Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of educational intervention on knowledge, attitude and glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: Diabetes is a chronic disease associated with high morbidity and mortality rate. The present study aimed to assess the effect of educational intervention on knowledge, attitude and glycemic control in type 2 diabetic patients. Methods: An interventional study carried out on 100 diabetic patients attending three primary health care units in Port Said City. Patients were subjected to three health education session where information about diabetes was provided. Knowledge, attitude and glycemic control were assessed before and 3 months after the intervention. Results: After implementation of the educational intervention, a significant improvement was observed in patients' knowledge and attitude. The mean of total knowledge score increased from 2.69±1.44 in the first visit to 5.30±1.36 in the second visit and there was marked improvement in the patient awareness regarding different aspects of diabetes. The mean levels of fasting blood glucose (FBG) and Glycosylated Hemoglobin (HbAlc) has significantly decreased at the second visit compared to the first visit (180.33±34.81; 8.69 vs. 168.04±28.56, 8.50±0.97 respectively). Also there was a strong negative correlation between the knowledge Attitude (KA) score and HbA1c, and between the KA score and FBG. Conclusions: The results concluded that educational intervention is an effective tool that implicated a significant change in patients' knowledge and attitude and effectively improved patient glycemic control.
Delivering psychosocial interventions for people with dementia in primary care

Psychosocial interventions are emerging as potentially important therapies for primary care, partly to fill a therapy ‘vacuum’ and partly because the evidence base for their effectiveness is growing. They can be labour-intensive and their effectiveness depends on the skills of those working with people with dementia. This creates an immediate problem, since the workforce necessary to extend psychosocial interventions beyond innovative schemes does not exist. The existing workforce in health and social care in the UK is already too small to implement all of the changes required by the National Service Framework for Older People and National Service Framework for Mental Health. This has clear implications for the labour-intensive work of dementia care. If the job categories cannot expand as fast as is needed, the tasks of dementia care will have to be redistributed, suggesting that skills will have to be shared and transferred between different disciplines. The question for service commissioners and providers is: how can smarter working be achieved? This article attempts to answer this question with a qualitative study in general practice settings and with specialist informants. A triangulation approach to data collection was used, involving nominal groups, individual interviews and participant observation. We identified five skills that appear key in primary care: pattern recognition; deductive synthesis to reduce uncertainty; dialogue and disclosure; disability perspectives; and case management with shared care. The paucity of understanding of psychosocial interventions across disciplines who offer dementia care in the community is, we suggest, a major problem for those attempting to deploy such interventions in primary care settings. The pervasive tendency to frame the tasks of dementia care in terms of a medical management model brings responses that can undermine the view that people with dementia may in fact have a tractable disability. We use our findings to suggest solutions to this problem.
Non‐Randomized Trial: A Tutorial

To determine whether a new intervention has the postulated effect in a population of interest, one typically conducts a clinical trial comparing the intervention against a control. When assigning qualified subjects to the control or the intervention groups, a formal randomization process is preferred in order to remove the potential bias in subject allocation, to produce comparable groups in terms of both known and unknown prognostic factors at baseline, and to establish the validity of statistical tests of significance. This type of studies, so called randomized control study, is the standard by which all other studies are judged. Nonrandomized clinical trials arise from situations in which it is impossible or difficult to assign subjects to treatment by chance. Unlike randomized control studies, nonrandomized trials are vulnerable to bias because of the inability to control the balance of prognostic factors between the treatment groups. Because of this limitation, nonrandomized trials are primarily used for exploratory purpose. In this paper, a tutorial description of nonrandomized trials is provided. Basic features of study designs, statistical methods for analysis, and their limitations are discussed. Keywords: historical control; matching; propensity score; selection bias; stratification
Diterpenoid Alkaloids from Delphinium ajacis and Their Anti-RSV Activities

Abstract Five new diterpenoid alkaloids, ajacisines A–E (1–5), were isolated from Delphinium ajacis, along with seven known alkaloids (6–12). On the basis of their spectral data (IR, UV, HR-ESI-MS, 1D and 2D NMR) and chemical properties, the structures of compounds 1–12 were identified. All isolated compounds were evaluated for their in vitro antiviral activities against respiratory syncytial virus, and compounds 3–5 and 8 exhibited moderate to weak effects with IC50 values of 75.2 ± 1.1, 35.1 ± 0.6, 10.1 ± 0.3, and 50.2 ± 0.5 µM, respectively.
Health and Social Care Act 2001

an Act to amend the law about the national health service; to provide for the exercise of functions by Care Trusts under partnership arrangements under the Health Act 1999 and to make further provision in relation to such arrangements; to make further provision in relation to social care services; to make provision in relation to the supply or other processing of patient information; to extend the categories of appropriate practitioners in relation to prescription-only medicinal products; and for connected purposes. [11th May 2001]
Multiple Light Source Estimation in a Single Image

