Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PRODUCTION OF RENAL INJURY IN THE WHITE RAT BY THE PROTEIN OF THE DIET: DEPENDENCE OF THE INJURY ON THE DURATION OF FEEDING, AND ON THE AMOUNT AND KIND OF PROTEIN

In 1919, 1 and again in 1923, 2 one of us (L. H. N.) reported the production of structural damage to the kidneys of rabbits by feeding them diets which contained large amounts of several kinds of protein. These experiments were adversely criticized on four scores: 1. The frequent spontaneous occurrence of renal lesions in the rabbit made it difficult to prove that any given injury was caused by the experimental procedure. 2. The herbivorous rabbit, habituated to a dietary low in protein, was a poor test object if the results are to be transferred to man. 3. The diets were inadequate. 4. The lesions were due to the acidity of the urine. In reply to these criticisms, we began to feed properly constituted diets containing varying amounts and kinds of protein to white rats. During the ensuing interval of four years, a number of investigators have described the state of the
A Nonparametric Multiple Imputation Approach for Data with Missing Covariate Values with Application to Colorectal Adenoma Data

A nearest neighbor-based multiple imputation approach is proposed to recover missing covariate information using the predictive covariates while estimating the association between the outcome and the covariates. To conduct the imputation, two working models are fitted to define an imputing set. This approach is expected to be robust to the underlying distribution of the data. We show in simulation and demonstrate on a colorectal data set that the proposed approach can improve efficiency and reduce bias in a situation with missing at random compared to the complete case analysis and the modified inverse probability weighted method.
INTRAVITAM BONE MARROW STUDIES: PART II SURVEY OF THE CLINICAL FIELD

In Part 1 we demonstrated that bone marrow puncture in animals is a comparatively simple and harmless procedure and that it is a feasible and practical method of studying (in rabbits) both normal and pathologic bone marrows, yielding nearly as much information as fixation and sectioning of marrow obtained postmortem. Before proceeding to the clinical application of this method, on the patient, it became necessary to satisfy ourselves regarding certain questions that were uppermost in our minds during the experimental work. Can the puncture be accomplished without pain and discomfort to the patient and is it safe? —After trying it out several times on cadavers, we became convinced that the cortex of the tibia could be pierced easily and quickly. We felt that it would be a simple matter to anesthetize the skin and periosteum so that the procedure would be practically painless. The question of safety will be dealt with
Validation of an automated immunoglobulin G–only cytomegalovirus (CMV) antibody screening assay and an assessment of the risk of transfusion transmitted CMV from seronegative blood

BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) antibody donor screening assays have predominantly included both immunoglobulin G (IgG) and immunoglobulin M (IgM) detection. However, since in the majority of cases both CMV IgG and IgM are detected concomitantly during early seroconversion, CMV assays based only on IgG are now widely applied for donor screening.
Effects of Horticultural Therapy on Psychosocial Health in Older Nursing Home Residents: A Preliminary Study

ABSTRACTThis preliminary study examined the effect of horticultural therapy on psychosocial health in older nursing home residents. A combined quantitative and qualitative design was adopted. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 10 older residents from a nursing home in Taichung, Taiwan. Participants joined a 10-week indoor horticultural program once a week, with each session lasting for about 1.5 hours. A single-group design with multiple measurements was adopted for the quantitative component of this study. Interviews held 1–2 days before the intervention (T0) were used to collect baseline data. The two outcome variables of this study, depression and loneliness, were reassessed during the 5th (T1) and 10th (T2) weeks of the intervention. Generalized estimating equations were used to test the mean differences among T0, T1, and T2 measures. After the 10-week program, qualitative data were collected by asking participants to share their program participation experiences. The results of generalized estimating equation showed significant improvements in depression and loneliness. Four categories emerged from the qualitative data content analysis: social connection, anticipation and hope, sense of achievement, and companionship. Given the beneficial effects of the horticulture therapy, the inclusion of horticultural activities in nursing home activity programs is recommended.
Statistical inference following sample size adjustment based on the 50%-conditional-power principle

