Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Growing Quality in Qualitative Health Research

Qualitative methodologies are growing in popularity in health research; however, the integration of these methodologies into the clinical context is not always straightforward. In this article the author discusses some of the paradigmatic and methodological tensions that characterize the use of qualitative methodologies in clinical health research and showcase one solution to these tensions. The McGill Qualitative Health Research Group is a scholarly group of qualitative health researchers working together to advance a qualitative research agenda in clinical disciplines.
Decoupled MapReduce for Shared-Memory Multi-Core Architectures

Modern multi-core processors exhibit high integration densities, e.g., up to several tens of cores. Multiple programming frameworks have emerged to facilitate the development of highly parallel applications. The MapReduce programming model, after having demonstrated its usability in the area of distributed computing systems, has been adapted to the needs of shared-memory multi-processors showing promising results in comparison with conventional multi-threaded libraries, e.g., pthreads. In this paper we enhance the traditional MapReduce architecture by decoupling the map and combine phases in order to boost parallel execution. We show that combiners’ memory intensive features limit the system’s degree of parallelism, thus resulting in sub-optimal hardware utilization, leaving space for further performance improvements. The proposed decoupled MapReduce architecture is evaluated into a NUMA server platform, showing that the adoption of the De-MapR runtime enables more efficient hardware utilization and competent run-time improvements. We demonstrate that the proposed solution achieves execution speedups of up to 2.46x compared to a state-of-the-art, shared-memory MapReduce library.
Subjective Emotional Responses to Musical Structure, Expression and Timbre Features: A Synthetic Approach

ICREA, Barcelona{sylvain.legroux, paul.verschure}@upf.eduAbstract. Music appears to deeply a(ect emotional, cerebral and phys-iological states, and its e(ect on stress and anxiety has been establishedusing a variety of self-report, physiological, and observational means.Yet, the relationship between speciﬁc musical parameters and emotionalresponses is still not clear. One issue is that precise, replicable and in-dependent control of musical parameters is often di)cult to obtain fromhuman performers. However, it is now possible to generate expressive mu-sical material such as pitch, velocity, articulation, tempo, scale, mode,harmony and timbre using synthetic music systems. In this study, weuse a synthetic music system called the SMuSe, to generate a set of well-controlled musical stimuli, and analyze the inﬂuence of musical structure,performance variations and timbre on emotional responses.The subjec-tive emotional responses we obtained from a group of 13 participantson the scale of valence, arousal and dominance were similar to previousstudies that used human-produced musical excerpts. This validates theuse of a synthetic music system to evoke and study emotional responsesin a controlled manner.
Different Roles of 8‐Hydroxyguanine Formation and 2‐Thiobarbituric Acid‐reacting Substance Generation in the Early Phase of Liver Carcinogenesis Induced by a Choline‐deficient, l‐Amino Acid‐defined Diet in Rats

The present study was performed to assess the roles of hepatocellular oxidative damage to DNA and constituents other than DNA in rat liver carcinogenesis caused by a choline‐deficient, l‐amino acid‐defined (CDAA) diet by examining the effects of the antioxidant N, N′‐diphenyl‐p‐phenylenediamine (DPPD). The parameters used for cellular oxidative damage were the level of 8‐hydroxyguanine (8‐OHGua) for DNA and that of 2‐thiobarbituric acid‐reacting substance (TBARS) for constituents other than DNA. A total of 40 male Fischer 344 rats, 6 weeks old, were fed the CDAA diet for 12 weeks with or without DPPD (0.05, 0.10 or 0.20%) or butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT, 0.25%). In the livers of the rats, the numbers and sizes of glutathione S‐transferasc (EC 2.5.1.18) placental form (GSTP)‐ and/or γ‐glutamyltransferase (GGT, EC 2.3.2.2)‐positive lesions and levels of 8‐OHGua and TBARS were determined. The GSTP‐positive lesions of 0.08 mm2 or larger were all stained positively for GGT as well in cross‐sectional area, whereas the smaller lesions were generally negative for GGT. DPPD and BHT reduced the size of the GSTP‐positive lesions without affecting their total numbers. At the same time, they reduced TBARS generation without affecting 8‐OHGua formation in DNA. The present results indicate that oxidative DNA damage (represented by 8‐OHGua formation) and damage to constituents other than DNA (represented by TBARS generation) may play different roles in rat liver carcinogenesis caused by the CDAA diet; the former appears to be involved in the induction of phenotypically altered hepatocyte populations while the latter may be related to the growth of such populations.
Neonatal Pain in Very Preterm Infants: Long-Term Effects on Brain, Neurodevelopment and Pain Reactivity

