Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual reality improves sleep quality amongst older adults with disabilities

Prior research has indicated that regular exercise can improve sleep quality amongst older adults (Reid et al., 2010) and that it can also indirectly improve their sleep quality by reducing stress (Yoshiuchi et al., 2010; McHugh and Lawlor, 2013). Although it is not difficult for most older adults to exercise, such as by swimming or walking, most forms of exercise are infeasible for older adults with disabilities. Thus, identifying manageable exercise for improving the sleep quality of older adults with disabilities is critical. Virtual reality (VR) can be used in feasible and safe games for older adults using wheeled walkers (Haines et al., 2009). VR refers to computer technology that simulates real life and it can provide immediate sensory feedback, thereby increasing training willingness (Saposnik et al., 2010). This technology also enables older adults to interact with a virtual world to facilitate their participation in physical activity (Lee and Shin, 2013). Therefore, we hypothesised that regular VR participation is an ideal approach to reducing stress and improving sleep quality amongst older adults with disabilities.
Two-Year Refractive Outcomes After Descemet Membrane Endothelial Keratoplasty

Purpose: To monitor refractive changes after Descemet membrane endothelial keratoplasty (DMEK) and to determine what may influence these changes and the time point of stabilization. Methods: From 67 pseudophakic DMEK eyes operated on for Fuchs endothelial dystrophy at a tertiary referral center, biomicroscopy, visual acuity, subjective refraction, and Scheimpflug-based corneal tomography data were obtained before and up to 2 years postoperatively. Visual acuity and changes in spherical equivalent (SE), mean anterior and posterior simulated keratometry (Km), and central pachymetry were analyzed. Results: At 3 months postoperatively, both hyperopic (28/67 eyes) and myopic (21/67 eyes) shifts were observed; 18/67 eyes showed no SE change. The mean change in SE at 3 months was +0.33 diopters (D) (95% confidence interval = [0.11, 0.54], P = 0.028), which stabilized thereafter (P > 0.466). Initial flattening of mean anterior Km by 0.66D (95% confidence interval = [−0.81, −0.51], P < 0.001) at 3 months was followed by a slow steepening, which became significant between 1 and 2 years postoperatively (P < 0.001). Posterior Km stabilized after 3 months (P > 0.252). Preoperative to 3 months postoperative absolute changes in anterior Km were positively related to preoperative backscattered light from the central anterior cornea (P = 0.035), and the presence of partial graft detachment postoperatively (P = 0.013). Conclusions: After DMEK, SE and posterior corneal curvature were on average stable at 3 months after surgery, whereas the mean anterior corneal curvature showed an ongoing gradual change. Changes in anterior corneal curvature may be related to preoperative anterior corneal densitometry or postoperative partial graft detachment.
Spam detection based on search engine creditworthiness

From the security point, low-cost domain names and simplified registering procedures present a potential threat. Malicious attackers could register a domain to use in a single attack campaign and then discard it. At some point, the malicious domain will be red-flagged by the reputable service, but by that time the attacker has moved onto the next one. This creates the difficult and inefficient task to detect the malicious domain. In this paper, the search engine creditworthiness algorithm is used to detect malicious domains. This algorithm is created for bot detection in a local network. In an experimental study algorithm is tested as a detection system for malicious domain found in spam. With the analyzation of the URLs in the e-mail body known fraud or hoax spam can be blocked at the entrance of the mail server or even the local network.
Testing and verifying nursing theory by confirmatory factor analysis.

AIM This paper presents a discussion of the use of confirmatory factor analysis to test nursing theory. BACKGROUND Theory testing is an important phase in nursing theory development. Testing of theory is intended to give more information about concepts and their usefulness in nursing practice. Confirmatory factor analysis is commonly used in instrument development in nursing science studies, but also in theory testing. However, there has been little discussion of its use in theory testing in nursing science research. DATA SOURCES Multidisciplinary methodological and research publications from 1990 to 2009 were used. DISCUSSION The aim of confirmatory factor analysis is to test nursing theory that has already been established, i.e. researchers have an a priori hypothesis based on theoretical knowledge or empirical indications. Analysis is represented as three phases: preparation, model testing and reporting the results. Preparation involves data screening and preliminary analyses. Model testing is divided into model specification, model identification, model estimation, model evaluation and model modification. The results are reported with standardized regression coefficients of the items related to the latent variables, squared multiple correlations (R²) related to error terms and the model's goodness of fit indexes. Implications for nursing. Testing of theory is intended to give more valid information about the concepts and their usefulness in nursing practice. CONCLUSION Confirmatory factor analysis is a good method to test the structure of theory, for example to test the concepts built by concept synthesis or analysis. Tested theories are needed to develop nursing science itself.
Antagonism of endogenous nociceptin/orphanin FQ inhibits infarction‐associated ventricular arrhythmias via PKC‐dependent mechanism in rats

