Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Personal Functional Goals: A New Approach to Assessing Patient-Centered Outcomes

One dilemma in outcomes research is finding measures that show the impact of an intervention on participants' quality of life, especially in areas most salient to participants. The authors describe the development and testing of a method for eliciting information about personal functional goals from older adults entering an exercise program and assessing progress after completion of the program. The authors' Personal Functional Goals (PFG) Checklist and Interview Protocol is a 45-item checklist of goals for health, daily living, and general well-being. Testing on older adult, community-dwelling participants in controlled exercise intervention studies confirmed the ease of administration and provided preliminary evidence of reliability and validity, including responsiveness to change. Thus, the PFG shows promise for measuring health-related quality of life in terms of individual concerns and is suitable for application in clinical and research settings.
Creating possibilities for action in the presence of environmental barriers in the process of ‘ageing in place’

ABSTRACT The need for an understanding of ‘ageing in place’ as a progressive process has emerged among researchers in the field of environmental gerontology. The aim of this study was to explore this process, in relation to home modification services. Four older adults who had applied for home modification services in one Swedish municipality were included. Data were collected by open interviews with the participants in their homes on subsequent occasions, from before the modification had been installed until recognised stability in the situation relating to the home modification. In the analysis, the concept of place integration was used as a tool to explore the active relations that connect people and context over time. The main findings show that the participants used creativity and initiative to direct future situations towards increased possibilities for action. This indicates that services aiming to support people ‘ageing in place’ should be directed towards increasing possibilities for action rather than only facilitating activity performance. Furthermore, it can be concluded that if the service-users' creativity and efforts are recognised as resources in design and provision of services, services that aim to support individuals who are ageing in place have the potential to be empowering.
ATP-sensitive K+ channels, adenosine, and nitric oxide-mediated mechanisms account for coronary vasodilation during exercise.

We previously reported that combined blockade of adenosine receptors and ATP-sensitive K+ channels (K+(ATP) channels) blunted but did not abolish the response of coronary blood flow to exercise. This study tested the hypothesis that the residual increase in coronary flow in response to exercise after adenosine receptor and K+(ATP) channel blockade is dependent on endogenous NO. Dogs were studied at rest and during a four-stage treadmill exercise protocol under control conditions, during K+(ATP) channel blockade with glibenclamide (50 microg x kg(-1) x min(-1) i.c. ) in the presence of adenosine receptor blockade with 8-phenyltheophylline (8-PT, 5 mg/kg i.v.), and after the addition of the NO synthase inhibitor N(G)-nitro-L-arginine (LNNA, 1.5 mg/kg i.c.). During control conditions, coronary blood flow was 49 +/- 3 mL/min at rest and increased to 92 +/- 8 mL/min at peak exercise. LNNA alone or in combination with 8-PT did not alter resting coronary flow and did not impair the normal increase in flow during exercise, indicating that when K+(ATP) channels are intact, neither NO nor adenosine-dependent mechanisms are obligatory for maintaining coronary blood flow. Combined K+(ATP) channel and adenosine blockade decreased resting coronary flow to 27 +/- 3 mL/min (P<.05), but exercise still increased flow to 45 +/- 5 mL/min (P<.05). The subsequent addition of LNNA further decreased resting coronary flow to 20 +/- 2 mL/min and markedly blunted exercise-induced coronary vasodilation (coronary vascular conductance, 0.20 +/- 0.03 mL x min(-1) x mm Hg(-1) at rest versus 0.24 +/- 0.04 mL x min(-1) x mm Hg(-1) during the heaviest level of exercise; P=. 22), so that coronary flow both at rest and during exercise was below the control resting level. The findings suggest that K+(ATP) channels are critical for maintaining coronary vasodilation at rest and during exercise but that when K+(ATP) channels are blocked, both adenosine and NO act to increase coronary blood flow during exercise. In the presence of combined K+(ATP) channel blockade and adenosine receptor blockade, NO was able to produce approximately one quarter of the coronary vasodilation that occurred in response to exercise when all vasodilator systems were intact.
Mouse Rab11‐FIP4 regulates proliferation and differentiation of retinal progenitors in a Rab11‐independent manner

