Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hospital restructuring in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe: an outcomes research agenda.

OBJECTIVES This article describes the extent and nature of hospital restructuring across the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, countries with differently organized and financed health-care systems, and assesses the feasibility of international research on the outcomes of hospital restructuring. METHODS The conceptual background, context, and focus for the Bellagio conference on Hospital Restructuring in North America and Western Europe held in November 1996 is provided, illustrating key issues on hospital and workforce trends using the US data with international comparisons. RESULTS Hospital systems internationally are undertaking very similar restructuring interventions, particularly ones aimed at reducing labor expenses through work redesign. Nursing has been a prime target for work redesign, resulting in changes in numbers and skill mix of nursing staff as well as fundamental reorganizing of clinical care at the inpatient unit level. Yet little is known about the outcomes of such organizational interventions and there are few efforts in place to critically evaluate these actions. CONCLUSIONS Restructuring of the hospital workforce and redesign of work in inpatient settings is widespread and markedly similar across North American and Europe, and warrants systematic study. Cross-national studies of the impact of restructuring inpatient care on patient outcomes would yield valuable lessons about the cost-quality tradeoffs in hospital redesign and re-engineering, as well as inform national planning about the numbers and types of nurses needed in the coming decades.
Cerebral blood flow measurement as an indicator for an indirect revascularization procedure for adult patients with moyamoya disease.

OBJECTIVE Some adult patients with moyamoya disease have been treated successfully by indirect revascularization alone, although surgical indications and hemodynamic changes for these patients have not been fully explored. To examine surgical indications for this procedure, we studied the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and angiographic findings in adult patients with moyamoya disease preoperatively and postoperatively. METHODS On 17 hemispheric sides of 12 adult patients with moyamoya disease treated surgically with a combination of various indirect procedures, mainly by encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis, we retrospectively evaluated changes in rCBF using xenon-133 single photon emission computed tomography, angiographic collateral formation, and clinical results. RESULTS Preoperatively, the rCBF values in the cortices at the bypass site at rest and after acetazolamide loading were lower than normal. The rCBF values were significantly increased after revascularization, approaching normal, except for incomplete recovery of vascular reactivity. The extent of postoperative neovascularization from implanted tissues fed by the external carotid artery system was more developed, in parallel with the preoperative decrease in resting and loading rCBF values. One-third of the operated sides exhibiting both a low rCBF at rest and impaired vascular reactivity in the noninfarcted cortices achieved good revascularization over two-thirds of the middle cerebral artery territory, accompanied by rCBF improvement and moyamoya vessel regression. Enough potential for neovascularization in the noninfarcted cortices was indicated that the resting rCBF was lower than 50 ml/100 g per minute (below the normal value by 2 standard deviations) and did not increase more than that value after loading, even in a 40-year-old patient who presented with a hemorrhage. Clinically, 11 patients (92%) had good results at the 4-year follow-up, whereas 1 patient (8%) with unsatisfactory neovascularization and a lesser extent of moyamoya vessel reduction experienced rebleeding. CONCLUSION We conclude that for the surgical treatment of adult patients with moyamoya disease, indirect procedures, mainly encephaloduroarteriosynangiosis, are recommended for patients with lower rCBF and no or negative vascular reactivity in the noninfarcted cortices, as well as for those who have no indication for the direct procedure. It is possible to determine these indications by a xenon-133 inhalation single photon emission computed tomographic study including an acetazolamide challenge test.
Utility Maximization Scheduling in Multi-channel Wireless Networks

This paper considers the problem of designing utility maximization scheduling algorithms for multi-channel(e.g, OFDM-based) wireless down-link systems. We extend Lyapunov Optimization to design a throughput-utility maximizing algorithm that uses a queue-based and delay-based Lyapunov functions, where the delay uses explicit delay information from the head-of-line packet destined to each user. Our approach provably achieves the maximum utility, and empirically outperforms the previous solution.
Discovering patterns to extract protein-protein interactions from full texts

