Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The side effects and complications of percutaneous iodine-125 seeds implantation under CT-guide for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer

Purpose: The present study investigates the side effects and complications of computed tomography (CT)-guided percutaneous iodine-125 (I-125) seeds implantation for advanced pancreatic cancer. Methods: The clinical data were retrospectively analyzed for patients treated with implantation of I-125 seeds under CT-guide in our hospital from May 2010 to April 2015. The side effects and complications were collected and their possible reasons were analyzed. Results: A total of 78 patients were enrolled. The side effects were categorized as fever in 29 cases (37.18%), abdominal pain in 26 cases (33.33%), nausea and vomiting in 9 cases (11.54%), diarrhea in 5 cases (6.41%), and constipation in 4 cases (5.13%). Complications were composed of pancreatitis in 9 cases (11.54%), infection in 5 cases (6.41%), seed migration in 2 cases (2.56%), intestinal perforation in 1 case (1.28%), and intestinal obstruction in 1 case. The incidence of complication was 23.08% (18/78). The difference in incidence of complication was statistically significant between patients implanted with ⩽27 seeds and those with >27 seeds (P = .032). Conclusion: The side effects and complications frequently occur in implantation of I-125 seeds for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. More concern should be given to the patients treated by this technique.
Evaluation of five search strategies in retrieving qualitative patient-reported electronic data on the impact of pressure ulcers on quality of life.

AIM This paper is a report of a study conducted to compare the effectiveness of qualitative methodology search strategies with subject-specific (health-related quality of life) search strategies in the retrieval of qualitative patient-reported data of the impact of pressure ulcers on health-related quality of life. BACKGROUND Methods to locate qualitative patient-reported health-related quality of life research data electronically have undergone little replication and validation. A major problem in searching for this type of data is that it is reported in accounts of both primary qualitative research as well as mixed methods research. DATA SOURCES We combined five search strategies with terms for pressure ulcer and searched seven electronic databases from inception to October 2007. METHODS The sensitivity, specificity, precision and accuracy for each search strategy were assessed. RESULTS A subject-specific (health-related quality of life) search strategy, developed by us, had a high yield (100% sensitivity), but low specificity (<50%). The research methodology-based strategies had lower yields (sensitivity 72-83%) but high specificity (79-83%). Importantly, subject-specific search strategies identified all studies reporting qualitative patient-reported health-related quality of life data, whereas, research methodology-based strategies did not identify qualitative data reported in mixed method studies, making subject-based strategies more effective in retrieving qualitative patient-reported health-related quality of life research. CONCLUSION An important consideration in the health-related quality of life field is that qualitative data are reported in both qualitative and mixed methodology research and searching for this type data involves trade-offs between yield, sensitivity and specificity. Accurate indexing of subject-specific outcomes and methodology used in electronic databases and publications is also needed.
The prognostic value of admission mean platelet volume to platelet count ratio in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention.

BACKGROUND Mean platelet volume to platelet count (MPV/Plt) ratio has been demonstrated to be a good indicator of long-term mortality in patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). However, the prognostic value of MPV/Plt in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is not reported. AIM To determine whether the MPV/Plt ratio on admission has any predictive value for major adverse cardiac events including short- and long-term mortality in STEMI. METHODS In this prospective study, 470 STEMI patients who underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were enrolled. The patients were divided into three tertiles based on the MPV/Plt ratio on admission. The first tertile (n = 149) was defined as MPV/Plt ratio ≤ 0.029, second tertile (n = 154) 0.029-0.038, and third tertile (n = 159) ≥ 0.038. Primary clinical outcomes consisted of the sum of cardiovascular (CV) mortality, non-fatal re-infarction, and stroke. Secondary clinical outcomes were CV mortality, non-fatal re-infarction, target-vessel revascularisation, stroke, and advanced heart failure. RESULTS There was no difference between study groups regarding the primary (p > 0.05) and the secondary outcomes (p > 0.05) except for one-year non-fatal re-infarction rate, which was found to be significantly higher in the highest MPV/Plt ratio group (p = 0.045). Age, Killip class > 1, and left ventricular ejection fraction were found to be independent predictors of long-term CV mortality in multivariate analysis (p = 0.009, p = 0.035, and p < 0.001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS While the MPV/Plt ratio was demonstrated to be associated with one-year non-fatal re-infarction, it was not related to in-hospital, one-month, and one-year CV mortality in patients with STEMI, who underwent primary PCI.
Multiple users' emotion recognition: Improving performance by joint modeling of affective reactions

This paper studies emotion recognition in the context of collaboration. When people are interacting with each other they tend to reach a similar emotional state through mechanisms like empathy and emotion contagion. We thus investigated if participants' emotions could be determined from the affective reactions and behaviors of their partner. Two types of emotional expressions were studied: physiological reactions and speech. Results show that emotions could be recognized with similar performance when employing affective features from the self or the partner. In addition, performance was improved when combining self and partner information. The results demonstrate that in social situations an emotion recognition model should include information about partners.
Preferred therapist characteristics in treatment of anorexia nervosa: the patient's perspective.

