Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The urgent need for nurse practitioners to lead antimicrobial stewardship in ambulatory health care.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released several reports highlighting the evolving landscape of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance in all healthcare settings, and the urgent need to implement antimicrobial stewardship strategies beyond the hospital walls. It is critical for nurse practitioners (NPs) to heed these emerging trends and assume leadership in addressing the implications for their patients, their practice, and the profession. The first report details national HAI estimates derived from a point-prevalence survey of hospitals in 10 geographically diverse states (Magill et al., 2014). While significant progress is being made in controlling several of the most common HAIs, the data indicate that on any given day 1 of every 25 inpatients in U.S. hospitals has at least one HAI. Pneumonia and surgical site infections were the most common infection types, and Clostridium difficile (CDI), a spore-forming bacillus that causes pseudomembranous colitis, was the most common pathogen. A concurrent report, based on an analysis of several national databases, confirms previous studies that the majority of hospitalized patients are prescribed antibiotics, often incorrectly and without proper evaluation and follow-up (CDC, 2014a). The high prevalence of CDI infection and the inappropriate use and misuse of antibiotics underscore the need to improve antibiotic prescribing in all clinical practice environments. Also warranted is a strategy of antimicrobial oversight at care transitions, such as discharge from hospital to home, or long-term care nursing facilities. The third and perhaps most alarming report relates to the complex problem of antibiotic resistance, more specifically carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE; CDC, 2014b). The Enterobacteriaceae (e.g., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella species, and Enterobacter species) are a family of bacteria that are normal inhabitants of the human gastrointestinal tract and a common cause of community-acquired and healthcare-acquired infections. Over time, Enterobacteriaceae developed resistance to broad-spectrum antibiotics, leading clinicians to rely on the carbapenems to treat infections caused by these resistant organisms. In recent years, CRE, sometimes called the “nightmare bacteria,” has been detected (and can spread rapidly) in hospitals and long-term acute care facilities, with mortality rates of up to 50%. CRE are resistant to virtually all antibiotics and easily transfer their antibiotic resistance genes to other bacteria. CRE have the potential to move from their current niche among healthcare-exposed patients into the community, making it important for NPs working in ambulatory settings (CDC, 2014b).
The DNA-binding activity of the human heat shock transcription factor is regulated in vivo by hsp70

The human heat shock transcription factor (HSF) is maintained in an inactive non-DNA-binding form under nonstress conditions and acquires the ability to bind specifically to the heat shock promoter element in response to elevated temperatures or other conditions that disrupt protein structure. Here we show that constitutive overexpression of the major inducible heat shock protein, hsp70, in transfected human cells reduces the extent of HSF activation after a heat stress. HSF activation was inhibited more strongly in clones that express higher levels of hsp70. These results demonstrate that HSF activity is negatively regulated in vivo by hsp70 and suggest that the cell might sense elevated temperature as a decreased availability of hsp70. HSF activation in response to treatment with sodium arsenite or the proline analog azetidine was also depressed in hsp70-expressing cells relative to that in the nontransfected control cells. As well, the level of activated HSF decreased more rapidly in the hsp70-expressing clones when the cells were heat shocked and returned to 37 degrees C. These results suggest that hsp70 could play an active role in the conversion of HSF back to a conformation that does not bind the heat shock promoter element during the attenuation of the heat shock response.
The Drivers Behind Household and Corporate Non-performing Loans Ratio: The Case of Croatia

We analyse the relationship between non- performing loans (NPL) ratio and Croatia’s macroeconomic performance in the Q4 2001 – Q1 2014 period. Analysis is performed separately for two different loan categories (households and corporate) in order to examine similarities and differences between them. Our results show that the NPL ratio for both categories is strongly affected by the economic slowdown measured by the real GDP and industrial production index. This confirms the significant effect of economic cycles on households’ and companies’ ability to service their liabilities, especially during recession. Unemployment rate is found to be a significant variable for corporate sector and is positively related to corporate NPL ratio. Interest rates have mixed implications on the NPL for both categories depending on the duration of the observation period. In the long run we find a positive relationship between interest rates and NPL ratio, meaning that in the long run higher interest rates worsen the debtors’ loan repayment capacity and refinancing terms. In the short run we find a negative relationship between interest rates and NPL ratio which can be explained by the fact that higher interest rates discourage investments in risky and less profitable ventures.
Persistence and change in system development: a dialectical view

This paper seeks to advance our understanding of the dynamics of persistence and change in information systems development. Towards this goal, it draws upon dialectical theory, which enables viewing persistence and change during IS development relative to the thesis operating at that time. This approach recognizes that the nature of the system itself often changes during the development process. This also allows simultaneous attention to persistence and change, combining persistence with certain elements of the thesis along with change in some other elements. Empirically based on three cases, the paper provides insights into the content and process elements of theses, governing the characteristics of the system and the nature of the development process, respectively. It offers one possible explanation for the evolution of the IS development process and some insights into the strategies for improving this process through greater attention to the theses and the dialectic processes.
Smart T-shirt with wireless respiration sensor

