Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Catheter colonization and bacteremia with pulmonary and arterial catheters

We prospectively studied the incidence of catheter-related sepsis in 51 critically ill patients who underwent 52 arterial and 37 pulmonary artery catheterizations over a period of 3 months. Daily cultures of blood and catheter insertion site were done and the catheters were cultured semiquantitatively at the time of removal. Catheter colonization defined as growth of 15 or more colonies was observed with 9 (10%) catheters and bacteremia with 4 (4.5%) catheters. The skin cultures were positive in 56% of the colonized catheters compared with 11% of sterile catheters (p < 0.01). The mean duration of catheterization of 3.8 days in colonized catheters was not different than 3.3 days in noncolonized catheters. Presence of concurrent infection and use of antibiotic did not change the rate of catheter colonization. Often, microorganisms other than those colonizing the catheter were recovered from blood. Femoral arterial catheterization appeared to be more often associated with colonization than radial catheters.It appears that the arterial and pulmonary artery catheter colonization occurs in about 10% of catheters and predisposes to catheter-related sepsis. Semiquantitative cultures of the catheter may aid in better documentation of catheter-induced sepsis.
Design a Low Voltage-Low Offset Class AB Op-Amp

A new design approach for three-stage operational amplifiers (op-amps) is proposed. It allows to actually implement a symmetrical push-pull class-AB amplifier output stage for wellestablished three-stage amplifiers using a feedforward transconductance stage. Compared with the conventional design practice, the proposed approach leads to a significant improvement of the symmetry between the positive and the negative op-amp step response, resulting in similar values of the positive/negative settling time. The new approach proves to be very useful in order to fully exploit the potentiality allowed by the op-amp in terms of speed performances. Design examples in a commercial 0.35-μm CMOS prove the effectiveness of theproposed strategy. Keywords—Low-voltage op amp, design , optimum design
Quantitative analysis of immunogold labeling indicates low levels and non‐vesicular localization of L‐aspartate in rat primary afferent terminals

The role of L‐aspartate as an excitatory neurotransmitter in primary afferent synapses in the spinal cord dorsal horn is disputed. To further investigate this issue, we examined the presence of aspartate‐like immunoreactivity in primary afferent nerve terminals and other tissue components of the dorsal horn. We also examined the relationship between aspartate and glutamate immunogold labeling density and the density of synaptic vesicles in primary afferent terminals and presumed inhibitory terminals forming symmetric synapses. Weak aspartate immunosignals, similar to or lower than those displayed by presumed inhibitory terminals, were detected in both C‐fiber primary afferent terminals in lamina II (dense sinusoid axon terminals, identified by morphological criteria) and in A‐fiber primary afferent terminals in laminae III–IV (identified with anterograde transport of choleragenoid‐horseradish peroxidase conjugate). The aspartate immunogold signal in primary afferent terminals was only about one‐fourth of that in deep dorsal horn neuronal cell bodies. Further, whereas significant positive correlations were evident between synaptic vesicle density and glutamate immunogold labeling density in both A‐ and C‐fiber primary afferent terminals, none of the examined terminal populations displayed a significant correlation between synaptic vesicle density and aspartate immunogold labeling density. Thus, our results indicate relatively low levels and a non‐vesicular localization of aspartate in primary afferent terminals. It is therefore suggested that aspartate, rather than being a primary afferent neurotransmitter, serves a role in the intermediary metabolism in primary afferent terminals. J. Comp. Neurol. 430:147–159, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Surface Engineering of Polycaprolactone by Biomacromolecules and their Blood Compatibility

