Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FUNCTION AFTER SPINAL TREATMENT, EXERCISE AND REHABILITATION (FASTER): A FACTORIAL RANDOMISED TRIAL TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE FUNCTIONAL OUTCOME OF SPINAL SURGERY CAN BE IMPROVED

Introduction This study sought to determine whether the functional outcome of two common spinal operations could be improved by a programme of post-operative rehabilitation and/or an educational booklet each compared with usual care. Methods This was a multi-centre, factorial, randomised controlled trial on the post operative management of spinal surgery patients, with randomisation stratified by surgeon and operative procedure. The study compared the effectiveness of a rehabilitation programme and an education booklet for the postoperative management of patients undergoing discectomy or lateral nerve root decompression surgery, each compared with “usual care” using a 2 × 2 factorial design, randomising patient to four groups; rehabilitation-only, booklet-only, rehabilitation-plus-booklet, and usual care only. The primary outcome measure was the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) at 12 months, with secondary outcomes including visual analogue scale measures of back and leg pain. An economic analysis was also performed. Results 338 patients were recruited into the study with outcomes preformed pre-operatively, and postoperatively at 6 weeks, 3, 6, 9 and 12 months post-operatively. At the one year review the effect of rehabilitation on ODI was −2.7 (95% CI −6.8 to 1.5) and the effect of booklet was 2.7 (95% CI −1.5 to 6.9). There were no significant differences in costs or outcomes associated with either intervention and neither intervention was cost-effective. Discussion This study found that neither intervention had a significant impact on long term outcome or cost. There was some evidence to suggest that the impact of the interventions was different between patients undergoing discectomy and those having spinal decompression. Conflicts of Interest None Source of Funding Arthritis Research UK Previously presented at International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine 2011
Laura Pfuntner. Urbanism and empire in Roman Sicily. 2019. Austin: University of Texas Press; 978-1-4773-1722-8 $55.

Urbanism and empire in Roman Sicily challenges the limited availability of textual and archaeological evidence to analyse the consistency and nature of urban settlement on the island from c. 250 BC to 450 BC. Sicily represents a particularly interesting case study because it constituted an ethnically and culturally diverse entity, with a long-standing tradition of urban development, within a well-defined and bounded geographical unit (an island) at the crossroads of Mediterranean maritime routes.
Oral fenofibrate in neonatal hyperbilirubinemia: A randomized controlled trial

Abstract: Objective: To evaluate the role of oral fenofibrate for lowering neonatal hyperbilirubinemia as compared to placebo. Design: Doubleblind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial. Setting: NICU of tertiary care hospital of North India. Subjects: 50 neonates with neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. Neonates (≥35 weeks of gestation), birth weight (1.5-3.5 kg), jaundice beginning at day 3-11 after birth, total bilirubin level between 15 and 21 mg/dl, and clinically stable vital signs. Intervention: Neonates were assigned randomly to receive either single dose of oral fenofibrate at 10 mg/kg/dose on day 1 of admission and distilled water on the following next day or a single dose of oral glucose solution on day 1 and distilled water on the following next day. Malloy-Evelyn method was used to estimate the serum total bilirubin levels. All newborns enrolled in this study, received phototherapy. The cases were divided into two groups, i.e. study (fenofibrate) group and control group. Measurement of Primary Outcome: Duration of phototherapy. Results: Mean values for total serum bilirubin in fenofibrate group at 36 and 48 h after starting of phototherapy were significantly lower in the study group than those in the control group (p<0.00001). The mean time needed for phototherapy was also shorter in the study group than control group (p<0.0002). No side effects of fenofibrate were observed after a single dose administration. Conclusion: Fenofibrate appears to be an effective and safe drug for the treatment of neonatal hyperbilirubinemia. This decreases the duration of phototherapy and thus shortens the length of hospital stay. Key words: Fenofibrate, Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia, Phototherapy, Serum bilirubin
Ritual in a Digital Society

