Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discontinuous Patterns of Brain Activation in the Psychotherapy Process of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Converging Results from Repeated fMRI and Daily Self-Reports

This study investigates neuronal activation patterns during the psychotherapeutic process, assuming that change dynamics undergo critical instabilities and discontinuous transitions. An internet-based system was used to collect daily self-assessments during inpatient therapies. A dynamic complexity measure was applied to the resulting time series. Critical phases of the change process were indicated by the maxima of the varying complexity. Repeated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measurements were conducted over the course of the therapy. The study was realized with 9 patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (subtype: washing/contamination fear) and 9 matched healthy controls. For symptom-provocative stimulation individualized pictures from patients’ personal environments were used. The neuronal responses to these disease-specific pictures were compared to the responses during standardized disgust-provoking and neutral pictures. Considerably larger neuronal changes in therapy-relevant brain areas (cingulate cortex/supplementary motor cortex, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral insula, bilateral parietal cortex, cuneus) were observed during critical phases (order transitions), as compared to non-critical phases, and also compared to healthy controls. The data indicate that non-stationary changes play a crucial role in the psychotherapeutic process supporting self-organization and complexity models of therapeutic change.
Differentiation of Engrafted Neuronal-Restricted Precursor Cells Is Inhibited in the Traumatically Injured Spinal Cord

Differentiation of pluripotent neural stem cells engrafted into the adult normal and injured spinal cord is restricted to the glial lineage, suggesting that in vitro induction toward a neuronal lineage prior to transplantation and/or modification of the host environment may be necessary to initiate and increase the differentiation of neurons. In the present study, we investigated the differentiation of neuronal-restricted precursors (NRPs) grafted into the normal and contused adult rat spinal cord. NRPs proliferated through multiple passages in the presence of FGF2 and NT3 and differentiated into only neurons in vitro in the presence of retinoic acid and the absence of FGF2. Differentiated NRPs expressed GABA, glycine, glutamate, and ChAT. Two weeks to 2 months after engraftment of undifferentiated NRPs into adult normal spinal cord, large numbers of surviving cells were seen in all of the animals. The majority differentiated into betaIII-tubulin-positive neurons. Some transplanted NRPs expressed GABA and small numbers were glutamate- and ChAT-positive. NRPs were also transplanted into the epicenter of the contused adult rat spinal cord. Two weeks to 2 months after transplantation, some engrafted NRPs remained undifferentiated nestin-positive cells. Small numbers were MAP2- or betaIII-tubulin-positive neurons. However, the expression of GABA, glutamate, or ChAT was not observed. These results show that NRPs can differentiate into different types of neurons in the normal adult rat spinal cord, but that such differentiation is inhibited in the injured spinal cord. Manipulation of the microenvironment in the injured spinal cord will likely be necessary to facilitate neuronal replacement.
The use of phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors for erectile dysfunction.

The advent of sildenafil in 1998 represented the first revolution in the treatment of erectile dysfunction. In February 1994 I had the opportunity to evaluate preliminary data from sildenafil trials in Orlando, Florida, during an advisory board meeting organized by Pfizer, who had put together the most prominent researchers of sexual function and dysfunction. Sildenafil was devised for patients with ischemic heart disease, who received this drug for the treatment of angina. The vasodilatatory effects on the heart vasculature seen with sildenafil were less evident than those induced by nitrates, but the drug was strongly associated with a particular adverse event: a significant improvement of penile erections. All meeting attendees listened to the presentation with great enthusiasm and strongly encouraged the company to start clinical trials with sildenafil in patients with erectile dysfunction.
Evolved bayesian networks as a versatile alternative to partin tables for prostate cancer management

In this paper, we report on work done evolving Bayesian Networks with Genetic Algorithms. We use a Chain Model GA [19] to induce a Bayesian network model for the real world problem of Prostate Cancer management. Bayesian networks can and have been used in a wide range of complex domains, notably in medicine. In fact, they have shown powerful capabilities in representing and dealing with the uncertainties generally inherent in the clinical practice. In this study, we investigate those capabilities by testing the evolved model's predictive power and exploring its potential use as a more versatile alternative to the widely used Partin tables for prostate cancer pathology staging.
Dosimetric characterization of a Cs131 brachytherapy source by thermoluminescence dosimetry in liquid water.

