Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of physical examination and simultaneous ultrasonography results in patient in whom thyroid gland nodule was diagnosed on scintigraphy previously and referred to general surgery clinics

68 Sunamak et al., Reliability of Physical Examimination in Thyroid Nodule Diagnosis / doi: 10.14744/hnhj.2017. 60490 PE, thyroid function tests, ultrasonography (US), scintigraphy, and fine-needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy are routinely used methods in diagnosis and follow-up of thyroid nodules. As a gold standard, thyroid ultrasound (US) can be compared to physical treatment in terms of reliability [6]. We researched reliability of PE compared to thyroid US in this study. Materials and Methods A total of 42 patients (38 females and 4 males) in whom thyroid nodules were diagnosed on scintigraphy, and US and PE were done at the same time between October 2002 and 2003 was included into the study. Files of the patients were analyzed retrospectively; thus, ethical committee approval was not taken. The mean age was 50.63 (21–73) in female and 48.5 (28–68) years in male patients. All patients were taken informed consent and PE results done by a surgeon and thyroid US results done by a radiologist were compared. The size of gland, absence or presence, location, mobility, stiffness, and tenderness of nodule were recorded on PE. Thyroid US was performed while the patient was on supine position and radiologist was on the right side of the patient using Siemens Sonoline (Germany) US. The numbers of nodules detected on PE and US were compared. The nodules located in a different position on PE compared to that of US were accepted false positive. The nodules which were not detected on PE but on US were accepted false-negative results of PE. Mann–Whitney U-test was used for statistical analysis. True positivity on PE was considered equal to the true negativity, and sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated.
EFFECT OF HEALTH EDUCATION OF SLEEP HYGIENE ON SLEEP PROBLEMS IN PRESCHOOLERS

Background : Children need adequate sleep for good health status. Without a balanced sleep, it will encourage the emergence of serious health or developmental problems. Previous studies showed more than 40% of preschoolers experienced sleep problems. Objective : To examine the effect of HESH (Health Education of Sleep Hygiene) on sleep problems in preschoolers. Methods : Pretest posttest design non-equivalent control group was used in this study. Sixty participant recruited by consecutive sampling. Parents in the experimental group received health education using power point and booklet HESH for 100 minutes, parents in the control group received health education using power point for 100 minutes without booklet HESH. Telephone follow up was done for evaluation program. Sleep problem was measured with Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ) completed by children’s parents. Data analysis used unpaired t-test with 95% confidence interval. Results: The result showed that there was effect of HESH toward sleep problems in preschooler (experimental group: -3.367±5.269; control group: 0.033±5.061, p= 0.015). Conclusion: HESH in parents could decrease sleep problems in preschoolers in Indonesia. It is expected that HESH can be used as an alternative nursing intervention involved parents to decreases sleep problem in preschooler.
Unionization and Street-Level Bureaucracy: An Examination of Public School Teachers in the United States

Union advocates and critics believe that unionization influences the performance of public organizations by altering organizational climates and street-level bureaucrats’ experiences and perceptions. However, few empirical works examine this expectation. This article contributes by exploring how variation in unionization is associated with street-level bureaucrats’ perceptions of red tape, discretion, leadership, and accountability. Using nationally representative teacher surveys from the United States, it examines how unionization was associated with teachers’ perceptions over a 9-year period. Although there was some evidence that unionization had a negative association with accountability, the article shows that unionization was not a strong, consistent predictor of street-level bureaucrats’ perceived experiences.
Association of Depression with Atherogenic Index among Patients Attending a Cardiology Clinic in Southern Nigeria

Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are a leading cause of death worldwide. Atherogenic Index of Plasma (AIP) (log 10 triglyceride TG/high density lipoprotein cholesterol HDL-C) predicts CVD risk. Depression is a common finding in patients with CVD and a contributory factor to cardiac related deaths and all-cause mortality. AIP has been found to be increased in patients with CVD who were also found to be depressed. We determined the prevalence of depression and its relationship with AIP in patients attending a cardiology clinic for various cardiac related ailments. Study Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Ninety four adult patients were recruited. None of the patients were receiving cholesterol lowering medications or antidepressants. Demographic, clinical data and anthropometric measurements were taken. Fasting lipid profiles inclusive of HDL ‑ C and TG were recorded. AIP of -0.3-0.11, 0.11-0.24 and >0.24 were classified as low, intermediate and high risk respectively. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale was used to assess depressive symptoms. A score ≥16 on the CESD was used as an indicator for elevated depressive symptoms (EDSs) associated with clinical depression based on the diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM IV). Results: Majority of the patients were middle aged (52.1%), married (73.4%), female (59.6%), overweight (41.5%) with tertiary level of education (44.7%). Prevalence of depression was 28.7%. Persons with primary education had reduced odds of being depressed compared to those with no formal education, 92% O.R 0.08 (0.001 - 0.89), p=0.04. The most common diagnosis was hypertension (69.1%). Others were heart failure (20.2%), stroke (7.4%) and ischaemic heart disease (3.2%). There was a significantly positive but weak correlation between AIP with CESD scores (r= 0.28, p= 0.006). Conclusion: Comorbid depression in patients with CVDs are often missed, undiagnosed and untreated. Routine screening for comorbid depression is recommended, and further studies are needed to understand the interaction between atherogenic index and depression to improve morbidity and ensure long-term survival of patients.
A Distributed and Robust Energy Management System for Networked Hybrid AC/DC Microgrids

