simulation results of the exact optimal solution obtained by an exhaustive OPF algorithm for both distribution test systems. The results show that the performances of the proposed methods are superior to existing methods in terms of computational speed and accuracy.
Estimating Lifetime Risk from Spot Biomarker Data and Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC)

Human biomarker measurements in tissues including blood, breath, and urine can serve as efficient surrogates for environmental monitoring because a single biological sample integrates personal exposure across all environmental media and uptake pathways. However, biomarkers represent a “snapshot” in time, and risk assessment is generally based on long-term averages. In this study, a statistical approach is proposed for estimating long-term average exposures from distributions of spot biomarker measurements using intraclass correlations based upon measurement variance components from the literature. This methodology was developed and demonstrated using a log-normally distributed data set of urinary OH-pyrene taken from our own studies. The calculations are generalized for any biomarker data set of spot measures such as those from the National Health and Nutrition Evaluation Studies (NHANES) requiring only spreadsheet calculations. A three-tiered approach depending on the availability of metadata was developed for converting any collection of spot biomarkers into an estimated distribution of individual means that can then be compared to a biologically relevant risk level. Examples from a Microsoft Excel-based spreadsheet for calculating estimates of the proportion of the population exceeding a given biomonitoring equivalent level are provided as an appendix.
Factors Influencing the Health Care Expenditures of Patients with Laryngeal Disorders

Objective To identify factors related to the health care spending of patients with laryngeal disorders. Study Design and Setting Retrospective analysis of data from a large, nationally representative administrative US claims database. Subjects and Methods Patients with a laryngeal disorder based on International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes from January 1, 2004, to December 31, 2008, and who were continuously enrolled for 12 months were included. Age, sex, comorbidity, geography, provider type, visit type, and type of laryngeal pathology were collected. To identify which factors were related to the direct costs, a generalized linear regression with gamma distribution was used. Results Of almost 55 million individuals in the database, 309,300 patients with a laryngeal disorder and 12 months of follow-up data were identified (mean [SD] age, 47.3 [21.3] years; 63.5% female). Age, sex, geographic region, number of comorbid conditions, type of provider, visit type, and laryngeal pathology were significantly associated with the health care expenditures (all P values <.05). Costs increased with increasing age and were greater for male patients, higher in the South and Northeast compared with the West and North-central regions, greater in 2008 compared with 2004, higher for inpatient compared with outpatient care, higher with increasing number of comorbid conditions, and lower if a patient was treated by a primary care physician only. Among the various laryngeal pathologies, the greatest direct costs were for laryngeal cancer and patients with multiple diagnoses. Conclusion This study identified multiple factors associated with the health care expenditures of patients with laryngeal disorders.
Soft Robotics: Review of Fluid‐Driven Intrinsically Soft Devices; Manufacturing, Sensing, Control, and Applications in Human‐Robot Interaction  

The emerging field of soft robotics makes use of many classes of materials including metals, low glass transition temperature (Tg) plastics, and high Tg elastomers. Dependent on the specific design, all of these materials may result in extrinsically soft robots. Organic elastomers, however, have elastic moduli ranging from tens of megapascals down to kilopascals; robots composed of such materials are intrinsically soft − they are always compliant independent of their shape. This class of soft machines has been used to reduce control complexity and manufacturing cost of robots, while enabling sophisticated and novel functionalities often in direct contact with humans. This review focuses on a particular type of intrinsically soft, elastomeric robot − those powered via fluidic pressurization.
Gender Differences in the Developmental Cascade From Harsh Parenting to Educational Attainment: An Evolutionary Perspective.

This study utilized life history theory to test a developmental cascade model linking harsh parenting to low educational attainment. Multigroup models were examined to test for potential gender differences. The sample consisted of 1,482 adolescents followed up for 9 years starting in seventh grade (Mage = 12.74). Results supported indirect links between harsh parenting and low educational attainment through the development of extreme peer orientations, early sexual behavior, and delinquency. Among male adolescents, harsh parenting was related to the development of an extreme peer orientation, which further led to increased delinquency, and subsequently lower educational attainment. Among female adolescents, harsh parenting predicted extreme peer orientations, which increased both delinquency and early sexual behavior. Early sexual behavior further predicted lower educational attainment in female adolescents.
Mobility management architecture based on integrated HIP and SIP protocols