MOTIVATION Although there are several databases storing protein-protein interactions, most such data still exist only in the scientific literature. They are scattered in scientific literature written in natural languages, defying data mining efforts. Much time and labor have to be spent on extracting protein pathways from literature. Our aim is to develop a robust and powerful methodology to mine protein-protein interactions from biomedical texts. RESULTS We present a novel and robust approach for extracting protein-protein interactions from literature. Our method uses a dynamic programming algorithm to compute distinguishing patterns by aligning relevant sentences and key verbs that describe protein interactions. A matching algorithm is designed to extract the interactions between proteins. Equipped only with a dictionary of protein names, our system achieves a recall rate of 80.0% and precision rate of 80.5%. AVAILABILITY The program is available on request from the authors.
Performance Analysis of Energy Efficient Clustering Algorithms for Wireless Sensor Network

sensor networks (WSN) are emerging in various fields like wildlife monitoring, mining industries, security surveillance. The efficiency of sensor networks strongly depends on the routing protocol used. Routing protocols providing an optimal data transmission route from sensor nodes to sink to save energy of nodes in the network. This paper presents simulation results of existing clustering algorithms for heterogeneous wireless sensor network. The simulation results show how the election criteria for cluster heads election such as random election and nodes with different energy level affect the number of cluster heads elected, and the network lifetime. In this paper, we analyze three different types of routing protocols: LEACH, SEP, and TEEN. Simulation results are provided to show the comparative effectiveness of different clustering algorithm on network lifetime and cluster head selection and failure nodes in the network. Sensor networks are simulated using MATLAB simulator.
Family Structure Characteristics and Academic Success: Supporting the Work of School Counselors

The family is a child’s primary context for socialization and greatly affects a child’s well-being.Historical contexts show that families have been evolving for centuries due to social and economicfactors, thus resulting in various family structures. A stable, traditional family structure is mostconducive to academic success (Tillman, 2007). Much research has found that children raised in anon-traditional home are at a disadvantage (Astone & McLanahan, 1991; Halpern-Meekin & Tach,2008). The research on the consequences of single-parent families suggests children of single parentfamilies are more likely to be impoverished, to break the law, to abuse drugs, to do poorly in school, tobecome pregnant before the age of twenty, and to have emotional and behavioral problems. Inaddition, these negative effects are not short-term, but carry into adulthood and manifest themselves inproblems in relationships and occupation. However, single-parent families resulting from widowhoodshow less harmful effects than divorced or non-union birth households. Although the presence ofanother adult may bring increased financial and time resources, research indicates children in stepfamiliesmay be at an even greater disadvantage than children residing in stable single-parent homes.Lastly, cohabitating families often create less defined family roles, lower levels of parental support,supervision, and involvement, and greater family conflict (Tillman, 2007).
A stochastic-Lagrangian approach to the Navier-Stokes equations in domains with boundary.

In this paper we derive a probabilistic representation of the deterministic 3-dimensional Navier--Stokes equations in the presence of spatial boundaries. The formulation in the absence of spatial boundaries was done by the authors in [Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 61 (2008) 330--345]. While the formulation in the presence of boundaries is similar in spirit, the proof is somewhat different. One aspect highlighted by the formulation in the presence of boundaries is the nonlocal, implicit influence of the boundary vorticity on the interior fluid velocity.
Program Boosting or CrowdSourcing for Correctness

A great deal of effort has been spent on both trying to specify software requirements and on ensuring that software actually matches these requirements. A wide range of techniques that includes theorem proving, model checking, type-based analysis, static analysis, runtime monitoring, and the like have been proposed. However, in many areas adoption of these techniques remains spotty. In fact, obtaining a specification or a precise notion of correctness is in many cases quite elusive. In this paper we investigate an approach we call program boosting, which involves crowd-sourcing imperfect solutions to a difficult programming problem from developers and then blending these programs together in a way that improves their correctness. We show how interesting and highly non-trivial tasks such as writing regular exepressions for URLs or email addresses can be effectively crowd-sourced. We demonstrate that carefully blending the crowd-sourced results together consistently produces a boost, yielding results that are better than any of the starting programs. Our experiments on 465 programs show consistent boosts in accuracy and demonstrate that program boosting can be performed at a relatively modest monetary cost.
SmartGuide: An Intelligent Information System Basing on Semantic Web Standards

