Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between emergency department crowding and patient outcomes: a systematic review.

PURPOSE Emergency department (ED) crowding is a significant patient safety concern associated with poor quality of care. The purpose of this systematic review is to assess the relationship between ED crowding and patient outcomes. DESIGN We searched the Medline search engine and relevant emergency medicine and nursing journals for studies published in the past decade that pertained to ED crowding and the following patient outcome measures: mortality, morbidity, patient satisfaction, and leaving the ED without being seen. All articles were appraised for study quality. FINDINGS A total of 196 abstracts were screened and 11 articles met inclusion criteria. Three of the eleven studies reported a significant positive relationship between ED crowding and mortality either among patients admitted to the hospital or discharged home. Five studies reported that ED crowding is associated with higher rates of patients leaving the ED without being seen. Measures of ED crowding varied across studies. CONCLUSIONS ED crowding is a major patient safety concern associated with poor patient outcomes. Interventions and policies are needed to address this significant problem. CLINICAL RELEVANCE This review details the negative patient outcomes associated with ED crowding. Study results are relevant to medical professionals and those that seek care in the ED.
Detecting thresholds for bitter, umami, and sweet tastants in broiler chicken using a 2‐choice test method

&NA; The sense of taste has a key role in nutrient sensing and food intake in animals. A standardized and simple method for determination of tastant‐detection thresholds is required for chemosensory research in poultry. We established a 24‐h, 2‐alternative, forced‐choice solution‐consumption method and applied it to measure detection thresholds for 3 G‐protein‐coupled receptor‐mediated taste modalities—bitter, sweet, and umami—in chicken. Four parameters were used to determine a significant response: 1) tastant‐solution consumption; 2) water (tasteless) consumption; 3) total consumption (tastant and water together); 4) ratio of tastant consumption to total consumption. Our results showed that assignment of the taste solutions and a water control to 2 bottles on random sides of the pen can be reliably used for broiler chicks, even though 47% of the chicks groups demonstrated a consistently preferred side. The detection thresholds for quinine (bitter), L‐monosodium glutamate (MSG) (umami), and sucrose (sweet) were determined to be 0.3 mM, 300 mM, and 1 M, respectively. The threshold results for quinine were similar to those for humans and rodents, but the chicks were found to be less sensitive to sucrose and MSG. The described method is useful for studying detection thresholds for tastants that have the potential to affect feed and water consumption in chickens.
Nilpotent structures and invariant metrics on collapsed manifolds

Let Mn be a complete Riemannian manifold of bounded curvature, say IKI 0, we put Mn = W n(c) U Fn (c), where ? 1n (e) consists of those points at which the injectivity radius of the exponential map is > e. The complementary set, &"n (c) is called the e-collapsed part of Mn. If x E 4 (n), r < E, then the metric ball Bx (r) is quasi-isometric, with small distortion, to the flat ball B0(r) in the Euclidean space, Rn . After slightly
CO-EXPRESSION OF AN EPITOPE ON HUMAN FREE PLIGHT CHAINS AND ON A CYTOPLASMIC COMPONENT IN ACTIVATED T CELLS ' KAREN 2

K-1-21 is a murine monoclonal antibody that reacts with human K-wt chains in free form but not when they are associated with immunoglobulin heavy chains. K-1-21 was unexpectedly shown to bind to a determinant, STA (Sezary T cell antigen), detected by immunofluorescence in the cytoplasm but not on the surface of Sezary T cells isolated from peripheral blood (4/4 cases) and in Sezary T cells from lymph node and bone marrow (one patient). STA was detected in F2/F7. CCFW-CEM, Molt4, and CCFW-HSB (four human T ALL cell l ines), in JURKAT (a human T cell leukemia line), and in MLA144 (a Gibbon T cell lymphoma line). It also occurred in L.eu-3a+ antigen-specific T cell clones (6/6 tested). Moreover, although STA was absent from freshly isolated normal T cells, its expression could be evoked in E+ cells from peripheral blood by in vitro culture with phytohemagglutinin. Thus, STA appears to be a cytoplasmic marker for activated T cells. Cytoplasmic inhibition immunofluorescence studies indicated that K-1-21 binding to STA in Sezary cells or T cell lines was inhibited by preincubation of the K-1-21 antibody with purified K-Bence Jones protein. STA from radiolabeled MLA144 cell lysates was immunoprecipitated by K-1-21 and was identified on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis under reducing conditions as a protein of m.w. 57.000. Additional experiments are underway to define the molecular basis of the interesting cross-reactivity between a determinant in T cells and the K-1-21 reactive epitope on free K-light chains.
Diagnostic accuracy of fecal calprotectin assay in distinguishing organic causes of chronic diarrhea from irritable bowel syndrome: a prospective study in adults and children.

