Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Readiness for behaviour change in non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease: implications for multidisciplinary care models

Weight management is a cornerstone of treatment for overweight/obese persons with non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). This exploratory study sought to: (i) evaluate readiness to change weight‐related behaviours; (ii) assess psychosocial characteristics that may interfere with weight loss; and (iii) evaluate how baseline psychosocial features associate with 6‐month change in weight in persons with NAFLD receiving standard medical care. The purpose of this investigation was to develop hypotheses regarding relationships between psychosocial factors and weight for use in future fully powered studies and clinical interventions
Flexible Ureterorenoscopy for Lower Pole Stones : Influence of the Collecting System ’ s Anatomy

Background: The impact of renal anatomy on the success rate of flexible ureterorenoscopy (fURS) for lower pole stones is less clear than it is on shock wave lithotripsy, for which it is a recognized influence factor. We analyzed safety and efficiency of fURS using modern endoscopes for lower pole stones dependent on the collecting system’s configuration. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively evaluated a consecutive sample of 111 fURS for lower pole stones at our tertiary care center between January 2010 and September 2012 from our prospectively kept database. All procedures were performed with modern flexible ureterorenoscopes, nitinol baskets, holmium laser lithotripsy, and ureteral access sheaths whenever needed. The infundibular length (IL) and width (IW) and infundibulopelvic angle (IPA) were measured and the data were stratified for stone-free status and complications classified by the Clavien–Dindo scale. Univariate and multifactorial statistical analyses were performed. Correlation of operation time (OR-time) with anatomical parameters was conducted. Results: Ninety-eight (88.3%) of the 111 patients were stone free after a single fURS. On multifactorial analysis, the stone size and IL had significant influence on the stone-free rate (SFR) ( p < 0.01), whereas IW did not. An acute IPA (< 30 ) also had significant influence ( p = 0.01). The incidence of complications and OR-time were not influenced by the pelvicaliceal anatomy. Conclusions: fURS is a safe and efficient treatment option for lower pole kidney stones. A long infundibulum and a very acute IPA (< 30 ) negatively affect the SFR. However, with second look procedures, a complete stone clearance is achievable even in case of unfavorable anatomic conditions. A narrow infundibulum has no negative effect while using modern endoscopes. The complication rate is not affected by the collecting system’s anatomy.
Mannose‐mediated inhibitory effects of PA‐MSHA on invasion and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma via EGFR/Akt/IκBβ/NF‐κB pathway

Elevation of high‐mannose glycans is a common feature of malignant cells and has been suggested to be the basis for alternative cancer therapy for several years. Here we want to investigate the antitumour effect of pseudomonas aeruginosa‐mannosesensitive haemagglutinin (PA‐MSHA), a genetically engineered heat‐inactivated PA strain with mannose‐sensitive binding activity, on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Reforming Mental Health Services for Children in Foster Care: The Role of Child Welfare Class Action Lawsuits and Systems of Care

During the last 3 decades, implementation of systems of care and child welfare class action litigation have been common, often parallel, strategies used to improve the provision of mental health services for children. This article examines the extent to which the requirements of child welfare consent decrees and implementation plans include indicators of the system of care approach. A review of 10 selected child welfare lawsuits involving mental health services for foster care children was conducted. This review revealed that the principles guiding service provision were more predominant than indicators of interagency collaboration and coordination for services between child welfare and mental health. Findings suggest that building the foundation of systems of care—interagency collaboration—continues to be a challenge.
Clinician assessments of health status predict mortality in patients with end‐stage liver disease awaiting liver transplantation

The US liver allocation system effectively prioritizes most liver transplant candidates by disease severity as assessed by the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score. Yet, one in five dies on the wait‐list. We aimed to determine whether clinician assessments of health status could identify this subgroup of patients at higher risk for wait‐list mortality.
Bias and accuracy of parameter estimates in a quantal response model