OBJECTIVE Previous research in eating disorders suggests that treatment satisfaction is closely related to the manner in which care is delivered. The present research is a systematic in depth study of health professional characteristics preferred by AN-patients. METHOD Thirty-eight women with AN aged 18-51 were interviewed in depth using a phenomenological study design. Interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the QSR-NVivo7 software program. RESULTS Four factors associated with patients' satisfaction with their therapists were identified: "acceptance," "vitality," "challenge," and "expertise. " Patients' responses suggested that treatment of AN requires therapists who are capable of using a complex set of behaviors when interacting with their patients. DISCUSSION There is accumulating evidence that across treatment modality, the manner in which treatment is delivered is critical to therapeutic change. Our findings increase the understanding of factors that may be associated with treatment retention, further help seeking, and overall treatment outcome. These exploratory and informant-centered results could guide clinicians in developing a strong therapeutic alliance with AN-patients and promote increased knowledge about the mechanisms that engage this population.
A locally weighted method to improve linear regression for lexical-based valence-arousal prediction

Text-based sentiment analysis is a growing research field in affective computing, driven by both commercial applications and academic interest. Continuous dimensional representations, such as valence-arousal (VA) space, can represent the affective state more precisely than discrete effective representations. In building dimensional sentiment applications, affective lexicons with valence-arousal ratings are useful resources but are still very rare. Therefore, recent studies have investigated the automatic development of VA lexicons using linear regression techniques. One of the major limitations of linear regression is the under-fitting problem which can cause a poor fit between the algorithm and the training data. To tackle this problem, this study proposes the use of a locally weighted linear regression (LWLR) model to predict the valence-arousal ratings of affective words. The locally weighted method performs a regression around the point of interest using only training data that are “local” to that point, and thus can reduce the impact of noise from unrelated training data. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieved better performance for VA word prediction.
Strength Behaviour of Polysilicon Thin Film Flexure Hinge

This work reports on strength behaviour of polysilicon thin film flexure hinge. In order to develop a microscopic modelling of thin film flexure hinge for microstructures, in situ test benches have been designed and fabricated. The experiment demonstrated that a deviation between the macroscopic theory value and experimental result. A model similar to that used for rotational stiffness in macroscopic steel is used to fit testing data for polysilicon film flexure hinge. The dynamic characteristic and fatigue behaviour of the thin film flexure hinge were also investigated. The hinge was excited by an integrated electro-thermal microactuator that could be self-heated and driven. Resonant frequency of the polysilicon flexure hinge test benches is 6.5 Hz, and the maximum operating frequency reached 1KHz. When a cyclic loading of 1μN. μm was exerted to the micromachining flexure hinge, the limit stress alternation number exceed 1.0×108. When the stress alternation number exceeded 1.0×109, the polysilicon beam of microactuator would lost its elastic character. If the micro hinge operated at high temperature (exceed 200/), the lifetime would decreased. If the working temperature were too high, the micro hinge would be burned out.
Interventions for Reducing Parenting Stress in Families With Pediatric Conditions

Parenting stress increases in the presence of serious-acute or chronic pediatric health conditions, potentially triggering negative outcomes for families. Parenting stress reduction interventions have been widely disseminated. The current review describes the types, components, and outcomes of these interventions in diverse pediatric populations. A systematic literature search yielded 26 experimental and quasi-experimental studies describing such interventions. Quality assessment was conducted by two doctorally prepared nursing researchers using the Downs and Black’s checklist for randomized and nonrandomized studies of health care interventions. Interventions were categorized as follows: interventions with supporting and cognitive components (n = 3), interventions with empowerment and skill development components (n = 18), interventions targeted to children’s condition (n = 9), and interventions focusing on the parent–child relationship (n = 5). Most interventions reduced immediate parenting stress levels (n = 23), but failed to demonstrate long-term gains. Future family interventions should target long-term parenting stress, while focusing on specific family needs across pediatric conditions.
Mapping of Human FOXP2 Enhancers Reveals Complex Regulation