Dosimetry measurements of a Cs131 brachytherapy source have been performed in liquid water employing thermoluminescence dosimeters. A search of the literature reveals that this is the first time a complete set of dosimetric parameters for a brachytherapy "seed" source has been measured in liquid water. This method avoids the medium correction uncertainties introduced by the use of water-equivalent plastic phantoms. To assure confidence in the results, four different sources were employed for each parameter measured, and measurements were performed multiple times. The measured dosimetric parameters presented here are based on the AAPM Task Group 43 formalism. The dose-rate constant measured in liquid water was (1.063±0.023)cGyh-1U-1 and was based on the air-kerma strength standard for this source established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Measured values for the 2D anisotropy function and the radial dose function are presented.
Firm-Sponsored General Education and Mobility Frictions: Evidence from Hospital Sponsorship of Nursing Schools and Faculty

This study asks why hospitals provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty. This support is striking because nursing education is clearly general, clearly paid by the firm, and information asymmetries appear minimal. Using AHA and survey data, I find hospitals employing a greater share of their MSA's registered nurses are more likely to provide direct financial support to nursing schools and faculty, net of size and other institutional controls. Given the institutional context, I interpret this result as unusually specific evidence that technologically general skill training may be made de facto-specific by imperfect and costly mobility.
Business Model Innovation for Inclusive Health Care Delivery at the Bottom of the Pyramid

This article investigates business models innovation for delivering health care at the base of the pyramid (BoP). The examination of six health care organizational cases suggests that co-creation of patient needs, community engagement, continuous involvement of customers, innovative medical technology, focus on human resources for health, strategic partnerships, economies of scale, and cross-subsidization are business model innovation strategies that enable inclusive health care delivery. Based on these findings, we propose a four-dimensional framework. A process of value discovery, leading BoP patients and communities to recognize a health need and seek for an acceptable treatment, precedes the identification of a successful value proposition. Value creation and value appropriation then follow to warrant patient affordability and organizational sustainability. A “business model mechanism” for BoP health care hence emerges, where interdependencies among these dimensions are highlighted. This article sheds new light on how market-based approaches can improve equitable health care access and hence contribute to poverty alleviation.
Development of serum parameters panels for the early detection of pancreatic cancer

Early detection of pancreatic cancer is promising for improving clinical outcome; however, no effective biomarker has yet been identified. Here, we detected 61 clinical serum parameters in 200 healthy controls (Ctrls), 163 pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients and 109 benign pancreatitis patients (Benign) in the training group. A metropolis algorithm with Monte Carlo simulation was used for identifying parameter panels. Sera from 183 Ctrl, 129 PDAC and 95 Benign individuals were used for cross‐validation. Samples from 77 breast, 72 cervical, 101 colorectal, 138 gastric, 108 prostate and 132 lung cancer patients were collected for evaluating cancer selectivity. A panel consisting of carbohydrate antigen (CA)19‐9, albumin (ALB), C‐reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin (IL)−8 had the highest diagnostic value for discriminating between PDAC and Ctrl. The sensitivity (SN) was 99.39% for all‐stage, 96.10% for early‐stage and 98.80% for advanced‐stage PDAC at 90% specificity (SP). In the validation group, the sensitivities were 93.80, 93.10 and 94.40%, respectively, at 90% SP. This panel also identified 80.52% of the breast cancer, 66.67% cervical cancer, 86.14% colorectal cancer, 89.86% gastric cancer, 71.30% prostate cancer and 93.85% lung cancer samples as non‐PDAC. The panel consisting of CA19‐9, carbon dioxide, CRP and IL‐6 panel had the highest diagnostic value for discriminating between PDAC and Benign. The SN was 74.23% for all‐stage, 75.30% for early‐stage and 74.40% for advanced‐stage PDAC at 90% SP. In the validation group, the sensitivities were 72.10, 76.10 and 67.20%, respectively, at 90% SP. Our parameter panels may aid in the early detection of PDAC to improve clinical outcome.
Authentication of Smartphone Users Based on Activity Recognition and Mobile Sensing

Smartphones are context-aware devices that provide a compelling platform for ubiquitous computing and assist users in accomplishing many of their routine tasks anytime and anywhere, such as sending and receiving emails. The nature of tasks conducted with these devices has evolved with the exponential increase in the sensing and computing capabilities of a smartphone. Due to the ease of use and convenience, many users tend to store their private data, such as personal identifiers and bank account details, on their smartphone. However, this sensitive data can be vulnerable if the device gets stolen or lost. A traditional approach for protecting this type of data on mobile devices is to authenticate users with mechanisms such as PINs, passwords, and fingerprint recognition. However, these techniques are vulnerable to user compliance and a plethora of attacks, such as smudge attacks. The work in this paper addresses these challenges by proposing a novel authentication framework, which is based on recognizing the behavioral traits of smartphone users using the embedded sensors of smartphone, such as Accelerometer, Gyroscope and Magnetometer. The proposed framework also provides a platform for carrying out multi-class smart user authentication, which provides different levels of access to a wide range of smartphone users. This work has been validated with a series of experiments, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Total Aortic Arch Replacement: Superior Ventriculo-Arterial Coupling with Decellularized Allografts Compared with Conventional Prostheses