ABSTRACT Sample size adjustment at an interim analysis can mitigate the risk of failing to meet the study objective due to lower-than-expected treatment effect. Without modification to the conventional statistical methods, the type I error rate will be inflated, primarily caused by increasing sample size when the interim observed treatment effect is close to null or no treatment effect. Modifications to the conventional statistical methods, such as changing critical values or using weighted test statistics, have been proposed to address primarily such a scenario at the cost of flexibility or interpretability. In reality, increasing sample size when interim results indicate no or very small treatment effect could unnecessarily waste limited resource on an ineffective drug candidate. Such considerations lead to the recently increased interest in sample size adjustment based on promising interim results. The 50% conditional power principle allows sample size increase only when the unblinded interim results are promising or the conditional power is greater than 50%. The conventional unweighted test statistics and critical values can be used without inflation of type I error rate. In this paper, statistical inference following such a design is assessed. As shown in the numerical study, the bias of the conventional maximum likelihood estimate (MLE) and coverage error of its conventional confidence interval are generally small following sample size adjustment. We recommend use of conventional, MLE-based statistical inference when applying the 50% conditional power principle for sample size adjustment. In such a way, consistent statistics will be used in both hypothesis test and statistical inference.
Anti‐IL‐23 and Anti‐IL‐17 Biologic Agents for the Treatment of Immune‐Mediated Inflammatory Conditions

Advancements in the immunopathogenesis of psoriasis have identified interleukin (IL)‐23 and IL‐17 as fundamental contributors in the immune pathways of the disease. Leveraging these promising therapeutic targets has led to the emergence of a number of anti‐IL‐23 and ‐17 biologic agents with the potential to treat multiple conditions with common underlying pathology. The unprecedented clinical efficacy of these agents in the treatment of psoriasis has paved way for their evaluation in diseases such as psoriatic arthritis, Crohn's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, in addition to other immune‐mediated conditions. Here we review the IL‐23/IL‐17 immune pathways and discuss the key clinical and safety data of the anti‐IL‐23 and anti‐IL‐17 biologic agents in psoriasis and other immune‐mediated diseases.
Effectiveness of various minipool nucleic acid test systems for hepatitis B virus detection in blood donors

Valery Leytin, PhD e-mail: leytinv@smh.toronto. on.ca David J. Allen, BSc Asuman Mutlu, PhD Sergiy Mykhaylov, PhD Elena Lyubimov, PhD John Freedman, MD Division of Transfusion Medicine Department of Laboratory Medicine The Keenan Research Centre in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St Michael’s Hospital Toronto Platelet Immunobiology Group Departments of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, and Medicine University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada
The Revised Critical Thinking Skills Scale for a Life-and-Death Course: Preliminary Scale Refinement

Background: Death education involves acquiring knowledge, changing behavior, and developing proper views of life in both the affective and the value domains. Critical thinking that is honed through reflecting on life-and-death issues represents a way to reach these goals. Designing assessments able to measure college student content and critical thinking skills related to life-and-death issues is thus important. The Test of Critical Thinking Skills for Life-And-Death content (TCTS-LD) instrument requires the administration of additional tests to assess reliability and validity for future use in the assessment of perceptions on life and death. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to refine the TCTS-LD. Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive design was used to recruit 715 college students in southern Taiwan. Three structured scales were administered in class to the participants. Data were collected in 2004 and 2006. Confirmatory factor analysis was applied to validate the structure of scales. Results: Examination of the reliability of the three-factor and 15-item scale revealed a Kuder-Richardson coefficient of internal consistency of . 54. The split-half reliability coefficients were . 47 in the Spearman-Brown correlation and . 40 in the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The test-retest reliability coefficients (n = 22) were . 58 in Pearson correlation and . 56 in ICC. In addition to content validity verification by experts and face validity by students, the validity of this test was assessed using three methods, including (a) a comparable validity rating between this test and the TCTS-A (r = .34, p < .001; (b) a contrast-group technique with different responses to the instrument between those in education and nursing majors (t = 2.71, p < .01), with scores of 10.98 (SD = 2.42) and 9.82 (SD = 2.25), respectively; and (c) a confirmatory factor analysis confirming that TCTS-LD is related to the three dimensions of assumption, evaluation, and induction (&khgr;2 = 81.800, p = .158, normed chi-square &khgr;2/df = 1.169, comparative fit index [CFI] = .976, Tucker-Lewis index = .984, root mean square error of approximation [RMSEA] = 0.015). Three factors explained 31.19% of total variance for the revised TCTS-LD. Conclusions: The revised TCTS-LD scale improved performance and effectiveness to a certain degree. However, reliability and construct validity must be further tested to permit its use as an evaluation tool.
Initial stress and nonlinear material behavior in patient-specific AAA wall stress analysis

cases, the AAA geometry is obtained from CT-data and treated as a stress free geometry. However, during CT imaging, the AAA is subjected to a time-averaged blood pressure and is therefore not stress free. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of neglecting these initial stresses (IS) on the patientspecific AAA wall stress as computed by finite element analysis. Additionally, the contribution of the nonlinear material behavior of the AAA wall is evaluated. Thirty patients with maximum AAA diameters below the current surgery criterion were scanned with contrast-enhanced CT and the AAA’s were segmented from the image data. The mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) was measured immediately after the CT-scan and used to compute the IS corresponding with the CT geometry and MAP. Comparisons were made between wall stress obtained with and without IS and with linear and nonlinear material properties. On average, AAA wall stresses as computed with IS were higher than without IS. This was also the case for the stresses computed with the nonlinear material model compared to the linear material model. However, omitting initial stress and material nonlinearity in AAA wall stress computations leads to different effects in the resulting wall stress for each AAA. Therefore, provided that other assumptions made are not predominant, IS cannot be discarded and a nonlinear material model should be used in future patient-specific AAA wall stress analyses. & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Impact of the Life Review Program on Elders With Dementia: A Preliminary Study at a Day Care Center in Southern Taiwan