BACKGROUND Fecal calprotectin (FC) has been proposed as a marker of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but few studies have evaluated its usefulness in patients with chronic diarrhea of various causes. We evaluated the diagnostic accuracy of a FC assay in identifying "organic" causes of chronic diarrhea in consecutive adults and children. METHODS We consecutively enrolled 70 adult patients (30 males, 40 females; median age, 35 years) and 50 children (20 males, 30 females; median age, 3.5 years) with chronic diarrhea of unknown origin. All patients underwent a complete work-up to identify the causes of chronic diarrhea. FC was measured by ELISA. RESULTS In adult patients, FC showed 64% sensitivity and 80% specificity with 70% positive and 74% negative predictive values for organic causes. False-positive results (8 of 40 cases) were associated with the use of aspirin (3 cases) or nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (1 case) and with the presence of concomitant liver cirrhosis (3 cases). False-negative results mainly included patients suffering from celiac disease (5 cases). Patients with IBD (9 cases) were identified with 100% sensitivity and 95% specificity. In pediatric patients, sensitivity was 70%, specificity was 93%, and positive and negative predictive values were 96% and 56%. False-negative results (11 of 35 cases) were associated mainly with celiac disease (6 cases) or intestinal giardiasis (2 cases). CONCLUSIONS FC assay is an accurate marker of IBD in both children and adult patients. In adults, false negatives occur (e.g., in celiac disease) and false-positive results are seen in cirrhosis or users of nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs. Diagnostic accuracy is higher in children.
EEG recording during fMRI experiments: Image quality

Electroencephalographic (EEG) monitoring during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments is increasingly applied for studying physiological and pathological brain function. However, the quality of the fMRI data can be significantly compromised by the EEG recording due to the magnetic susceptibility of the EEG electrode assemblies and electromagnetic noise emitted by the EEG recording equipment. We therefore investigated the effect of individual components of the EEG recording equipment on the quality of echo planar images. The artifact associated with each component was measured and compared to the minimum scalp‐cortex distance measured in normal controls. The image noise originating from the EEG recording equipment was identified as coherent noise and could be eliminated by appropriate shielding of the EEG equipment. It was concluded that concurrent EEG and fMRI could be performed without compromising the image quality significantly if suitable equipment is used. The methods described and the results of this study should be useful to other researchers as a framework for testing of their own equipment and for the selection of appropriate equipment for EEG recording inside a MR scanner. Hum. Brain Mapping 10:10–15, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Relationship between Students' Perception of Being Safe in School, Principals' Perception of School Climate and Science Achievement in TIMSS 2007: A Comparison between Urban and Rural Public School.

This study concerns the assessment of the effects of Index of Principals’ Perception of School Climate (PPSC), intimidation of students and gender in Moroccan public schools on student performance in science. The study focused on fourth grade students who participated in the TIMSS 2007. The objective of this study is to answer the following research questions: (1) Do schools make a difference in science achievement? (2) What is the effect of the index of principals’ perception of school climate (PPSC) on student achievement? (3) What is the impact of intimidation by other students and gender on student achievement? What is the difference between urban and rural schools in science achievement? The results of the multilevel analysis show that the total variance situated at the school level is 24% in urban school, 50% in rural school and 42% in urban and rural together. Also, they affirm as the intimidation penalizes students’ performances in sciences, the PPSC index is negatively correlated with the students’ performances and the urban schools are favored compared to those in the rural areas.
Can We Improve the Reproducibility of Quantitative Multiparametric Prostate MR Imaging Metrics?

UCL Centre for Medical Imaging, 5th Floor, Wolfson House, 4 Stephenson Way, London NW1 2HE e-mail: edward.johnston@nhs.net Editor: We read with interest the article by Dr Dinh and colleagues in the July 2016 issue of Radiology (1), whereby quantitative metrics derived from multiparametric prostate magnetic resonance (MR) imaging were combined by using generalized linear models to differentiate tumors with a Gleason score of at least 7 in a multiple imager study. The authors describe extracting metrics that included T2-weighted signal intensity normalized to the obturator internus (OI) muscle and skewness and kurtosis from histograms. We wish to offer two constructive comments regarding this. To our knowledge, the OI muscle was first selected as a normalization region in a study by Engelhard et al (2), but the reasons for using this structure were not stated and were probably arbitrary. Although subsequent studies involving quantitative T2-weighted signal intensity, including ours (3,4), have followed the same method, OI normalization may not represent optimal technique. Indeed, we have found that normalizing T2-weighted signal intensity to the bladder urine signal intensity may improve image–repeat image reproducibility. We demonstrated this by retrospectively analyzing 14 patients who underwent repeat multiparametric MR imaging studies with two different machines (3.0-T Achieva [Philips, Best, the Netherlands] and 1.5-T Ingenia [Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) between February 2009 and March 2015, with a maximum of 3 months between imaging examinations (E.J., S.P., unpublished data, 2015). A board-certified radiologist contoured the normal transition zone and peripheral zone on a single section at the mid-gland level for each acquisition, and normalized the T2-weighted signal intensity to largest possible ellipsoidal regions of interest positioned within the bladder and on OI muscle. We found that reproducibility coefficients (5) decreased from 55% to 37% for the transition zone and from 64% to 34% for the peripheral zone when normalized to the bladder (vs OI muscle), which could be explained by the higher signal-to-noise ratio of this region. In addition, we found that reproducibility coefficients for skewness and kurtosis were very poor (>100%) for both apparent diffusion coefficient maps and T2-weighted images, which could explain why these parameters did not contribute to their best performing models. Multiple imager, multicenter studies provide the most robust evidence of efficacy of quantitative imaging parameters as tools for clinical decision making (6). However, there is an equally important parallel need for prospective studies to determine and improve the reproducibility of quantitative MR imaging–derived metrics.
A high efficiency single-phase transformerless PV inverter topology with reduced leakage current

