Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variability in access to hospital palliative care in the United States.

BACKGROUND Hospital palliative care programs provide high-quality, comprehensive care for seriously ill patients and their families. OBJECTIVE To examine geographic variation in patient and medical trainee access to hospital palliative care and to examine predictors of these programs. METHODS Primary and secondary analyses of national survey and census data. Hospital data including hospital palliative care programs were obtained from the American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Survey Databasetrade mark for fiscal year 2006 supplemented by mailed surveys. Medical school-affiliated hospitals were obtained from the American Association of Medical Colleges, Web-site review, and telephone survey. Health care utilization data were obtained from the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008. Multivariate logistic regression was used to identify characteristics significantly associated with the presence of hospital palliative care. RESULTS A total of 52.8% of hospitals with 50 or more total facility beds reported hospital palliative care with considerable variation by state; 40.9% (144/352) of public hospitals, 20.3% (84/413) of for-profit hospitals, and 28.8% (160/554) of Medicare sole community providers reported hospital palliative care. A total of 84.5% of medical schools were associated with at least one hospital palliative care program. Factors significantly associated (p < 0.05) with hospital palliative care included geographic location, owning a hospice program, having an American College of Surgery approved cancer program, percent of persons in the county with a university education, and medical school affiliation. For-profit and public hospitals were significantly less likely to have hospital palliative care when compared with nonprofit institutions. States with higher hospital palliative care penetration rates were observed to have fewer Medicare hospital deaths, fewer intensive care unit/cardiac care unit (ICU/CCU) days and admissions during the last 6 months of life, fewer ICU/CCU admission during terminal hospitalizations, and lower overall Medicare spending/enrollee. DISCUSSION This study represents the most recent estimate to date of the prevalence of hospital palliative care in the United States. There is wide geographic variation in access to palliative care services although factors predicting hospital palliative care have not changed since 2005. Overall, medical students have high rates of access to hospital palliative care although complete penetration into academic settings has not occurred. The association between hospital palliative care penetration and lower Medicare costs is intriguing and deserving of further study.
Carbamazepine as an anticonvulsant in children

Forty-five children with major motor or psychomotor seizure disorders were treated with carbamazepine in place of sedative anticonvulsants (phenobarbital, primidone) because of chronic behavioral difficulties. A battery of measures believed to reflect attentional and perceptual abilities was administered initially and repeated 4 to 6 months later following the drug crossover. At the conclusion of the study, 37 of the 45 children were judged to be drug “successes”; that is, general alertness and attentiveness were improved, while seizures were adequately controlled. This study indicates that therapeutic regimens of carbamazepine are less likely to interfere with mental functions in children than are equivalent doses of sedative anticonvulsants.
Action Detection in Cluttered Video With Successive Convex Matching

We propose a novel successive convex matching method for human action detection in cluttered video. Human actions are represented as sequences of poses, and specific actions are detected by matching pose sequences. Since we represent actions as the evolution of poses and shapes, the proposed method can detect actions in videos that involve fast camera motions. Template sequence to video registration is nonlinear and highly nonconvex. Instead of directly solving the hard problem, our method convexifies it into a sequence of linear programs and refines the matching by successive trust region shrinkage. The proposed scheme further simplifies the linear programs by representing the target point space with a small set of basis points. The low complexity of the proposed method enables it to search efficiently in a large range. Experiments show that successive convex matching can robustly match a sequence of coupled shape templates simultaneously to target sequences and effectively detect specific actions in cluttered videos.
The first use of EaeI restriction enzyme in DNA diagnosis of Hb Q‐India

Introduction: The α‐chain variant Hb Q‐India (c.193G>C) is caused by a point mutation GAC→CAC at codon 64 of the α1 globin gene and is clinically silent. Point mutations can be diagnosed easily by many simple polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques including PCR‐restriction digest, but for Hb Q‐India the restriction digest has never been described. In this work we aimed to develop a restriction enzyme digestion assay for DNA diagnosis of Hb Q‐India, in order to increase the panel of restriction enzymes used in DNA diagnosis of haemoglobinopathies and also as a simple cheap alternative to the ARMS‐PCR method.
The influence of gaze direction on the comprehension of speech and gesture in triadic communication

1. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525XD Nijmegen, The Netherlands, (judith.holler@mpi.nl) 2. University of Manchester, School of Psychological Sciences, Coupland Building 1, M13 9PL Manchester, UK 3. Colgate University, Psychology Department, Center for Language and Brain, Oak Drive 13, Hamilton, NY 13346, USA 4. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Montessorilaan 3, 6525 HR Nijmegen, The Netherlands 5. Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Erasmusplein 1, 6525HT Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Inhibitory KIR3DL1 alleles are associated with psoriasis

DEAR EDITOR, Genetic association studies have implicated over 40 genetic loci in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, with the largest signal observed at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I locus for human leucocyte antigen (HLA)-C. However, recent data also suggest a lesser but significant pathogenic role for HLA-B. Although both of these molecules participate in adaptive immunity through antigen presentation, they can also regulate the innate immune response through interaction with killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) expressed on the surface of both natural killer cells and a subset of T cells. KIRs form a family of receptors encoded by a cluster of 14 genes on chromosome 19q13 4. They may encode activating or inhibitory receptors that bind the Bw4 motif on HLA-B or the C1/C2 motif on HLA-C. Previous studies have shown that the presence of activating KIR3DS1 and KIR2DS1 mutations is associated with increased susceptibility to psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. These results are consistent with a model wherein expression of activating KIRs increases the risk of developing immune-mediated diseases. However, whether decreased expression of inhibitory KIRs is also associated with increased risk of psoriasis has not been fully explored. The inhibitory KIR3DL1 is among the most polymorphic of all KIR loci (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ipd/kir/stats.html). Cellsurface expression of KIR3DL1 varies greatly between alleles, and alleles can be classified into three allotypes: KIR3DL1*NULL (no cell-surface expression: *004 and *019), KIR3DL1*LOW (low expression: *005, *007 and *053) and KIR3DL1*HIGH (high expression: *001, *002, *008, *009, *015, *020, *029 and *035). The ligand for KIR3DL1 is the Bw4 epitope present on several HLA-B molecules such as HLA-B*57, HLAB*27 and HLA-A*24. To investigate the association of KIR3DL1 and HLA-Bw4 with psoriasis, we carried out genotyping of KIR3DL1 and HLA-B in a cohort of 314 subjects (203 with psoriasis and 111 healthy controls) of European descent recruited from the U.S.A. Diagnosis of psoriasis was established by a dermatologist. The average age of onset of psoriasis was 19 years, 54% of patients were female, and approximately 23% were diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. Controls were healthy volunteers without a history of autoimmune disease; their average age was 39 0 years and 51 4% were female. KIR3DL1 typing was performed by sequencing exons 3, 4, 5 and 9 of KIR3DL1. The primers and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) conditions are shown in Table S1 (see Supporting Information). KIR3DL1 alleles were called from the sequencing data using Assign software (Conexio Genomics, Fremantle, Australia). HLA typing of cases was performed as previously described. HLA typing of controls was performed with the PCR sequence-based typing method recommended by the 13th International Histocompatibility Workshop (http:// www.ihwg.org). HLA sequences were analysed using Assign software. In a minority of cases with missing HLA-B typing (n = 18), HLA-B genotypes were imputed with genome-wide association data (Appendix S1; see Supporting Information).
Clear signals or mixed messages: inter-individual emotion congruency modulates brain activity underlying affective body perception