Many high‐level image processing tasks require an estimate of the positions, directions and relative intensities of the light sources that illuminated the depicted scene. In image‐based rendering, augmented reality and computer vision, such tasks include matching image contents based on illumination, inserting rendered synthetic objects into a natural image, intrinsic images, shape from shading and image relighting. Yet, accurate and robust illumination estimation, particularly from a single image, is a highly ill‐posed problem. In this paper, we present a new method to estimate the illumination in a single image as a combination of achromatic lights with their 3D directions and relative intensities. In contrast to previous methods, we base our azimuth angle estimation on curve fitting and recursive refinement of the number of light sources. Similarly, we present a novel surface normal approximation using an osculating arc for the estimation of zenith angles. By means of a new data set of ground‐truth data and images, we demonstrate that our approach produces more robust and accurate results, and show its versatility through novel applications such as image compositing and analysis.
Clever Support: Efficient Support Structure Generation for Digital Fabrication

We introduce an optimization framework for the reduction of support structures required by 3D printers based on Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology. The printers need to connect overhangs with the lower parts of the object or the ground in order to print them. Since the support material needs to be printed first and discarded later, optimizing its volume can lead to material and printing time savings. We present a novel, geometry‐based approach that minimizes the support material while providing sufficient support. Using our approach, the input 3D model is first oriented into a position with minimal area that requires support. Then the points in this area that require support are detected. For these points the supporting structure is progressively built while attempting to minimize the overall length of the support structure. The resulting structure has a tree‐like shape that effectively supports the overhangs. We have tested our algorithm on the MakerBot® Replicator™ 2 printer and we compared our solution to the embedded software solution in this printer and to Autodesk® Meshmixer™ software. Our solution reduced printing time by an average of 29.4% (ranging from 13.9% to 49.5%) and the amount of material by 40.5% (ranging from 24.5% to 68.1%).
Single‐shot High Dynamic Range Imaging Using Coded Electronic Shutter

Typical high dynamic range (HDR) imaging approaches based on multiple images have difficulties in handling moving objects and camera shakes, suffering from the ghosting effect and the loss of sharpness in the output HDR image. While there exist a variety of solutions for resolving such limitations, most of the existing algorithms are susceptible to complex motions, saturation, and occlusions. In this paper, we propose an HDR imaging approach using the coded electronic shutter which can capture a scene with row‐wise varying exposures in a single image. Our approach enables a direct extension of the dynamic range of the captured image without using multiple images, by photometrically calibrating rows with different exposures. Due to the concurrent capture of multiple exposures, misalignments of moving objects are naturally avoided with significant reduction in the ghosting effect. To handle the issues with under‐/over‐exposure, noise, and blurs, we present a coherent HDR imaging process where the problems are resolved one by one at each step. Experimental results with real photographs, captured using a coded electronic shutter, demonstrate that our method produces a high quality HDR images without the ghosting and blur artifacts.
Guided Mesh Normal Filtering

The joint bilateral filter is a variant of the standard bilateral filter, where the range kernel is evaluated using a guidance signal instead of the original signal. It has been successfully applied to various image processing problems, where it provides more flexibility than the standard bilateral filter to achieve high quality results. On the other hand, its success is heavily dependent on the guidance signal, which should ideally provide a robust estimation about the features of the output signal. Such a guidance signal is not always easy to construct. In this paper, we propose a novel mesh normal filtering framework based on the joint bilateral filter, with applications in mesh denoising. Our framework is designed as a two‐stage process: first, we apply joint bilateral filtering to the face normals, using a properly constructed normal field as the guidance; afterwards, the vertex positions are updated according to the filtered face normals. We compute the guidance normal on a face using a neighboring patch with the most consistent normal orientations, which provides a reliable estimation of the true normal even with a high‐level of noise. The effectiveness of our approach is validated by extensive experimental results.
Organization of hospital nursing and readmissions in surgical Medicare patients

