Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Communication Training in High Fidelity Simulation of Emergency ICU Resuscitation

The intensive care unit (ICU) is a high-risk environment that requires cross-professional teams to provide life-saving patient care. There is ample evidence that poor communication creates situations where medical errors are likely to occur and affect patient safety. We tested whether communication-oriented debriefing following high-fidelity simulation improves quality of information exchange reflecting collaborative work in ICU teams. Ten teams of six cross-professional ICU workers participated in three simulation-based training sessions. After each training session, the experimental group was debriefed on communication-oriented skills (based on Crew Resource Management, CRM), while the control group was debriefed on technical skills. The analysis was double-blind; 30 videotaped sessions were coded for three types of communication measures by four observers showing adequate inter-rater reliability. Results suggest that high-fidelity simulation training can improve non-technical skills in cross-professional ICU teams. Further investigation is needed on the performance effects of communication-focused debriefing.
Increasing multiprocessor lifetime by Youngest-First Round-Robin core gating patterns

Long-mission multiprocessor systems in which direct human intervention is impossible, like satellites in space, require special attention of their lifetime reliability. Relying on the well established power reduction techniques which are frequently used in multiprocessors - power and clock gating, as well as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling, we devise the Youngest-First Round-Robin (YFRR) core gating pattern to be used for reduction of aging effects i.e., lifetime extension of the system. The YFRR technique uses the information supplied by on-chip aging monitors placed in each multiprocessor core, in order to determine their relative age and construct the gating pattern. Furthermore, we introduce a simple analytical method based on theWeibul distribution in order to evaluate and estimate the lifetime reliability of multiprocessors that use core gating patterns. The analyses show an improvement of up to 32% when using the YFRR compared to a simple Round-Robin.
Selective antimicrobial effects of curcumin@halloysite nanoformulation: a Caenorhabditis elegans study.

Alterations in normal gastrointestinal microbial community caused by unhealthy diet, environmental factors and antibiotics overuse may severely affect human health and well-being. Novel antimicrobial drug formulations targeting pathogenic microflora while not affecting or even supporting symbiotic microflora are urgently needed. Here we report fabrication of a novel antimicrobial nanocontainers based on halloysite nanotubes loaded with curcumin and protected with a dextrin outer layer (HNTs+Curc/DX) and its effective use to supress the overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria in Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes. Nanocontainers have been obtained using vacuum-facilitated loading of hydrophobic curcumin into halloysite lumens. We have applied UV-vis and infrared spectroscopy, thermogravimetry and microscopy to characterise the HNTs+Curc/DX nanocontainers. In experiments in vitro we found that HNTs+Curc/DX effectively suppressed the growth of Serratia marcescens cells, while Escherichia coli bacteria were not affected. We applied HNTs+Curc/DX nanocontainers to alleviate the S. marcescens infection in C. elegans nematodes in vivo. The nematodes ingest HNTs+Curc/DX at 4-6 ng per worm, which results in improvement of nematodes' fertility and life expectancy. Remarkably, treatment of S. marcescens-infected nematodes with HNTs+Curc/DX nanocontainers completely restored the longevity, demonstrating the enhanced bioavailability of hydrophobic curcumin. We believe that our results reported here open new avenues for fabrication of effective antimicrobial nanoformulations based on hydrophobic drugs and clay nanotubes.
How to Aggregate Health? Separability and the Effect of Framing