This paper shows how recent developments in the area of the Semantic Web can be used to build the SmartGuide intelligent information system. Contextual data and domain knowledge represented in the RDF, RDF Schema, and RuleML mark-up languages, are used to select relevant information for the user on the web. Large parts of the application are generated automatically from these mark-up languages. Special emphasis is placed on sharing and reuse of domain ontologies, the integration of existing information sources, and the ease of deployment into an existing IT land-
Performance Enhancement Technique for TCP over Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Ad hoc networks are wireless networks of mobile nodes, self-organizing systems formed by co-operating nodes within communication range of each other that form temporary networks in which the topology rapidly changes result from the movement of mobile nodes. This frequent topology may lead to sudden packet losses and delays. So, the current implementation of TCP for the Internet is not efficient when used for mobile ad hoc networks. This is because TCP dose not show a satisfactory performance in mobile ad hoc networks due to a high BER (bit error rate) and node mobility. Base TCP-Vegas does not recognize the distinction between congestion and packet losses because of transmission errors, which are current in mobile ad hoc networks. In particular, when a route is re-established it requires to be set CWND in accordance with the new route characteristic. In this paper, we propose a method to improve the TCP performance over mobile ad hoc network using new additional new module to TCP-Vegas. With this module sender node distinguishes between congestion and transmission errors it effectively adjusts the TCP's CWND and transmission rate. Simulation results using OPNET show that the proposed scheme increase TCP throughput compared with those of general TCP
Organizational Learning, Learning Organization, and its effects upon Productivity

Learning organization is an organization that constantly extends its capacities for its future creativity. This phenomenon has been introduced during last 20 years and its aim is to enable organizations’ managers and employees to resist to turbulent commercial environments and organizational competitive superiority and dynamism. in these organizations, delegation of authority, group and team work, and cooperative management, innovation and creativity, and other clear characteristics are emphasized, which have been discussed in this article in details. Another important concept dealing with learning organization is organizational learning. Organizational learning is a process of performances’ improvement through more knowledge and understanding. Learning organization is the product of organization learning.
Detection and visualization of potential traffic hotspots in urban environments

In this paper we present a novel contribution work, describing a system that helps to detect urban areas with high density of incidents or risk situations. Our system has a perception and pre-collision system that feed an expert system aimed at detecting dangerous situations. All incidents gathered by the vehicles are sent to a global repository, and its data is processed for detecting urban hotspots where the density of incidents is very high. That information can be useful for city councils, allowing them to address these areas with a high concentration of risk situations.
Synthesising uncertainties of transient sea level rise projections

Global sea levels increased by around 0.2 m over the 20th century and will continue to rise during the 21st century and far beyond. This has profound implications for coastal populations, infrastructure and ecosystems around the globe. E orts to assess future impacts on low-lying coastal areas need to be based on robust projections capturing the latest physical understanding of sea level drivers. This PhD research project provides an e cient and robust modelling tool that more consistently links the future sea level response to plausible emission scenarios and allows for extensive uncertainty assessments of longterm sea level projections until 2300. The new MAGICC sea level model is consistent with the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC. It has been extended to also account for more recent research suggesting additional Antarctic discharge dynamics. In the IPCC AR5 consistent setup, global mean sea levels in 2100 are projected to rise between 0.4 and 0.6 m (66% range) under RCP 2.6 and between 0.7 and 1.0 m under RCP8.5, relative to 1986-2005. Global Mean Sea Level Rise (GMSLR) projections for the year 2300 yield median responses of around 1.1 m for RCP 2.6, 1.8 m for RCP 4.5, 2.4 m for RCP 6.0, and 4.8 m for RCP 8.5. If additional Antarctic rapid dynamics are included, we project 2300 median GMSLR of around 1.0 m under RCP 2.6, 3.3 m under RCP 4.5, 5.3 m under RCP 6.0, and 13.4 m under RCP 8.5. For the new Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) without dedicated climate mitigation, 2100 GMSLR is projected to range between 1.0 and 1.9 m (66% range) for a 21st century storyline of high fossil-fuel use and energy demand. SSP pathways staying below 2 ◦C of warming relative to pre-industrial levels with a likely chance yield 2100 median GMSLR between 0.3 and 0.8 m. 2100 median SSP GMSLR could be limited to around 0.5 m if 2050 cumulative CO2 emissions since pre-industrial stayed below 850 GtC and the global coal phase-out was nearly completed by that time. The analysis of GMSLR under Paris Agreement climate targets clearly points to the need for early and stringent CO2 emission reductions between 2020 and 2035 for limiting 2300 GMSLR to around 1 m relative to 1986-2005. The Antarctic ice sheet represents the most uncertain but also potentially largest future sea level contribution, followed by the Greenland ice sheet and ocean thermal expansion. Due to its great scenario exibility and robust 2300 projection capability, the MAGICC sea level model would be well suited to feed into regional sea level rise and coastal impact assessments.
Enhanced D1 and D2 Inhibitions Induced by Low-Frequency Trains of Conditioning Stimuli: Differential Effects on H- and T-Reflexes and Possible Mechanisms