SUMMARY For a quantal response situation involving a total of n subjects, expressions are derived for biases correct to order n-1 and covariances correct to order n-2. These are applied to the standard probit model and it is shown that in this situation, first order biases can be appreciable, even for moderate n, and that the usual asymptotic results for variances can be considerably in error.
Pretreatment platelet count early predicts extrahepatic metastasis of human hepatoma

Thrombocytosis is associated with metastasis in many human cancers. Most hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) develop in cirrhotic livers, which are characterized by thrombocytopenia. We aimed to elucidate the pretreatment platelet count in prediction of extrahepatic metastasis of HCC during the follow‐up.
Phaeocystidibacter luteus gen. nov., sp. nov., a member of the family Cryomorphaceae isolated from the marine alga Phaeocystis globosa, and emended description of Owenweeksia hongkongensis.

A taxonomic study was carried out on strain PG2S01(T), isolated from a culture of Phaeocystis globosa, a haemolytic, toxin-producing, harmful marine alga. Cells of strain PG2S01(T) were Gram-negative, strictly aerobic, non-motile, non-fermentative, orange-pigmented, moderately halophilic rods. Growth was observed in the presence of 0.25-7.5 % NaCl and at 10-40 °C. The dominant fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c), iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, iso-C16 : 0 3-OH, iso-C15 : 1 G and iso-C15 : 0 3-OH. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and several unidentified aminolipids, phospholipids and other lipids. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA was 44.6 mol%. 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison showed that strain PG2S01(T) was most closely related to Owenweeksia hongkongensis UST20020801(T) (88.9 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity); levels of similarity between strain PG2S01(T) and the type strains of recognized representatives of genera in the family Cryomorphaceae were <88 %. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain PG2S01(T) formed a distinct evolutionary lineage within the family Cryomorphaceae. Strain PG2S01(T) was distinguishable from members of phylogenetically related genera by differences in several phenotypic properties. On the basis of phenotypic data and phylogenetic inference, strain PG2S01(T) represents a novel species in a new genus in the family Cryomorphaceae, for which the name Phaeocystidibacter luteus gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of the type species is PG2S01(T) ( = CCTCC AB 209288(T) = LMG 25704(T) = MCCC 1F01079(T)). An emended description of O. hongkongensis Lau et al. 2005 is also proposed.
Protease inhibitors‐based therapy induces acquired spherocytic‐like anaemia and ineffective erythropoiesis in chronic hepatitis C virus patients

The addition of protease inhibitors, boceprevir (BOC) or telaprevir (TRV), to peg‐interferon and ribavirin (PR) increases the incidence of anaemia in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Although genetic variants in inosine triphosphatase (ITPA) gene have been linked to the haemolytic anaemia induced by PR, the mechanism sustaining severe anaemia during triple therapy is still unknown. This study aims to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying anaemia in chronic HCV patients with combined therapy.
Chemokine (C‐X‐C motif) ligand 11 levels predict survival in cirrhotic patients with transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt

Chemokines, such as CXCR3‐ligands, have been identified to play an important role during hepatic injury, inflammation and fibrosis. While CXCL9 is associated with survival in patients receiving transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS), the role of CXCL11 in severe portal hypertension remains unknown.
Crowd-Sourced Assessment of Technical Skill: A Valid Method for Discriminating Basic Robotic Surgery Skills.