Background. Unweighted summation or quality-adjusted life year (QALY) utilitarianism is the most common way to aggregate health benefits in a cost-effectiveness analysis. A key qualitative principle underlying QALY utilitarianism is separability: those individuals unaffected by a policy choice should not influence the policy choice. Separability also underlies several of the alternatives for QALY utilitarianism that have been proposed. Objectives. To test separability and to test whether the support for separability is affected by the framing of the choice questions. Methods. In 2 experiments, 345 student subjects (162 in the first experiment, and 183 in the second experiment) were asked to select 1 of 2 possible treatments, with each treatment resulting in a different distribution of health across individuals. The only aspect that varied across choice questions was the state of the patients whose health was unaffected by the act of choosing a policy. In each experiment, we used 2 frames. In the implicit frame, it was implied but not plainly expressed what outcomes the treatments had in common. In the explicit frame, common outcomes of the 2 treatments were directly stated. The 2 experiments differed in the way the explicit frame was presented (verbal v. numerical). Results. The support for separability was significantly greater in the explicit frame. The proportion of violations in the implicit frame was 44% in Experiment 1 and 31% in Experiment 2, while in the explicit frame, the proportion of violations was 28% in Experiment 1 and 8% in Experiment 2. Conclusions. Framing affected the support for separability, raising issues as to whether it is possible to achieve a canonical representation of social choices.
Passively Targeted Curcumin-Loaded PEGylated PLGA Nanocapsules for Colon Cancer Therapy In Vivo

Clinical applications of curcumin for the treatment of cancer and other chronic diseases have been mainly hindered by its short biological half-life and poor water solubility. Nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems have the potential to enhance the efficacy of poorly soluble drugs for systemic delivery. This study proposes the use of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA)-based polymeric oil-cored nanocapsules (NCs) for curcumin loading and delivery to colon cancer in mice after systemic injection. Formulations of different oil compositions are prepared and characterized for their curcumin loading, physico-chemical properties, and shelf-life stability. The results indicate that castor oil-cored PLGA-based NC achieves high drug loading efficiency (≈18% w(drug)/w(polymer)%) compared to previously reported NCs. Curcumin-loaded NCs internalize more efficiently in CT26 cells than the free drug, and exert therapeutic activity in vitro, leading to apoptosis and blocking the cell cycle. In addition, the formulated NC exhibits an extended blood circulation profile compared to the non-PEGylated NC, and accumulates in the subcutaneous CT26-tumors in mice, after systemic administration. The results are confirmed by optical and single photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography (SPECT/CT) imaging. In vivo growth delay studies are performed, and significantly smaller tumor volumes are achieved compared to empty NC injected animals. This study shows the great potential of the formulated NC for treating colon cancer.
Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell Containing Fluorinated Heptacyclic Carbazole-Based Ladder-Type Acceptor Affords over 13% Efficiency with Solution-processed Cross-linkable Fullerene as Interfacial Layer.

In this contribution, a fluorinated heptacyclic dithienocyclopentacarbazole (DTC)-based NFA, DTC(4Ph)-4FIC, is synthesized and blended with J71, PBDB-T and PBDB-TF of which featuring complementary absorption and well-matched energy levels. DTC(4Ph)-4FIC neat film exhibits face-on preference whereas the non-fluorinated counterpart, DTC(4Ph)-IC, exhibits edge-on preference; this unique feature owing to fluorination in DTC-based NFAs is observed for the first time. More importantly, DTC(4Ph)-4FIC exhibits improved photon conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 10.92% and 10.41% in J71 and PBDB-T containing devices while the devices that employed DTC(4Ph)-IC afford PCEs of 7.76% and 9.48%, respectively. Since PBDB-TF is known to exibit lower energy levels than J71 and PBDB-T, the corresponding device affords a VOC of 0.95 V, a JSC of 18.29 mA cm-2, a FF of 75.70% and a PCE of 13.15%, which is 20% and 26% higher than J71 and PBDB-T containing devices. Furthermore, inverted device containing PBDB-TF:DTC(4Ph)-4FIC blend is fabricated using cross-linkable fullerene (C-PCBSD) as the cathode interlayer, affording a decent PCE of 13.36%, with a VOC of 0.94 V, a JSC of 20.20 mA cm-2, and a FF of 70.42%.
Developing Turkish sentiment lexicon for sentiment analysis using online news media