Evidence indicates nociceptin/orphanin FQ (N/OFQ) may participate in the pathology of cardiac arrhythmias associated with myocardial infarction. But the role of N/OFQ in the arrhythmogenesis in acute myocardial infarction is unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of endogenous N/OFQ on infarction‐associated arrhythmias.
Detection of 4-quinolone resistance mutation in gyrA gene of Shigella dysenteriae type 1 by PCR

To study 4-quinolone resistance, the N-terminal coding region of gyrA from nalidixic acid-susceptible and -resistant isolates of Shigella dysenteriae type 1 was amplified by PCR, cloned, and sequenced. DNA sequence analysis of gyrA from nalidixic acid-resistant isolates revealed a C-to-T transition at nucleotide position 248 leading to a Ser-83-to-Leu substitution which was absent in susceptible clinical isolates. Direct HinfI digestion of PCR-amplified DNA detected similar mutations. Thus, DNA gyrase A subunit mutation Ser-83 to Leu is implicated in 4-quinolone resistance in S. dysenteriae type 1.
The Reversal Exchange Technique of Total Calvarial Reconstruction for Sagittal Synostosis

The role of total calvarial reconstruction in the treatment of sagittal synostosis remains controversial, especially in patients younger than 1 year of age. The purpose of this study was to prospectively evaluate the efficacy of a single surgical technique for total calvarial reconstruction (the reversal exchange technique) in patients younger than 1 year of age who had a radiographically confirmed diagnosis of sagittal synostosis. Twenty‐three consecutive patients underwent the reversal exchange technique of total calvarial reconstruction at a median age of 3 months (age range, 6 weeks to 10 months). Quantitative assessments were performed on the basis of preoperative and postoperative (minimum, 6 months) measurements of the cephalic index (cranial width/cranial length × 100) taken from three‐dimensional computed tomography scans, which were obtained in 18 of 23 patients. Aesthetic assessments were performed on the basis of the grading of preoperative and postoperative photographs, obtained in 17 of 23 patients, by three independent raters who were blinded as to the surgical technique. The mean preoperative cephalic index was 65.0, and the mean postoperative index was 76.4, yielding a mean improvement of 11.4 (17.5 percent). By photographic evaluation, 12 of 17 patients (70.6 percent) were classified as having a normal head shape (grade 4) and five of 17 (29.4 percent) as having minor residual deformities (grade 3). No patients were identified as having significant residual deformities (grades 1 or 2). There were two intraoperative complications and one postoperative complication, none of which resulted in permanent morbidity. It was concluded that the reversal exchange technique of total calvarial reconstruction provided significant improvement in head shape on the basis of quantitative measurements (cephalic index) and independent evaluations of aesthetic improvement. (Plast. Reconstr. Surg. 107: 1637, 2001.)
Celiprolol Increases Coronary Blood Flow and Reduces Severity of Myocardial Ischemia via Nitric Oxide Release

Celiprolol is a selective &bgr;1-adrenoceptor antagonist with antihypertensive actions, which causes renal vasodilation by increasing tissue nitric oxide (NO) levels. The authors tested whether celiprolol increases coronary blood flow (CBF) by increasing cardiac NO release in the ischemic heart in vivo. In open-chest dogs, coronary perfusion pressure of the left anterior descending coronary artery was reduced so that CBF decreased to 60% of control levels, and thereafter, coronary perfusion pressure was maintained constant. Ten minutes after the reduction of coronary perfusion pressure, we infused celiprolol into the left anterior descending coronary artery and measured fractional shortening and lactate extraction ratio as indices of regional myocardial contractility and metabolism. CBF significantly increased from 51.5 mL/100 g/min ± 1.9 to 67.0 mL/100 g/min ± 5.1 20 minutes after celiprolol infusion without changes in coronary perfusion pressure, while fractional shortening and lactate extraction ratio increased. Celiprolol also increased cardiac NO release. The lω-nitroarginine methyl ester, the inhibitor of NO synthase, attenuated the increases in CBF, fractional shortening, lactate extraction ratio, and cardiac NO release due to celiprolol. ICI 118551, a &bgr;2-adrenoceptor antagonist, did not blunt the effects of celiprolol and a nonselective &bgr;-adrenoceptor antagonist, propranolol, increased neither CBF nor cardiac NO release, indicating that the effect of celiprolol is independent of &bgr;-adrenoceptor blockade. It was concluded that celiprolol mediates coronary vasodilation and improves myocardial ischemia through NO-dependent mechanisms.
Let’s take the bias out of econometrics