Hybrid AC/DC microgrids (MGs) provide efficient integration of renewable sources into grids and the interconnection of multiple MGs can improve system reliability, efficiency and economy by energy sharing. In this paper, a distributed and robust energy management system is proposed for networked hybrid AC/DC MGs. For each individual MG, an adjustable robust optimization model is proposed to optimize its individual operational cost considering the uncertainty of the renewable generation and load demand. For the networked-MGs system, the energy sharing information of each MG is coordinated by the DC network to minimize the power transmission loss with network constraints. The overall optimization model is formulated, exactly convexified and solved in a distributed manner by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM), where only limited information is required from each MG entity (i.e., the power injection to the network) and thus information privacy is guaranteed. Simulations of the networked hybrid AC/DC MGs are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed energy management system.
Role of choline-docosahexaenoic acid and trigonella foenum graecum seed extract on ovariectomy induced dyslipidemia and oxidative stress in rat model

Background: Menopause is characterized by the deficiency of ovarian hormones, mainly estrogen. The decline in estrogen hormone is contributing the cardiovascular disorders in women. Hormone replacement therapy has disadvantages especially a higher risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers upon chronic use. Phytoestrogens may be used as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy. Aim and Objectives: This study was designed to scientifically evaluate the role of Choline- Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) and Trigonella foenum graecum (TFG) seed extract on Ovariectomy (OVX) induced dyslipidemia and oxidative stress in rat model. Material and Methods: Female Wistar rats were allocated into four groups (n=6):1) Sham control, 2) ovariectomized, 3) ovariectomized+ choline-DHA and 4) ovariectomized + choline-DHA TFG. After 30 days of treatment,fasting blood samples and liver tissues were collected.Serum was analyzed for lipid profile and liver homogenates were used for assessment of oxidative stress and antioxidant activity. Results: Ovariectomized rats showed significantly increased (P<0.05) Total Cholesterol (TC), Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) levels and decreased High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) levels. Treating ovariectomized rats with choline-DHA and TFG seed extract significantly lowered (P<0.05) total cholesterol, LDL and markedly increased the HDL. Significantly increased (P≤0.01) Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS) and reduced (P<0.05) glutathione levels were observed in OVX group. The synergetic effect of choline-DHA and fenugreek showed a significant reduction ((P≤ 0.01) in TBARS levels. Conclusion: These results showed that choline-DHA with TFG supplementation have a favorable effect on OVX induced hyperlipidemia and oxidative stress. Therefore, these components may be a therapeutic agent for treating the menopause induced hyperlipidemia or oxidative stress
Improved Load Balancing for LTE-A Heterogeneous Networks using Particle Swarm Optimization

Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) are a promising means of meeting the requirements of Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) in terms of data traffic, coverage and capacity. In HetNets, power disparities arise between base stations in different tiers. The use of existing user association schemes will lead to load imbalances between these base stations, thus affecting network performance. Biased user association has been widely studied to improve load balancing in HetNets. Static biasing has been the focus of most existing work but this approach does not yield optimized performance because the optimal biasing values vary with user location. In this paper, we investigate the use of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm to conduct dynamic user association by finding the optimal bias values. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves better load balancing performance in terms of the network balance index compared to a baseline scheme.
Introduction to the special issue on annotated corpora

Les corpus annotes sont toujours plus cruciaux, aussi bien pour la recherche scien- tifique en linguistique que le traitement automatique des langues. Ce numero special passe brievement en revue l’evolution du domaine et souligne les defis a relever en restant dans le cadre actuel d’annotations utilisant des categories analytiques, ainsi que ceux remettant en question le cadre lui-meme. Il presente trois articles, l’un concernant l’evaluation de la qualite d’annotation, et deux concernant des corpus arbores du francais, l’un traitant du plus ancien projet de corpus arbore du francais, le French Treebank, le second concernant la conversion de corpus francais dans le schema interlingue des Universal Dependencies, offrant ainsi une illustration de l’histoire du developpement des corpus arbores.
Unsupervised Scale-Driven Change Detection With Deep Spatial–Spectral Features for VHR Images