Effects of early life psychosocial adversity have received a great deal of attention, such as maternal separation in experimental animal models and abuse/neglect in young humans. More recently, long-term effects of the physical stress of repetitive procedural pain have begun to be addressed in infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care. Preterm infants are more sensitive to pain and stress, which cannot be distinguished in neonates. The focus of this review is clinical studies of long-term effects of repeated procedural pain-related stress in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in relation to brain development, neurodevelopment, programming of stress systems, and later pain sensitivity in infants born very preterm (24–32 weeks’ gestational age). Neonatal pain exposure has been quantified as the number of invasive and/or skin-breaking procedures during hospitalization in the NICU. Emerging studies provide convincing clinical evidence for an adverse impact of neonatal pain/stress in infants at a time of physiological immaturity, rapidly developing brain microstructure and networks, as well as programming of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Currently it appears that early pain/stress may influence the developing brain and thereby neurodevelopment and stress-sensitive behaviors, particularly in the most immature neonates. However, there is no evidence for greater prevalence of pain syndromes compared to children and adults born healthy at full term. In addressing associations between pain/stress and outcomes, careful consideration of confounding clinical factors related to prematurity is essential. The need for pain management for humanitarian care is widely advocated. Non-pharmacological interventions to help parents reduce their infant’s stress may be brain-protective.
A Novel Fault Tolerance Mechanism for Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new network design paradigm. SDNs depend on decoupling thecontrol plane from the forwarding plane atthe network switches. SDNs use logically centralized controllers that are responsible for directing the forwarding decisions to the connected switches. In this paper, we design a new model to provide fault tolerance using feedback control to SDNs based on load balancing schemes. The model is called load balancing to support fault tolerance using feedback control for SDNs (LBFTFB). LBFTFB improves the resistance to cascaded failures. Cascading failures cause an enormous increase in the load of the surrounding controllers as a subsequence of the failure of a certain controller. On SDN controller failures, the LBFTFB distributes the load on the failed controller among thesurrounding controllers based on a defined feedback control policy. The LBFTFB model reduces the cascading failure problem when compared to HyperFlow model which is considered as a reference model. The HyperFlow model is a distributed control plane for OpenFlow. HyperFlow model suffers from a dramatic increase in the load of the surrounding controllers as a consequence of the failure of a certain controller. This is an ongoing research. Tentative emulation results are promising and show that the LBFTFB model outperforms the reference model for cascading failures by 14% in terms of packet loss and 17% in terms of packet delays
Exploring and Comparing the Characteristics of Nonlatent and Latent Composite Scores

A concise and reliable composite quality score would be helpful in judging the quality of a hospital’s services, especially for pay-for-performance (P4P) initiatives. This study compared several nonlatent and latent composite quality scores to evaluate the quality of care using diabetes mellitus (DM) P4P data and discusses their characteristics and implications for P4P policy. The authors describe a cross-sectional study of the DM P4P data collected from the claims data of the Bureau of National Health Insurance (NHI) in Taiwan from January 2007 to December 2007. The DM patient outcome data, such as hemoglobin A1C values, were retrieved from the P4P database sponsored by the Bureau of NHI in Taiwan. The composite scores were derived from the following methods: 1) nonlatent scores methods (e.g., the raw sum score and the all-or-none score methods)and 2) latent scores methods (e.g., item-response theory-based Models I and II and the PRIDIT model). These scores are compared in terms of 2 aspects—agreement of hospital rankings (using Spearman’s rank correlation) and reliability (using bootstrap methods). The latent methods were superior to the nonlatent methods because they were more reliable and had specific weighting themes. The correlations among the 3 latent methods were moderately high. The use of the PRIDIT approach, which is moderately difficult compared with item response theory–based model, is recommended if the insurer wants to balance convenience and precision.
Performance improvement of a doubly-fed induction generator based WECS using intelligent techniques