In this paper, we demonstrate that respiration pattern can be acquired wirelessly from the RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) via standard Bluetooth protocol using hybrid-spiral antenna made from multi-material fibers integrated into a cotton shirt. Fast (60 breath / min) and slow (12 breath / min) breathing can be detected within 3 m distance in sitting and standing scenarios using a tablet.
Preliminary investigation of breast tumor detection using the E-Pulse technique

In this paper, the E-Pulse technique has been successfully applied on breast tumor detection. Numerical examples on a breast model with dispersive dielectric properties demonstrated that the E-Pulse technique can be applied to the problem. Introduction of the skin layer into the breast model and the inhomogeneous properties of the breast tissue would be the subject of further investigations
Association analysis of nonlinear saturation characteristics based on high-speed and high-output photodetectors

With the development of optical communication system, the nonlinear saturation characteristics of photodetectors are necessary to consider. We observed the 1-dB compression current as DC photocurrent saturation point under high power illumination in PIN-PDs. Meanwhile, a new method of measuring AC saturated output power in the time domain is proposed. The quantitative relationship between DC saturation point and AC saturation point is given.
FinFET performance advantage at 22nm: An AC perspective

At the 22 nm node, we estimate that superior electrostatics and reduced junction capacitance in FinFETs may provide a 13~23% reduction in delay relative to planar FETs. However, this benefit is offset by enhanced gate-to-source/drain capacitance (Cgs) in FinFETs. Here, we measure FinFET Cgs capacitance at 22 nm-like dimensions and determine that, with optimization, the FinFET capacitance penalty can be limited to <6%, resulting in an overall advantage of up to 17% over a planar technology.
Polymorphisms of the Fyn kinase gene and a performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test in schizophrenia

The glutamatergic system has been implicated in the pathogenesis and prefrontal cortex dysfunctions in schizophrenia. The Src-family tyrosine kinase Fyn plays a key role in the interaction between brain-derived neurotrophic factor and glutamatergic receptor N-methyl-D-aspartate, in prefrontal cortex. We estimated an association between three polymorphisms of Fyn gene and performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, measuring prefrontal cortex functions, in 188 schizophrenic patients. Patients with T/T genotype of IVS10+T/C polymorphism and T/T genotype of Ex12+894T/G polymorphism made significantly less perseverative errors in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test compared with patients with remaining genotypes, and obtained numerically better results in other Wisconsin Card Sorting Test domains. No significant differences in Wisconsin Card Sorting Test performance were found as to −93 A/G polymorphism. The main finding of the study is showing a relationship between polymorphisms of the Fyn gene, related to the function of glutamatergic system, and a performance on neuropsychological test of prefrontal cortex activity in schizophrenic patients.
Transgenic mouse with high cre recombinase activity in all prostate lobes, seminal vesicle, and ductus deferens

Prostate‐specific gene ablation provides a powerful tool for functional characterization of genes that have impact on embryonic development or on other organs, specifically in the prostate. Uniform expression of Cre with high recombinase activity in the prostate is needed for prostate‐specific gene ablation based on Cre‐loxP recombinations. Currently, available strains of Cre transgenic mice only express Cre recombinase adequately in certain lobes of the prostate. In other lobes, the expression is low and mosaic. Additional strains of transgenic mice expressing high levels of prostate‐specific Cre in all prostate lobes would be useful to study the impact of genome manipulation in all prostate lobes.
On the Problem of Comparing the Means and Medians of Two Independent Lognormal Distributions

Inferences about the ratio of two lognormal means δ can depend on plausible values of ρ, the ratio of the normal standard deviations associated to these distributions. This aspect is not usually considered in most of the analyses carried out in some applied sciences. In this paper we propose a profile likelihood approach that allows the comparison of two independent lognormal data sets in a more exhaustive way. Inferences about δ, ρ and (δ, ρ) are jointly analyzed through a simple closed-form expression obtained for the profile likelihood function of the parameter vector (δ, ρ). A similar analysis is done for ψ and ρ, where ψ is the ratio of two lognormal medians, obtaining also a simple closed-form expression for the profile likelihood function of these parameters. These expressions allow us to construct likelihood contour plots that capture most of the information provided by the samples and become valuable to identify if a trade-off between the parameters under study occurs; in case of that, individual inferences should be analyzed carefully. A detailed series of Monte Carlo simulations are included; they illustrate the performance of profile likelihood and parametric bootstrap approaches, for different sample sizes and parameter values.
The Influence of Surrogate Decision Makers on Clinical Decision Making for Critically Ill Adults