The neural basis of emotion perception has mostly been investigated with single face or body stimuli. However, in daily life one may also encounter affective expressions by groups, e.g. an angry mob or an exhilarated concert crowd. In what way is brain activity modulated when several individuals express similar rather than different emotions? We investigated this question using an experimental design in which we presented two stimuli simultaneously, with same or different emotional expressions. We hypothesized that, in the case of two same-emotion stimuli, brain activity would be enhanced, while in the case of two different emotions, one emotion would interfere with the effect of the other. The results showed that the simultaneous perception of different affective body expressions leads to a deactivation of the amygdala and a reduction of cortical activity. It was revealed that the processing of fearful bodies, compared with different-emotion bodies, relied more strongly on saliency and action triggering regions in inferior parietal lobe and insula, while happy bodies drove the occipito-temporal cortex more strongly. We showed that this design could be used to uncover important differences between brain networks underlying fearful and happy emotions. The enhancement of brain activity for unambiguous affective signals expressed by several people simultaneously supports adaptive behaviour in critical situations.
A robust matrix root-clustering technique for vehicle dynamics : the output feedback case

This paper deals with the active control in vehicles to improve safety and stability. A 4 WS vehicle model based on the roll, yaw and lateral dynamics is used. In design, the vehicle dynamics are represented by a LPV (linear parameter varying) model subject to external disturbances. According to this, the corresponding state-space model is affected by both polytopic and norm-bounded uncertainties. It is aimed to compute K, associated with a robust static output feedback, so as to place the set of all eigenvalues of the uncertain closed-loop state matrix Acl in a clustering region, denoted by DC, while minimizing the effect of the lateral disturbances on the system and ensuring some transient performances. This paper proposes a heuristic resolution to compute K. It is based on genetic algorithms (nonhere detailed) and on the resolution of LMI. In order to highlight the performance of the proposed control algorithm, numerical simulations are performed.
Differential splicing in the extracellular region of fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 generates receptor variants with different ligand-binding specificities

We have cloned a genomic region of the murine fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptor 1 (FGFR1) gene that includes three alternative exons for the third immunoglobulinlike domain in the extracellular region of the receptor. The mRNA of one of these splice variants encodes a secreted receptor that lacks transmembrane and cytoplasmic sequences as well as a portion of the third immunoglobulinlike domain. Highest levels of mRNA encoding this variant were found in brain, skeletal muscle, and skin. We expressed this form of FGFR1 in CHO cells and showed that the recombinant secreted protein binds acidic FGF. We also discovered a novel alternative exon in the third immunoglobulinlike domain that encodes part of a transmembrane FGFR1 mRNA. This exon is highly homologous to the corresponding region of the keratinocyte growth factor receptor. Transcripts including this exon were present at highest levels in the skin. We cloned an FGFR1 cDNA which includes this exon and expressed this receptor variant in L6 rat skeletal muscle myoblasts. The new receptor variant had a 50-fold-lower affinity for basic FGF than does the published FGFR1 variant, whereas both forms of receptor bound acidic FGF with high affinity. These results show that the third immunoglobulinlike domain plays an important role in determining the binding specificities for different FGFs. Our data provide the first evidence that differential splicing in the extracellular region of a receptor gene generates receptor variants with different ligand-binding specificities.
A Survey on Predictive Data mining Approaches for Medical Informatics

Among various data mining techniques, classification analysis is widely adopted for supporting medical diagnostic decisions. Medical diagnosis is considered as a classification problem: a record represents a given patient's case, predictor features are all patients' data and the class label is the diagnosis. Subsequently, the built classification model is essential and used to predict appropriate classes for novel and uncategorized cases. Medical data often contain irrelevant features and noise. Feature selection is frequently adopted to identify and remove the irrelevant and redundant information as much as possible. The selection of appropriate subset of the available features can yield a compact and easily interpretable representation of the target concept, model the target task adequately, and improve the classification accuracy especially in medical region . The Medical diagnosis is a complex and dynamic system with noisy, non stationary and chaotic data series. The aim of this paper is to explain the potential day by day research contributions of data mining to solve the complex problem of Medical diagnosis prediction. This study paper synthesizes five significant works and explains how data mining is gaining popularity in medical field.
Early Immunological Response to German Cockroach Frass Exposure Induces a Th2/Th17 Environment