We live in a digital society, where life takes place at the offline-online nexus. The shift towards a continuous blending of offline and online dimensions also affects rituals. Understanding digital rituals challenges us to explore new questions, new rules, new possibilities, and new limitations regarding rituals that are shaped by digitalization. In this book, the authors address these issues by relating ritual studies to digital culture studies. The book offers different case studies in the field of digital rituals, including pilgrimage and online storytelling, digital death rituals and mourning practices, religious online education, and online memorial practices. This book is published on the occasion of the retirement of Paul Post, professor of Ritual Studies at Tilburg University from 1994 until 2019.
Silence as a Moment of Luxury: Insights from Contemporary Travellers Visiting Churches

This chapter focusses on travellers’ pursuit of silence. This quest may be a counteraction to the current invasion of noise in everyday life. Silence has become something rare, unique and exclusive – which conveys luxury in its pristine and simplest form. The study focussed on silence in the setting of a church, which is a place typically intrinsically attached to silence. A qualitative semi-structured study was designed to explore how churches’ atmospheres contribute to the experience of silence, as well as what such moments of silence mean to the contemporary traveller. Silence in a church is very much defined by the place itself. For the traveller, silence is (1) a code of conduct, (2) an inner state, (3) a break, (4) an empowering experience and (5) a precious moment. The findings of this study can be used to promote moments of silence for weary travellers in the need of quiet.
A review on transdermal spray: formulation aspect

Transdermal spray offers numerous advantages over the other conventional transdermal drug delivery forms such as gel, ointment and patches, in terms of its cosmeceutical appearance, ready availability for application, flexibility in dosage design, less occurrence of skin irritation and faster drying rate from the application site due to the use of volatile solvent. However, compared to other transdermal drug delivery dosage forms, transdermal spray has the least and limited number of products approved for marketing. Among the drugs are, Evamist®, an estradiol formulation approved in 2007 by the FDA followed by Axiron® a non-spray solution to treat low testosterone in men and Recuvyra®, a pain reliever solution indicated for dogs. This review article focuses current status on the formulation and evaluation of transdermal spray in the background of the role and effects of its composition specially the selection of drugs, volatile solvents, penetration enhancers and film forming polymer, etc. The limitation of transdermal spray highlighted in this review is the concern of its use, especially, the third party exposure particularly for endocrinology indication. Moreover, transdermal spray is also restricted in drugs with large doses due to the limited diffusivity into the skin. The difficulty of exploiting hydrophilic drugs like peptides, macromolecules and new genetic treatments using DNA or small-interfering RNA (siRNA) into transdermal spray formulations is also a limitation that needs to be explored in depth.
A meta-analysis of residual disease and survival in stage III and IV carcinoma of the ovary.

UNLABELLED A meta-analysis of retrospective studies was performed to determine the value of cytoreductive surgery separately for Stage III and IV ovarian cancer. DESIGN A literature search and personal communications were used to identify studies reporting patient numbers and survival data at 2 years and/or 5 years in patients with no residual, 2 cm residual disease after surgery for Stage III and IV ovarian cancer. An odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals was performed on the data using the Cochran-Mantel-Haeszel procedure. RESULTS The results show a survival benefit for patients with nil and 2 cm. For Stage III patients the OR was 3.98 (3.31 to 4.79) at 2 years and 5.51 (4.40 to 6.90) at 5 years, indicating with 95% confidence that those with < = 2 cm residual tumor survived longer. When comparing nil and < = 2 cm residual disease survival is better for the group with nil residual with OR 3.37 (2.17 to 5.22) at 2 year and OR 4.35 (2.87 to 6.61) at 5 years. Optimal cytoreduction was also beneficial in Stage IV with OR 4.94 (2.55 to 9.57). Although it appears that maximum surgical effort is justified for stage III as well as Stage IV ovarian cancer, it must be remembered that no prospective, randomized trials have been performed. CONCLUSION Optimal cytoreductive surgery appears to benefit the patient with ovarian cancer, but no data from prospective, randomized trials are available and tumor biology is not assessed. Very few studies report survival data based on the amount of residual disease in the separate FIGO stages. There is a need for a single, large database reporting all known variables for each patient.
METİSİLİN DİRENÇLİ STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS SUŞLARININ SAPTANMASINDA MRSA ID KROMOJENİK BESİYERİNİN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ

Metisilin dirençli Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) hem toplum hem de hastane kökenli infeksiyonlardan izole edilen önemli bir patojendir. S.aureus suşlarında metisilin direncinin doğru ve hızlı bir şekilde belirlenmesi, infeksiyon kontrol önlemlerinde ve hastanede yayılımın önlenmesi açısından anahtar rol oynamaktadır. Akdeniz Üniversitesi Merkez Laboratuvarı’na gönderilen klinik örneklerden izole edilen toplam 163 S.aureus suşunun tanımlanması Gram boyama, katalaz, lam ve tüp koagülaz yöntemleri ve BD Phoenix otomatize identifikasyon ve antimikrobiyal duyarlılık sistemi kullanılarak yapılmıştır. Suşlarda nuc ve mecA genlerinin varlığı ve 16S RNA, özgül primerler kullanılarak polimeraz zincir reaksiyonu (PZR) yöntemiyle saptanmıştır. S.aureus olarak tanımlanan tüm suşların MRSA ID kromojenik agar besiyerine ekimi yapılarak plaklar 35°C’de aerobik ortamda inkübe edilmiş ve sonuçlar koloni renklerine göre değerlendirilmiştir. Bu çalışmada MRSA ID besiyerinin performansının değerlendirilmesi amaçlanmıştır. MRSA saptanmasında, MRSA ID besiyerinin 24 saatlik inkübasyon sonrasında duyarlılığı % 85.4, özgüllüğü ise % 53.7 olarak bulunmuştur. Sonuç olarak MRSA ID, 18-24 saatlik inkübasyon sonucunda MRSA saptanmasında duyarlığının yüksek olması nedeniyle kullanılabilir bir besiyeridir.
Review Paper Innovative Approach in Healthcare Service Delivery System in India, Brazil and South Africa: A Literature Review

This paper presents a literature review of innovation in healthcare service delivery system with reference to India, Brazil and South Africa. We briefly review 100 references among these, 55 articles were classified by year of publication and journal. Innovation is considered to be a critical component in the quest to balance cost containment and health care quality. This paper starts by defining innovation in healthcare. Following part of paper, describe health status of India, Brazil and South Africa. Innovation, such as public-private partnership, marketing innovation, financial innovation, technology innovation and operational introduced. A particular attention paid to analyze the impact of innovation to improve efficiency and effectiveness of health delivery system. Through review of literature, the paper describes the examples of innovation based health delivery system. Innovation supported health delivery system enables to provide accessible, affordable and quality health services to all individual.
How did people feel during the Zika virus breakout? A sentiment analysis of Zika virus related posts on Yahoo! Answers

A sudden outbreak of the Zika virus led to public panic and discussion on social Q&A forums. Most research studies concentrated on what the public discussed about the Zika virus. However, how they felt during the Zika virus outbreak reflects the emotional stability of the public, which has a positive significance in public health monitoring, intervention and service. For this paper, we conducted a sentiment analysis of Zika‐related posts on Yahoo! Answers during the outbreak of the Zika virus to investigate how emotions of the public changed overtime and if users' emotions could be influenced by others. It was found that significantly more negative emotions appeared when an outbreak started in Brazil, yet people's reactions became milder afterwards. Besides, a small positive correlation between the sentiment characteristics of the questions and the received answers implies the exchanges of emotions between questioners and answerers.
Thyroid function tests, lipid profile and the diagnosis of thyroid diseases