Background To date, no experimental or clinical study provides detailed analysis of vascular impedance changes after total aortic arch replacement. This study investigated ventriculoarterial coupling and vascular impedance after replacement of the aortic arch with conventional prostheses vs. decellularized allografts. Methods After preparing decellularized aortic arch allografts, their mechanical, histological and biochemical properties were evaluated and compared to native aortic arches and conventional prostheses in vitro. In open-chest dogs, total aortic arch replacement was performed with conventional prostheses and compared to decellularized allografts (n = 5/group). Aortic flow and pressure were recorded continuously, left ventricular pressure-volume relations were measured by using a pressure-conductance catheter. From the hemodynamic variables end-systolic elastance (Ees), arterial elastance (Ea) and ventriculoarterial coupling were calculated. Characteristic impedance (Z) was assessed by Fourier analysis. Results While Ees did not differ between the groups and over time (4.1±1.19 vs. 4.58±1.39 mmHg/mL and 3.21±0.97 vs. 3.96±1.16 mmHg/mL), Ea showed a higher increase in the prosthesis group (4.01±0.67 vs. 6.18±0.20 mmHg/mL, P<0.05) in comparison to decellularized allografts (5.03±0.35 vs. 5.99±1.09 mmHg/mL). This led to impaired ventriculoarterial coupling in the prosthesis group, while it remained unchanged in the allograft group (62.5±50.9 vs. 3.9±23.4%). Z showed a strong increasing tendency in the prosthesis group and it was markedly higher after replacement when compared to decellularized allografts (44.6±8.3dyn·sec·cm−5 vs. 32.4±2.0dyn·sec·cm−5, P<0.05). Conclusions Total aortic arch replacement leads to contractility-afterload mismatch by means of increased impedance and invert ventriculoarterial coupling ratio after implantation of conventional prostheses. Implantation of decellularized allografts preserves vascular impedance thereby improving ventriculoarterial mechanoenergetics after aortic arch replacement.
The General Circulation of the Atmosphere

ON May 18 a meeting of the Royal Meteorological Society was held to discuss the problem of the changing pattern of lergescale flow in the atmosphere, usually known as the ‘geberak circulation'. In opening the discussion, Dr. E. T. Eady pointed out that even on a large scale, when the motion has been smoothed of such small-scale and transient irregularities as traielling depressions and anticyclones, fronts, etc., we were not concerned with a problem of steady motion ; 5-day mean charts smooth out most of the travelling disturbances (including the ‘long waves’ which travel, on the average, nearly a complete wave-length during this period), but differ very considerably among themselves even for the same time of year. Only when we take means over a long period does the mean flow approximate to that shown on climatological charts. The general behaviour is reminiscent of small-scale turbulent motion (friction-ally induced) in aerodynamics, means over longer and longer periods bringing out disturbances of longer and longer wave-length, finally yielding a quasi-steady mean flow. Although the mechanism by which large turbulent disturbances in the atmosphere are continually regenerated (to make up for frictional dissipation) differs from that by which small-scale aerodynamic turbulence is maintained, there is a broad similarity between the two types of turbulence. Just as in aerodynamics, we cannot divorce the study of the mean motion from that of the turbulent disturbances, since these are mutually determining.
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 384 Organisation of Asthma in Primary Care , Quality of Life and Sex-related Aspects in Asthma Outcomes

Lisspers, K. 2008. Organisation of Asthma in Primary Care, Quality of Life and Sex-related Aspects in Asthma Outcomes. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Medicine 384. 63 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-7304-4. Objectives: To investigate the organisation of asthma care in primary care and evaluate outcomes for patients attending primary care centres with and without asthma clinics. Other objectives were to study the association between quality of life and asthma control in patients in primary care and to analyse sex differences regarding asthma outcomes related to menopausal status. Material and methods: Cross-sectional surveys and a patient record study. Results: Of all the primary health care centres, 77% had a spirometer and 53% an asthma clinic. At centres with asthma clinics 77% of the patients reported sufficient knowledge of asthma as compared with 65% at centres without asthma clinics (p<0.001). With more time allocated for the nurse, 44% of patients achieved asthma control as compared with 27% at asthma clinics with less time (p<0.003). Patients using short-acting beta-2 agonists more than twice in the last week had clinically significant lower MiniAQLQ scores (5.17 versus 5.91). This finding also held for night awakenings during the previous week (4.42 versus 5.86), courses of oral corticosteroids (5.26 versus 5.64) and reported emergency consultations during the last six months (4.85 versus 5.71). Premenopausal women had significantly lower total MiniAQLQ scores than men in the same age group (5.44 versus 5.89, p<0.001), while no difference was found between postmenopausal women and men of similar ages. The adjusted odds for premenopausal women for asthma exacerbations was 2.0 (95%CI 1.22-3.43) as compared with men in the same age group. No differences were found when comparing postmenopausal women with men of similar ages. Conclusions: Half the primary health care centres had an asthma clinic and the majority had access to a spirometer. Patients at primary health care centres with asthma clinics reported better knowledge of their disease, and asthma control is more often achieved if the nurse is allocated more time. Achieving asthma control is associated with better quality of life in patients in primary care. Premenopausal women had lower quality of life and less often asthma control then men of the same ages, while no corresponding difference was found between postmenopausal women and men of similar ages.
Subject-specific AIF optimizes reproducibility of perfusion parameters in longitudinal DSC-MRI in comparison to session and population level AIF