Internet is a very rich resource of documents that need to be analysed to extract their sentimental values. Sentiment Analysis which is a subfield of Natural Language Processing discipline focuses on this issue. The existence of sentiment lexicons in their own language is a very important resource for scientists studying in sentiment analysis field. Since many studies of sentiment analysis have been conducted on text written in English language, developed methods and resources for English may not produce the desired results in other languages. In Turkish, a rich sentiment lexicon does not exists, such as SentiWordNet for English. In this study, we aimed to develop Turkish sentiment lexicon, and we enhanced an existing lexicon which has 27K Turkish words to 37K words. For quantifying the performance of this enhanced lexicon, we tested both lexicons on domain independent news texts. The accuracy of determining the polarity of news written in Turkish has been increased from 60.6% to 72.2%.
UCP3 gene polymorphism and insulin resistance in obese female adolescents

Background A previous study on obese female adolescents in Yogyakarta done in the year 2007 suggests that genetic factors might influence insulin resistance. One genetic factor that has been associated \\lith insulin resistance in other populations is the 􀁐55C;T polymorphism in the uncoupling protein 3 (UCP3) gene. Objective To investigate an association between the 􀁐55C;T polymorphism in the UCP3 gene and insulin resistance in obese female adolescents in Yogyakarta. Methods A total of79 obese female adolescents were enrolled in this cross􀁐sectional study. Genotyping of the 􀁐 5 SC/T polymorphism in the UCP3 gene was performed by polymerase chain reaction􀁐 restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR􀁐RFLP). Results The TiT homozygous individuals had a higher risk of insulin resistance (OR 2.3; 95% CI 0.4 to 14.1), as well as higher fasting insulin concentration and homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA􀁐IR) compared to individuals v.ith other genotypes. The T allele carriers also had a higher risk of insulin resistance (OR 1.3; 95% CI 0.7 to 2.5), as well as higher fasting insulin concentration and HOMA􀁐 IR compared to C allele carriers. However, none of these results were statistically significant (P > 0.05). Conclusion The TiT genotype and T allele of the UCP3 gene 􀁐55CiT polymorphism was not significantly associated increased risk of insulin resistance in obese female adolescents in Yogyakarta. [Paediatr lndanes. 2012;52:152-6].
Validade e reprodutibilidade de marcadores do consumo de alimentos e bebidas de um inquérito telefônico realizado na cidade de Belo Horizonte (MG), Brasil

OBJETIVO: avaliar a reprodutibilidade e validade de indicadores de consumo de alimentos e bebidas levantados por meio de entrevistas telefonicas pelo Sistema de Vigilância de Fatores de Risco e Protecao para Doencas Cronicas por Telefone (VIGITEL). METODOS: A reprodutibilidade foi aferida por meio de entrevistas repetidas com intervalos de 7 a 15 dias a partir da primeira entrevista original do sistema (n=258). A validade foi avaliada usando como padrao ouro 3 entrevistas correspondentes a recordatorios de 24h (R24h) em 3 dias da semana, apos 7 a 15 dias da entrevista telefonica original (n=217). No estudo de reprodutibilidade a estatistica kappa foi utilizada para medir a concordância entre os resultados das proporcoes obtidas na primeira e na segunda entrevista. Para a validacao, a proporcao de referencia positiva de alimentos e bebidas na entrevista telefonica original foi comparada aquela obtida nos R24h e sua avaliacao foi analisada por meio do calculo da sensibilidade, especificidade e valor preditivo positivo. RESULTADOS: No estudo de reprodutibilidade, observou-se concordância quase perfeita para o indicador de consumo de leite com teor integral de gordura (0,86); concordância substancial para consumo de frutas (0,67), consumo de frutas e hortalicas, consumo de carne com gordura ou frango com pele e consumo abusivo de bebida alcoolica; concordância moderada para o indicador de consumo de refrigerante; e concordância regular para o indicador do consumo de hortalicas. Com relacao ao estudo de validacao, observou-se subestimacao de indicadores de consumo de frutas, hortalicas e leite integral, exceto para consumo de carne/frango com gordura e bebida alcoolica, quando comparados com a frequencia desse consumo estimada a partir dos tres R24horas; as diferencas para o consumo de refrigerantes foi inexpressiva. CONCLUSAO: Verificou-se que os instrumentos utilizados permitem a vigilância de fatores potencialmente associados a doencas nao transmissiveis, entretanto, e prioritaria a continuidade de estudos de validacao em outras populacoes do sistema, com o objetivo de oferecer maior confiabilidade aos mesmos, sempre considerando as potenciais limitacoes.
A Healthy Lifestyle Intervention Delivered by Aspiring Physical Education Teachers to Children from Social Disadvantage: Study Protocol and Preliminary Findings