Mutations of the FOXP2 gene cause a severe speech and language disorder, providing a molecular window into the neurobiology of language. Individuals with FOXP2 mutations have structural and functional alterations affecting brain circuits that overlap with sites of FOXP2 expression, including regions of the cortex, striatum, and cerebellum. FOXP2 displays complex patterns of expression in the brain, as well as in non-neuronal tissues, suggesting that sophisticated regulatory mechanisms control its spatio-temporal expression. However, to date, little is known about the regulation of FOXP2 or the genomic elements that control its expression. Using chromatin conformation capture (3C), we mapped the human FOXP2 locus to identify putative enhancer regions that engage in long-range interactions with the promoter of this gene. We demonstrate the ability of the identified enhancer regions to drive gene expression. We also show regulation of the FOXP2 promoter and enhancer regions by candidate regulators – FOXP family and TBR1 transcription factors. These data point to regulatory elements that may contribute to the temporal- or tissue-specific expression patterns of human FOXP2. Understanding the upstream regulatory pathways controlling FOXP2 expression will bring new insight into the molecular networks contributing to human language and related disorders.
NAP SACC: Implementation of an Obesity Prevention Intervention in an American Indian Head Start Program

ABSTRACT Low-income American Indian preschoolers are at greatest risk for overweight and obesity among children aged 2–5 years. The Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care (NAP SACC) program is an evidence-based intervention that promotes healthy weight development for children enrolled in child care centers. The goal of this continuous quality improvement program is for the child care staff to establish environmental policies and practices that positively influence nutrition and physical activity-related behaviors. A community needs assessment of a Head Start program on an American Indian reservation identified obesity as a priority issue. This project implemented NAP SACC at 15 Head Start sites on the reservation.
Evaluating Network Security With Two-Layer Attack Graphs

Attack graphs play important roles in analyzing network security vulnerabilities, and previous works have provided meaningful conclusions on the generation and security measurement of attack graphs. However, it is still hard for us to understand attack graphs in a large network, and few suggestions have been proposed to prevent inside malicious attackers from attacking networks. To address these problems, we propose a novel approach to generate and describe attack graphs. Firstly, we construct a two-layer attack graph, where the upper layer is a hosts access graph and the lower layer is composed of some host-pair attack graphs. Compared with previous works, our attack graph has simpler structures, and reaches the best upper bound of computation cost in O(N2). Furthermore, we introduce the adjacency matrix to efficiently evaluate network security, with overall evaluation results presented by gray scale images vividly. Thirdly, by applying prospective damage and important weight factors on key hosts with crucial resources, we can create prioritized lists of potential threatening hosts and stepping stones, both of which can help network administrators to harden network security. Analysis on computation cost shows that the upper bound computation cost of our measurement methodology is O(N3 ), which could also be completed in real time. Finally, we give some examples to show how to put our methods in practice.
Performance of Using Antenna Arrays to Generate and Receive mm-Wave Orbital-Angular-Momentum Beams

Generation and detection of millimeter-wave carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) have been of growing interest. In this paper, we evaluate patch antenna arrays with different arrangements as OAM generators and receivers by simulation. We compare beam evolution processes and steering performance for circular and ring-antenna-array based OAM links. Mode purity of the generated OAM +1 beam fluctuates between 10% and 99% for ring antenna arrays with 10 cm diameters while it remains >99% for circular antenna arrays. Compared to a ring-antenna-array based link, the circular-antenna- array based link could have an ~10 dB lower power loss at the distance up to 0.5m. We also show that a 5cm diameter circular antenna array could steer an OAM +1 beam up to 80º with a mode purity degradation of <1%, while ring antenna arrays have ~10% mode purity degradation. OAM spectrum analysis shows both the lattice shape and the boundary shape of an antenna array could cause power leakage to harmonic OAM orders. Such power leakages would increase as the designed OAM order or the lattice period d increases, while it would decrease as the array diameter D increases.
Data driven controller synthesis for negative imaginary systems

The negative imaginary (NI) property occurs in many important applications. For instance, flexible structure systems with collocated force actuators and position sensors can be modeled as negative imaginary systems. In this paper, we present a controller synthesis methodology for negative imaginary systems based on data driven controller. In this approach, a measured frequency response data of the plant is used to construct the controller frequency response at every frequency by minimizing a cost function. Then, this controller response is used to identify the controller transfer function using system identification methods.
Current Profile Generated by Gating Logic Reduces Power Supply Noise of Integrated CPU Chip

With the continuous advent of CMOS, process technologies is extending threat to the noise immune capability of CMOS circuits and the power consumed by them. In present day scenario, though there are a lot of techniques that exist for power reduction, the study of power–supply noise (PSN) based on those techniques is almost unattended in literature. Modern clock gating is one of the best techniques to reduce dynamic and static power dissipation by curbing down the switching activity of the operating clock as well as blocking the direct path between the power lines during logic transition. Therefore, in this paper, we have incorporated gating logic to offer solution to PSN occurrence in CMOS circuits by controlling di/dt, which is generated by the linear current ramp of present day high performance CPU. It is witnessed that, the gated architectures generate very less di/dt with respect to their non-gated counterpart, resulting a noted amount of reduction in PSN.
Tapping mode SPM local oxidation nanolithography with sub-10 nm resolution