Purpose: Intensive care unit patients rarely have decisional capacity and often surrogates make clinical decisions on their behalf. Little is known about how surrogate characteristics may influence end-of-life decision making for these patients. This study sought to determine how surrogate characteristics impact physicians’ approach to end-of-life decision making. Methods: From March 2011 to August 2011, a survey was fielded to 1000 randomly sampled critical care physicians using a modified Dillman approach. The survey included a hypothetical vignette to examine how physicians’ approach varied based on patient age, patient–surrogate relationship, surrogate–staff relationship, basis for surrogate’s stated preferences, and surrogate’s understanding of patient’s condition. Outcomes included physicians’ beliefs regarding (1) appropriateness of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR); (2) appropriate locus of decision making for the patient; (3) degree to which a physician would try to influence a surrogate if disagreement was present; and (4) physician strategies to discussing end-of-life with surrogates. Results: Of 922 eligible physicians, 608 (66%) participated. Across all vignettes, CPR was felt to be less appropriate and surrogates less likely to be given priority with an older rather than younger patient (15% vs 63% and 50% vs 65%, both P values <.001). Cardiopulmonary resuscitation was considered less appropriate when the surrogate–patient relationship was not close (34% vs 44%, P = .03) and the surrogate’s understanding was poor (34% vs 43%, P = .05). No other surrogate characteristics examined yielded statistically significant associations. Conclusion: Some surrogate characteristics may modify clinicians’ beliefs and practices regarding end-of-life care, suggesting the nuances of the surrogate–physician relationship and clinical decision making for critically ill patients.
Expression of α4‐integrins on human neutrophils

α4 Integrins are important adhesion molecules mediating binding of lymphocytes, monocytes, and eosinophils to multiple cellular and extracellular ligands. Mature neutrophils have been recently suggested to express α4‐integrins as well. We studied whether human neutrophils can synthesize α4‐integrins upon activation in vitro or in vivo. Two anti‐α4 mAbs, but not multiple subclass‐matched non‐binding controls, reacted with granulocytes in an inducer and time‐dependent manner. Nevertheless, staining with Ig subclass‐specific second‐stage reagents surprisingly revealed that commercial anti‐α4 mAbs contain two distinct Igs, the α4‐specific IgG1 and an IgG2a of an unknown specificity. We showed that in vitro inductions used by us and others only induce the binding of nonspecific IgG2a from the commercial HP2/1 to activated neutrophils. By reverse‐transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, α4 mRNA was not detectable in purified neutrophils. Our results show that α4 integrin protein and mRNA are absent from normal and stimulated human neutrophils.
Safety assessment of Hibiscus sabdariffa after maternal exposure on male reproductive parameters in rats

Abstract Context: Hibiscus sabdariffa L. (Malvaceae) is a species widely used in folk medicine for the treatment of some disorders. Objective: This study evaluated the effects of H. sabdariffa (HS) on the development of the male reproductive tract in rats following in utero exposure. Materials and methods: Pregnant rats received 250 or 500 mg/kg of HS extract or vehicle from gestational day 12 until day 21 of lactation. Results and discussion: Both doses of HS increased the body weight of male offspring at weaning, without compromising the puberty onset parameters. At puberty, there was a significant increase in the vas deferens absolute weight and a significant reduction in the relative weight of kidney at higher dose. These animals also presented a significant reduction in the sperm number in the caput/corpus of epididymis after exposure to both doses and a reduction in the sperm number in the cauda epididymis for the lower dose. At adulthood, the highest dose significantly reduced the sperm production in relation to controls and both doses provoked a reduction in the relative sperm number in the epididymis without affecting the sperm morphology. Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that maternal exposure to H. sabdariffa can adversely influence the male reproductive system in rats.
Evaluation of Antimicrobial Activity of ZITRITIDE, A Natural and Organic Antimicrobial Fogging Solution with Special Reference for Infection Prevention and Control in Hospital Environments and All Other Clean Room Facilities

The present study focused on a 100% natural and organic antimicrobial solution for fogging/fumigating in all types of healthcare facilities and clean room environments. The active ingredient in the product is derived from the peels of Citrus aurantium Amara (Bitter orange) extract (Bioflavonoid Complex). The potential for inadvertent International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 6 Number 4 (2017) pp. xx-xx Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
An optimized secret sharing scheme using Hungarian algorithm