BACKGROUND A surgeon's skill in the operating room has been shown to correlate with a patient's clinical outcome. The prompt accurate assessment of surgical skill remains a challenge, in part, because expert faculty reviewers are often unavailable. By harnessing the power of large readily available crowds through the Internet, rapid, accurate, and low-cost assessments may be achieved. We hypothesized that assessments provided by crowd workers highly correlate with expert surgeons' assessments. MATERIALS AND METHODS A group of 49 surgeons from two hospitals performed two dry-laboratory robotic surgical skill assessment tasks. The performance of these tasks was video recorded and posted online for evaluation using Amazon Mechanical Turk. The surgical tasks in each video were graded by (n=30) varying crowd workers and (n=3) experts using a modified global evaluative assessment of Robotic Skills (GEARS) grading tool, and the mean scores were compared using Cronbach's alpha statistic. RESULTS GEARS evaluations from the crowd were obtained for each video and task and compared with the GEARS ratings from the expert surgeons. The crowd-based performance scores agreed with the performance assessments by experts with a Cronbach's alpha of 0.84 and 0.92 for the two tasks, respectively. CONCLUSION The assessment of surgical skill by crowd workers resulted in a high degree of agreement with the scores provided by expert surgeons in the evaluation of basic robotic surgical dry-laboratory tasks. Crowd responses cost less and were much faster to acquire. This study provides evidence that crowds may provide an adjunctive method for rapidly providing feedback of skills to training and practicing surgeons.
Laparoendoscopic Single-Site Retroperitoneoscopic Adrenalectomy Versus Conventional Retroperitoneoscopic Adrenalectomy in Obese Patients.

OBJECTIVE To compare the operative outcomes of obese patients undergoing laparoendoscopic single-site (LESS) retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy or standard laparoscopic (LAP) retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy. METHODS Between September 2011 and April 2015, 51 obese patients underwent LESS retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy and their operative outcomes were compared with 65 obese patients who underwent standard retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy by the same surgeon. In the LESS group, a single-port access was positioned in the lumbar incision. The standard retroperitoneal adrenalectomy technique was performed with a combination of conventional and curved LAP instruments. The following parameters were adopted: patient demographics, surgical details, perioperative complications, postoperative outcome data, and short-term outcomes. RESULTS The LESS group was comparable with the LAP group in terms of total operative time (70.4 ± 21.3 vs 65.5 ± 24.8 minutes, p = 0.26), hospital length of stay (5.7 ± 1.2 vs 6.1 ± 1.5 days, p = 0.12), and incidence of complications (4/51 vs 5/65, p = 0.98) for patients with similar baseline demographics. The LESS group had significantly shorter surgical incisions (2.8 ± 0.3 vs 5.3 ± 0.6 cm, p < 0.0001), lower in-hospital analgesic requirement (7.6 ± 3.3 mg morphine equivalent vs 10.5 ± 6.2 mg, p = 0.003), and significantly superior scar satisfaction score (9.3 ± 0.7 vs 7.6 ± 1.4, p < 0.0001) than the LAP group. Although estimated blood loss was greater in the LESS group (28.1 ± 10.6 vs 16.9 ± 7.2 mL in the LAP group, p < 0.0001), <50 mL overall blood loss was not clinically significant. During a mean follow-up of 20.2 months, no recurrences or deaths were documented in either group. CONCLUSIONS In properly selected patients, LESS retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy for obese individuals is technically feasible and safe in experienced hands, offering perioperative outcomes comparable with those of the conventional multiport approach, but with a superior cosmetic outcome.
2014 French guidelines for hepatitis B and C screening: a combined targeted and mass testing strategy of chronic viruses namely HBV, HCV and HIV

Worldwide and, to a lesser extent, in France, a minority of individuals infected with hepatitis B (HBV) and C (HCV) is aware of its status. Given the current availability of highly effective anti‐HBV and anti‐HCV agents, the high rate of undiagnosed people, associated with individual and community prejudices (liver disease worsening, persistence of a hidden transmission reservoir and medicoeconomic burden of delayed care), is unacceptable.
Bradyrhizobium daqingense sp. nov., isolated from soybean nodules.