Thyroid hormones exert an enormous range of effects on lipid metabolism. The composition and the transport of lipoproteins are seriously disturbed in thyroid diseases.The aim of this study is to look for a significant statistical correlation between thyroid hormones and levels of serum lipids in attempt to use such a correlation in the clinical diagnosis of thyroid disorders.Results: Significant elevated levels of total cholesterol, phospholipids and VLDL cholesterol were observed in hypothyroidism with a slight increase in the serum triglyceride. However in hyperthyroidism, an insignificant decrease of total cholesterol, phospholipids and VLDL cholesterol concentrations was observed as well as plasma triglycerides.Conclusion: The results of the present study suggests that the use of classical methods for the determination of lipid profile as a preliminary step in the diagnosis of thyroid disorder is to be of great importance, wherever radioimmunoassay assay kits of thyroid hormone are not available as in remoteurban medical sites or in unfavorable circumstances
Return of the Grasshopper

Suits ended The Grasshopper with a doubt about his main normative thesis; he worried that if people in his utopia knew they were only playing games, they’d find their lives not worth living. This abridgement of a previously unpublished sequel withdraws the doubt and gives a more robust defence of the value of playing games. The contrary view says a valuable activity must have an independently valuable goal, as game-playing doesn’t—you need to be curing real diseases or discovering otherwise unknown truths. Suits now replies that to want there to be real disease or ignorance in the world is to want there to be real obstacles, so the activity of overcoming them can be possible. But that’s precisely to have the lusory attitude to the obstacles and so to be playing a game whether or not you realize you’re doing so.
Platelet Unresponsiveness to Collagen: Involvement of Glycoprotein Ia-IIa (α2β1 Integrin) Deficiency Associated with a Myeloproliferative Disorder

Summary We studied a 66-year-old man with a myeloproliferative disorder who presented with a prolonged bleeding time and marked thrombocytosis (platelet count, 3,890 × 109/1). There was no past history of a bleeding disorder. The patient had normal coagulation data. His platelets completely lacked collagen-induced platelet aggregation and adhesion, but showed normal responses to other agonists. All family members tested showed normal platelet aggregation with collagen. Analysis of 125I surface-labeled platelets by two-dimensional SDS gel electrophoresis disclosed absence of the spot corresponding to platelet membrane GPIa (α2) but no other significant deficiencies of major platelet glycoproteins i.e., GPIb, IIb-IIIa, and IV. Immunoisolation studies of the patient’s platelets indicated that neither anti-GPIa nor anti-GPIIa (β1) monoclonal antibody (mAb) isolated any surface membrane proteins corresponding to GPIa. GPVI, a putative collagen receptor, was immunoisolated from the platelets. Indirect immunofluorescence study using flow cytometry confirmed that the patient’s platelets were totally deficient in surface expression of the GPIa-IIa complex (α2β1, integrin). In contrast, phytohemoagglutinin-activated T-lymphocytes from the patient expressed normal concentrations of this complex. The data suggest that our patient had an acquired deficiency of the platelet GPIa-IIa complex, due to a myeloproliferative disorder, which might account for the absence of responsiveness of his platelet to collagen.
Understanding How Irritable Bowel Disease Affects Full-Time Employees at a Community College in North Carolina.