ABSTRACT This study exposes the cognitive flaws of ‘endogeneity bias’. It examines how conceptualisation of the bias has evolved to embrace all major econometric problems, despite extensive lack of hard evidence. It reveals the crux of the bias – a priori rejection of causal variables as conditionally valid ones, and of the bias correction by consistent estimators – modification of those variables by non-uniquely and non-causally generated regressors. It traces the flaws to misconceptions about error terms and estimation consistency. It highlights the need to shake off the bias to let statistical learning play an active and formal role in econometrics.
Meaningful Engagement of ACOs With Communities: The New Population Health Management

Objectives:Population health management (PHM) activities within health care organizations have traditionally focused on coordinating services for populations who present for care in physicians’ offices. With the recent proliferation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), however, the reach of PHM has expanded. We aimed to study ACOs’ evolving definitions of their patient populations, and how these definitions might be linked to different types of PHM activities pursued by ACOs. Methods:Over a 2-year period, we conducted in-depth case studies of 4 ACOs operating in the private sector, including 149 interviews with 89 informants. Although the main study focused on the ACO implementation process, our use of both inductive and deductive qualitative methods enabled us to study emergent topics such as we report here about PHM. Results:Interviewees across sites described their ACO populations using terms indicating both panel management and community/neighborhood involvement in the context of PHM. Further, all 4 sites reported conducting PHM activities that extended beyond traditional provider-based PHM; these ranged from wellness registries to school-based clinics. Executives at all 4 ACOs also discussed providing, or planning to provide, health care services to all community members in local settings. Conclusions:Administrators and physicians in private sector ACOs were proponents of ACO-led programs delivered in community settings that provided health care to all members of the community, and reported their ACOs engaged in multisector collaborations designed to improve neighborhood health. These community engagement activities point to a distinction from 90s era managed and integrated care organizations and may contribute to the sustainability of the ACO model.
Protein folding from a highly disordered denatured state: The folding pathway of chymotrypsin inhibitor 2 at atomic resolution

Previous experimental and theoretical studies have produced high-resolution descriptions of the native and folding transition states of chymotrypsin inhibitor 2 (CI2). In similar fashion, here we use a combination of NMR experiments and molecular dynamics simulations to examine the conformations populated by CI2 in the denatured state. The denatured state is highly unfolded, but there is some residual native helical structure along with hydrophobic clustering in the center of the chain. The lack of persistent nonnative structure in the denatured state reduces barriers that must be overcome, leading to fast folding through a nucleation–condensation mechanism. With the characterization of the denatured state, we have now completed our description of the folding/unfolding pathway of CI2 at atomic resolution.
Text and character recognition on metal-sheets

To improve the automation of metal sheet production these sheets have to be tracked during the processing steps. This is preferably done by video optical tracking. To recognize the metal sheets each of them has an unique ID imprinted. This paper describes a method to automatically detect the characters on metal sheets, to classify them and to combine them to a string. First the image is preprocessed to detect the metal sheets in the image. After this step every character is located and classified. Finally all characters are combined to one string with its specific certainty. The algorithm has to determine about the alignment and the orientation of the text because it is not known before. The most problematic part is the extraction of the objects, which may be characters, due to difficult lightning situation. There can be different lightning spots visible in the image because of the movement of the sun, weather and factory infrastructure (windows, ceiling lighting) which cause sometimes difficult reflections on the metal sheets. The introduced program is completely written in Matlab 2015b. It has been applied to a wide range of images with successful results.
Prosopagnosia in a right hemispherectomized patient.

The first reported case of prosopagnosia in a right hemispherectomized woman, B.M. , whose intellectual and cognitive functions were otherwise normal or only slightly impaired, is presented. She was totally unable to identify, and to experience a sense of familiarity with, faces of persons she knew, but she could evoke semantic information about them and retrieve their names from visual contextual cues. She was unaware that she was lacking face-recognition skills and that faces alone could be used to access the identity of individuals. The functional nature of her deficit was investigated through sensory, perceptual, memory, and learning tasks to determine the level at which her prosopagnosic disturbance occurred. She was defective at resolving low spatial-frequency information, but this was insufficient to explain the selectivity of her impairment. She was able to carry out cognitive operations specific to faces as long as facial identity did not have to be ascertained, and she performed as well as control subjects at deriving information about the gender, age, and emotion of faces. She was impaired at matching different views of the same faces, and multidimensional scaling analysis of dissimilarity judgements between faces indicated an inability to combine the component features into a configurational facial representation that would uniquely define each face. In contrast to recently reported cases of prosopagnosia, B.M. showed no sign of covert recognition of known faces in a learning task, and there was no indication that she could, even for a few seconds, store a faithful facial representation. The occurrence of prosopagnosia in this hemispherectomized patient confirms that this deficit can emerge without damage to the left hemisphere, and her unawareness of her deficit, which had remained unnoticed for several years, raises the possibility that other hemispherectomized patients may be prosopagnosic. The pattern of cognitive impairments displayed by B.M. indicates a perceptual basis to her disturbance and is discussed in relation to other cases of prosopagnosia.
A multi-flooding data transmission mechanism for low-duty-cycle wireless sensor network

