Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OPTIMAL PLASMA CONCENTRATION OF THROMBOMODULIN ALFA TO TREAT SEPSIS-INDUCED DISSEMINATED INTRAVASCULAR COAGULATION

ABSTRACT Thrombomodulin alfa (TM alfa) has been shown effective for treatment of disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) associated with sepsis, although the optimal therapeutic plasma concentration has not been clarified. In the present study, the plasma trough concentration of TM alfa in septic patients with DIC was determined, then the cutoff value for that concentration showing influence on treatment outcome was calculated using a receiver operating characteristic curve. With a cutoff value of 1,010, the area under the curve of the receiver operating characteristic was 0.669 (95% confidence interval, 0.530–0.808), with sensitivity of 0.458 and specificity of 0.882. To evaluate its accuracy, patients were divided into those above or below the cutoff value, and 90-day survival rates were compared. The above-cutoff group showed a significantly higher 90-day survival rate (91.7%) as compared with the below-cutoff group (63.4%) (P = 0.017), with a hazard ratio of 0.199 (95% confidence interval, 0.045–0.871). Interestingly, the incidence of hemorrhagic adverse effects was not significantly different between the groups. Based on these results, the recommended plasma trough concentration of TM alfa for treatment of septic DIC is 1,010 ng/mL, which should minimize the risk of severe bleeding while maximizing the therapeutic effect.
Reply letter to “Vaccine effectiveness of recombinant and standard dose influenza vaccines against outpatient illness during 2018–2019 and 2019–2020 calculated using a retrospective test-negative design”

ABSTRACT A recent study by Zimmerman et al. (2023) reported non-significant higher relative vaccine effectiveness of recombinant (RIV4) over the standard-dose influenza vaccines (SDIV) against outpatient illness during the 2018–19 and 2019–20 vaccination seasons. We agree with the authors’ conclusions and would like to emphasize minimal difference between RIV4 and SDIV using Number Needed to Vaccinate (NNV). The NNV analysis showed 8.9 for the RIV4 and 10 for the SDIV in the 50–64 age group. In the 65+ age group, the NNV was 10.6 for the RIV4 and 11.4 for the SDIV. This indicates a minimal difference between both vaccines and hence they both can be used in immunization programs to improve vaccine coverage.
Effect of positive thinking skills training on nurse’s job burnout

Introduction: Nurses are at risk of burnout due to exposure to physical, mental, and emotional stresses that can cause physical, mental problems and the imposition of direct and indirect costs on individuals and society. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of positive thinking skills training as a psychological intervention on burnout in nurses Razi Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran. Methods: In this semi-experimental study, preand post-test plan with a control group was used. All of the nurses working in Razi Psychiatric Hospital in Tehran Iran, in year 2015 were our statistical research community. 30 nurses were selected Based on purposive sampling method. They were randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control. Positive thinking skills were trained to experimental groups during eight 45-minutes sessions, twice a week. We used the Maslach Burnout Inventory to assess the level of burnout. Results: Using analysis of covariance, independent t-test, paired T showed that prevalence of burnout was significantly different on the basis of sex, marital status, and work experience. The average score of burnout frequency (p=0/014) and burnout severity (p=0/031) was reduced significantly after intervention in the experimental group. Conclusion: Result showed that the Positive thinking skills training decreases the burnout of nurses. So, the method used in this study can be considered as an appropriate method for psychological-education interventions, counseling and treatment in nurses.
THE EXACT AND APPROXIMATE STRING MATCHING WITH BURROWS-WHEELER TRANSFORM

This paper describes how the problem of exact and approximate string matching can be resolved using Burrows-Wheeler Transform. The paper considers how compressed full-text indexes work and allow string matching algorithms to operate in a limited space. Two main data structures presented in the text are Wavelet Tree and Bi-directional Burrows Wheeler Transform.
Nonlinear waveguides