Cockroach exposure is a major risk factor for the development of asthma; however, the early immune events induced by cockroach leading to the Th2 response are not fully understood. Exposure of naïve mice to German cockroach (GC) feces (frass) was sufficient to induce dendritic cell (DC) recruiting and activating chemokines C-C motif ligand 20, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and macrophage inflammatory protein-1α into the airways. This corresponded with an increase in myeloid DCs (mDCs) in the airways as well as increased expression of CD80 and CD86 on the mDCs. Plasmacytoid DCs in the lung were unchanged. Levels of IL-5, IL-17A and IL-6 cytokines in whole lung cultures were significantly increased 18 h following GC frass exposure demonstrating the early development of a mixed Th2/Th17 response. In addition, GC frass stimulated the production of IL-23, IL-6 and IL-12p70 from bone marrow-derived mDCs. Adoptive transfer of GC frass-pulsed mDCs induced airway reactivity, airway inflammation as well as eosinophilia and induced a strong Th2/Th17 response in the lung. MyD88-deficient bone marrow-derived mDCs did not respond to GC frass treatment, suggesting a functional Toll-like receptor pathway was important to induce the Th2/Th17 response. Together, our data show that GC frass activated the innate immune response to augment DC recruitment and activation of mDCs which promoted robust T cell-skewing cytokines and ultimately drive the development of airway inflammation.
Biographische Erfahrungen von Kindern psychisch kranker Eltern

In der Literatur gibt es immer wieder Hinweise auf die Probleme, die mit einer psychischen Erkrankung der Mutter und/oder des Vaters fur die betroffenen Kinder verbunden sind. Wenig Kenntnisse gibt es jedoch daruber, wie Kinder solche Probleme subjektiv erleben, wahrnehmen und emotional darauf reagieren. Auf der Grundlage biographischer Erzahlungen erwachsener Kinder wird der Frage nachgegangen, welche subjektive Bedeutung der psychischen Erkrankung der Mutter und/oder des Vaters fur den Verlauf der eigenen Lebensgeschichte aus der heutigen Perspektive zugesprochen wird und wie diese Erlebnisse und Erfahrungen ruckblickend von den betroffenen Kindern gedeutet und bewertet werden. Ziel ist es, in den individuellen Erfahrungen nach Regelmasigkeiten und Gemeinsamkeiten zu suchen, um dadurch verallgemeinerbare Aussagen uber die Lebenssituation von Kindern psychisch kranker Eltern treffen zu konnen. In the literature you will find some references about the problems of children with parents with mental-health problems. However there is not enough knowledge about the question, how children experience such problems right inside and how their emotionally reaction about this is. Based on biografical interviews with grown-up children this article will show how they integrate the experience of the mental-health problems of their parents in their own live stoies and how they interprete and value them in a retrospective view. This article focussed the regualities and commonness in the individual experiences in their childhood at thereby find generally statements about the life situation of children with mental-health parents.
Group I Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors Mediate Phospholipase D Stimulation in Rat Cultured Astrocytes

Abstract: We have studied the activation of phospholipase D (PLD) by glutamate in rat cultured astrocytes by measuring the PLD‐catalyzed formation of [32P]phosphatidylbutanol in [32P]Pi‐prelabeled cells, stimulated in the presence of butanol. Glutamate elicited the activation of PLD in cortical astrocytes but not in cortical neurons, whereas similar glutamate activation of phosphoinositide phospholipase C was found in both astrocytes and neurons. The extent of PLD stimulation by glutamate was similar in astrocytes from brain cortex and hippocampus, but no effect was found in cerebellar astrocytes. In cortical astrocytes, the glutamate response was insensitive to antagonists of ionotropic glutamate receptors and was reproduced by agonists of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) with a rank order of agonist potency similar to that reported for group I mGluR‐mediated phosphoinositide phospholipase activation [quisqualate > (S)‐3,5‐dihydroxyphenylglycine > (1S,3R)‐1‐aminocyclopentane‐1,3‐dicarboxylic acid]. The response to (1S,3R)‐1‐aminocyclopentane‐1,3‐dicarboxylic acid was inhibited by the mGluR antagonist (S‐α‐methyl‐4‐carboxyphenylglycine and, less potently, by 1‐aminoindan‐1,5‐dicarboxylic acid and 4‐carboxyphenylglycine, two antagonists of group I mGluRs that display higher potency on mGluR1 than on mGluR5. The mGluR5‐selective agonist (RS)‐2‐chloro‐5‐hydroxyphenylglycine also activated PLD in astrocytes. These findings indicate the involvement of group I mGluRs, most likely mGluR5, in the glutamate activation of PLD in cultured rat cortical astrocytes.
A Bidirectional Wireless Power Transfer EV Charger Using Self-Resonant PWM