Driven by worldwide demand for renewable sources, there is a strong trend in photovoltaic scenario to use transformerless inverter topologies to obtain higher efficiencies and lower ground leakage current. This paper presents a new topology based on H-bridge with ac decoupling scheme consisting of diode bridge and a switch with clamping to the DC midpoint. The PV panel is modelled to obtain a voltage of 350V. Also the topology is simulated and compared with two other existing topologies. High efficiency and low leakage current are observed.
High frequency LLC DC-transformer based on GaN devices and the dead time optimization

The trend in Intermediate Bus Converter (IBC) is increasing output power demands and higher operating frequencies, while the appearance of GaN devices will improve the power density of the converter possibly. This paper analyzed the high frequency characteristics of GaN devices and its advantages at high frequency applications. Owing to difficulties in designing driver circuit and layout, the paper designs the key parameters in the driver circuit. An optimized design of resonance parameters in LLC topology aiming for improved efficiency tradeoff between the dead time and shunt branch numbers is investigated. Then, an improved matrix transformer which would enhance the performance of the traditional transformer and decrease the leakage inductor and eddy current loss is proposed. Finally, a 300W the LLC prototype is designed on mentioned approach and some experiments have been made.
GaN nanodiscs embedded in nanowires as optochemical transducers

The photoluminescence (PL) response of GaN/AlGaN nanowire heterostructures (NWHs) to hydrogen and oxygen between room temperature and 300 °C is reported. Exposure of Pt-coated NWHs to H2 leads to an increase of the PL intensity attributed to the suppression of surface recombination by local dipole fields of adsorbed atomic hydrogen. When exposed to O2, uncoated NWHs show a decrease in PL intensity that is assigned to enhanced non-radiative recombination. The detection limits are below 5 ppm at 150 °C.
Accurate real-time people counting for crowded environments

In this paper we describe a system for automatic people counting in crowded environments. The approach we propose is a counting-by-detection method based on depth imagery. It is designed to be deployed as an autonomous appliance for crowd analysis in video surveillance application scenarios. Our system performs foreground/background segmentation on depth image streams in order to coarsely segment persons, then depth information is used to localize head candidates which are then tracked in time on an automatically estimated ground plane. The system runs in realtime, at a frame-rate of about 20 fps. We collected a dataset of RGB-D sequences representing three typical and challenging surveillance scenarios, including crowds, queuing and groups. An extensive comparative evaluation is given between our system and more complex, Latent SVM-based head localization for person counting applications.
Swaddling and hip dysplasia: an orthopaedic perspective

Historically infant swaddling was almost a universal practice. It involved binding or bundling babies in blankets with the arms restrained and the lower limbs extended. It remains common in the Middle East1 and in some ethnic groups with or without a board or cradle.2 There has been a recent resurgence of swaddling because of its perceived palliative effect on excessive crying, colic and promoting sleep. Approximately 90% of infants in North America are swaddled in the first few months of life.3 A recent systemic review4 concluded that in general swaddled infants do arouse less and sleep longer. Preterm infants showed improved neuromuscular development. In the UK a recent Drug and Theraputics Bulletin review of the management of infant colic5 concluded that the current evidence base does not support the use of swaddling in its management. This review and the systematic review however noted the association of swaddling with developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH), the latter concluding ‘attention to this adverse effect is of utmost importance’. DDH is one of …
A persistent programming environment for teaching object-oriented concepts

This paper describes a programming environment designed specifically for use in a teaching role and the idealised object-oriented programming language it supports. The basis for the environment's implementation lies in its manipulation of the underlying abstract syntax representation of an application. Such representations may be split and merged and are held in a persistent store. Users interact with the environment via a structure-editor which ensures syntactic correctness and enables incremental semantic checking. Applications developed with the environment can be unparsed into the idealised programming language supported by the environment, and also into the commonly used languages C++ and Java.
A QTL on chromosome 10 modulates cone photoreceptor number in the mouse retina.