Type-three wind turbines utilize doubly-fed induction generators that are equipped with rotor-side and grid-side converters. Rotor side converters are responsible for harvesting electric power from the wind. Control loops that act on the rotor side converters are the focus of this work. Since fuzzy systems represent nonlinear mappings from the input to the output spaces, they emerge as promising candidates to design efficient controllers. Two fuzzy logic controllers are proposed to replace the conventional controllers and to improve the performance. One fuzzy controller is devoted to take the control actions. The second controller will tune the scaling gains of the first to assure an enhanced performance. Simulation results based on a 9-MW wind farm connected to a utility grid are reported.
Germline Mutation of Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenese Gene among a Japanese Population in Relation to Toxicity to 5‐Fluorouracil

5‐Fluorouracil (5FU) is most commonly used in chemotherapy for human malignancy. Over 80% of administered 5FU is metabolically degraded by dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), a primary and rate‐limiting enzyme in the 5FU metabolic pathway. A DPD‐deficient phenotype among cancer patients, which has posed a serious problem in 5FU‐based chemotherapy, was reported to be in part ascribed to germline mutations in dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPYD) gene. Therefore, we for the first tune examined the frequencies and types of germline mutations in the DPYD gene among a total of 107 Japanese cancer patients and healthy volunteers. Of 214 alleles examined among them, 181 alleles were of the same type, which was assigned as wild type; 21 alleles revealed a nucleotide substitution resulting in silent mutation; and the remaining 12 alleles showed five types of nucleotide deletion or substitutions resulting in one frameshift and four missense mutations. Three of them, A74G, 812delT and L572V, were novel mutations. None of the study subjects showed homozygous frameshift or missense mutated alleles. We also studied the association between toxic response to 5FU and heterozygous frame shift or missense mutation of the DPYD gene among eight cancer patients who had received 5FU‐based chemotherapy. These patients did not show any adverse effects higher than grade 3, suggesting that heterozygotes are not associated with increased toxicity to 5FU. Our results indicate that a very small percentage, about 0.2%, of the Japanese population seems to carry homozygous mutations in DPYD gene, mutations which possibly indicate genetically increased toxicity of 5FU‐based chemotherapy.
Dynamic Deployment of a MapReduce Architecture in the Cloud

Recently cloud-based MapReduce services have appeared to process large data sets in the Cloud, significantly reducing users’ infrastructure requirements. Almost all these services are Cloud vendor-specific and thus internally designed within their own cloud infrastructure. This leads to two important limitations. Cloud vendors do not provide any clue about how they manage the MapReduce architecture internally hampering its evaluation and also users are not able to either build their own private cloud infrastructure based offering or to use different public cloud infrastructures for this purpose. Thus, this paper describes an architecture which enables the dynamic deployment of a MapReduce architecture in virtual infrastructures provided by either public or private cloud providers. This architecture has been implemented and validated as a proof of concept and released to the community.
Comparison of SWIM and conventional MRI sequences in 60 cases of cerebral microbleeds with acute and chronic traumatic brain injury

Objective: To compare the detection ability of the number of micro hemorrhage lesions between the conventional MRI sequences and susceptibility weighted image and mapping (SWIM) as well as the corresponding relationship between lesions and injured vessels in the traumatic cerebral injury. Methods: 60 patients with traumatic brain injuries were collected in this study. All patients received MRI scan in the acute phase (within 72 hours) and chronic phase (1 month later) after injury, named group 1 and 2, respectively. Results: In 60 patients of acute phase (group 1), SWIM sequence was able to detect more lesions than the conventional sequences (P<0.05). In the 60 patients of chronic phase (group 2), SWIM sequence was capable of identifying more lesions than the conventional sequences (P<0.05). Besides, compared with the conventional MRI sequences, SWIM revealed 57 injured cerebral veins of 44 patients in the acute phase of cerebral injury, which manifested as coarse vascular edges. Among them, the relationship between the hemorrhage lesions and cerebral veins could be revealed directly in 41 veins. Conclusion: For the patients with acute or chronic traumatic cerebral injury, SWIM can display the morphological alteration of cerebral vessels and the relationship with the micro hemorrhage lesions, and is able to reveal clearly the size, morphology and number of intracranial micro hemorrhage lesions. Furthermore, compared with the conventional sequences T1WI, T2WI and FLAIR, it can also identify more micro hemorrhage lesions and is capable to determine the corresponding relationship between the micro hemorrhage lesions and injured vessels.
Chasing hashtag#25 in the newsroom presents challenges for journalism education. But what are they?