Improving blood compatibility of biodegradable polymers is an area of intensive research in blood contacting devices. In this study, curdlan sulphate and heparin-modified poly (caprolactone) (PCL) hybrids were developed by physically entrapping these molecules on the PCL surface. This modification technique was performed by reversible gelation of the PCL surface region following exposure to a solvent and nonsolvent mixture. The presence of these biomacromolecules on the PCL surface was verified by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (SEM-EDAX) analysis, while wettability of the films was investigated by dynamic contact angle measurements. The blood compatibilities of the surface-modified films were examined using in vitro platelet and leukocyte adhesion and thrombus formation. Mouse RAW 264.7 macrophage cells were used to assess the cell adhesion and inflammatory response to the modified surface by quantifying mRNA expression levels of proinflammatory cytokines namely TNF-α and IL-1β using real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). A lower platelet and leukocyte adhesion and activation was observed on the modified films incubated with whole human blood for 2 h. The thrombus formation on the PCL was significantly decreased upon immobilization of both curdlan sulphate (39%, *p<0.05) and heparin (28%, *p<0.01) when compared to bare PCL (80%). All of these results revealed that improved blood compatibility was obtained by surface entrapment of both curdlan sulphate (CURS) and heparin (HEP) onto PCL films. Both PCL-CURS and PCL-HEP films reduced RAW 264.7 macrophage cell adhesion (*p<0.05) with respect to the base unmodified PCL. The cellular inflammatory response was suppressed on the modified substrates. The mRNA expression levels of proinflammmatory cytokines (TNF-α and IL-1β) were upregulated on bare PCL, while it was significantly lower on PCL-CURS and PCL-HEP substrates (**p<0.001). Thus, this biomacromolecule entrapment process can be applied on PCL in order to achieve improved blood compatibility and reduced inflammatory host response for its future blood contacting applications.
Decentralisation and interregional redistribution in the Italian education system

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the potential impact of the reform designed to decentralise public education in Italy, currently under discussion, on interregional redistribution. The central government has always played a prominent financial and administrative role in the provision of compulsory education in Italy. This has had a strong redistributive effect on per-capita GDP across the regions of the country. The current fiscal decentralisation reform may well involve the education sector, as regional and local authorities are granted greater autonomy with regard to the provision and funding of educational services. Starting from certain plausible assumptions regarding the forthcoming fiscal powers, decentralisation and the expenditure levels set by the central government, this paper evaluates how these changes may affect the degree of interregional redistribution accomplished by the education system.
Thrombolysis for ischaemic stroke: impact of the extension of the time-window in daily practice

Intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) administered within 3 h after onset in patients with acute ischaemia in the territory of the middle cerebral artery increases the proportion of patients who are left without handicap after 3 months.1 The ECASS-3 trial showed that there is also a benefit in patients treated between 3 and 4.5 h.2 Although the current labelling is still restricted to the 3-h time-window in the European Union, the European Stroke Organisation has already recommended extending it to 4.5 h ( http://www.esostroke.org/pdf/ESO%20Guidelines\_update\_Jan_2009.pdf ). In a large survey that included 11 262 acute stroke patients admitted in 60 hospitals from England, Wales and Northern England, only 14% met criteria for thrombolysis based on a 3-h time-window.3 If the time-window was extended to 4.5 h, only another 2% would have become eligible,3 suggesting that it would have a marginal effect on …
Preventing misdiagnosis of ambulatory hypertension: algorithm using office and home blood pressures

Objectives An algorithm for making a differential diagnosis between sustained and white coat hypertension (WCH) has been proposed – patients with office hypertension undergo home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) and those with normal HBP levels undergo ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM). We tested whether incorporating an upper office blood pressure (OBP) cut-off in the algorithm, higher than the traditional 140/90 mmHg, reduces the need for HBPM and ABPM. Methods Two hundred twenty-nine normotensive and untreated mildly hypertensive participants (mean age 52.5 ± 14.6 years, 54% female participants) underwent OBP measurements, HBPM, and 24-h ABPM. Using the algorithm, sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values (PPV, NPV) for sustained hypertension and WCH were assessed. We then modified the algorithm utilizing a systolic and diastolic OBP cut-off at a specificity of 95% for ambulatory hypertension – those with office hypertension but OBP levels below the upper cut-off underwent HBPM and subsequent ABPM, if appropriate. Results Using the original algorithm, sensitivity and PPV for sustained hypertension were 100% and 93.8%, respectively. Despite a specificity of 44.4%, NPV was 100%. These values correspond to specificity, NPV, sensitivity, and PPV for WCH, respectively. Using the modified algorithm, the diagnostic accuracy for sustained hypertension and WCH did not change. However, far fewer participants needed HBPM (29 vs. 84) and ABPM (8 vs. 15). Conclusion In this sample, the original and modified algorithms are excellent at diagnosing sustained hypertension and WCH. However, the latter requires far fewer participants to undergo HBPM and ABPM. These findings have important implications for the cost-effective diagnosis of sustained hypertension and WCH.
Professional sense‐makers: managerial competencies amidst ambiguity