Background: Life review, a type of reminiscence therapy, assists participants to seek personal value in order to enhance social status and maintain a high quality of life (QOL). Purpose: This study aimed to examine the impact of an adaptive life review program (LRP) on perceived QOL in elders with mild to moderate dementia at a day care center and assess the effect, if any, of different cognitive impairment levels on intervention outcome. Methods: This pre-experimental design used a single group of seven subjects for pretest and posttest and purposive sampling at a 2-week interval. Researchers administered to each subject a 10-day therapeutic recreation program modified from Tabourne's (1991) LRP. Results: Posttest results found no statistically significant improvements. However, subjects reported higher mean scores of perceived QOL as measured by the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey. This finding indicated a trend of improving physical and mental health after the intervention. In addition, subjects with moderate cognitive impairment reported a higher improvement in physical health perception than did subjects with mild cognitive impairment. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Future research should include a larger sample size and a longer period of intervention and adopt multiple dimensions of QOL measurements to increase research rigor. Suggestions from this study can be used to improve the LRP.
Start of Polytrauma Management in University Hospital: First Experience with Liver Trauma

Summary Introduction. Trauma is a leading cause of death, particularly among young patients. Spleen is the most commonly damaged organ in blunt abdominal trauma and liver injury is the main cause of death. Aim of the study. Review of the literature and recent clinical experience in the management of blunt liver injuries in the Riga East clinical university hospital. Materials and methods. Three-year experience in the management of liver traumatic rupture was retrospectively and prospectively analysed. The study included 64 patients over 15 years of age with blunt hepatic injuries. Exclusion criteria were patients with life-incompatible haemorrhagic shock. The Statistical analysis of the data was performed by median and mean of the Microsoft Excel 2010 and SPSS 22 version. Results. A total of 64 patients were treated in our institution during the period from November 2010 till November 2013. Isolated liver injuries were diagnosed in 49 cases, combined liver and spleen injuries in 15 cases. Most commonly mechanism ofinjury were road traffic accidents, falls and low energy blunt traumas (criminal beaten, sports injuries);19 patients underwent laparotomy for haemostasis while nonoperative management was used in 45 patients. Haemodynamic stability of the patient and CT confirmed liver injury were the main criteria for nonoperative management. One patient died atthe time of laparotomy from injuries not compatible with life – severe head injury with basal skull fracture, aortic arc rupture, flail chest and liver and spleen injury. Conclusions. Conservative management of liver trauma is justified in haemodynamically(HD) stable patients after thorough risk assessment and computed tomography (CT) based injury grading in centres with sufficient expertise and medical resources.
The Psychometric Testing of the Diabetes Health Promotion Self-Care Scale

Background: Health-promoting behavior is an important strategy to maintain and enhance health of patients with Type 2 diabetes. Few instruments have been developed to measure health promotion self-care behavior of patients with Type 2 diabetes. Purpose: Developing and psychometric testing of the Chinese version of the Diabetes Health Promotion Self-Care Scale (DHPSC) for patients with Type 2 diabetes. Methods: Four hundred and eighty-nine patients with Type 2 diabetes were recruited from endocrine clinics in four hospitals in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the construct validity of the scale. Correlations between the DHPSC and the satisfaction subscale of Diabetes Quality of Life, Diabetes Empowerment Scale, and HbA1c were calculated to evaluate concurrent validity. Internal consistency and test–retest reliability were used to assess the reliability of the scale. The study was conducted in 2007 and 2008. Results: A proposed second-order factor model with seven subscales and 26 items fit the data well. The seven subscales were interpersonal relationships, diet, blood glucose self-monitoring, personal health responsibility, exercise, adherence to the recommended regimens, and foot care. The DHPSC statistically significantly correlated with the satisfaction subscale of Diabetes Quality of Life and the Diabetes Empowerment Scale. HbA1c only statistically significantly correlated with the subscale of health responsibility. Reliability was supported by acceptable Cronbach’s alpha (range, .78–.94) and test–retest reliability (range, .76–.95). Conclusions/Implications for Practice: The DHPSC has satisfactory reliability and validity. Healthcare providers can use the DHPSC to comprehensively assess the health promotion self-care behaviors of patients with Type 2 diabetes.
Life Satisfaction as a Predictor of Mortality Hazard Among Elderly People in the United Kingdom and Taiwan