The rapid development of remote sensing technology has enabled the acquisition of very high spatial resolution (VHR) multitemporal images in Earth observation. However, how to effectively exploit these existing data to accurately monitor land surface changes is still a challenging task. In this article, we propose an unsupervised scale-driven change detection (CD) framework for VHR images by jointly analyzing the spatial–spectral change information, which combines the advantages of deep feature learning and multiscale decision fusion. First, a well pretrained deep fully convolutional network (FCN) is used to automatically extract the deep spatial context information from the acquired images. Then, the uncertainty analysis incorporating the deep spatial feature and the image spectral feature is implemented to generate a pseudobinary change map. On this basis, it is easy to choose suitable samples to train an excellent support vector machine (SVM) classifier, thus detecting changes occurred on the ground. In addition, the multiscale superpixel segmentation technique is introduced to make full use of the spatial structural information, which takes an image-object as the basic analysis unit. Finally, a robust binary change map with high detection precision can be achieved by merging the CD results obtained at different scales. The impressive experimental results on four real data sets demonstrate the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed framework.
Japanese nurses' perception of their experiences caring for culturally diverse patients: Comparison with Korean nurses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore Japanese nurses’ perceptions of their experiences caring for culturally diverse patients through a comparison with Korean nurses. Methods: A qualitative exploratory design with a thematic analysis approach was used to collect and analyze data. Using purposive sampling, 15 nurses (9 Japanese nurses, 6 Korean nurses) who provided nursing care to culturally diverse patients within the past year were selected. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews. The six steps of Braun and Clarke were followed for data analysis. Results: Based on the data analysis, the following three themes were identified: challenges regarding the care of culturally diverse patients; important components regarding the care of culturally diverse patients; and deficiencies in nursing education for culturally congruent care. Conclusion: In the present study, Japanese nurses had less experience and provided fewer descriptions than Korean nurses regarding changes in thinking gained through experience caring for culturally diverse patients, and they also expressed feeling anxiety when providing care for such patients. This suggests that organizational support for culturally-based care should be promoted in Japan. Furthermore, our findings also suggest that education/training programs should be offered in order to enhance the cultural competency of Japanese and Korean nurses. Correspondence to: Noriko Kuwano, Lecturer, Oita University of Nursing and Health Sciences, 2944-9 Megusuno, Oita City, Oita, Japan, Tel: +81-97-5864487; Fax: +81-97-586-4388; E-mail: kuwano@oita-nhs.ac. jp
Yarn-reinforced hydrogel composite produced from woven fabrics by simultaneous dissolution and cross-linking

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/cotton (Co) woven fabrics were produced by constructing Co as warp yarns and PVA as weft yarns in the fabric structure. As-prepared PVA/Co fabrics were treated with borax/water solution. Because of the simultaneous dissolution and gelation of PVA yarn in the fabric and transformation of PVA molecules into cross-linked gel structures, gel penetrated among the yarns in the matrix form and hence Co yarn-reinforced composite hydrogels were obtained. The retention time of water by composite hydrogels was first increased and then decreased by increasing borax concentration in the cross-linker solution. With yarn reinforcing, the tensile strength of hydrogel structure significantly increased. Mechanical properties of hydrogel composites were very variable depending on water content in the structure and tensile strength tremendously increased when water evaporated from the structure. Thermal and chemical characterizations of yarn-reinforced hydrogel composites were conducted in addition to swelling and mechanical analysis to investigate the performance of the hydrogel composites.
Large-Scale Network Analysis on NOMA-Aided Broadcast/Unicast Joint Transmission Scenarios Considering Content Popularity

This paper analyzes reliability and quality gains that can be achieved by a broadcast-unicast convergent platform operating in non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based cellular networks. The analysis is addressed in network scope, dealing with randomly distributed users and base stations (BSs) within a stochastic geometry framework. Additionally a well-known Zipf-distribution popularity model on user demands is also taken into account, which effectively reflects a broadcasting gain from reducing redundant resource expense toward the users demanding same contents. Based on the stochastic modeling, closed-form delivery success probabilities and the consequent transmission rates are analytically derived, where the derivations are obtained separately for the networks with different access control strategies. Furthermore, the optimal broadcast content selection strategy maximizing the transmission rates is proposed. By means of numerical calculations, NOMA is shown to achieve substantial gain at broadcast/unicast joint transmission compared to the conventional orthogonal multiple access (OMA) network, particularly for the service configuration with popular contents having lower target service rates than less popular contents as long as the number of broadcast programs is restricted to be equal to the number of unicast services in a single frame.
Analysis of Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Red Kite Milvus milvus Electrocution