ABSTRACT The breathlessness to embrace digital first does not necessarily mean better journalism, better democracy, or better journalism education. This must be borne in mind, as the contours of what constitutes journalism in 2015 keep changing and becoming blurry. The question for journalism educators today is this: To what extent should journalism schools keep pace with the latest trends in the industry, and chase, for example, hashtag#25? The latter is a code concept, developed for this article to encapsulate digital first, incorporating social media, a focus on multi-platforms, and the youth – hence ‘25’. Should educators abandon teaching the basic elements of journalism; for instance, how to write stories as opposed to producing content? What about classroom reflections on the value of media freedom in a democracy? Today, the latter role of journalism in a democracy is an enormous demand, given the tumultuous pressure and change the industry is undergoing. The article sets the context from the WAN-Ifra newsroom summit of 2014 and deploys empirical data from State of the newsroom South Africa reports for 2013 and 2014, as well as concepts borrowed from theories of radical democracy, to delineate and discuss several of the conundrums faced by journalism educators. The argument here is that journalism educators should chase hashtag#25 with caution.
Relationship between Development of Diarrhea and the Concentration of SN‐38, an Active Metabolite of CPT‐11, in the Intestine and the Blood Plasma of Athymic Mice Following Intraperitoneal Administration of CPT‐11

Severe diarrhea occurred during daily intraperitoneal administration of 7‐ethyl‐10‐[4‐(l‐piperidino)‐l‐piperidino]carbonyloxycamptothecin (CPT‐11) at a dose of 50 mg/kg in athymic mouse. Serial determination of CPT‐11 and 7‐ethyl‐10‐hydroxycamptothecin (SN‐38), with the use of an on‐line solid extraction HPLC system, demonstrated that much higher levels of the compounds are retained in the intestine and the blood plasma after five consecutive daily injections than after a single injection. Histologic examination of the gastrointestinal tract showed hemorrhagic colitis on day 7 and later after five consecutive daily injections of CPT‐11. The direct cause of diarrhea associated with CPT‐11 administration is considered to be enterocolitis caused by high levels of SN‐38 and/or CPT‐11 retained for a long period in the intestine.
Acute Pulmonary Toxicity Caused by Single Intratracheal Instillation of Various Doses of Colloidal Silver Nanoparticles in Mice: Pathological Changes, Particle Bioaccumulation and Metallothionien Protein Expression

To study acute lung toxicity of various doses of colloidal silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs), mice were intratracheally instilled with 0, 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000 ppm of Ag-NPs. Histopathology, autometallography (AMG) and immunohistochemistry were determined at 1, 3, 7 and 15 days post-exposure.Instillation of 100, 1,000 and 10,000 ppm Ag-NPs produced moderate to severe necrotizing bronchitis and alveolitiswith hypertrophy and hyperplasia of alveolar epithelial cells. The severity of the pulmonary inflammation and damage increased in a dose-dependent manner. Concomitant lamininimmunohistochemical findings generally correlated with pulmonary lesions. Interleukin 1- beta (IL-1β) and tumor necrotic factor-alpha (TNF-α) positive immunostaining were found in the inflammatory lesions in lungs of treated animals. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) and metallothionine (MT) expression occurred in particle laden AMs and lung epithelial cells, which correlated with inflammatory sites and particle aggregated areas. AMG gains were found inparticle laden AMs, alveolar epithelial cells and macrophages in hilarlymph nodes. These findings suggest that instillation of AgNPs causes acute lung inflammation and tissue damage in a concentration-dependent manner. IL-1β and TNF-α may involve in the pathogenesis of the acute lung toxicity. Oxidative stress may underlie the lung tissue injury. Moreover, the expression of MT in tissues responded to AgNPs accumulation.
Efecto del entrenamiento mental en la capacitación de aprendices en cirugía laparoscópica

Introduction: this study assesses the effect of mental training on the tasks execution times of laparoscopic skills training. Methods: A Repeated Measures Experimental Design was executed. Two study groups were formed (an intervention group with mental training and a control group). Each group consisted in eight participants. Execution times in four tasks to practice four basic skills were registered three times in a period of one moth. Evaluated basic skills were cut, dissection, displacement and suture. Results: Intervention group times had a significant reduction on three of the four tasks (displacement, dissection, and suture). Conclusions: This protocol could be used as a complement on basic training for novices. It can reduce times and costs in a Laparoscopic course.
GNSS Signal Demodulation Performance in Urban Environments