Thirteen slow-growing rhizobial strains isolated from root nodules of soybean (Glycine max L.) grown in Daqing city in China were classified in the genus Bradyrhizobium based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Multilocus sequence analysis of IGS, atpD, glnII and recA genes revealed that the isolates represented a novel clade in this genus. DNA-DNA relatedness lower than 42.5 % between the representative strain CCBAU 15774(T) and the type strains of the closely related species Bradyrhizobium liaoningense USDA 3622(T), Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense CCBAU 10071(T) and Bradyrhizobium betae LMG 21987(T), further confirmed that this group represented a novel species. CCBAU 15774(T) shared seven cellular fatty acids with the three above-mentioned species, but the fatty acids 15 : 0 iso and summed feature 5 (18 : 2ω6,9c and/or 18 : 0 anteiso) were unique for this strain. The respiratory quinone in CCBAU 15774(T) was ubiquinone-10 and the cellular polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, cardiolipin and unknown aminolipid, polar lipid and phospholipid. In addition, some phenotypic features could be used to differentiate the novel group from the related species. On basis of these results, we propose the name Bradyrhizobium daqingense sp. nov., with CCBAU 15774(T) ( = LMG 26137(T) = HAMBI 3184(T) = CGMCC 1.10947(T)) as the type strain. The DNA G+C content of the type strain is 61.2 mol% (T(m)).
Defining the Rate of Primary Ureteroscopic Failure in Unstented Patients: A Multi-Institutional Study.

PURPOSE Primary ureteroscopic intervention for kidney or ureteral stones occasionally encounters difficulty with passage of the ureteroscope in the initial procedure. These patients require a second procedure after stenting. We aim to define the contemporary failure rate of primary ureteroscopy (URS) and identify predictive factors that necessitate prestenting. This will assist in preoperative patient counseling, informed consent, and clinical decision-making. MATERIALS AND METHODS We conducted a multi-institutional retrospective review of 535 unstented patients undergoing primary URS from August 2011 to August 2013. The primary outcome was gaining access to the unstented ureter. RESULTS The failure rate for accessing the unstented ureter was 7.7% (41/535). The median age of females with primary ureteroscopic failure was significantly lower than in females who had successful ureteroscopic access (34 vs 52 years; p = 0.0041). There was no difference in the median age of males with access vs failure (58 vs 57 years; p = 0.3683). Proximal ureteral stones had the highest failure rate for ureteral access at 18.28% (p = 0.006). On multivariable logistic regression, proximal ureteral stone location remained a significant predictor of failure when compared to renal stones (odds ratio [OR] 3.14, p = 0.006). When including only ureteral stones in the multivariable analysis, stone location in the proximal ureter compared to the distal ureter remained the only significant predictor of access failure (OR 0.24, p = 0.015). CONCLUSIONS A low overall rate of ureteral access failure in unstented patients is shown. Young female patients and proximal ureteral stones were less likely to be accessed primarily. This study provides information that will help urologists counsel their patients preoperatively regarding their likelihood of failing primary URS necessitating a second procedure. This will also help the patient to make an informed decision during the consent process and may guide urologists on selective prestenting in higher risk patients.
Old and new treatments for primary biliary cholangitis

Primary biliary cholangitis (formerly primary biliary cirrhosis) is a rare progressive cholestatic liver disease, whose hallmark features include a persistently elevated alkaline phosphatase level, presence of anti‐mitochondrial antibodies and characteristic histology. Since 1998, ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), a bile acid, has been the only available therapeutic agent. Primary biliary cholangitis is associated with the development of end‐stage liver disease, increased morbidity and mortality. UDCA has been shown to improve serum biochemistries, histology and delay the need for liver transplantation. The clinical issue is that approximately 25%‐40% of patients do not respond to this standard therapy. In recent years, many trials have investigated alternative and adjunctive treatments, leading to the recent approval of obeticholic acid, an analogue of chenodeoxycholic acid, which has shown significant and sustained reductions in alkaline phosphatase levels in combination with UDCA. Obeticholic acid has rapidly been embraced as a new agent to improve the biochemical profile in refractory patients, in addition to being approved for use as monotherapy in patients who cannot tolerate UDCA. There are several other studies and targets which are being investigated. This review is intended to highlight the benefits of UDCA, educate the reader on the newly available obeticholic acid, and to summarize the many ongoing trials and therapeutic targets being investigated in attempts to control and cure primary biliary cholangitis.
Elevated perioperative serum CA 19‐9 levels are independent predictors of poor survival in patients with resectable cholangiocarcinoma

Identification of prognostic markers is important to establish a perioperative therapeutic strategy for resectable cholangiocarcinoma (CC). The aim of this study was to investigate whether perioperative serum carbohydrate antigen 19‐9 (CA19‐9) levels can predict survival of patients who underwent surgical resection for CC.
Introducing EzTaxon-e: a prokaryotic 16S rRNA gene sequence database with phylotypes that represent uncultured species.