In this article, managerial competencies are derived from observations of public managers in action. Based on institutional theory, it is assumed that public managers are competent when they know how to play the game of public management and how to apply the rules of the game. This assumption is legitimated by the use of the concept of ambiguity, which underscores the fuzzy, contested and equivocal nature of real life policy issues. When issues are fuzzy and equivocal, multiple ways of behaving are thinkable, so public managers will not do what is “best”, but what is considered to be “appropriate”. In a study of 12 public managers in action, it was observed how they allocated their attention amid different kinds of ambiguity which included unstable issue linkages, unclear impacts, continuous contestation and unpredictable exposure. Individual public managers handled these conditions by being able to do three things: they interpreted signals and events; institutionalized issues by creating issue labels, meetings, meeting items and texts and by establishing political back up; and they produced appropriate texts, in time, in order to take away unnecessary “heat”.
COLORECTAL CANCER DURING PREGNANCY – CASE REPORT AND BRIEF REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Malignancies in pregnant women are very rare with colorectal cancer being the eighth most commonly found. Colon cancer during the pregnancy is often diagnosed at an advanced stage because of its symptoms which are attributed to the pregnancy. This paper described a case of a 34-year-old female patient, 22 weeks pregnant, who was admitted to the Department of General and Transplantation Surgery due to deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and bleeding into the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Endoscopy of the lower GI tract revealed an ulcerated polyp in the sigmoid colon. The histopathologic report showed infiltrated adenocarcinoma coli G2. The abdominal ultrasound scan (USS) and the chest Xray detected hepatic and pulmonary metastases. After consideration, the tumor resection was postponed because it would not significantly improve the patient’s health condition and would endanger the fetus. The medical treatment plan was to wait until the 32nd-34th week of pregnancy and perform a simultaneous C-section, recto-sigmoid resection and hysterectomy. After intrauterine fetal death at 27 gestational week, computer tomography (CT) revealed disseminated metastases in the liver, lungs and peritoneum. The patient was referred to palliative chemotherapy. In conclusion, diagnostics and treatment of colon cancer during pregnancy is a challenge for the obstetrician and oncological team.
Mixed Level Hierarchical Test Generation for Transition Faults and Overcurrent Related Defects

Automatic test pattern generation yielding high fault coverage also for non-trivial faults in CMOS circuits has found a wide attention in industry and research for a long time. Test generation from gate level netlists is quite efficient, but has shortcomings with respect to fault coverage in complex CMOS gates, while an approach relying on the transistor structure only is inefficient and virtually impossible for larger circuits. This paper describes mechanisms for coupling switch level and gate level test generation towards an efficient mixed level test generator that combines acceptable performance for large networks and high fault coverage also for non-trivial transistor networks. Patterns generated this way are inherently capable to detect interrupt-types of faults and transition faults. In combination with local overcurrent detectors, also stuck-on- and bridging faults can be identified.
Business, government and economic policymaking in the new South Africa, 1990–2000