Tapping mode SPM local oxidation nanolithography with sub-10 nm resolution is investigated by optimizing the applied bias voltage (V), scanning speed (S) and the oscillation amplitude of the cantilever (A). We fabricated Si oxide wires with an average width of 9.8 nm (V = 17.5 V, S = 250 nm/s, A = 292 nm). In SPM local oxidation with tapping mode operation, it is possible to decrease the size of the water meniscus by enhancing the oscillation amplitude of cantilever. Hence, it seems that the water meniscus with sub-10 nm dimensions could be formed by precisely optimizing the oxidation conditions. Moreover, we quantitatively explain the size (width and height) of Si oxide wires with a model based on the oxidation ratio, which is defined as the oxidation time divided by the period of the cantilever oscillation. The model allows us to understand the mechanism of local oxidation in tapping mode operation with amplitude modulation. The results imply that the sub-10 nm resolution could be achieved using tapping mode SPM local oxidation technique with the optimization of the cantilever dynamics.
A prospective, observational cohort study of the seasonal dynamics of airway pathogens in the aetiology of exacerbations in COPD

Background The aetiology of acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD) is incompletely understood. Understanding the relationship between chronic bacterial airway infection and viral exposure may explain the incidence and seasonality of these events. Methods In this prospective, observational cohort study (NCT01360398), patients with COPD aged 40–85 years underwent sputum sampling monthly and at exacerbation for detection of bacteria and viruses. Results are presented for subjects in the full cohort, followed for 1 year. Interactions between exacerbation occurrence and pathogens were investigated by generalised estimating equation and stratified conditional logistic regression analyses. Findings The mean exacerbation rate per patient-year was 3.04 (95% CI 2.63 to 3.50). At AECOPD, the most common bacterial species were non-typeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) and Moraxella catarrhalis, and the most common virus was rhinovirus. Logistic regression analyses (culture bacterial detection) showed significant OR for AECOPD occurrence when M. catarrhalis was detected regardless of season (5.09 (95% CI 2.76 to 9.41)). When NTHi was detected, the increased risk of exacerbation was greater in high season (October–March, OR 3.04 (1.80 to 5.13)) than low season (OR 1.22 (0.68 to 2.22)). Bacterial and viral coinfection was more frequent at exacerbation (24.9%) than stable state (8.6%). A significant interaction was detected between NTHi and rhinovirus presence and AECOPD risk (OR 5.18 (1.92 to 13.99); p=0.031). Conclusions AECOPD aetiology varies with season. Rises in incidence in winter may be driven by increased pathogen presence as well as an interaction between NTHi airway infection and effects of viral infection. Trial registration number Results, NCT01360398.
Radical Polymerization of Alkyl 2-Cyanoacrylates

Cyanoacrylates (CAs) are well-known fast-setting adhesives, which are sold as liquids in the presence of stabilizers. Rapid anionic polymerization on exposure to surface moisture is responsible for instant adhesion. The more difficult, but synthetically more useful radical polymerization is only possible under acidic conditions. Recommendations on the handling of CAs and the resulting polymers are provided herein. In this review article, after a general description of monomer and polymer properties, radical homo- and copolymerization studies are described, along with an overview of nanoparticle preparations. A summary of our recently reported radical polymerization of CAs, using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization, is provided.
A control problem of PM synchronous motor by two-step internal model controller design

Much recently, a local speed tracking and nonlinear disturbance rejection problem of PM synchronous motor was formulated as a robust output regulation problem of multivariable nonlinear system and well addressed by nonlinear internal model design. In this paper, we propose a novel two-step controller design strategy to achieve speed tracking and nonlinear disturbance rejection of PM synchronous motor with wide speed range, which combines the advantages of classical double-loop control and nonlinear internal model control. It is worth mentioning that the proposed two-step controller design strategy can not only guarantee exact speed tracking with wide speed range, but also reject small nonlinear external disturbances in the load torque, generated by a so-called nonlinear exosystem. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of our design.
Transient ischemic attack and ischemic stroke patients with or without prior stroke

A history of stroke is common in patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) and ischemic stroke (IS), but there are few reports characterizing this group of patients. We aimed to compare characteristics, risk factors, and secondary preventive treatment in patients with TIA or IS with vs without a history of stroke.