We identified Rab11‐family interacting protein 4 (Rab11‐FIP4) as a gene strongly expressed in the developing mouse retina. The major transcript encoding a full‐length protein, mRab11‐FIP4A, was expressed predominantly in neural tissues; whereas an alternative transcript encoding an N‐terminally truncated form of the protein, mRab11‐FIP4B, was expressed ubiquitously as a minor form. Gain‐of‐function of mRab11‐FIP4A in retina promoted cell cycle exit and increased subpopulations of retinal cells localized in the inner nuclear layer, such as bipolar cells and Müller glia. Reversal of the phenotype was observed in the loss‐of‐function experiment. Furthermore, Shh signaling was suggested to be involved in these functions. Analysis using truncation mutants revealed the essential role of the N‐terminal region containing a conserved EF‐hand motif for the retinal phenotypes induced by the expression of mRab11‐FIP4A, whereas binding to Rab11 was dispensable, suggesting the involvement of a novel Rab11‐independent mechanism for mRab11‐FIP4A action in the regulation of retinal development. Developmental Dynamics 236:214–225, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Using vehicle-based sensors of driver behavior to detect alcohol impairment

Despite persistent efforts at the local, state, and federal levels, alcohol-impaired crashes still contribute to approximately 30% of all traffic fatalities. Although enforcement and educational approaches have helped to reduce alcohol-impaired fatalities, other approaches will be required to further reduce alcohol-related fatalities. This paper describes an approach that detects alcohol impairment in real time using vehicle-based sensors to detect alcohol-related changes in drivers’ behavior. Data were collected on the National Advanced Driving Simulator from 108 volunteer drivers. Three age groups (21-34, 38-51, and 55-68 years of age) drove through representative situations on three types of roadways (urban, freeway, and rural) at three levels of blood alcohol content (0.00%, 0.05%, and 0.10% BAC). Driver control input, vehicle state, driving context and driver state data, individually and in combination, reveal signatures of alcohol impairment. Algorithms built on these signatures detect drivers with BAC levels that are over the legal limit with an accuracy of approximately 80%, similar to the Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST) used by law enforcement. Each of the three algorithms combined information across time to predict impairment. The time required to detect impairment ranged from eight minutes, for complex algorithms (i.e., support vector machines and decision trees applied to relatively demanding driving situations), to twenty-five minutes for simple algorithms (i.e., logistic regression). Timely impairment detection depends critically on the driving context: variables specific to the particular driving situation result in much more timely impairment detection than generic variables.
Distributed Nonlinear Observer with Robust Performance - A Circle Criterion Approach

In this paper, we present a distributed version of the KYP-Lemma with the goal to express the strictly positive real-property for a class of physically interconnected systems by a set of local LMI-conditions. The resulting conditions are subsequently used to constructively design distributed circle criterion estimators, which are able to collectively estimate an underlying linear system with a sector bounded nonlinearity.
A 2.5 Gb/s, Low Power Clock and Data Recovery Circuit

This paper presents an all-digital clock and data recovery circuit with the data bit rate of 2 to 5Gb/s. With the eye-tracking technique instead of the traditional data edge tracking method, the jitter tolerance is increased by keeping the sampling clock away from the jitter distribution region confirmed by Matlab simulation. A bang-bang PD with a phase distance of 1/4 UI is chosen, and a jitter tolerance of 0.75UI is achieved. A CMOS circuit was implemented in CMOS 90 nm technology with low complexity. The circuit consumes a power of 9 mW at 2.5 Gbps at a 1.2 v supply.
EDUCATED GUESSES THE PROCESS OF ANSWERING FACTUAL KNOWLEDGE QUESTIONS IN SURVEYS