The stated economic policy of the African National Congress (ANC) underwent a dramatic shift in the 1990s, away from a soft-left redistributionist position to one much more closely aligned with the policy preferences of the South African business community. To what extent can this shift be attributed to lobbying efforts by that community? The article reviews the development of economic policy by the ANC in the 1990s, and concludes that while business was undoubtedly influential in this process, much of that influence was indirect and derived from two sets of sources: first, the international policy consensus around the neo-liberal reform agenda; and second, indirect signals from ‘the market’ by means of such mechanisms as movements in the value of the currency, and investor and business confidence.
Sensitivity study of systematic errors in the BepiColombo relativity experiment

The Mercury Orbiter Radio science Experiment (MORE) is one of the experiments onboard the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury. Thanks to a state-of-the-art equipment, MORE will perform a very precise test of General Relativity, constraining the value of several Post-Newtonian parameters and other related quantities with an unprecedented accuracy. One of the main critical issues for the success of the MORE investigation is to correctly handle the systematic effects due to the instrumentation, which may significantly degrade the accuracy of the estimate, unless properly calibrated. In this work we evaluate, by means of a sensitivity analysis, the impact on the experiment given by systematic errors in the readings of the onboard accelerometer and in the end-to-end ranging system chain. The analysis shows that also small spurious effects in the range observables can be detrimental for the experiment, while the impact of the accelerometer is rather contained.
Generalized and degenerate Whittaker models

We study generalized and degenerate Whittaker models for reductive groups over local fields of characteristic zero (archimedean or non-archimedean). Our main result is the construction of epimorphisms from the generalized Whittaker model corresponding to a nilpotent orbit to any degenerate Whittaker model corresponding to the same orbit, and to certain degenerate Whittaker models corresponding to bigger orbits. We also give choice-free definitions of generalized and degenerate Whittaker models. Finally, we explain how our methods imply analogous results for Whittaker–Fourier coefficients of automorphic representations. For $\text{GL}_{n}(\mathbb{F})$ this implies that a smooth admissible representation $\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B}$ has a generalized Whittaker model ${\mathcal{W}}_{{\mathcal{O}}}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ corresponding to a nilpotent coadjoint orbit ${\mathcal{O}}$ if and only if ${\mathcal{O}}$ lies in the (closure of) the wave-front set $\operatorname{WF}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ . Previously this was only known to hold for $\mathbb{F}$ non-archimedean and ${\mathcal{O}}$ maximal in $\operatorname{WF}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ , see Moeglin and Waldspurger [Modeles de Whittaker degeneres pour des groupes p-adiques, Math. Z. 196 (1987), 427–452]. We also express ${\mathcal{W}}_{{\mathcal{O}}}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ as an iteration of a version of the Bernstein–Zelevinsky derivatives [Bernstein and Zelevinsky, Induced representations of reductive p-adic groups. I. , Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 10 (1977), 441–472; Aizenbud et al., Derivatives for representations of $\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{R})$ and $\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{C})$ , Israel J. Math. 206 (2015), 1–38]. This enables us to extend to $\text{GL}_{n}(\mathbb{R})$ and $\text{GL}_{n}(\mathbb{C})$ several further results by Moeglin and Waldspurger on the dimension of ${\mathcal{W}}_{{\mathcal{O}}}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D70B})$ and on the exactness of the generalized Whittaker functor.
Extremes, uncertainty, and responsibility across boundaries

The availability of complex, pediatric home care (CPHC) allows ventilator-dependent children to live at home not hospital. The process of transition from hospital to home encompasses the morphing of responsibilities from uniquely hospital based to CPHC based. This study promoted contextualized understanding of transition using in-depth case-study methodology. A total of 26 adults were interviewed for their roles and responsibilities in transition; they represented members of the family, hospital team, home team, and government programs. Interview analyses revealed four major facets of transition, each accompanied by a significant challenge. Transition (a) was a continuous shift in responsibility challenged by precarious human resources, (b) was peppered with losses producing uncertainty and grief, (c) was focused on crossing jurisdictions in the face of polarization around knowledge, and (d) was heavily reliant on mothers leading to expectations of maternal extraordinariness. The overarching conceptualization emerged that transition entailed extremes and uncertainty in the bridging of boundaries.
Vitamin C increases viral mimicry induced by 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine

Significance Our work shows a remarkable synergy between physiological levels of vitamin C and 5-aza-CdR. The combination enhances the viral mimicry response to DNA methyltransferase inhibitors, including the upregulation of endogenous retroviruses in the dsRNA form and the induction of viral defense pathways. Because patients with hematological and other cancers are often markedly vitamin C deficient, the addition of vitamin C to treatment protocols may be a straightforward way to increase the clinical efficacy of such drugs in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and leukemia. Vitamin C deficiency is found in patients with cancer and might complicate various therapy paradigms. Here we show how this deficiency may influence the use of DNA methyltransferase inhibitors (DNMTis) for treatment of hematological neoplasias. In vitro, when vitamin C is added at physiological levels to low doses of the DNMTi 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine (5-aza-CdR), there is a synergistic inhibition of cancer-cell proliferation and increased apoptosis. These effects are associated with enhanced immune signals including increased expression of bidirectionally transcribed endogenous retrovirus (ERV) transcripts, increased cytosolic dsRNA, and activation of an IFN-inducing cellular response. This synergistic effect is likely the result of both passive DNA demethylation by DNMTi and active conversion of 5-methylcytosine (5mC) to 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) by ten–eleven translocation (TET) enzymes at LTR regions of ERVs, because vitamin C acts as a cofactor for TET proteins. In addition, TET2 knockout reduces the synergy between the two compounds. Furthermore, we show that many patients with hematological neoplasia are markedly vitamin C deficient. Thus, our data suggest that correction of vitamin C deficiency in patients with hematological and other cancers may improve responses to epigenetic therapy with DNMTis.
Through the Eyes of Tom Joad: Patterns of American Idealism, Bob Dylan, and the Folk Protest Movement

Bob Dylan's approach to folk music initially appeared compatible with the political outlook of the older left‐wing sponsors of Sing Out! and Broadside magazines. However, with pre‐World War II attitudes, such sponsors generally viewed folk music as a way to understand or promote the common beliefs and aspirations of entire social groups. Dylan, by contrast, often used songs to focus on the feelings of unique individuals. He also challenged accepted beliefs, and he used symbolism and themes drawn from nature. In all these respects, Dylan's early lyrics and writings reflected an intellectual tradition of American idealism established by Ralph Waldo Emerson and passed down to Dylan primarily through John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie.
Language identification in multilingual, short and noisy texts using common N-grams

The problem of Language Identification (LID) has been present in the Natural Language Processing domain for a relatively long period of time. There is a number of approaches based on statistical methods used for this particular task, and lately AI methods with the revival of neural network techniques. Some of the solutions described and implemented in the past show good performance, but texts that were processed were usually clean in terms of grammatical correctness and homogeneity. This paper explores and discusses LID in short and noisy messages written in similar languages, which is a non-trivial task, especially for very related languages. The experimentation methodology in the paper is based on the algorithms such as SVM, Naïve Bayes variants, Random Forest and Logistic Regression. In addition, we explore a novel distance based classification method — Common N-Grams (CNG). Finally, we explored whether Wikipedia as an additional training data source can improve a classifier performance.
A 10.5 cm Ultrasound Link for Deep Implanted Medical Devices

A study on ultrasound link for wireless energy transmission dedicated to deeply implanted medical devices is presented. The selection of the frequency to avoid biological side effects (e.g., cavitations), the choice of the power amplifier to drive the external transducers and the design of the rectifier to maximize the energy extraction from the implanted transducer are described in details. The link efficiency is characterized in water using a phantom material for a transmitter-receiver distance of 105 mm, transducers active area of 30 mm × 96 mm and 5 mm × 10 mm, respectively, and a system efficiency of 1.6% is measured.