We investigate the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a cylindrical waveguide with an arbitrary cross section filled with a nonlinear material. The electromagnetic field is expanded in the usual eigenmodes of the waveguide, and the coupling between the modes is quantified. We derive the wave equations governing each mode with special emphasis on the situation with a dominant TE mode. The result is a strictly hyperbolic system of nonlinear partial differential equations for the dominating mode, whereas the minor modes satisfy hyperbolic systems of linear, nonstationary, and partial differential equations. A growth estimate is given for the minor modes.
Analysis Of the Total Electrical Length Extremum Of TSSIR Using Lagrange Multipliers Method

A systematic approach to determine the extreme value of total electrical length for trisection stepped impedance resonator (TSSIR) is proposed in this paper. It utilizes the Lagrange multipliers method to search the extremum condition. Result demonstrates that the maximum resonator length of TSSIR is limited to triple that of the corresponding uniform impedance resonator (UIR). Spurious resonant frequency of λ/2 TSSIR is mainly analysized under the extremum condition (θ1≠θ2≠θ3). Through comparison between the proposed approach and previously assumed condition (θ1=θ2=θ3), the staircase discontinuity of transmission line can be reduced using the paper theory to achieve same harmonic ratio. Last, a simulated example is presented to verify correctness of the method. This paper aims to provide a theoretical basis and general guideline for the filter design using TSSIR.
Energy-Preserving Ambisonic Decoding

Ambisonics with height is a three-dimensional sound field reproduction technique for spherical loudspeaker arrangements surrounding the reproduction area. It employs spherical harmonics up to a given order to expand incident sound fields with a limited angular resolution. The expansion coefficients describe the spatial sound scene. For reproduction, these coefficients are decoded to a set of surrounding loudspeakers. Common decoding approaches either sample the spherical harmonic excitation at the loudspeaker positions or match the excitation modes of a continuous sound field to those of the loudspeakers. For well-designed spherical loudspeaker arrays, both decoding approaches achieve good perceptual localization of virtual sound sources. However, both approaches perform unsatisfactorily with non-uniformly arranged arrays. Sounds from directions with only sparse loudspeaker coverage appear with altered loudness levels. This distracting effect results from variations in the decoded energy. The present article demonstrates an improved decoding technique, which preserves the decoded energy. Using available objective estimators, the localization qualities of these energy-preserving decoders are shown to lie between both common decoding approaches.
A COMPREHENSIVE CONSTITUTIVE EQUATION FOR GRANULAR MATERIALS

ABSTRACT A constitutive equation is proposed for describing changes of states of granular materials which are sufficiently characterized by the void ratio and the stress tensor. It may be considered as an extension of the Critical State concept. It is based on recently published hypoplastic equations and covers a wide range of densities, pressures and deformations. A factorial decomposition allows a rather easy separation and determination of material parameters. Two factors depend on a relative void ratio so that it remains within lower and upper bounds. The bounding void ratios decrease monotonously from maximal values to zero with increasing pressure. The same reduction of the void ratio is proposed for an isotropic compression starting from a suspension. Thus a granulate hardness is defined, and a stiffness factor can be determined. Four material parameters can be estimated from classification tests and determined from the asymptotic behaviour in element tests. Four further parameters are determined by calibration; they are rather constant for wide groups of materials. Strength and stiffness values can be derived and used for the analysis of deformations, stability, and flow. The viscous behaviour is modelled by a rate dependent factor with one further parameter. Limitations and possible extensions of this comprehensive approach are also outlined.
A study on the clinical spectrum of Hepatitis C virus infection from a tertiary care center in Sub-Himalayan India—spontaneous clearance, a neglected phenomenon

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has varied clinical manifestations. Noninvasive tools can be useful to assess the severity of liver disease and the rate of spontaneous clearance. HCV infection was determined by antibody or RNA-based tests over a period of 18 months in 8030 samples from the Gastroenterology department. Noninvasive indicators (AST-to-platelet ratio index and fibrosis-4 index) were computed. HCV RNA load was compared with Child–Turcotte–Pugh score. Rate of spontaneous clearance was estimated. About 3.2% of patients were found to have HCV. Fatigue, anorexia, and nausea were the primary complaints followed by ascites and encephalopathy. Extrahepatic features such as autoimmune hepatitis and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma were rare. There was an absence of advanced liver cirrhosis (κ = 0.96) in the majority of cases. Spontaneous HCV resolution was seen in 10.37%.
Effectors of anterior morphogenesis in C. elegans embryos