To deal with increasing number of the mobile devices and applications in the next generation all-IP wireless networks, effective mobility management has become a critical problem. In this paper, we propose a new mobility management architecture, named I-HSIP, which integrates Host Identity Protocol (HIP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to handle TCP and UDP applications respectively. In this architecture, we utilize the joint optimization of HIP and SIP while exploring both of their advantages. The redundant entities for the similar function are merged to simplify the mobility management procedures such as registration, session initiation and handoff by reducing the system signaling. The simulation results show that I-HSIP outperforms the previous mobility architecture such as Integrated MIP-SIP and SHIP on the signaling overhead and handoff delay.
Application of Bioluminescence Resonance Energy Transfer (BRET) for Biomolecular Interaction Studies

It is widely appreciated that the investigation of components in protein networks and signalling cascades requires multiple approaches and that analysis of protein interactions in living cells to complement in vitro studies is indispensable. This field was revolutionised with the molecular cloning of the green fluorescent protein (GFP, MW=27 kDa) from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria by Prasher and co-workers. Since then, GFP and its derivatives have been applied as genetically encoded fluorescent reporters for protein localisation studies, to visualise trafficking of proteins in real time, and to investigate protein–protein interactions through resonance energy transfer (RET). This review focuses on bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) in the study of subunit interaction of the cAMPdependent protein kinase (PKA) in intact cells. As depicted in Figure 1, BRET is based on the nonradiative transfer of energy between a bioluminescent donor protein (e.g. , firefly (Photinus pyralis) or Renilla reniformis luciferase; for a review on biochemical properties and use of bioluminescent proteins, see ref. [6]) and a fluorescent acceptor protein, most often a variant of GFP. A change in fluorescence/luminescence ratio allows protein–protein interactions to be quantitatively analysed. RET efficiency is inversely proportional to the distance between donor and acceptor molecules, varying with the sixth power of the distance. Besides the orientation of the donor and acceptor proteins towards each other, the occurrence of BRET is dependent on molecular proximity (<10 nm), which makes this homogenous assay suitable for monitoring molecular interactions with the aid of genetically encoded monoor bimolecular sensors.
Utilization of triacylglycerol‐rich lipoproteins by the working rat heart: routes of uptake and metabolic fates

Very‐low‐density lipoprotein (VLDL) and chylomicrons (CMs) transport triacylglycerol (TAG) to peripheral tissues. Lipoprotein‐TAG may gain access to target cells by lipoprotein lipase (LPL) hydrolysis or via receptor‐mediated uptake; the principal routes of entry of VLDL and CM into heart are unknown, and different routes of entry may result in different metabolic fates. To examine this, isolated working rat hearts were perfused with rat VLDL and CMs, dual‐labelled with [3H]TAG and [14C]cholesterol. Uptake and utilization of CM‐TAG were significantly greater than VLDL‐TAG, but both were decreased significantly (more than halved) by tetrahydrolipstatin (THL, an inhibitor of lipoprotein lipase). By contrast, uptake of VLDL‐cholesterol was much higher than CM‐cholesterol (P < 0.01), and suramin (a lipoprotein receptor antagonist) decreased cholesterol uptake of both forms. CM‐TAG oxidation rate was more than 4‐fold higher than VLDL‐TAG oxidation. However, suramin decreased TAG oxidation from both VLDL and CM without affecting TAG uptake or total utilization, suggesting that the TAG gaining access through receptor‐mediated pathways is preferentially ‘channelled’ towards oxidation. Most (79%) CM‐TAG was oxidized whilst the proportion of VLDL‐TAG oxidized was only about half (49%). In the presence of suramin, there was a significant increase in esterification (incorporation of assimilated [3H]TAG into myocardial tissue [3H]lipids, mainly TAG) of assimilated TAG from both VLDL and CMs, again suggesting that receptor‐mediated TAG uptake is directed towards oxidation rather than esterification. The importance of this relatively small pool of TAG is indicated by the fact that cardiac mechanical function declined markedly when lipoprotein receptors were inhibited. These results suggest that CMs, most fatty acids of which gain access into cardiomyocytes through LPL‐mediated hydrolysis, are the major supplier of TAG for hearts to oxidize; however, the metabolic fate of VLDL was split evenly between oxidation and deposition as myocardial tissue lipid. Most importantly, VLDL may play a regulatory role in heart lipid metabolism through a lipoprotein receptor‐mediated mechanism.
Prognostic significance of p53 expression in oral squamous cell carcinoma without neck node metastases

Background. Aberrations of the p53 gene and overexpression of its protein are widely recognized markers of malignancy including oral squamous cell carcinomas. This study was performed to evaluate the relationship of immunoexpression of p53 protein in series of 91 squamous cell carcinomas of the oral cavity with clinicopathologic parameters and to investigate whether p53 immunoexpression might influence the clinical outcome of the disease.