This letter suggests a large air-gap bidirectional wireless power transfer charger for electric vehicle. It is controlled by pulse width modulation with a self-resonant frequency formed by self-inductance and resonant capacitor so that constant frequency operation can be accomplished under large air-gap without additional current chopper. The feasibility of the proposed method has been verified with a 6.6-kW prototype with air-gap of 12-20 cm.
VERIFUL: VERIfication using FUnctional Learning

It is well known that learning (i.e., indirect implications) based techniques perform very well in many instances of combinational circuit verification when the two circuits being verified have many corresponding internal equivalent points. We present some results on combinational circuit design verification using a powerful, and highly general learning technique called functional learning. Functional learning is based on OBDDs and hence can efficiently learn novel implications based on functional manipulation. <<ETX>>
Carbon dioxide atmospheric vertical profiles retrieved from space observation using ACE-FTS solar occultation instrument

Major limitations of our present knowledge of the global distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere are the uncertainty in atmospheric transport and the sparseness of in situ concentration measurements. Limb viewing spaceborne sounders such as the Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier transform spectrometer (ACE-FTS) offer a vertical resolution of a few kilometres for profiles, which is much better than currently flying or planned nadir sounding instruments can achieve. After having demonstrated the feasibility of obtaining CO2 vertical profiles in the 5-25 km altitude range with an accuracy of about 2 ppm in a previous study, we present here the results of five years of ACE-FTS observations in terms of monthly mean profiles of CO2 averaged over 10 degrees latitude bands for northern mid-latitudes. These results are compared with in-situ aircraft measurements and with simulations from two different air transport models. Key features of the measured altitude distribution of CO2 are shown to be accurately reproduced by the ACE-FTS retrievals: variation in altitude of the seasonal cycle amplitude and extrema, seasonal change of the vertical gradient, and mean growth rate. We show that small but significant differences from model simulations could result from an over estimation of the model circulation strength during the northern hemisphere spring. Coupled with column measurements from a nadir viewing instrument, it is expected that occultation measurements will bring useful constraints to the surface carbon flux determination.
A novel role of breast cancer-derived hyaluronan on inducement of M2-like tumor-associated macrophages formation

ABSTRACT Microenvironmental signals determine the differentiation types and distinct functions of macrophages. Tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) constitute major infiltrates around solid tumor cells and accelerate tumor progression due to their immunosuppressive functions. However, the mechanisms through which tumor microenvironment modulates macrophages transition are not completely elucidated. Hyaluronan (HA), a prominent component in tumor microenvironment, is a notable immunoregulator and its high level is often related to poor prognosis. Herein, we found that the number of M2 macrophages was highly correlated with HA expression in tumor tissues from breast cancer patients. Experimental data showed that breast cancer-derived HA stimulated M2-like TAM formation in a mouse model and had multiple effects on macrophages transformation in vitro, including upregulating CD204, CD206, IL-10 and TGF-β, activating STAT3 signal, and suppressing killing capacity. These data indicate that HA derived from breast cancer activates macrophages in an alternative manner. Further mechanism study revealed that HA-CD44-ERK1/2-STAT3 pathway served as an important regulator in M2-like TAM formation. Therefore, targeting TAM by abrogating HA–CD44 interaction may be a potential strategy for breast cancer immunotherapy.