Les reponses a des questions autobiographiques ne se resument pas a une restitution d'informations contenues dans la memoire. L'inference, l'ordre des questions et la perception de la validite des reponses interviennent dans ce processus. Les AA. presentent un certain nombre de donnees collectees au cours d'entretiens. Ils montrent que la motivation des repondants, leur habilete langagiere et le contexte de questionnement jouent un role fondamental dans ce cadre. Ils mettent en avant les processus inferentiels qui peuvent intervenir et soulignent l'importance de l'attitude de l'enqueteur dans le cadre d'un entretien
Efficient near maximum-likelihood decoding of multistratum space-time codes

Multistratum space-time codes combine the layered transmission strategy of V-BLAST with space-time block coding in order to achieve high data rates and at the same time exploit transmit diversity. Simple detection schemes like successive interference cancellation severely suffer from the strong correlation between the strata, so true maximum-likelihood detection needs to be performed instead, which can be efficiently realized by the sphere decoding algorithm. However, most implementations known from the literature still have relatively high complexity, especially for low signal to noise ratio. Therefore, we propose several modifications that can reduce the computational effort by orders of magnitude while achieving at least near optimum performance.
Structural Insights into RbmA, a Biofilm Scaffolding Protein of V. Cholerae

V. cholerae can form sessile biofilms associated with abiotic surfaces, cyanobacteria, zoo-plankton, mollusks, or crustaceans. Along with the vibrio polysaccharide, secreted proteins of the rbm gene cluster are key to the biofilm ultrastructure. Here we provide a thorough structural characterization of RbmA, a protein involved in mediating cell-cell and cell-biofilm contacts. We correlate our structural findings with initial ligand specificity screening results, NMR protein-ligand interaction analysis, and complement our results with a full biocomputational study.
Supporting operating nurses' collaborative work: Preventing information overload and tailoring information access

Collaboration and coordination are demanding tasks in health care, but may be supported by computer systems. In this paper we describe our initial work in a large research project (Cooperation Support Through Transparency). The aim is to provide actors with information about the course of a process, thereby facilitating informed decisions and in such way support collaboration in peri-operative processes. The focus in this paper is on operating nurses' current use of information resources and their information needs. He use a combination of semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Theoretically, our analyses are informed by e.g. the concepts awareness and articulation work. The study shows that this combination of methods is most useful, offering complementary insights and drawing an attention to mismatches between what is said and what is done by nurses. Furthermore, based on the empirical material, we discuss implications for design.
Copyright Protection for E-Government Document Images

The proposed copyright protection scheme combines the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and singular value decomposition (SVD) using a control parameter to avoid the false-positive problem. In this article, we propose an efficient copyright protection scheme for e-government document images. First, we apply the discrete cosine transform (DCT) to the host image and use the zigzag space-filling curve (SFC) for the DCT coefficients. The DCT coefficients in the zigzag manner are then mapped into four areas with different frequencies in a rectangular shape. Then, we apply the singular value decomposition (SVD) operation to each area, and the host image is modified by the left singular vectors and the singular values of the DCT-transformed watermark to embed the watermark image. The left singular vectors and singular values are used as a control parameter to avoid the false-positive problem. Each area decides the scaling factor's optimal value using a genetic algorithm (GA) with the mean of the watermark's SVs. A scaling factor is simulated by chromosomes, and several optimization GA operators are used. After remapping each modified coefficient DCT back to the original position, the proposed inverse DCT produces the watermarked image. Our experimental results show that we can improve the image quality GA-based evolution and that this approach is robust under several kinds of attacks.
SIZ1 Small Ubiquitin-Like Modifier E3 Ligase Facilitates Basal Thermotolerance in Arabidopsis Independent of Salicylic Acid1[W][OA]