Satellite navigation signals demodulation performance is historically tested and compared in the Additive White Gaussian Noise propagation channel model which well simulates open areas. Nowadays, the majority of new applications targets dynamic users in urban environments; therefore the implementation of a simulation tool able to provide realistically GNSS signal demodulation performance in obstructed propagation channels has become mandatory . This paper presents the simulator SiGMeP (Simulator for GNSS Message Performance) which is wanted to provide demodulation performance of any GNSS signals in urban environment , as faithfully of reality as possible . The demodulation performance of GPS L1C/A, GPS L2C, GPS L1C and Galileo E1 OS signals simulated with SiGMeP in the AWGN channel model configuration is firstly showed . Then, the demodulation performance of GPS L1C simulated with SiGMeP in urban environments is presented using the Prieto channel model with two signal carrier phase estimation configurations: perfect signal carrier phase estimation and PLL tracking
Human T cell responses to Dengue and Zika virus infection compared to Dengue/Zika coinfection

Zika virus (ZIKV) and dengue virus (DENV) co‐circulated during latest outbreaks in Brazil, hence, it is important to evaluate the host cross‐reactive immune responses to these viruses. So far, little is known about human T cell responses to ZIKV and no reports detail adaptive immune responses during DENV/ZIKV coinfection.
Commercial Models' Turnover Intention: With a Focus on the Moderating Effects of Self-belief, Attractiveness, and Ethical Environment

외형적으로 화려하고 인기직종으로 보이는 광고모델이지만 이면에는 많은 광고모델들이 직업에 적응하 지 못하고 비교적 단기간에 이직하고 있다. 이는 광고모델 에이젠시의 업무에 상당한 차질을 초래하고 그 신뢰성에 부정적 영향을 주며 매출감소로 이어지고 있다. 이에 본 연구에서는 광고모델의 전문직업적 정체 성, 감정노동, 역할갈등이 이직의도에 미치는 영향을 알아보고 또한 전문직업적 정체성, 감정노동, 역할갈 등과 이직의도의 관계에서 신뢰성과 매력성 그리고 윤리적환경의 조절효과를 분석하여 광고모델의 이직의 도에 대한 개선책을 제시하고자 하였다. 연구결과에 따르면 역할갈등, 감정노동, 전문직업적 정체성의 순서 로 광고모델의 이직의도에 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 또한 위계적 회귀분석을 사용하여 이들 독립변 수들과 이직의도간의 관계에 신뢰성, 매력성, 윤리적환경을 투입하여 조절효과를 검증한 결과 신뢰성은 감 정노동이 이직의도에 미치는 부정적 영향을 조절하며, 윤리적환경은 전문직업적 정체성이 낮을 경우 이직 의도에 미치는 부정적 영향을 조절하는 요인으로 나타났다. 이러한 결과는 감정노동자인 광고모델에게 자 기신뢰가 갖는 중요성을 부각시키고 광고모델이 태어나는 것이 아니라 전문적이고 체계적이며 바람직한 직업 환경에 의해 만들어짐을 의미한다 하겠다. ■ 중심어 :∣전문직업적 정체성∣감정노동∣역할갈등∣이직의도∣신뢰성∣매력성∣윤리적 환경∣ Abstract
Presence of Aberrant Transcripts of ret Proto‐oncogene in a Human Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma Cell Line

In a papillary thyroid carcinoma cell line, TPC‐1, we found transcripts hybridizing to ret proto‐oncogene (proto‐ret) cDNA probes. The transcripts hybridized to the probes encoding the kinase domain but not to those of the transmembrane and extracellular domains of proto‐ret The sizes of the main transcripts in TPC‐1 were aberrant, being 2.0, 2.5, 4.0 and 5.0 kb. In the neuroblastoma cell lines, the transcripts were 3.9, 4.5, 6.0 and 7.0 kb, which have been proved to be generated by alternative splicing and polyadenylation from the non‐altered protto‐ret oncogene. All of the four transcripts in TPC‐1 are about 2 kb smaller than the corresponding ones in the neuroblastoma. From the length of the transcripts, it is suspected that the transcripts in TPC‐1 are a rearranged form of proto‐ret. This is the first report describing the aberrant transcripts of proto‐ret in a human tumor.