Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A tailored relocation stress intervention programme for family caregivers of patients transferred from a surgical intensive care unit to a general ward

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To develop and examine a relocation stress intervention programme tailored for the family caregivers of patients scheduled for transfer from a surgical intensive care unit to a general ward. BACKGROUND Family relocation stress syndrome has been reported to be similar to that exhibited by patients, and investigators have emphasised that nurses should make special efforts to relieve family relocation stress to maximise positive contributions to the well-being of patients by family caregivers. DESIGN A nonequivalent control group, nonsynchronised pretest-post-test design was adopted. METHODS The study subjects were 60 family caregivers of patients with neurosurgical or general surgical conditions in the surgical intensive care unit of a university hospital located in Incheon, South Korea. Relocation stress and family burden were evaluated at three times, that is before intervention, immediately after transfer and four to five days after transfer. RESULTS This relocation stress intervention programme was developed for the family caregivers based on disease characteristics and relocation-related needs. In the experimental group, relocation stress levels significantly and continuously decreased after intervention, whereas in the control group, a slight nonsignificant trend was observed. Family burden levels in the control group increased significantly after transfer, whereas burden levels in the experimental group increased only marginally and nonsignificantly. No significant between-group differences in relocation stress or family burden levels were observed after intervention. CONCLUSIONS Relocation stress levels of family caregivers were significantly decreased after intervention in the experimental group, which indicates that the devised family relocation stress intervention programme effectively alleviated family relocation stress. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The devised intervention programme, which was tailored to disease characteristics and relocation-related needs, may enhance the practicality and efficacy of relocation stress management and make meaningful contribution to the relief of family relocation stress, promote patient recovery and enhance the well-being of patients and family caregivers.
Brain immune cell composition and functional outcome after cerebral ischemia: comparison of two mouse strains

Inflammatory cells may contribute to secondary brain injury following cerebral ischemia. The C57Bl/6 mouse strain is known to exhibit a T helper 1-prone, pro-inflammatory type response to injury, whereas the FVB strain is relatively T helper 2-prone, or anti-inflammatory, in its immune response. We tested whether stroke outcome is more severe in C57Bl/6 than FVB mice. Male mice of each strain underwent sham surgery or 1 h occlusion of the middle cerebral artery followed by 23 h of reperfusion. Despite no difference in infarct size, C57Bl/6 mice displayed markedly greater functional deficits than FVB mice after stroke, as assessed by neurological scoring and hanging wire test. Total numbers of CD45+ leukocytes tended to be larger in the brains of C57Bl/6 than FVB mice after stroke, but there were marked differences in leukocyte composition between the two mouse strains. The inflammatory response in C57Bl/6 mice primarily involved T and B lymphocytes, whereas neutrophils, monocytes and macrophages were more prominent in FVB mice. Our data are consistent with the concept that functional outcome after stroke is dependent on the immune cell composition which develops following ischemic brain injury.
Analyses and Optimizations for Shared Address Space Programs

We present compiler analyses and optimizations for explicitly parallel programs that communicate through a shared address space. Any type of code motion on explicitly parallel programs requires a new kind of analysis to ensure that operations reordered on one processor cannot be observed by another. The analysis, calledcycle detection, is based on work by Shasha and Snir and checks for cycles among interfering accesses. We improve the accuracy of their analysis by using additional information fromsynchronization analysis, which handles post? wait synchronization, barriers, and locks. We also make the analysis efficient by exploiting the common code image property of SPMD programs. We make no assumptions on the use of synchronization constructs: our transformations preserve program meaning even in the presence of race conditions, user-defined spin locks, or other synchronization mechanisms built from shared memory. However, programs that use linguistic synchronization constructs rather than their user-defined shared memory counterparts will benefit from more accurate analysis and therefore better optimization. We demonstrate the use of this analysis for communication optimizations on distributed memory machines by automatically transforming programs written in a conventional shared memory style into a Split-C program, which has primitives for nonblocking memory operations and one-way communication. The optimizations includemessage pipelining, to allow multiple outstanding remote memory operations, conversion of two-way to one-way communication, and elimination of communication through data reuse. The performance improvements are as high as 20? 35% for programs running on a CM-5 multiprocessor using the Split-C language as a global address layer. Even larger benefits can be expected on machines with higher communication latency relative to processor speed.
Chapter 10: Union-Made Teaching: The Effects of Labor Relations on Teaching Work