Despite recent advances in commercially optimized identification systems, bacterial identification remains a challenging task in many routine microbiological laboratories, especially in situations where taxonomically novel isolates are involved. The 16S rRNA gene has been used extensively for this task when coupled with a well-curated database, such as EzTaxon, containing sequences of type strains of prokaryotic species with validly published names. Although the EzTaxon database has been widely used for routine identification of prokaryotic isolates, sequences from uncultured prokaryotes have not been considered. Here, the next generation database, named EzTaxon-e, is formally introduced. This new database covers not only species within the formal nomenclatural system but also phylotypes that may represent species in nature. In addition to an identification function based on Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (blast) searches and pairwise global sequence alignments, a new objective method of assessing the degree of completeness in sequencing is proposed. All sequences that are held in the EzTaxon-e database have been subjected to phylogenetic analysis and this has resulted in a complete hierarchical classification system. It is concluded that the EzTaxon-e database provides a useful taxonomic backbone for the identification of cultured and uncultured prokaryotes and offers a valuable means of communication among microbiologists who routinely encounter taxonomically novel isolates. The database and its analytical functions can be found at http://eztaxon-e.ezbiocloud. net/.
Organizational structure, problem solving, and effectiveness: A comparative study of hospital emergency services

Find the secret to improve the quality of life by reading this organizational structure problem solving and effectiveness a comparative study of hospital emergency services. This is a kind of book that you need now. Besides, it can be your favorite book to read after having this book. Do you ask why? Well, this is a book that has different characteristic with others. You may not need to know who the author is, how well-known the work is. As wise word, never judge the words from who speaks, but make the words as your good value to your life.
Incorporation of diagnostic laparoscopy in the management algorithm for patients with peritoneal metastases: A multi‐institutional analysis

Diagnostic laparoscopy (DL), which can predict complete cytoreduction (CC), is often considered unfeasible in patients with Peritoneal metastases (PM) due to a hostile abdomen, prior surgeries, incomplete assessment or risk of port site recurrence. We hypothesized that DL can be successfully incorporated into the management of patients with PM.
Oriented diffusion filtering for enhancing low-quality fingerprint images

To enhance low-quality fingerprint images, we present a novel method that first estimates the local orientation of the fingerprint ridge and valley flow and next performs oriented diffusion filtering, followed by a locally adaptive contrast enhancement step. By applying the authors' new approach to low-quality images of the FVC2004 fingerprint databases, the authors are able to show its competitiveness with other state-of-the-art enhancement methods for fingerprints like curved Gabor filtering. A major advantage of oriented diffusion filtering over those is its computational efficiency. Combining oriented diffusion filtering with curved Gabor filters led to additional improvements and, to the best of the authors' knowledge, the lowest equal error rates achieved so far using MINDTCT and BOZORTH3 on the FVC2004 databases. The recognition performance and the computational efficiency of the method suggest to include oriented diffusion filtering as a standard image enhancement add-on module for real-time fingerprint recognition systems. In order to facilitate the reproduction of these results, an implementation of the oriented diffusion filtering for Matlab and GNU Octave is made available for download.
Revisiting the accuracy of the biohashing algorithm on fingerprints

Biometric template protection is suitable with the widespread deployment of biometric authentication schemes. Template protection methods are used to ensure the diversity and the security of biometric data, by avoiding storage and misuse of the original template. This study provides an evaluation of the accuracy performance of biometric template protection methods, by revisiting experiments on the biohashing algorithm on fingerprints. It is shown how and why experimental results can be completely falsified with only five random bits.