Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incidence and Factors Associated With Falls in Independent Ambulatory Individuals With Spinal Cord Injury: A 6-Month Prospective Study

Background Sensorimotor impairments following spinal cord injury (SCI) affect mobility and subsequently increase the risk of falls to patients. However, most of the fall data for these patients were retrospectively gathered. Objectives This study prospectively assessed falls and intrinsic factors associated with falls in 89 independent ambulatory individuals with SCI over the course of 6 months. In addition, functional ability between participants who did and did not fall was compared. Methods Participants were interviewed and assessed for their baseline data and functional ability using the Timed “Up & Go” Test and the Six-Minute Walk Test. Then they were interviewed by telephone to complete a self-report questionnaire once per week to gather fall data for 6 months. A stepwise multiple logistic regression was utilized to determine the effects of demographics and SCI characteristics on occurrence of falls. The functional data between participants who fell and those who did not fall were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test. Results Thirty-five participants (39%) experienced at least 1 fall during 6 months (range=1–11). Two participants required medical attention due to patellar and sternum fractures after falling. Participants with an educational level of high school graduate or greater, an American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale C (AIS-C) classification, and a fear of falling (FOF) significantly increased their risk of falls approximately 4 times more than those who graduated primary education, had an AIS-D classification, and did not have FOF. Moreover, the functional abilities of participants who fell were significantly poorer than those who did not fall. Limitations The sample size was calculated based on the primary objective (incidence of falls), which may not be sufficient to clearly indicate factors associated with falls for the participants. Conclusions More than one third of the independent ambulatory participants with SCI experienced at least 1 fall during the 6-month period of the study. The findings suggest the importance of functional improvement on the reduction of fall risk in these individuals.
A Stepwise Variable Selection for a Cox Proportional Hazards Cure Model with Application to Breast Cancer Data

A cure rate model is a survival model incorporating the cure rate on the assumption that a population contains both uncured and cured individuals. It is a powerful statistical tool for cancer prognostic studies. In order to accurately predict longterm outcome the proportional hazards (PH) cure model requires variable selection methods. However, no specific variable selection method for the PH cure model has been established in practice. In this study, we present a stepwise variable selection method for the PH cure model with a logistic regression for the cure rate and a Cox regression for the hazard for uncured patients. We conducted simulation studies to evaluate the operating characteristics of the stepwise method in comparison to those of the best subset selection method based on Akaike information criterion and of the convenience variable selection method that puts all variables in the PH cure model and selects the significant ones. The results demonstrated that in many cases the stepwise method outperformed other methods with respect to false positive determinations and estimation bias for the survival curve. In addition, we demonstrated the usefulness of the stepwise method for the PH cure model by applying it to analyze clinical data on breast cancer patients.
Physical Therapist–Delivered Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: A Qualitative Study of Physical Therapists' Perceptions and Experiences

Background The importance of the biopsychosocial model in assessment and management of chronic musculoskeletal conditions is recognized. Physical therapists have been encouraged to develop psychologically informed practice. Little is known about the process of physical therapists' learning and delivering of psychological interventions within the practice context. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate physical therapists' experiences and perspectives of a cognitive-behavioral–informed training and intervention process as part of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) involving adults with painful knee osteoarthritis. Design A qualitative design was used. Participants were physical therapists trained to deliver pain coping skills training (PCST). Methods Eight physical therapists trained to deliver PCST were interviewed by telephone at 4 time points during the 12-month RCT period. Interviews were audiorecorded, transcribed verbatim into computer-readable files, and analyzed using Framework Analysis. Results Thematic categories identified were: training, experience delivering PCST, impact on general clinical practice, and perspectives on PCST and physical therapist practice. Physical therapists reported positive experiences with PCST and program delivery. They thought that their participation in the RCT had enhanced their general practice. Although some components of the PCST program were familiar, the therapists found delivering the program was quite different from regular practice. Physical therapists believed the PCST program, a 3- to 4-day workshop followed by formal mentoring and performance feedback from a psychologist for 3 to 6 months and during the RCT, was critical to their ability to effectively deliver the PCST intervention. They identified a number of challenges in delivering PCST in their normal practice. Conclusion Physical therapists can be trained to confidently deliver a PCST program. The physical therapists in this study believed that training enhanced their clinical practice. Comprehensive training and mentoring by psychologists was crucial to ensure treatment fidelity.
The Dose-Response Relationship Between Cumulative Lifting Load and Lumbar Disk Degeneration Based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings

Background Lumbar disk degeneration (LDD) has been related to heavy physical loading. However, the quantification of the exposure has been controversial, and the dose-response relationship with the LDD has not been established. Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the dose-response relationship between lifetime cumulative lifting load and LDD. Design This was a cross-sectional study. Methods Every participant received assessments with a questionnaire, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the lumbar spine, and estimation of lumbar disk compression load. The MRI assessments included assessment of disk dehydration, annulus tear, disk height narrowing, bulging, protrusion, extrusion, sequestration, degenerative and spondylolytic spondylolisthesis, foramina narrowing, and nerve root compression on each lumbar disk level. The compression load was predicted using a biomechanical software system. Results A total of 553 participants were recruited in this study and categorized into tertiles by cumulative lifting load (ie, <4.0 × 105, 4.0 × 105 to 8.9 × 106, and ≥8.9 × 106 Nh). The risk of LDD increased with cumulative lifting load. The best dose-response relationships were found at the L5–S1 disk level, in which high cumulative lifting load was associated with elevated odds ratios of 2.5 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]=1.5, 4.1) for dehydration and 4.1 (95% CI=1.9, 10.1) for disk height narrowing compared with low lifting load. Participants exposed to intermediate lifting load had an increased odds ratio of 2.1 (95% CI=1.3, 3.3) for bulging compared with low lifting load. The tests for trend were significant. Limitations There is no “gold standard” assessment tool for measuring the lumbar compression load. Conclusions The results suggest a dose-response relationship between cumulative lifting load and LDD.
Psychometrics of the Wrist Stability and Hand Mobility Subscales of the Fugl-Meyer Assessment in Moderately Impaired Stroke

Background There remains a need for a quickly administered, stroke-specific, bedside measure of active wrist and finger movement for the expanding stroke population. The wrist stability and hand mobility scales of the upper extremity Fugl-Meyer Assessment (w/h UE FM) constitute a valid, reliable measure of paretic UE impairment in patients with active wrist and finger movement. Objective The aim of this study was to determine performance on the w/h UE FM in a stable cohort of survivors of stroke with only palpable movement in their paretic wrist flexors. Design A single-center cohort study was conducted. Method Thirty-two individuals exhibiting stable, moderate upper extremity hemiparesis (15 male, 17 female; mean age=56.6 years, SD=10.1; mean time since stroke=4.6 years, SD=5.8) participated in the study, which was conducted at an outpatient rehabilitation clinic in the midwestern United States. The w/h UE FM and Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) were administered twice. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), Cronbach alpha, and ordinal alpha were computed to determine reliability, and Spearman rank correlation coefficients and Bland-Altman plots were computed to establish validity. Results Intraclass correlation coefficients for the w/h UE FM and ARAT were . 95 and . 99, respectively. The w/h UE FM intrarater reliability and internal consistency were greater than . 80, and concurrent validity was greater than . 70. This also was the first stroke rehabilitative study to apply ordinal alpha to examine internal consistency values, revealing w/h UE FM levels greater than . 85. Concurrent validity findings were corroborated by Bland-Altman plots. Conclusions It appears that the w/h UE FM is a promising tool to measure distal upper extremity movement in patients with little active paretic wrist and finger movement. This finding widens the segment of patients on whom the w/h UE FM can be effectively used and addresses a gap, as commonly used measures necessitate active distal upper extremity movement.
Hip Abductor Strength Reliability and Association With Physical Function After Unilateral Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Because people with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) have persistent functional limitations and disability, identifying modifiable risk factors for persistent disability is warranted. Before surgery, people have pervasive lower extremity muscle weakness. The fact that hip abductor muscle strength is often not targeted in postoperative rehabilitation may contribute to functional limitations. Objective Study objectives were: (1) to examine the reliability of handheld dynamometry (HHD) for measuring hip abductor strength and (2) to determine whether hip abductor strength contributes to physical function beyond the contribution of quadriceps muscle strength. Design This was a cross-sectional study. Methods Two-hundred ten participants underwent quadriceps and hip abductor muscle strength testing and measurement of physical function (performance-based and self-reported outcomes). Correlation and regression equations were built to determine the relationships of strength, pain, and functional ability. A subset of 16 participants underwent hip abductor strength testing at 2 sessions to determine the reliability of the measure. Results Measuring hip abductor strength with HHD yielded excellent relative reliability, with an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC [2,3]) of . 95 and a 95% confidence interval of . 86 to . 98, but moderate absolute reliability, with a minimal detectable change (with 95% confidence) of 47.6 N and a 95% confidence interval of 35.5 to 76.5. Hip abductor strength made a significant additional contribution to performance-based measures of physical function after anthropometric covariates and quadriceps muscle strength were accounted for. Hip abductor strength did not show bivariate correlations with patient-reported measures of physical function and did not contribute to patient-reported physical function after covariates and quadriceps muscle strength were accounted for. Limitations A cause-and-effect relationship between hip abductor strength and physical function could not be established. Conclusions In people with unilateral TKA, HHD testing of hip abductor strength is reliable. Hip abductor strength contributes to performance-based but not patient-reported measures of physical function in people with unilateral TKA.
Do Maternal Interactive Behaviors Correlate With Developmental Outcomes and Mastery Motivation in Toddlers With and Without Motor Delay?