The union label on a product or service is, in effect, an assertion. It proclaims that the union has changed the conditions of production, the social and economic status of the worker, or the nature of what is produced. Thus, the garment workers' emblem sewn in a collar indicates that the shirt was produced under decent conditions. The framed membership certificate from the bar association (a powerful union if there ever was one) establishes the social position of the lawyer. The guild hallmark on fine silver proclaims that the product was produced to high craft standards. Teachers, however, seldom have such overt labels. Teachers do not affix "union-made" stamps to report cards, nor are "union shop" placards found behind teachers' desks. Insignia are seldom worn except by union officers and staff members. However, it is argued here that in less visible ways, the unionization of the vast majority of America's 1.9 million public school teachers has altered teaching. Finding a union effect on teaching is more than a matter of casual interest. If unions have, in fact, changed teaching, they have carried off a powerful intervention, one that runs counter to the persistent belief that nothing changes teaching very much very fast (Cuban, 1984; Kirst, 1983). A substantial union effect on teaching would suggest that unions have become potent agents of change in education and that they have the capacity to be deliberate engines of educational reform. Such a realization would cast unions in a substantially different role than has been the case historically, and it would focus the attention of policy and research on the relationship between unionization and teaching rather than the relationship between unionization and school governance.
Use of Tn5tac1 to clone a pel gene encoding a highly alkaline, asparagine-rich pectate lyase isozyme from an Erwinia chrysanthemi EC16 mutant with deletions affecting the major pectate lyase isozymes

Erwinia chrysanthemi mutant CUCPB5047, delta(pelA pelE) delta(pelB pelC)::28bp delta(pelX) delta 4bp pehX::omega Cmr, was constructed, mutated with Tn5tac1, and screened for isopropyl-beta-D-thiogalactopyranoside-dependent pectate lyase (Pel) production. A Kmr SacI fragment from the hyperexpressing Pel+ mutant CUCPB5066 was cloned into Escherichia coli and sequenced. The gene identified, pelL, encodes a novel, asparagine-rich, highly alkaline enzyme that is similar in primary structure to PelX and in enzymological properties to PelE.
Ligand–receptor interaction platforms and their applications for drug discovery

Introduction: The study of drug–target interactions is essential for the understanding of biological processes and for the efforts to develop new therapeutic molecules. Increased ligand-binding assays have coincided with the advances in reagents, detection and instrumentation technologies, the expansion in therapeutic targets of interest, and the increasingly recognized importance of biochemical aspects of drug–target interactions in determining the clinical performance of drug molecules. Nowadays, ligand-binding assays can determine every aspect of many drug–target interactions. Areas covered: Given that ligand–target interactions are very diverse, the author has decided to focus on the binding of small molecules to protein targets. This article first reviews the key biochemical aspects of drug–target interactions, and then discusses the detection principles of various ligand-binding techniques in the context of their primary applications for drug discovery and development. Expert opinion: Equilibrium-binding affinity should not be used as a solo indicator for the in vivo pharmacology of drugs. The clinical relevance of drug-binding kinetics demands high throughput kinetics early in drug discovery. The dependence of ligand binding and function on the conformation of targets necessitates solution-based and whole cell-based ligand-binding assays. The increasing need to examine ligand binding at the proteome level, driven by the clinical importance of the polypharmacology of ligands, has started to make the structure-based in silico binding screen an indispensable technique for drug discovery and development. Integration of different ligand-binding assays is important to improve the efficiency of the drug discovery and development process.
Overview and benchmarks of pragmatic debugging techniques for wireless sensor networks

Debugging of sensor nodes is tiresome and time-consuming, mainly because of limited debug features of nodes and complex interactions in sensor networks. Besides, each software level (hardware drivers, communication protocols, applications) needs a different approach to trace bugs. This paper surveys practical techniques that support bug tracing on nodes at various levels. Bugs may disappear when the program is being tested, for debugging results in extra processing delays. In this paper, we attack this problem by performing a set of micro-benchmarks for common debug techniques. We show their impact on the execution time and also their memory footprint. Based on our experience, we claim assertions to be the most effective debug technique for sensor networks. They result in negligible delays, less than a microsecond, making them suitable for any software level: from hardware drivers to applications. Further, since assertions stop the program execution just after detecting a failure, they narrow down the root cause of the problem. Finally, assertions support bug tracing in PC simulations and on real sensor nodes.
Primary human hepatocytes on biodegradable poly(l‐lactic acid) matrices: A promising model for improving transplantation efficiency with tissue engineering