ABSTRACT ORGANIZATION OF HOSPITAL NURSING AND READMISSIONS IN SURGICAL MEDICARE PATIENTS Chenjuan Ma Matthew D. McHugh Linda H. Aiken Hospital readmissions are prevalent and costly, particularly among older adults. They have been targeted as a field for improving quality of care and reducing healthcare cost. Nursing is a critical factor in determining the quality of patient care. Despite increasing evidence linking nursing to various patient outcomes; there is an absence of research examining the nursing-readmission relationship. The purpose of this study is to identify the association between organization of hospital nursing and readmissions in surgical Medicare patients. Three organizational features of hospital nursing were studied, nurse work environment, nurse staffing, and nurse education. A secondary analysis was completed using a multi-state nurse survey, Medicare patient discharge data, and American Hospital Association annual survey, collected in 2006-2007. A sample of 220,914 Medicare patients and 23,090 nurses from 528 hospitals in four states (CA, FL, NJ, and PA) were analyzed. Survey responses from the study nurses were used to construct the hospital level measures of nurse work environment, patient-to-nurse ratio, and nurse education preparation. The outcome of interest is 30-day readmissions. Cross-tabulations examined readmissions by patient, hospital, and nursing characteristics. Multivariate logistic regressions estimated the effects of work environment, nurse staffing, and nurse education on 30-day readmissions when adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics as well as considering clustering of patients within each hospital. The overall rate of 30-day readmission was 10% in surgical patients. In bivariate analysis, being black, sicker, and previously hospitalized increased the risk for 30-day readmissions; patients discharged from larger, teaching, and urban hospitals had higher 30-day readmission rates. In multivariate analysis, one standard deviation worse of the work environment score or adding one additional patient per nurse each was significantly associated with an increase of 3% in patients' likelihood of 30-day readmission. The significant association between work environment and readmission persisted when adjusting for nurse staffing. This study suggests that readmissions are not uncommon among surgical older patients and worth more attention. This study provides the first evidence that better nurse work environment and lower patient-to-nurse ratio are significantly associated with lower risk of surgical readmissions. Improving hospital work environment and nurse staffing may reduce readmissions in surgical older patients. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/edissertations/672 Graduate Group Nursing First Advisor Matthew D. McHugh
Nandinine, a Derivative of Berberine, Inhibits Inflammation and Reduces Insulin Resistance in Adipocytes via Regulation of AMP-Kinase Activity

Abstract Nandinine is a derivative of berberine that has high efficacy for treating cardiovascular diseases. This study investigated the effects of berberine and nandinine on the regulation of insulin sensitivity in adipocytes. Through treatment with macrophage-derived conditioned medium in 3T3-L1 adipocytes, dysregulation of adipokine production and activation of the IκB kinase β/nuclear factor-kappa B pathway was induced. However, these phenomena were effectively reversed by berberine, nandinine, and salicylate pretreatments. Furthermore, both berberine and nandinine inhibited serine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 induced by IκB kinase β and increased tyrosine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 to activate the PI3K/Akt pathway, which finally led to insulin-mediated glucose uptake. In addition, berberine and nandinine significantly increased AMP-activated protein kinase activity, thereby contributing to their anti-inflammatory effect by inhibiting IκB kinase β activation. Finally, in vivo studies demonstrated that both berberine (100 or 200 mg/kg) and nandinine (100 or 200 mg/kg) effectively ameliorated glucose intolerance and induced the insulin sensitivity index in mice. In conclusion, berberine and nandinine attenuated insulin resistance in adipocytes by inhibiting inflammation in an AMP-activated protein kinase-dependent manner. Berberine and nandinine may be used as dietary supplements and nandinine is a new candidate for obesity treatment.
Correlation between Bipolar Affective Disorder and Suicide Reviewing by the Risk Factors: a Systematic Review

Background: Because there are several reports associations between affective (AD) and bipolar disorder (BD) and suicide, the research develops a discussion of risk factors that inflence the occurrence of suicide attempts in patients with BD. Objectives: To relate risk factors present in patients with bipolar disorder who committed suicide or some suicide attempt. Methods: A survey was made in Scopus with the keyword "bipolar" and the terms "suicide" and "attempted"and "risk factors" from Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). We use only Scopus as the data source, and the statistical information available in tables and graphs provided from this source. Results: Frequently the AD and BD were associated with suicide occurrence in the studies included in this review. They identifid the main risk factors for suicide the previous suicide attempt and hopelessness. The main risk factors for nonfatal suicidal behavior included family history of suicide, early onset of bipolar disorder, extent of depressive symptoms, increasing severity of affective episodes, the presence of mixed affective states, rapid cycling, comorbid Axis I disorders, and abuse of alcohol or drugs. The suicide rate in this disorder reaches three times compared with other mental illnesses, and there are several risk factors: 3:1 ratio of suicide in men compared to women, but in females a greater number of attempts are observed. 25% of persons consume alcohol prior to suicidal attempt. The studies relate these factors and show how they can pose a risk to the carrier of the disorder. There are other risk factor for BD discussed on this review. Conclusions: It is inferred that the factors related to the risk of suicide in patients with bipolar disorder are important to enable the development of strategies designed to identify a possible suicidal ideation, prevention and control of these deaths. These elements are well characterized and defied in the studies.
Fertility and Obstetrics in Cattle