We describe the design of a school-based healthy lifestyle intervention for eight-year-old to nine-year-old school children from lower socio-economic backgrounds, intended to increase physical activity, decrease sedentary behaviours, reduce screen-time behaviours, encourage healthy attitudes and behaviours to nutrition, and reduce body mass index. The intervention complemented the statutory curriculum and was delivered by aspiring Physical Education teachers in partnership with professional teachers. A non-randomised controlled trial of 416 children aged eight to nine years from 24 schools in Northern Ireland was performed. Schools were randomly assigned to one of two groups, an intervention or control, with 12 schools in each group. The intervention group received the 12-week healthy lifestyles programme based on social cognitive theory. Each week children received a one-hour lesson that included moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity. Lessons were progressive and included follow-up, classroom-based activities. As a motivator to be active, the intervention culminated in a visit to the university for a celebration festival with participants from other schools. At baseline and at 12-week follow-up, physical activity, screen-time behaviours, dietary patterns and self-perceptions were assessed. Anthropometric assessments of height and weight were also taken. Preliminary baseline findings showed no differences on self-report physical activity, and accelerometer-observed vigorous, moderate, light and sedentary behaviour, screen-time behaviours, attitudes to nutrition or self-perceptions. We predict that the intervention will increase physical activity, reduce sedentary behaviour, have a positive influence on nutritional behaviour, reduce screen time, regulate body mass index and increase self-perception. With the findings we will provide further information on the effects of a school-based intervention to a sample of children from social and financial disadvantage.
Interfacial assembly of ultrathin, functional MXene films.

MXenes are a prominent family of two-dimensional (2D) materials due to their metallic conductivity and abundant surface functionalities. Although MXenes have been extensively studied as bulk particles or thick films, thin and transparent films are needed for optical, optoelectronic, sensing and other applications. In this study, we demonstrate a facile method to fabricate ultrathin (~10 nm), Ti3C2Tx MXene films by an interfacial assembly technique. The self-assembling behavior of MXene flakes resulted in films with a high stacking order and strong plane-to-plane adherence, where optimal films of 10 nm thickness displayed a low sheet resistance of 310 Ω/. By using surface tension, films were transferred onto various types of planar and curved substrates. Moreover, multiple films were consecutively transferred onto substrates from a single batch solution, showing the efficient use of material. When the films were utilized as gas sensing channels, a high signal-to-noise ratio, up to 320, was observed where the gas response of films assembled from small MXene flakes was ten times larger than that from large flakes. This work provides a facile and efficient method to allow MXenes to be further exploited for thin film applications.
Analysis of Mass Flows and Membrane Crossover in CO2 Reduction at High Current Densities in a MEA-Type Electrolyzer.

Cell designs that integrate membrane-electrode assemblies (MEAs) with highly selective catalysts are a promising route to reduce ohmic losses and achieve high energy efficiency in CO2 reduction at industrially relevant current densities. In this work, porous silver filtration membranes are demonstrated as simple and efficient gas-diffusion electrodes for CO2 reduction to CO at high current densities in a MEA-type device. A partial current density for CO of up to ca. 200 mA cm-2 was achieved at a cell voltage of ca. 3.3 V, in tandem with minimal H2 production. However, the analysis of cathodic and anodic outlet streams revealed that CO2 crossover across the AEM, mostly in the form of CO32- but partially as HCOO- generated over the cathode, actually exceeds the amount of CO2 converted to the target product, resulting in a poor utilization of the reactant and in the early onset of mass transfer limitations. In addition, CO2 crossover leads to non-stoichiometric decrease of the outlet flow rate from the cathodic compartment that can lead to a substantial overestimation of catalytic performance if the inlet flow rate of CO2 is used as reference for calculating partial current densities and Faradaic efficiencies. The results of this work highlight the importance of carrying out a carbon balance, in addition to traditional measurements of activity and selectivity, to adequately assess the performance of CO2 reduction devices at high current densities, and inform future efforts aimed at mitigating membrane crossover in MEA-type electrolyzers for CO2 reduction.
Netmon: network management for the SARAS softswitch