ABSTRACT During embryogenesis the nascent Caenorhabditis elegans epidermis secretes an apical extracellular matrix (aECM) that serves as an external stabilizer, preventing deformation of the epidermis by mechanical forces exerted during morphogenesis. At present, the factors that contribute to aECM function are mostly unknown, including the aECM components themselves, their posttranslational regulators, and the pathways required for their secretion. Here we showed that two proteins previously linked to aECM function, SYM-3/FAM102A and SYM-4/WDR44, colocalize to intracellular and membrane-associated puncta and likely function in a complex. Proteomics experiments also suggested potential roles for SYM-3/FAM102A and SYM-4/WDR44 family proteins in intracellular trafficking. Nonetheless, we found no evidence to support a critical function for SYM-3 or SYM-4 in the apical deposition of two aECM components, NOAH-1 and FBN-1. Moreover, loss of a key splicing regulator of fbn-1, MEC-8/RBPMS2, had surprisingly little effect on the abundance or deposition of FBN-1. Using a focused screening approach, we identified 32 additional proteins that likely contribute to the structure and function of the embryonic aECM. We also characterized morphogenesis defects in embryos lacking mir-51 microRNA family members, which display a similar phenotype to mec-8; sym double mutants. Collectively, these findings add to our knowledge of factors controlling embryonic morphogenesis.
Intrarectal Foley catheter-assisted high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation for benign uterine diseases beyond the treatment region

Abstract Objective To evaluate the feasibility of using an intrarectal Foley catheter during ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (US-HIFU) in patients with benign uterine diseases of the posterior wall beyond the HIFU therapeutic range. Methods Patients were treated with US-HIFU and lesion changes were monitored using contrast-enhanced MRI from June 2020 to September 2021. A Foley catheter was inserted into the rectum to facilitate a successful US-HIFU ablation. Complications and lesion responses were recorded during the treatment and follow-up. Results Thirteen patients with 14 lesions beyond the device’s treatable area were enrolled. The average placement time and insertion depth of the intrarectal Foley catheter was 7.6 ± 2.7 min and 23.2 ± 7.6 cm, respectively. A median of 50 mL degassed water was injected into the Foley catheter balloon. All 14 lesions were successfully pushed into a treatable area and subjected to HIFU. The average treatment time, irradiation time, and total therapeutic energy of HIFU were 44.2 ± 17.3 min, 394.4 ± 295.7 s, and 73.3 ± 46.6 kJ, respectively. The mean non-perfusion volume (NPV) in all treated lesions was 23.2 ± 19.2 cm3, and the mean NPV ratio was 57.8 ± 16.9%. Major complications were not observed. Conclusion Intrarectal Foley catheter-assisted US-HIFU is effective and safe. Its clinical application could benefit patients with benign uterine diseases outside the HIFU therapeutic range.
2023 ESH Guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension The Task Force for the management of arterial hypertension of the European Society of Hypertension Endorsed by the European Renal Association (ERA) and the International Society of Hypertension (ISH).