LEGRAND, ERIN TRADO. Understanding How Irritable Bowel Disease Affects Full-Time Employees at a Community College in North Carolina. (Under the direction of committee chair Dr. James Bartlett, II.) The fields of Adult Education and Higher Education serve not only to educate students, but also as employers for many faculty and staff. All too often, employees are treated homogenously and little thought is given to employees who face the trials of coping with a chronic illness. Employees with chronic illness face marginalization in the workplace due to their disease. There is a need to increase awareness of this marginalization and to fully understand the experiences of chronically ill employees. The focus of this research is to explore the experiences of employees with Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD) at a community college in the western region of North Carolina. This study employs a qualitative research design that uses an in-depth phenomenological methodology to determine the essence of what it means to be an employee with IBD at a particular community college in the western region of North Carolina. The three study participants were a purposeful sample of full-time employees at a community college who have received an official diagnosis of IBD, Ulcerative Colitis or Crohn’s Disease. The experiences of these individuals were captured through the participant’s written accounts, semi-structured interviews, and the researcher’s field notes. The study found that the participants desired better understanding on behalf of the institution and their coworkers to decrease the sense of isolation that accompanies being a chronically ill employee. Suggestions were made to institute formalized policies that would allow for a common understanding of the resources and support provided for chronically ill employees and would serve as a tool for institution wide understanding of how chronic illnesses impact the workplace. © Copyright 2014 Erin Trado LeGrand All Rights Reserved Understanding How Irritable Bowel Disease Affects Full-Time Employees at a Community College in North Carolina by Erin Trado LeGrand A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education Adult and Community College Education Raleigh, North Carolina 2014
Understanding Health Changes Through the Analysis of Electricity Consumption Data

With improvements in living standards and innovations in medical care, life expectancy has increased. However, although people are living longer, particularly in developed countries, they are not necessarily healthier during the additional years of life, with a rising number of people with long-term physical and mental health conditions that require supported living, for example, within a care home or hospital environment. In response to the rising economic costs of managing long term conditions, successive governments have developed policies to reduce the use of institutional environments (e.g., care homes) and of unplanned hospital admissions, and are encouraging the development of systems which aim to monitor, support and manage people’s health in their own home. These developments have lead to increased research on using remotely monitored, sensor-based technologies to provide relatives, carers and health care professionals with timely data about the well-being of older people living independently, and so provide timely and appropriate support effectively, thus helping them remain in their own homes, especially when they have long-term health problems. The aim of the research described in this thesis was to investigate the use of an electricity monitor to recognise and monitor changes in resident’s daily activities. This was achieved using two phases; the first conducted a survey to gather information about which activities and features that carers and relatives would like to have access to, so as to be reassured about their relative’s health and well being. The second phase collected and analysed electricity consumption data from four households for a one-week period, to develop models to identify when specific activities had been undertaken, e.g., using the shower, using a kettle. This research concluded that the monitoring of general and some specific activities is important to the relatives and carers, although the best form of reassurance about their relative’s situation was felt to be human contact. Following the analysis of the electricity consumption data, it was concluded that while it is possible to recognise appliance usage from whole house electricity consumption data, the variability and lack of transferability between houses and appliances would mean that the large-scale use of this type of monitoring would require considerable further development.
Teacher Candidate Book Introductions

The purpose of this descriptive multi-case study was to explore teacher candidates’ book introductions during their field-based studies in elementary classrooms. The participants were 11 undergraduate students (also teacher candidates) enrolled in a field-based reading course at a South Texas regional university. The lessons occurred in the teacher candidates’ cooperating teachers’ elementary classrooms. Five sources of data were analyzed using both a priori and open coding to determine themes. The book introductions included information related to the meaning of the text and helping students make connections to text; however, little to no syntactical or visual cue information was included. The findings have implications for reading course instructors to ensure that teacher candidates have many opportunities to see and practice the delivery of book introductions during guided reading instruction.
A mechanical study of tense collagen lattices

A new device is described, which allows the quantification, over 36 days, of the isometric force generated in collagen lattices whose contraction has been prevented. Maximal force was achieved within 24 and was then kept constant. It was positively correlated with collagen concentration at baseline. These data are in contrast with contraction of freely retracting lattices and indicate that the working mechanisms are different. In tense lattices, cells became spindle-shaped and oriented along the tension axis. Multiplication was rapid up to the 3rd day, then became much slower just as if the force per cell had to be relaxed from a maximum 2.13 ± 0.20 10 -7 N per cell down to a constant level approximately 1 10 -7 N per cell. Finally the isometric force was found to be inversely proportional to the distance between retainers. These data support the view that the behaviour of tense collagen lattices is more closely related to that of normal skin than freely retracting lattices, and that mechanical stress influences the internal structure of the lattice.