We present the design and implementation of the network management layer (Netmon) of the SARAS softswitch developed at Bell Laboratories. The key distinguishing feature of the Netmon subsystem is that the "logic" governing the management is tailored on a per-customer basis by crafting a set of policies appropriate for the customer, and enforcing them via the system. Most such policies can be formulated as sets of low-level rules that describe how to (re)configure a device or how to manipulate the different network elements under different conditions. The system has been currently deployed to do operations, administration, maintenance and provisioning (OAM&P) in carrier-grade communication networks.
Series elastic actuator development for a biomimetic walking robot

Series elastic actuators have linear springs intentionally placed in series between the motor and actuator output. The spring strain is measured to get an accurate estimate of force. A second order linear actuator model is broken into two fundamental cases: fixed load-high force (forward transfer function), and free load-zero force (impedance). This model is presented with dimensional analysis and extends previous linear models to include friction. Using the model and dimensionless groups, we examine nonlinear effects of motor saturation as it relates to large force bandwidth and nonlinear friction effects such as stiction. The model also helps to clarify how the springs help and hinder the operation of the actuator. The information gained from the model helps to create a design procedure for series elastic actuators. Particular emphasis is placed on choosing the spring constant for the elastic element.
Programmable accounting management for virtual private networks

Until now, proposals for IP accounting management have not exploited the power of programmable networks. Thus, real-time charging and pricing schemes are still regarded as impractical, because the accounting management tasks are executed only at the edges. We introduce the notion of programmable accounting management which is more flexible, efficient and scalable. Specifically, we propose real-time charging and pricing mechanisms using programmable networks. Moreover, we propose a novel programmable accounting architecture for QoS-enabled virtual private networks (VPNs). This architecture gives the flexibility to the providers to employ real-time accounting, and offers an open accounting interface inside the network nodes. This entails that also the VPN subscribers can execute accounting tasks inside the network nodes. For example, they can keep their providers under surveillance, or they can apply their own accounting policies for their users.
Integrated design of a secondary stage for magnetically levitated dual-stage positioning system

This paper presents the integrated design of a magnetically levitated dual-stage positioning system to improve the bandwidth of traditional maglev positioning systems. The primary stage of the proposed dual-stage system is a 6 DOF maglev positioning system, and a specifically designed flexure-based actuator is utilized as the secondary stage to further compensate the error of primary stage. Compared with the primary maglev stage, the flexure-based secondary stage owns the advantages such as high stiffness, high nature frequency, and non-commutation. The plant and controller parameters of the secondary stage is integrally designed in this work, where various control/mechanical specifications are considered and formulated as the constraints in an optimization problem. The prototype of designed secondary stage is fabricated, and the experiments indicate that the bandwidth of the flexure-based secondary stage is largely improved compared with the primary maglev stage.
ATLANTIC: A framework for anomaly traffic detection, classification, and mitigation in SDN

Anomaly traffic detection and classification mechanisms need to be flexible and easy to manage in order to detect the ever growing spectrum of anomalies. Detection and classification are difficult tasks because of several reasons, including the need to obtain an accurate and comprehensive view of the network, the ability to detect the occurrence of new attack types, and the need to deal with misclassification. In this paper, we argue that Software-Defined Networking (SDN) form propitious environments for the design and implementation of more robust and extensible anomaly classification schemes. Different than other approaches from the literature, which individually tackle either anomaly detection or classification or mitigation, we present a management framework to perform these tasks jointly. Our proposed framework is called ATLANTIC and it combines the use of information theory to calculate deviations in the entropy of flow tables and a range of machine learning algorithms to classify traffic flows. As a result, ATLANTIC is a flexible framework capable of categorizing traffic anomalies and using the information collected to handle each traffic profile in a specific manner, e.g., blocking malicious flows.