Background Maternal interactive behaviors theoretically affect developmental outcomes and mastery motivation in young children. However, these associations are inconsistent in the literature. Objective The purposes of this study were: (1) to examine the differences in maternal behaviors between toddlers with motor delay (MD) and those with typical development (TD), (2) to investigate the correlation of maternal behaviors and developmental quotients (DQs) in toddlers with MD and TD, and (3) to examine the correlation of maternal behaviors and mastery motivation in toddlers with MD and TD. Design This was a sex- and mental age–matched case-control study. Methods Twenty-two mother-child dyads of toddlers with MD (ages 23–47 months) and 22 dyads of sex- and mental age–matched toddlers with TD (ages 15–29 months) were recruited. Maternal scores from the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale, 2 indicators of motivation (persistence and mastery pleasure) from individualized mastery tasks and the Dimensions of Mastery Questionnaire, and DQs from the Comprehensive Developmental Inventory for Infants and Children were assessed. Results Mothers of children in the MD group showed significantly lower cognitive growth fostering scores than mothers of children in the TD group. Maternal total scores were significantly correlated with whole DQs in both groups. In the MD group, maternal total scores correlated significantly with DMQ mastery pleasure but not with mastery task motivation. Limitations The study design makes it impossible to know the causal relationships between maternal behaviors and children's DQs and motivation. Conclusions Mothers of toddlers with MD exhibited less adequate interactive behaviors than mothers of toddlers with TD. Because higher-quality maternal behaviors correlated with higher DQs in the MD group, clinicians should encourage parents to participate in early intervention programs and model high-quality parenting behavior to enhance parents' and children's outcomes.
A colour features-based methodology for variety recognition from bulk paddy images

The paper presents a methodology for recognition of varieties from bulk paddy sample images based on colour features extracted from different colour models such as RGB, HSV and YCbCr. The colour features used in the work are mean, range and variance. Feature set reduction is carried out based on the range of feature values and a reduced feature set consisting of seven significant colour features is adopted. A feed-forward neural network is used as classifier. The average recognition accuracy of 94.33% is achieved using the reduced seven colour features. The work finds application in developing a machine vision system in agriculture sciences wherein automation of recognition and classification of bulk food grains becomes possible.
Band selection by mutual information for hyper-spectral image classification

Band selection is one of the most important problems in hyper-spectral image classification. Indeed, the presence of irrelevant and/or redundant bands can harm the performance of classification accuracy. This paper investigates the effectiveness of four mutual information feature selector MIFS algorithms to select the informative bands for hyper-spectral image classification. These algorithms are: MIFS, MIFS-U, MIFS-U2 and NMIFS. Our main motivation behind the study of this family algorithm is due to the fact that mutual information MI is an effective indicator to measure the overall statistical dependency between variables and it has proved its efficiency in many pattern recognition problems, especially in remote sensing. The experimental results have been made on two AVIRIS hyper-spectral datasets Indian Pines and Salinas and prove that MIFS algorithm and its variants give promising performances, in terms of dimensionality reduction and classification accuracy than MI-est method Guo et al., 2006, specially for high dimensional data with many irrelevant and/or redundant bands.
GPSO versus GA in facial emotion detection

We recently proposed the guided particle swarm optimisation GPSO algorithm as a modification to the popular particle swarm optimisation PSO algorithm with the objective of solving the facial emotion recognition problem. A real-time facial emotion recognition software was implemented using GPSO and tested with 25 subjects. The result was found to be good both in terms of recognition success rate and recognition speed. As a follow-up, we decided to investigate how our novel GPSO approach compares with existing popular classification methods, such as genetic algorithm GA. We re-implement our emotion recognition software using GA and tested it using the video recordings of the same 25 subjects that were used to test the GPSO-based system. Our results show that while the recognition success rate achieved using GA is still reasonable, the recognition speed is very slow, suggesting that the GA method may not be suitable for real-time emotion recognition applications.
Current trends in postsurgical management of ocular inflammation following cataract surgery