K. Mouridsen, K. E. Emblem, A. Bjørnerud, D. Jennings, and G. Sorensen Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University | Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Interventional Centre, Rikshospitalet, Olso University Hospital, Oslo, Norway
An historic step for advanced cytopathology training in Canada

What has been taken for granted in some countries was recently attained in Canada: advanced cytopathology training has finally obtained official recognition. In April 2012, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) made the decision to assign the newly developed status of “Area of Focused Competence” (AFC) to cytopathology. This is a victory for many dedicated Canadian advocates, including cytopathologists heavily involved with the Canadian Society of Cytopathology (CSC), who have worked tirelessly for more than 18 years to request an official status for advanced training in cytopathology in Canada. Although cytopathology is a relatively new branch of medicine, it is very well recognized in other parts of the world as a subspecialty and, in many ways, represents a cutting-edge approach to understanding disease mechanisms at a cellular level. Thus, inspired by the subspecialty status already long attained by cytopathology in other countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, the CSC had submitted 2 previous applications in the last 20 years to the RCPSC requesting subspecialty status for cytopathology. Although the Canadian Association of Pathologists supported such a request, the RCPSC rejected both applications, perhaps related to some lack of support in the pathology community and the issue of whether additional training in cytopathology merited subspecialty status recognition. Further attempts were inhibited by the moratorium imposed by the RCSPC on any additional subspecialty designations in Canada. The light on the horizon for the CSC was a draft proposal in April 2009 for the creation of a new category of RCSPC discipline recognition, the AFC (Diploma) program, which was eventually approved on February 25, 2011. The AFC program was developed to provide “a mechanism to formally recognize disciplines that meet a legitimate societal health need, but that do not meet the current criteria for a primary specialty or subspecialty. ” The AFC was designed to provide supplemental or advanced training within an additional or highly specific and narrow scope. The AFC development was viewed by the CSC as a new opportunity for the official recognition of cytopathology. Under the supervision of Drs. Michele Weir and Karim Khetani, then CSC Past-Chair and Chair, respectively, and with the assistance of current and prior CSC executive members, the CSC submitted the application to request AFC status for cytopathology. It was successfully approved by the RCPSC in April 2012. The recognition of cytopathology under the umbrella of AFC status is a definite step in the right direction, although the majority of, if not all, Canadian cytopathologists still consider cytopathology as “worthy” of subspecialty status; therefore, further work remains for the CSC in this regard.
Adaptation Scheme for Improved Multimedia Communication

The growth and application of mobile devices in accessing multimedia contents, including mobile video calls and distribution of images among people globally is constraining the wireless network resources. Due to dynamic nature of wireless network and limited networking resources, adaptation scheme for improved multimedia communication is proposed. Considering the impact of channel errors on received mobile video quality performance, the scheme employs adaptation process in the design process. The scheme improves received video quality performance by systematically adapting the encoding parameters for efficient delivery of video streams. Performance of the proposed scheme is tested using simulated wireless model. The result shows that the proposed scheme can improve the quality of multimedia communication over error prone wireless channel.
Upper bound on non-coherent MIMO channel capacity in Rayleigh fading

Limits of information transfer over a discrete time uncorrelated Rayleigh fading MIMO channel is considered, where neither the transmitter nor the receiver has the knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) except the fading statistics. We show the capacity supremum with the receive antenna number at any SNR using Lagrange optimisation. Furthermore, we show the asymptotic capacity when the input power is large, and compare with the existing capacity results when the receiver is equipped with large number of antennas
La educación del trabajo social en Chile: hacia un siglo de historia

Adentrarnos en los cambios ocurridos en noventa anos de historia del trabajo social chileno, significa comprenderlo al interior de la historia social del Pais. En ese sentido, la profesion nacio ligada a los desafios sociales, culturales y politicos de principios del siglo XX chileno. La historiografia de la profesion, concuerda con el origen secular de esta, pues la primera escuela de servicio social «dr. Alejandro del Rio» (pionera en Chile y America latina) se abrio en 1925 y estuvo vinculada a la atencion sanitaria, a traves de la Junta nacional de beneficencia (hoy Ministerio de salud), con un caracter cientifico y de progreso, propio de la epoca. En ese sentido, la influencia positivista moderna 1 ,