Summary. The Spanish Castilla y León region is one of the most important wintering areas in Europe for the Red Kite Milvus milvus. At the same time, the steepest population declines of Red Kite have been recorded there, electrocution by power lines being one of the main causes. Thus, knowledge about the annual spatio-temporal ecology of this raptor, and its relationship to electrocution events, is necessary to develop effective conservation measures. Distribution models for the breeding and wintering populations of the Red Kite in Castilla y León were developed, considering climate, topography and land uses, to analyse the potential spatial variation between them. Models for electrocution risk also considered the technical characteristics of the power poles to determine their impact on electrocution events in both seasons. Our results show two different areas are used seasonally: 1) an important wintering area in the centre of the region, characterised by crop zones, moderate temperatures, rubbish dump sites and human presence, and 2) a nesting area in the south of the region, in which the availability of livestock carcasses, low levels of precipitation, distance from landfills and gentle relief were the most influential variables. The electrocution risk model indicates that the most suitable areas for Red Kite reproduction are also those that are most risky, including power poles of the most dangerous types; those with straight or vaulted cross-arms. Finally, the theoretical approach presented here provides a framework for the design of management and control measures aimed at minimising Red Kite electrocutions in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula. —Crespo-Luengo, G. , Hernández-Lambraño, R.E. , Barbero-Bermejo, I. & Sánchez-Agudo, J.A. (2020). Analysis of spatio-temporal patterns of Red Kite Milvus milvus electrocution. Ardeola, 67: 247-268.
The intertwining of credit and banking fragility

Although the literature has provided evidence of the predictive power of credit for financial and banking crises, this article aims to investigate the grounds of this link by assessing the interrelationships between credit and banking fragility. The main identification assumption represents credit and banking fragility as a system of simultaneous joint data generating processes whose error terms are correlated. We test the null hypotheses that credit positively affects banking fragility—a vulnerability effect—and that banking fragility has a negative effect on credit—a trauma effect. We use seemingly unrelated regressions and 3SLS on a panel of European Union (EU) countries from 1998 to 2012 and control for the financial and macroeconomic environment. We find a positive effect of credit on banking fragility in the EU as a whole, in the Eurozone, in the core of the EU but not at its periphery, and a negative effect of banking fragility on credit in all samples.
Plant ontogeny determines strength and associated plant fitness consequences of plant‐mediated interactions between herbivores and flower visitors

Plants show ontogenetic variation in growth–defence strategies to maximize reproductive output within a community context. Most work on plant ontogenetic variation in growth–defence trade‐offs has focussed on interactions with antagonistic insect herbivores. Plants respond to herbivore attack with phenotypic changes. Despite the knowledge that plant responses to herbivory affect plant mutualistic interactions with pollinators required for reproduction, indirect interactions between herbivores and pollinators have not been included in the evaluation of how ontogenetic growth–defence trajectories affect plant fitness. In a common garden experiment with the annual Brassica nigra, we investigated whether exposure to various herbivore species on different plant ontogenetic stages (vegetative, bud or flowering stage) affects plant flowering traits, interactions with flower visitors and results in fitness consequences for the plant. Effects of herbivory on flowering plant traits and interactions with flower visitors depended on plant ontogeny. Plant exposure in the vegetative stage to the caterpillar Pieris brassicae and aphid Brevicoryne brassicae led to reduced flowering time and flower production, and resulted in reduced pollinator attraction, pollen beetle colonization, total seed production and seed weight. When plants had buds, infestation by most herbivore species tested reduced flower production and pollen beetle colonization. Pollinator attraction was either increased or reduced. Plants infested in the flowering stage with P. brassicae or Lipaphis erysimi flowered longer, while infestation by any of the herbivore species tested increased the number of flower visits by pollinators. Our results show that the outcome of herbivore–flower visitor interactions in B. nigra is specific for the combination of herbivore species and plant ontogenetic stage. Consequences of herbivory for flowering traits and reproductive output were strongest when plants were attacked early in life. Such differences in selection pressures imposed by herbivores to specific plant ontogenetic stages may drive the evolution of distinct ontogenetic trajectories in growth–defence–reproduction strategies and include indirect interactions between herbivores and flower visitors. Synthesis. Plant ontogeny can define the direct and indirect consequences of herbivory. Our study shows that the ontogenetic stage of plant individuals determined the effects of herbivory on plant flowering traits, interactions with flower visitors and plant fitness.