PURPOSE This investigation examines the genetic sources of marked variation in cone photoreceptor number among inbred lines of mice, identifying candidate genes that may control the proliferation, differentiation, or survival of this neuronal population. METHODS Cone photoreceptor populations were counted in C57BL/6J (B6/J) and A/J strains, and 26 recombinant inbred (RI) strains derived from them. Eyes from RI strains were also collected for microarray analysis. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis was carried out by simple and composite interval mapping and validated using a consomic line. Candidate genes were evaluated based on genetic variance between the parental strains and analysis of gene expression. Expression data, deposited in GeneNetwork (www.GeneNetwork.org), were used to generate a coexpression network of established cone photoreceptor genes as a reference standard. RESULTS B6/J has 70% more cone photoreceptors than A/J. A significant QTL was mapped to chromosome 10 (Chr 10) and confirmed using B6.A<10> mice. Of 19 positional candidate genes, one-the myeloblastosis oncogene (Myb)-stood out. Myb has a potentially damaging missense mutation, high retinal expression, and a known role in cell proliferation. The ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 1 gene (Enpp1) was a second strong candidate, with an expression pattern that covaried with cone photoreceptors and that was differentially expressed between the parental strains. Enpp1 and several other candidate genes covaried with multiple genes within the cone photoreceptor gene network. CONCLUSIONS The mouse retina shows marked variation in cone photoreceptor number, some of which must be controlled by polymorphisms in a gene or genes on Chr 10.
TP73‐AS1 promotes breast cancer cell proliferation through miR‐200a‐mediated TFAM inhibition

P73 antisense RNA 1T (TP73‐AS1 or PDAM) is a long non‐coding RNA, which can regulate apoptosis through regulation of p53 signaling‐related anti‐apoptotic genes. An abnormal change of TP73‐AS1 expression was noticed in cancers. The effects of TP73‐AS1 in breast cancer (BC) growth and the underlying mechanism remain unclear so far. In the present study, the effect of TP73‐AS1 in BC cell lines and clinical tumor samples was detected so as to reveal its role and function. In the present study, TP73‐AS1 was specifically upregulated in BC tissues and BC cell lines and was correlated to a poorer prognosis in patients with BC. TP73‐AS1 knocking down suppressed human BC cell proliferation in vitro through regulation of TFAM. In our previous study, we demonstrated that miR‐200a inhibits BC cell proliferation through targeting TFAM; here we revealed that TP73‐AS1 could regulate miR‐200a through direct targeting. Moreover, TP73‐AS1 might compete with TFAM for miR‐200a binding thus to promote TFAM expression. Data from the present study revealed that TP73‐AS1 promoted BC cell proliferation through acting as a competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) by sponging miR‐200a. In conclusion, we regarded TP73‐AS1 as an oncogenic lncRNA promoting BC cell proliferation and a potential target for human BC treatment.
An Examination of the Situational Factors Associated With the Misuse of Prescription Analgesics Among College Students

The current study examined the effect that students’ educational environment has on the prevalence and motivations associated with the misuse of prescription analgesics (MPA). A sample of 893 undergraduate students was recruited from one religiously affiliated private university and one public university in the Southern United States. Participants completed an in-class survey assessing MPA-related behavior and their associated motivations. Results indicated that students attending the religiously affiliated university displayed lower rates of MPA. Multivariate analyses revealed that a positive drug abuse screening, prescription status, and grade point average are the strongest predictors of past-year MPA for both schools. Some motivations for medical misuse differed significantly between campuses. Implications as to how these differences can inform programs aimed at the reduction of prescription analgesic abuse are discussed.
A Differential Algebraic Method to Approximate Nonsmooth Mechanical Systems by Ordinary Differential Equations

Nonsmooth mechanical systems, which are mechanical systems involving dry friction and rigid unilateral contact, are usually described as differential inclusions (DIs), that is, differential equations involving discontinuities. Those DIs may be approximated by ordinary differential equations (ODEs) by simply smoothing the discontinuities. Such approximations, however, can produce unrealistic behaviors because the discontinuous natures of the original DIs are lost. This paper presents a new algebraic procedure to approximate DIs describing nonsmooth mechanical systems by ODEs with preserving the discontinuities. The procedure is based on the fact that the DIs can be approximated by differential algebraic inclusions (DAIs), and thus they can be equivalently rewritten as ODEs. The procedure is illustrated by some examples of nonsmooth mechanical systems with simulation results obtained by the fourth-order Runge-Kutta method.