In the paper a novel data transmission mechanism based on flooding for low-duty-cycle wireless sensor network, named Multi-Flooding, is proposed. Using Multi-Flooding, the node which has data to send will keep trying to flooding the data to its destination for K times, while K depends on the required successful transmission ration. Unlike traditional views, the simulation tells that Multi-Flooding does not generate much more broadcasting packets compared with other routing protocols, but reduce the transmission delay and increase the successful transmission ration remarkably.
Approximate Viability using Quasi-Random Samples and a Neural Network Classifier

We propose a novel approach to the computational investigation of reachability properties for nonlinear control systems. Our goal is to combat the curse of dimensionality, by proposing a mesh-free algorithm to numerically approximate the viability kernel of a given compact set. Our algorithm is based on a non-smooth analysis characterization of the viability kernel. At its heart is a neural network classifier based on Bayesian regularization, which operates on a pseudorandom sample extracted from the state-space (instead of a regular grid). The algorithm was implemented in Matlab and applied successfully to examples with linear and nonlinear dynamics.
Synergistic activity of ixabepilone plus other anticancer agents: preclinical and clinical evidence

Ixabepilone demonstrates marked synergistic activity in combination with capecitabine, which served as the rationale for the evaluation of this combination in the clinic. Ixabepilone plus capecitabine is currently approved for patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer (MBC) progressing after treatment with an anthracycline and a taxane; approval was based on the results of two phase III trials comparing the combination with capecitabine monotherapy. An array of preclinical studies in multiple solid tumor types show that ixabepilone demonstrates therapeutic synergy with targeted therapies including trastuzumab, bevacizumab, brivanib, and cetuximab; with immune-modulating agents such as anti-CTLA-4 antibody; and with other chemotherapy drugs such as irinotecan and epirubicin. Notably, experiments in several xenograft models show that ixabepilone provides greater antitumor synergism when combined with bevacizumab than either paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel combined with bevacizumab. These preclinical findings provide a foundation for ongoing phase II clinical trials using ixabepilone in combination with trastuzumab or lapatinib in HER2-positive breast cancer; with bevacizumab in breast cancer, endometrial cancer, renal cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); with cetuximab in breast cancer, NSCLC, and pancreatic cancer; and with brivanib, dasatinib, sorafinib, sunitinib, or vorinostat in MBC. Preliminary results from several of these trials suggest that ixabepilone-based combinations have promising anticancer activity.
Commercialisation of Food Crops and Farm Productivity: Evidence from Smallholders in Central Africa

ABSTRACT Commercialisation of agriculture has long been considered an important driver of intensification, production, food security and farm incomes in Africa. This article investigates whether commercialisation is able to increase the intensification and yield of banana and legumes in central Africa. The study utilises survey data from 480 smallholder farmers in selected regions in rural Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The findings show a positive effect of commercialisation on improved seed varieties use and food crop yields, even after controlling for an endogeneity problem. There is no strong evidence of commercialisation effect on fertilizer use among the sampled farm households. Apart from commercialisation, better education, larger farm sizes, access to markets and credit facilities, good roads and extension contacts are necessary for farmers to increase input use and crop yields. Overall, these findings suggest that programmes targeting to increase smallholder farm productivity through commercialisation will only work if they consider production and marketing conditions surrounding the target households.
A novel islanding detection based on adaptive active current disturbance

This paper presents an active islanding detection method based on injecting adaptive active current disturbance according to the amplitude of the voltage at the point of common coupling (PCC) detected after islanding occurred to reduce the disturbance on the inverter's output current. According to the amplitude of the voltage of PCC detected after islanding, the resistance value of the load can be obtained. Then the relationship between the minimum active disturbance current which can trigger islanding protection and the amplitude of PCC voltage is deduced. The required active disturbance current can be adaptively added to the inverter according to the amplitude of PCC voltage. As a result, the islanding can be detected after power failure without non-detection zone (NDZ). According to IEEE Std.1547. 1 and IEEE Std.929-2000, the simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is correct and effective. The experiment results also show that compared to the constant and periodic disturbance methods, the disturbance on the inverter's output current is significantly reduced by using the proposed adaptive active current disturbance algorithm.