Background: Although numerous predictors of mortality hazard in later life have been identified, the precise relationship between life satisfaction and mortality hazards among elderly people remains unclear. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the relationship between life satisfaction and mortality hazards among elderly people in the United Kingdom and Taiwan. Methods: Data were derived from the 1989 surveys of the Nottingham Longitudinal Study of Activity and Ageing (NLSAA) and the Survey of Health and Living Status of the Elderly in Taiwan (SHLSET). Following data harmonization, the samples included 690 individuals from the NLSAA and 1,438 individuals from SHLSET. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to determine the relationship between life satisfaction in 1989 and 14-year mortality hazard among elderly people in the two samples, first, in unadjusted models and then adjusting covariates for demographic, physical health, psychological health, and social engagement. Results: Higher life satisfaction was significantly associated with a reduced 14-year mortality hazard in unadjusted models in both the United Kingdom (hazard ratio = 0.990; 95% confidence interval [0.986, 0.995], p < .001) and Taiwan (hazard ratio = 0.994, 95% confidence interval [0.990, 0.997], p < .001). After adjusting for demographic, physical health, psychological health, and social engagement variables, life satisfaction remained significantly associated with mortality hazard in the United Kingdom, but not in Taiwan. Conclusions: This research confirms previous research showing higher life satisfaction as associated with improved survival among elderly people in the United Kingdom. Contrary to expectation, life satisfaction was not a predictor for mortality outcomes in the Taiwan sample when physical, psychological, and social predictors were included, although a baseline assessment showed that life satisfaction is important to predicting long-term survival among community-dwelling elderly people in both countries. The observed association between life satisfaction and mortality hazards may be attributed to common underlying causes such as self-rated health integration and/or health problems. Improving life satisfaction by promoting agents of health or other aspects of well-being and quality of life could have important long-term benefits for elderly people.
Effects of Hatha Yoga on Stress in Middle-Aged Women

Background: Stress is considered a crucial trigger for physical and mental illness. Stress reduction is a known long-term benefit of regular Hatha yoga practice. The efficacy of a single-session Hatha yoga class on stress reduction is not currently known. Purpose: This study investigated the comparative effectiveness of a single 90-minute Hatha yoga class and an 8-week, 90-minute-class-per-week course. Methods: We used a quasiexperimental design and recruited 63 female community residents in New Taipei City aged 40–60 years. Participants were randomly divided into an experimental group (n = 30) and a control group (n = 33). The experimental group received the 8-week Hatha yoga course. The control group received no intervention. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and heart rate variability (HRV) assessed stress reduction effectiveness. Chi-square, independent t test, paired t test, and generalized estimating equations were used for data analysis. Results: After a single 90-minute class of Hatha yoga, experimental group PSS scores were significantly less than those of the control group (p = .001). Although experimental group HRV (low-frequency norm and high-frequency norm) had improved, these changes were not statistically significant (p = .059). PSS scores for the single 90-minute class and 8-week course did not significantly differ (p = .157) and HRV of statistics is significant (p = .005). Generalized estimating equations analyzed changes in the effectiveness over time of stress reduction (HRV and PSS) after the Hatha yoga intervention. Results showed the postintervention HRV and PSS of the experimental group decreased significantly (p < .001) more than the control group. Conclusions/Implications for Practice: Our findings support the position that regular, long-term practice of Hatha yoga provides clear and significant health benefits. Participation in a single 90-minute Hatha yoga class can significantly reduce perceived stress. Doing Hatha yoga regularly can reduce perceived stress even more significantly.
Effects of Rodent Diet Choice and Fiber Type on Data Interpretation of Gut Microbiome and Metabolic Disease Research

Poor diet reporting and improperly controlling laboratory animal diet continues to reduce our ability to interpret data effectively in animal studies. In order to make the best use of our resources and improve research transparency, proper reporting methods that include a diet design are essential to improving our understanding of the links between gut health and metabolic disease onset. This unit will focus on the importance of diet choice in laboratory animal studies, specifically as it relates to gut health, microbiome, and metabolic disease development. The two most commonly used diet types, grain‐based (GB) diets, and purified ingredient diets, will each be described, with particular emphasis on their differences in dietary fiber. A further description of how these diet types and fiber can affect gut morphology and microbiota will be provided as well as how purified ingredient diets may be improved upon. © 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.