Liver transplantation is an established treatment for acute and chronic liver disease. However, because of the shortage of donor organs, it does not fulfill the needs of all patients. Hepatocyte transplantation is promising as an alternative method for the treatment of end‐stage liver disease and as bridging therapy until liver transplantation. Our group has been working on the optimization of matrix‐based hepatocyte transplantation. In order to increase cell survival after transplantation, freshly isolated human hepatocytes were seeded onto biodegradable poly(l‐lactic acid) (PLLA) polymer scaffolds and were cultured in a flow bioreactor. PLLA discs were seeded with human hepatocytes and exposed to a recirculated medium flow for 6 days. Human hepatocytes formed spheroidal aggregates with a liver‐like morphology and active metabolic function. Phase contrast microscopy showed increasing numbers of spheroids of increasing diameter during the culture period. Hematoxylin and eosin histology showed viable and intact hepatocytes inside the spheroids. Immunohistochemistry confirmed sustained hepatocyte function and a preserved hepatocyte‐specific cytoskeleton. Albumin, alpha‐1‐antitrypsin, and urea assays showed continued production during the culture period. Northern blot analysis demonstrated increasing albumin signals. Scanning electron micrographs showed hepatocyte spheroids with relatively smooth undulating surfaces and numerous microvilli. Transmission electron micrographs revealed intact hepatocytes and junctional complexes with coated pits and vesicles inside the spheroids. Therefore, we conclude that primary human hepatocytes, precultured in a flow bioreactor on a PLLA scaffold, reorganize to form morphologically intact liver neotissue, and this might offer an optimized method for hepatocyte transplantation because of the expected reduction of the initial cell loss, the high regenerative potential in vivo, and the preformed functional integrity. Liver Transpl 17:104–114, 2011. © 2011 AASLD.
Invited commentary: Factor analysis and the search for objectivity.

A key concern in nutritional epidemiology is the complex nature of the exposure assessed by means of dietary questionnaires. Unlike other exposures, diet is so complex that special knowledge is required to ensure that the correct exposure measure is used. A clear definition of the food or nutrient of interest and knowledge of how it may affect the disease or outcome of interest is imperative. Food consists of nutrients as well as other substances, such as additives, naturally occurring compounds, and unknown components, that may affect disease risk. Therefore, it is often not adequate to represent food intake by nutrient intake. The approach of Slattery et al. (1) is innovative: Using data from a detailed diet history questionnaire administered to participants in a large case-control study, the authors employed exploratory factor analysis to typify food patterns that might be associated with colon cancer risk. They then evaluated the factors they identified as risk predictors in conventional logistic regression analysis. Factor analysis is one of the most widely used quantitative techniques in the social sciences. It was developed primarily for psychometric measurement; its origins and early development were largely in the field of abilities testing. Factor analysis has been employed virtually since its inception for two somewhat distinct purposes: data reduction and theory building (2, 3). It does this by characterizing the covariance among many variables in terms of a few underlying but unobservable quantities called "factors. " The factor model is driven by the idea that correlated variables can be grouped or aggregated—i.e., that all correlated variables belong together, and they should be recognized as distinct from groups of variables with which they are not correlated. Factor analysis has great intuitive appeal in nutritional epidemiology: It offers a means of factoring intakes of a variety of foods as
Materials-Related Aspects of Thermochemical Water and Carbon Dioxide Splitting: A Review

Thermochemical multistep water- and CO2-splitting processes are promising options to face future energy problems. Particularly, the possible incorporation of solar power makes these processes sustainable and environmentally attractive since only water, CO2 and solar power are used; the concentrated solar energy is converted into storable and transportable fuels. One of the major barriers to technological success is the identification of suitable active materials like catalysts and redox materials exhibiting satisfactory durability, reactivity and efficiencies. Moreover, materials play an important role in the construction of key components and for the implementation in commercial solar plants. The most promising thermochemical water- and CO2-splitting processes are being described and discussed with respect to further development and future potential. The main materials-related challenges of those processes are being analyzed. Technical approaches and development progress in terms of solving them are addressed and assessed in this review.
Clathrin and Two Components of the COPII Complex, Sec23p and Sec24p, Could Be Involved in Endocytosis of theSaccharomyces cerevisiae Maltose Transporter

ABSTRACT The Saccharomyces cerevisiae maltose transporter is a 12-transmembrane segment protein that under certain physiological conditions is degraded in the vacuole after internalization by endocytosis. Previous studies showed that endocytosis of this protein is dependent on the actin network, is independent of microtubules, and requires the binding of ubiquitin. In this work, we attempted to determine which coat proteins are involved in this endocytosis. Using mutants defective in the heavy chain of clathrin and in several subunits of the COPI and the COPII complexes, we found that clathrin, as well as two cytosolic subunits of COPII, Sec23p and Sec24p, could be involved in internalization of the yeast maltose transporter. The results also indicate that endocytosis of the maltose transporter and of the α-factor receptor could have different requirements.
Combining Statistical Information and Distance Computation for K-Means Initialization