DOCUMENT REVIEWERS Luis Alcocer (Mexico), Christina Antza (Greece), Mustafa Arici (Turkey), Eduardo Barbosa (Brazil), Adel Berbari (Lebanon), Luís Bronze (Portugal), John Chalmers (Australia), Tine De Backer (Belgium), Alejandro de la Sierra (Spain), Kyriakos Dimitriadis (Greece), Dorota Drozdz (Poland), Béatrice Duly-Bouhanick (France), Brent M. Egan (USA), Serap Erdine (Turkey), Claudio Ferri (Italy), Anthony Heagerty (UK), Slavomira Filipova (Slovak Republic), Michael Hecht Olsen (Denmark), Dagmara Hering (Poland), Uday Jadhav (India), Manolis Kallistratos (Greece), Kazuomi Kario (Japan), Vasilios Kotsis (Greece), Adi Leiba (Israel), Patricio López-Jaramillo (Colombia), Hans-Peter Marti (Norway), Terry McCormack (UK), Paolo Mulatero (Italy), Dike B. Ojji (Nigeria), Sungha Park (South Korea), Priit Pauklin (Estonia), Sabine Perl (Austria), Arman Postadzhian (Bulgaria), Aleksander Prejbisz (Poland), Venkata Ram (India), Ramiro Sanchez (Argentina), Markus Schlaich (Australia), Alta Schutte (Australia), Cristina Sierra (Spain), Sekib Sokolovic (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Jonas Spaak (Sweden), Dimitrios Terentes-Printzios (Greece), Bruno Trimarco (Italy), Thomas Unger (The Netherlands), Bert-Jan van den Born (The Netherlands), Anna Vachulova (Slovak Republic), Agostino Virdis (Italy), Jiguang Wang (China), Ulrich Wenzel (Germany), Paul Whelton (USA), Jiri Widimsky (Czech Republic), Jacek Wolf (Poland), Grégoire Wuerzner (Switzerland), Eugene Yang (USA), Yuqing Zhang (China).
Patients’ experiences with the application of medical adhesives to the skin: a qualitative systematic review protocol

Introduction Medical adhesives are adhesives used in medical devices to establish and maintain contact with the body over a period of time (usually by application to the skin) and are widely used in most care settings. Application of medical adhesives to the skin can lead to skin stripping, mild or severe allergic reactions and skin irritation that may manifest as redness, itching or rash. Adhesive-related skin injury can lead to infection, delayed wound healing and an increased risk of scarring. These injuries can cause severe discomfort and pain, and can affect the patient’s quality of life. A systematic review summarising patient’s experiences on this topic will contribute to informing adhesive producers and policy makers, and guiding further development and improvement of available technologies. Methods and analysis This systematic review protocol is based on the principles of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols guideline. A systematic search will be conducted in CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE and PsycINFO. In addition, manual searches will be performed, reviewing the reference lists of relevant reviews and articles included for quality assessment. Qualitative studies using various methods will be considered for inclusion. Screening of title, abstract and full text will be done by two reviewers. The methodological quality of studies under consideration will be critically assessed by two reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Tool for Qualitative Research. Data extraction will be performed independently by two reviewers using a predefined data extraction form. Meta-aggregation will be used to summarise the evidence. Ethics and dissemination No ethical approval or consent is required because no participants will be recruited. This systematic review protocol is published in an open access journal to increase transparency of the research methods used. Results will be disseminated at national and international conferences.
Predicting the chemotherapeutic response of colorectal cancer liver metastasis using shear-wave elastography

Purpose The aim of this study was to assess the role of the shear-wave velocity (SWV) value in predicting chemotherapeutic response and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with colorectal cancer liver metastasis (CRLM). Methods In this prospective single-center study, participants with CRLM scheduled for chemotherapy were enrolled between May 2018 and June 2021. SWV measurements were obtained using shear-wave elastography at the CRLM site before and after initiating chemotherapy. Based on the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors, the participants were categorized by chemotherapeutic response into responders (complete remission and partial remission) and non-responders (stable disease and progressive disease). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance of changes in SWV measurements in predicting the chemotherapeutic response of CRLM. In addition, a Cox proportional hazards model was used to identify variables associated with PFS. Results In total, 67 participants (40 men; mean age, 62.3±10.1 years) were enrolled, including 34 responders and 33 non-responders. The area under the ROC curve, sensitivity, and negative predictive value of the SWV measurement in predicting non-responders were 0.840, 97.0%, and 95.2%, respectively, using a cutoff value of a 13% decrease. Additionally, a change in SWV values was independently associated with PFS (hazard ratio, 1.020), non-responder status, and the presence of five or more CRLMs. Conclusion A change in SWV values measured after chemotherapy demonstrated meaningful diagnostic performance in predicting non-responsiveness among patients with CRLM. Additionally, a change in SWV values was independently associated with PFS.
Optimal Tetrahedralization for Small Polyhedron: A New Local Transformation Strategy for 3-D Mesh Generation and Mesh Improvement