The rapid development of network and devices motivates researchers to consider ways of delivering important data securely. In recent decades, secret sharing has attracted more attention, because it encodes the secret data into n shares which will be distributed to n participants, and only qualified participants are available to reconstruct the secret data. In 2012, Kim et al. proposed a novel (2, 2) secret sharing scheme for absolute moment block truncation coding (AMBTC) compressed images. The shadows of their scheme are meaningful images instead of noise-like images. However, the visual quality of the shadows is a little low. In this study, we employ the Hungarian method which is a combinatorial optimization algorithm to permute the secret data for the sake of providing better visual quality of the shadow images. By this way, it can reduce the possibility of suspicion and make the shadow friendlier. Experimental results demonstrated that our scheme offers higher visual quality of the shadows than that of Kim et al.'s.
Iterative Local Voting for Collective Decision-making in Continuous Spaces

Many societal decision problems lie in high-dimensional continuous spaces not amenable to the voting techniques common for their discrete or single-dimensional counterparts. These problems are typically discretized before running an election or decided upon through negotiation by representatives. We propose a algorithm called Iterative Local Voting for collective decision-making in this setting. In this algorithm, voters are sequentially sampled and asked to modify a candidate solution within some local neighborhood of its current value, as defined by a ball in some chosen norm, with the size of the ball shrinking at a specified rate. We first prove the convergence of this algorithm under appropriate choices of neighborhoods to Pareto optimal solutions with desirable fairness properties in certain natural settings: when the voters' utilities can be expressed in terms of some form of distance from their ideal solution, and when these utilities are additively decomposable across dimensions. In many of these cases, we obtain convergence to the societal welfare maximizing solution.We then describe an experiment in which we test our algorithm for the decision of the U.S. Federal Budget on Mechanical Turk with over 2,000 workers, employing neighborhoods defined by various L-Norm balls. We make several observations that inform future implementations of such a procedure.
The electron–ion collider: assessing the energy dependence of key measurements

We provide an assessment of the energy dependence of key measurements within the scope of the machine parameters for a US based electron–ion collider (EIC) outlined in the EIC White Paper. We first examine the importance of the physics underlying these measurements in the context of the outstanding questions in nuclear science. We then demonstrate, through detailed simulations of the measurements, that the likelihood of transformational scientific insights is greatly enhanced by making the energy range and reach of the EIC as large as practically feasible.
Tamsulosin reduces nighttime urine production in benign prostatic hyperplasia patients with nocturnal polyuria: A prospective open‐label long‐term study using frequency–volume chart

The effects of tamsulosin treatment on changes in frequency–volume chart (FVC) data, especially nighttime urine production, over time were assessed, and the mechanisms underlying the improvement of nocturia in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) patients with nocturnal polyuria (NP) are discussed.
SEREBIF - Search Engine Result Enhancement by Implicit Feedback

Web search engines often include results for a query which are not really relevant for a user. SEREBIF is an approach for incorporating feeback from the users into the search engine results to increase the result quality. We especially focus on implicit feedback, which does not require the users to put any additional effort than usual into the search process. The captured information (e.g. entered queries, clicked results) is afterwards analyzed, and the results are then taken into account for further search sessions. SEREBIF can generally be used on top of an existing search engine to improve its results. In this paper, we explain the basic idea of SEREBIF, the current state of the prototype we realized and first results.
Historical Contingency in Community Assembly: Integrating Niches, Species Pools, and Priority Effects

The order and timing of species immigration during community assembly can affect species abundances at multiple spatial scales. Known as priority effects, these effects cause historical contingency in the structure and function of communities, resulting in alternative stable states, alternative transient states, or compositional cycles. The mechanisms of priority effects fall into two categories, niche preemption and niche modification, and the conditions for historical contingency by priority effects can be organized into two groups, those regarding regional species pool properties and those regarding local population dynamics. Specifically, two requirements must be satisfied for historical contingency to occur: The regional pool contains species that can together cause priority effects, and local dynamics are rapid enough for early-arriving species to preempt or modify niches before other species arrive. Organizing current knowledge this way reveals an outstanding key question: How are regional species .
A Cre‐reporter transgenic mouse expressing the far‐red fluorescent protein Katushka

Cre/loxP‐dependent expression of fluorescent proteins represents a powerful biological tool for cell lineage, fate‐mapping, and genetic analysis. Live tissue imaging has significantly improved with the development of far‐red fluorescent proteins, with optimized spectral characteristics for in vivo applications. Here, we report the generation of the first transgenic mouse line expressing the far‐red fluorescent protein Katushka, driven by the hybrid CAG promoter upon Cre‐mediated recombination. After germ line or tissue‐specific Cre‐driven reporter activation, Katushka expression is strong and ubiquitous, without toxic effects, allowing fluorescence detection in fresh and fixed samples from all tissues examined. Moreover, fluorescence can be detected by in vivo noninvasive whole‐body imaging when Katuhska is expressed exclusively in a specific cell population deep within the animal body such as pancreatic beta cells. Thus, this reporter model enables early, widespread, and sensitive in vivo detection of Cre activity and should provide a versatile tool for a wide spectrum of fluorescence and live‐imaging applications. genesis, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.