As the symbol of the partition clustering method, K-Means is well known and widely used in many fields for the easily implemented and high efficiency. However, the initial center problem may affect the final cluster result, sometimes the final cluster result might contain some empty clusters. In this paper, a new K-Mean initialization method is proposed which combines the statistical information and the distance computation. The statistical information contains the mean, median, and Gaussian kernel density estimation. At first, the high density points are selected for each dimension. Then the distance and the density are used to measure every possible initial centers. After this process works from high variance dimension to low variance ones, the final initial cluster centers are constructed with the K nearest neighbors. Experiments on public datasets show that this method can achieve comparable results compared with other conventional methods.
The English Vernacular of the Creoles of Louisiana

The English spoken by Creole African Americans in southern Louisiana reveals language change in the shift from French to English and the persistence of local forms of English. The overview of the socioeconomic history of Louisiana details the number of ethnic groups and the fluctuating social and linguistic relations among them over time. The study sample consists of 42 African Americans with French ancestry living in Opelousas in St. Landry Parish and Parks in St. Martin Parish. The high rate of the absence of glides in the vowels (ai, au, oi, i, u, e, o) is maintained across all generations of the 24 male speakers described. A possible source of glide absence, such as foreign language influence, is explored but found unconvincing. A more plausible explanation is that glide absence was part of the English brought to the area by native speakers in the early 19th century.We acknowledge the generous support of the National Science Foundation (BSR-0091823) as well as the coding work done by two research assistants Vicky Polston and David Herrell. We also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the text and their valuable comments.
Interest in Mass Media Reports and Orientation to Africa and the USA

This study used mass communication variables in an attempt to compare Africa and the United States as reference groups in the music culture of Trinidad. Among all subjects, the United States was a stronger reference group (a) as a surrogate for the world, (b) as a surrogate for the Caribbean, (c) in the motivation to secure information about the popularity of the music from the mass media, (d) in the introjection into oneself of the liking others display for the music, and (e) in the projection on to others of the liking one displays for the music. In general, Africa also was stronger as a reference group among People of Indian Descent than among People of African Descent. The results point to the importance of cultural domination and to the need for the study of the history, heritage, and relevance of the World African Community in this cosmopolitan island in the age of “globalization” and “globalism. ”
Life Satisfaction of Neurotypical Women in Intimate Relationship with an Asperger's Syndrome Partner: A Systematic Review of the Literature

This systematic review explores the psychosocial wellbeing of neurotypical (NT) women in intimate relationship with persons with Asperger's Syndrome (AS), and intervention models for such relationships. Over 20 pertinent scholarly databases were searched in April 2011. The initial search yielded 1,736 unique items. Articles were eligible if they were a peer-reviewed journal article or a peer-reviewed thesis investigating adult couple relationships where only one partner had AS. Ten studies were agreed by both reviewers to have met these final inclusion criteria. Utilising the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines the body of evidence comprising the final 10 studies was assessed to be of an overall grade D or ‘weak’. None of the studies included for final analyses were intervention studies.
Blood Vessels Pattern Heparan Sulfate Gradients between Their Apical and Basolateral Aspects

A hallmark of immune cell trafficking is directional guidance via gradients of soluble or surface bound chemokines. Vascular endothelial cells produce, transport and deposit either their own chemokines or chemokines produced by the underlying stroma. Endothelial heparan sulfate (HS) was suggested to be a critical scaffold for these chemokine pools, but it is unclear how steep chemokine gradients are sustained between the lumenal and ablumenal aspects of blood vessels. Addressing this question by semi-quantitative immunostaining of HS moieties around blood vessels with a pan anti-HS IgM mAb, we found a striking HS enrichment in the basal lamina of resting and inflamed post capillary skin venules, as well as in high endothelial venules (HEVs) of lymph nodes. Staining of skin vessels with a glycocalyx probe further suggested that their lumenal glycocalyx contains much lower HS density than their basolateral extracellular matrix (ECM). This polarized HS pattern was observed also in isolated resting and inflamed microvascular dermal cells. Notably, progressive skin inflammation resulted in massive ECM deposition and in further HS enrichment around skin post capillary venules and their associated pericytes. Inflammation-dependent HS enrichment was not compromised in mice deficient in the main HS degrading enzyme, heparanase. Our results suggest that the blood vasculature patterns steep gradients of HS scaffolds between their lumenal and basolateral endothelial aspects, and that inflammatory processes can further enrich the HS content nearby inflamed vessels. We propose that chemokine gradients between the lumenal and ablumenal sides of vessels could be favored by these sharp HS scaffold gradients.