: Local transformation, or topological re-connection, is one of effective procedures of mesh improvement method, especially in three-dimensional situation. The commonly used local transformations for tetrahedral mesh involve changing in mesh topology (i.e. node-element connectivity relationship) within a relatively small region composed of several tetrahedra, such as 2-3 ﬂip, 3-2 ﬂip, 2-2 ﬂip, 4-4 ﬂip, etc. Although these local transformations are easy to implement and effective in removing poorly-shaped tetrahedra, it is still possible to improve the quality of mesh further by expanding the space of transformation region. In this paper, the concept of optimal tetrahedralization for small polyhedron and corresponding small polyhedron re-connection (or SPR for abbreviating) approach are presented. As a new local transformation scheme and a potential substitute for the existing ones, the presented method seeks for the optimal tetrahedralization of a polyhedron with a certain number of vertexes and faces (typically composed of 20 to 40 tetrahedral elements) rather than simply making a selection from several possible conﬁgurations within a small region that consists of several tetrahedra, and therefore will give better results than existing ones. Despite of quite high time complexity of the optimal searching algorithm, the presented approach can be signiﬁcantly speeded up by some deliberate strategies. Experimental investigation and results on tetrahedral ﬁnite element mesh show that the SPR approach is quite effective in improvement of mesh quality with acceptable time cost, and more suitable for combining with smoothing approach.
Toward a Test Set of Dislocations in Persian for Neural Machine Translation

This paper describes a test set designed to analyse the translation of dislocations from Persian, to be used for testing neural machine translation models. We first tested the accuracy of the two Universal dependency treebanks for Persian to automatically detect dislocations. Then we parsed the available Persian treebanks on GREW (Bonfante et al., 2018) to build a specific test set containing examples of dislocations. With available aligned data on OPUS (Tiedemann, 2016), we trained a model to translate from Persian into English on openNMT (Klein et al., 2017). We report the results of our translation test set by several toolkits (Google Translate, MBART-50 (Tang et al., 2020), Microsoft Bing and our in-house translation model) for the translation into English. We discuss why dislocations in Persian provide an interesting testbed for neural machine translation.
Strip cropping in organically managed vegetable systems: agronomic and environmental effects

Abstract This study evaluated the agro-environmental and economic effectiveness of strips introduced in a diversified organic vegetable system. Two experiments of three experimental years (2018, 2019, 2020) were carried out within the 4-year rotation of MOnsampolo VEgetable organic Long-Term Experiment (MOVE LTE) in Central Italy to test strip cropping vs pure stand. The crop combinations in the two experiments were faba bean (Vicia faba L.)–tomato (Solanum Lycopersicum L.) and common wheat (Triticum aestivum)–zucchini (Cucurbita pepo L.). We determined the productive and economic performances, disease and weed control, nutritional differences and effectiveness in returning carbon to the soil. The two strip cropping systems allowed a better use of resources, enhancing plant biomass and crop residues, particularly for tomato (+24%) and zucchini (+63%). However, the greater plant biomass did not always result in an increase in crop yields. For example, while the wheat–zucchini strip system showed a land equivalent ratio >1 in all three experimental years with a high yield performance in zucchini (+54% of yield), the faba bean–tomato system was more productive in strips only in 2018. On the contrary, this latter system contributed a carbon return >1 in all three experimental years. No significant differences between strip and pure stand systems were observed for fusarium (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. lycopersici) and oidium (Oidium spp.) diseases on tomato and zucchini crops, respectively, and for weed control. Lastly, greater labor costs associated in both experiments did not affect their profitability (+21% and +319% in faba bean–tomato and wheat–zucchini experiments, respectively). Overall, our findings pointed out that farmers could increase sustainability of their cropping systems with the introduction of a well-designed strip cropping system, which can lead to the reduction of economic risks, greater potential soil carbon and more efficient use of resources on the same land.