The Female: Normal non-pregnant animal Normal pregnancy Normal parturition Care of the new-born calf The post-partum period (puerperium) Lactation Fertility and infertility in the cow Problems during pregnancy Dystocia Placental retention Problems during the puerperium Manipulation of reproduction The Male: Normal male animal Artificial insemination Infertility in the bull
Time‐Continuous Quasi‐Monte Carlo Ray Tracing

Domain‐continuous visibility determination algorithms have proved to be very efficient at reducing noise otherwise prevalent in stochastic sampling. Even though they come with an increased overhead in terms of geometrical tests and visibility information management, their analytical nature provides such a rich integral that the pay‐off is often worth it. This paper presents a time‐continuous, primary visibility algorithm for motion blur aimed at ray tracing. Two novel intersection tests are derived and implemented. The first is for ray versus moving triangle and the second for ray versus moving AABB intersection. A novel take on shading is presented as well, where the time continuum of visible geometry is adaptively point‐sampled. Static geometry is handled using supplemental stochastic rays in order to reduce spatial aliasing. Finally, a prototype ray tracer with a full time‐continuous traversal kernel is presented in detail. The results are based on a variety of test scenarios and show that even though our time‐continuous algorithm has limitations, it outperforms multi‐jittered quasi‐Monte Carlo ray tracing in terms of image quality at equal rendering time, within wide sampling rate ranges.
Re‐Compositable Panoramic Selfie with Robust Multi‐Frame Segmentation and Stitching

It is a challenging task for ordinary users to capture selfies with a good scene composition, given the limited freedom to position the camera. Creative hardware (e.g., selfie sticks) and software (e.g., panoramic selfie apps) solutions have been proposed to extend the background coverage of a selife, but to achieve a perfect composition on the spot when the selfie is captured remains to be difficult. In this paper, we propose a system that allows the user to shoot a selfie video by rotating the body first, then produce a final panoramic selfie image with user‐guided scene composition as postprocessing. Our key technical contribution is a fully Automatic, robust multi‐frame segmentation and stitching framework that is tailored towards the special characteristics of selfie images. We analyze the sparse feature points and employ a spatial‐temporal optimization for bilayer feature segmentation, which leads to more reliable background alignment than previous image stitching techniques. The sparse classification is then propagated to all pixels to create dense foreground masks for person‐background composition. Finally, based on a user‐selected foreground position, our system uses content‐preserving warping to produce a panoramic seflie with minimal distortion to the face region. Experimental results show that our approach can reliably generate high quality panoramic selfies, while a simple combination of previous image stitching and segmentation approaches often fails.
The Clinical Features of Penile Cancer Patients at Sanglah General Hospital Bali-Indonesia

Objectives : To explore clinical characteristics, treatment modalities and outcomes after the follow-up of penile cancer patients. Method : We reviewed penile cancer patients during 8 years, started from April 1993 to March 2001. The data collected through medical record consisted of patient identities, history takings, physical and pathological findings, treatment modalities and their follow-up after 3±4 years Results : During eight years of study there were 46 patients aged 58 + 3 years. Out of 46 patients, 33 patients (72%) have history of urogenital infection and 40 patients (87%) with phymosis. With regard to physical examination, 24 patients (52%) presented as stage III (Jackson classification). Pathological findings showed that 100% patients were keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma. Partial penectomy alone was carried out in 21 patients (46%), total penectomy alone was done in 17 patients (37%), and total penectomy with lymph node dissection was done in 8 patients (17%). During the follow-up, majority of the patients (42) showed no complications or recurrence, only 2 patients showed recurrent tumor and the rest 2 were lost to follow-up. Conclusions : During eight years at Sanglah General Hospital there were 46 penile cancer patients, mean of age was 58±3 years. Predispositioning factors were urogenital infection and phymosis. All of them were keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma. Total or partial penectomy with or without lymph node dissection was carried out with good results.