Postoperative inflammation following cataract surgery is the major cause of discomfort, suboptimal vision, delayed recovery and cystoid macular edema, which may impede optimal patient outcomes. Glucocorticoids are a mainstay in the treatment of ocular inflammation but have side effects. Topical nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are an effective treatment option and have a relatively low incidence of serious complications. Future options may include a new class of drugs, selective glucocorticoid receptor agonists. Selective glucocorticoid receptor agonists bind with the glucocorticoid receptor in a conformation that leads to differential gene expression and dissociation of the anti-inflammatory effects of steroids from their unwanted side effects. If their efficacy and safety are demonstrated in clinical trials, selective glucocorticoid receptor agonist compounds may provide a new treatment option for patients undergoing cataract surgery.
Assessment of the inter-rater reliability of the microscopic diagnosis of malaria in three Health Centres of Kayonza District, Eastern Province, Rwanda

Background: Globally, accurate diagnosis of malaria is essential for effective management of malaria and other frequently fatal non-malarial febrile illnesses that share the same signs and symptoms with malaria. Although malaria microscopic diagnosis using stained blood slides is considered to be a standard technique, it suffers subjectivity in its accuracy depending on the knowledge and skill of the technologist reading the slides. The purpose of this retrospective cross-sectional study done in 2013 was therefore to assess the reliability of microscopic diagnosis of malaria using stained blood slides by laboratory technologists in three Kayonza District health centres, Eastern Province, Rwanda. Methods : Forty archived stained blood slides of which 20 had been reported to be positive and 20 negative were selected from each of the three identified health centres by systematic sampling. Overall, 120 stained blood slides were collected and read by the Principal Investigator, and the quality control was done by the National Reference Laboratory. Results and conclusion The results of the diagnosis done by the health centre technologists and principal investigator agreed by 96.67% and was categorized as almost perfect according to the calculated Cohen’s kappa of 0.933, p<0.001. Still, more trainings are recommended for the technologists. Key words: Microscopic Evaluation, Quality Control, Laboratory Technologist Malaria, Rwanda
Digestibility of prairie hay diets supplemented with different levels of magnesium-mica by beef heifers.

Four ruminally fistulated, nonpregnant, nonlactating heifers (515 +/- 7.9 kg) were offered chopped (10-cm screen size) prairie hay for ad libitum consumption with 1.8 kg/d of supplements to provide 0, 45, 113, or 181 g/d of magnesium-mica (MM) in a 4 x 4 Latin square design experiment. Heifers were adapted to diets for 7 d in drylot followed by a 19-d confinement period in individual stalls within a metabolism facility. Total feces and urine were collected for 5 d, daily intake and water consumption were monitored for 16 d, and in situ disappearance of fiber (prairie hay) and CP (soybean meal) were determined during the confinement period. Ruminal samples for fermentation product analyses were collected at feeding and every 2 h thereafter for 12 h on d 18, and rumens were evacuated at 1100 on d 19 to determine rumen fill. Cubic responses (P < .05) to MM level were observed for DM, OM, NDF, and ADF digestion and were characterized by a tendency for improved digestion with 45 g/d compared with the control diet, followed by a suppressive effect on digestion with 113 g/d, then little effect with 181 g/d MM. In situ NDF disappearance at 72 and 96 h tended (P < . 10) to be influenced quadratically by level of MM, but MM level had no apparent effect on ruminal fill and passage rate, ciliated protozoa counts, in situ rate of disappearance of fiber or CP, or nitrogen balance. Therefore, feeding MM at low levels to heifers consuming a prairie hay diet with a 20% CP supplement seemed to be beneficial for feed digestion with no measurable negative impact on intake or ruminal protein or fiber digestion.
The impact of feature selection on text summarisation

The applicability of using feature selection methods for text document summarisation is relatively an unexplored topic in information retrieval. The ability of feature selection techniques to identify key features within the text document could produce better summaries. In this paper, we put this premise to test, by considering feature selection as an essential preprocessing step for text document summarisation. In this work, we have explored several feature selection methods and their role in text document summarisation. The corpus used is Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) that consists of 483 documents belonging to four categories: aesthetics, commerce, social sciences and natural sciences.
Media mediocracy: live archiving as an intervention in preserving cultural heritage

This research–based design project harnesses the intrinsic capacity of interactive multimedia design and digital technology to construct an awareness of cultural environments, using both visual and aural forms as a way to understand, act out, look upon, search for, and interrogate representations of contemporary culture. We established an implemental system in this study, using Wikipedia's Wiki platform, Radio Aporee, and Panoramio, with which users can participate in life archiving and getting knowledge through a data–sharing–and–collecting platform. Users contribute and interact with the data, enabling conceptualisation of the production of knowledge as a relative process involving interdependent correlations of human knowledge. The scope is opened up for live archiving, integration with wide data sources, and the breaking down of the barriers of knowledge, and a new sense of materiality, meaning, audienceship, and authorship is provoked. We demonstrate our system with a case study presentation of Tai–Pin Old Street in Taiwan.