Small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) conjugation/deconjugation to heat shock transcription factors regulates DNA binding of the peptides and activation of heat shock protein gene expression that modulates thermal adaptation in metazoans. SIZ1 is a SUMO E3 ligase that facilitates SUMO conjugation to substrate target proteins (sumoylation) in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). siz1 T-DNA insertional mutations (siz1-2 and siz1-3; Miura et al., 2005) cause basal, but not acquired, thermosensitivity that occurs in conjunction with hyperaccumulation of salicylic acid (SA). NahG encodes a salicylate hydroxylase, and expression in siz1-2 seedlings reduces endogenous SA accumulation to that of wild-type levels and further increases thermosensitivity. High temperature induces SUMO1/2 conjugation to peptides in wild type but to a substantially lesser degree in siz1 mutants. However, heat shock-induced expression of genes, including heat shock proteins, ascorbate peroxidase 1 and 2, is similar in siz1 and wild-type seedlings. Together, these results indicate that SIZ1 and, by inference, sumoylation facilitate basal thermotolerance through processes that are SA independent.
Oncotargets and Therapy Dovepress Dovepress

comparison of the utility and applicability of the sokal, hasford, and eUTOs scores in a population of chinese patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia undergoing imatinib therapy Background: Tyrosine kinase inhibitors are increasingly used to treat chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), but loss of complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) indicates treatment failure. Hasford prognostic scores with 3-month and 12-month CCyR, event-free survival (EFS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with chronic-phase CML (CP-CML) undergoing imatinib therapy. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the outcome of 210 patients with CP-CML treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University treated between January 2006 and December 2013. Sokal, EUTOS, and Hasford scores were compared with 3-month and 12-month CCyR, EFS, and PFS. Results: Kaplan–Meier analyses revealed that 3-month and 12-month CCyR and PFS were lower in patients with high EUTOS scores, and intermediate or high Sokal and Hasford scores (all P,0.05). Furthermore, EFS was lower in patients with intermediate or high Sokal and Hasford scores (both P,0.05). Hasford score (hazard ratio =2.608, 95% confidence interval: 1.473–4.617, P=0.001) was independently associated with 3-month CCyR. Conclusion: Although all three scoring systems were associated with EFS, PFS, and 3-month and 12-month CCyR in the Kaplan–Meier analyses (except EFS with EUTOS), only the Hasford score was independently associated with 3m-CCyR, while EUTOS score and Sokal score were not independently associated with any of these outcomes.
Evaluation of novel resilience schemes in dynamic optical transport networks

Today, Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) transmission systems are deployed extensively in transport networks. They are used mainly for static point-to-point connections. With the availability of fast reconfigurable Optical Cross Connects (OXC) and the introduction of a control plane in the Optical Transport Network (OTN), optical channel based logical networks can be built for dynamic WDM networks. Resilience in current transport networks is mainly based on static SONET/SDH dedicated and shared protection. Distributed control planes allow new, flexible protection mechanisms (e.g. GMPLS reroute and fast reroute). To evaluate future distributed control concepts and new resilience schemes in transport networks, we have implemented a dynamic OTN simulation model. Several case studies have been performed using different protection and restoration methods. Different failure scenarios (single or multiple link failures) were used. The paper evaluates the case studies in terms of scalability, recovery time criteria, capacity use (efficiency) and availability. It is shown that the new and flexible resilience schemes are a promising alternative to traditional statically preplanned protection in transport networks. Furthermore, they provide increased network availability in multiple failure cases.
Effect of biventricular pacing on ventilatory and perceptual responses to exercise in patients with stable chronic heart failure.

Despite the growing evidence supporting the use of biventricular cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF), the mechanisms whereby acute hemodynamic improvements lead to improved exertional dyspnea are not precisely known. We hypothesized that improved cardiac function and ventilation-perfusion relations following CRT would reduce ventilatory demand, thereby improving dynamic operating lung volumes and enhancing tidal volume expansion during exercise. This, in turn, would be expected to reduce perceived exertional dyspnea and contribute to improved exercise performance. In a randomized, double-blind, crossover study, we compared cardiovascular, metabolic, ventilatory responses (breathing pattern, operating lung volumes, pulmonary gas exchange) and exertional symptoms in seven stable CHF patients who undertook incremental cardiopulmonary cycle exercise test with CRT switched to the "on" (CRT(on)) or "off" (CRT(off)) modality. Following CRT(on), peak oxygen uptake was significantly increased by 15%, and dyspnea ratings were lower for a given work rate (at work rate of 40 W, dyspnea = 1 +/- 0.4 vs. 2.5 +/- 0.9 Borg units, P < 0.05) and ventilation (at ventilation of 31 l/min, dyspnea = 2 +/- 0.7 vs. 3.3 +/- 1.1 Borg units, P < 0.05). CRT(on) was associated with improvements in ventilatory threshold, oxygen pulse, and oxygen uptake/work rate relationships (10.2 +/- 1 vs. 7.9 +/- 1.3 ml.min(-1). W(-1), P < 0.05). CRT(on) reduced the ventilatory requirement during exercise as well as the steepness of ventilation-CO(2) production slope (35 +/- 4 vs. 45 +/- 7, P < 0.05). Changes in end-expiratory lung volume during exercise were less with CRT(on) than with CRT(off) (0.12 vs. 0.37 liter, P < 0.05), and breathing pattern was correspondingly slower and deeper. Biventricular pacing improved all noninvasive indexes of cardiac function and oxygen delivery during exercise. The decreased ventilatory demand, improved dynamic operating lung volumes, and the increased ability to expand tidal volume during exercise are potential factors in the reduction of exertional dyspnea.
Renal and vascular benefits of C-peptide: Molecular mechanisms of C-peptide action

C-peptide has long been thought to be an inert byproduct of insulin production, but it has become apparent, and accepted, that C-peptide has important biological properties. C-peptide displays beneficial effects in many tissues affected by diabetic complications, such as increased peripheral blood flow and protection from renal damage. However, the mechanisms mediating these effects remain unclear. C-peptide interacts with cellular membranes at unidentified sites distinctive of the insulin family of receptors, and signals to multiple targets known to play a role in diabetes and diabetic complications, such as Na+/K+-ATPase and NOS. In general, the physiological and molecular effects of C-peptide resemble insulin, but C-peptide also possesses traits separate from those of insulin. These basic studies have been confirmed in human studies, suggesting that C-peptide may lend itself to clinical applications. However, the molecular and physiological properties of C-peptide are not completely elucidated, and large clinical studies have not begun. In order to further these goals, we critically summarize the current state of knowledge regarding C-peptide’s renal and vascular effects and the molecular signaling of C-peptide.
Are Charter Schools Using Recruitment Strategies to Increase Student Body Diversity?

Depending on state statutory language, charter schools may be able to exercise more control over their student body composition. Unlike traditional public schools, charter schools may have the opportunity to increase student body diversity by drawing students from across traditional school district boundary lines. Specifically, depending on the state statutory language, charter schools may be permitted some flexibility in recruiting and admitting students. This study investigates the admissions and recruitment practices of eight high-achieving charter schools and considers whether charter school leaders negotiate state statutes to create a diverse student body.
Nonrigid registration and classification of the kidneys in 3D dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MR images

We have applied image analysis methods in the assessment of human kidney perfusion based on 3D dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI data. This approach consists of 3D non-rigid image registration of the kidneys and fuzzy C-mean classification of kidney tissues. The proposed registration method reduced motion artifacts in the dynamic images and improved the analysis of kidney compartments (cortex, medulla, and cavities). The dynamic intensity curves show the successive transition of the contrast agent through kidney compartments. The proposed method for motion correction and kidney compartment classification may be used to improve the validity and usefulness of further model-based pharmacokinetic analysis of kidney function.