Mechanically evoked reflexes have been postulated to be less sensitive to presynaptic inhibition (PSI) than the H-reflex. This has implications on investigations of spinal cord neurophysiology that are based on the T-reflex. Preceding studies have shown an enhanced effect of PSI on the H-reflex when a train of ~10 conditioning stimuli at 1 Hz was applied to the nerve of the antagonist muscle. The main questions to be addressed in the present study are if indeed T-reflexes are less sensitive to PSI and whether (and to what extent and by what possible mechanisms) the effect of low frequency conditioning, found previously for the H-reflex, can be reproduced on T-reflexes from the soleus muscle. We explored two different conditioning-to-test (C-T) intervals: 15 and 100 ms (corresponding to D1 and D2 inhibitions, respectively). Test stimuli consisted of either electrical pulses applied to the posterior tibial nerve to elicit H-reflexes or mechanical percussion to the Achilles tendon to elicit T-reflexes. The 1 Hz train of conditioning electrical stimuli delivered to the common peroneal nerve induced a stronger effect of PSI as compared to a single conditioning pulse, for both reflexes (T and H), regardless of C-T-intervals. Moreover, the conditioning train of pulses (with respect to a single conditioning pulse) was proportionally more effective for T-reflexes as compared to H-reflexes (irrespective of the C-T interval), which might be associated with the differential contingent of Ia afferents activated by mechanical and electrical test stimuli. A conceivable explanation for the enhanced PSI effect in response to a train of stimuli is the occurrence of homosynaptic depression at synapses on inhibitory interneurons interposed within the PSI pathway. The present results add to the discussion of the sensitivity of the stretch reflex pathway to PSI and its functional role.
From Human MRI to Microscopy: Co-registration of Human Brain Images to Postmortem Histological Sections

Small vascular lesions seen in human MRI are detected reliably only in postmortem histological samples. Using non-linear polynomial transformation, we report a method to co-register in-vivo MRIs to microscopic examinations of histological samples drawn off the postmortem brain. Digital photographs of postmortem slices served as an intermediate reference to coregister the MRIs to microscopy. In-vivo MRI to postmortem coregistration is challenging due to gross structural deformations in the brain during extraction. Hemispheres of the brain were co-registered separately to mitigate these effects. Approaches relying on matching single-slices, multiple-slices and entire volume in conjunction with different similarity measures suggested that using four slices at a time in combination with two sequential measures, Pearson correlation coefficient followed by mutual information produced the best MRI-postmortem coregistration according to a voxel mismatch count. The accuracy of the overall registration was evaluated by measuring the 3D Euclidean distance between the locations of the microscopically identified vascular lesions and their MRI-postmortem coregistered locations. The results show a mean 3D displacement of 7.5 plusmn 2.7 mm between these locations for 11 vascular lesions in 7 subjects.
SSIM-based cross-layer optimized video streaming over LTE downlink

Many research efforts have been done to guarantee the quality of service for video streaming over LTE. Among them, cross-layer optimized video delivery is one of the most commonly adopted approaches. However, most existing schemes of cross-layer optimized video delivery adopt PSNR as the optimization target, but do not well consider human vision characteristics. In this paper, we adopt a new metric - Structural Similarity (SSIM) in video quality evaluation and develop a SSIM-based cross-layer optimization scheme with the suppression of propagated error for video delivery over LTE downlink. The modulation and coding scheme at the physical layer of LTE downlink is selected by jointly considering the characteristics of video packets and time-varying channel states. Correspondingly, the quantization parameter of video codec at the application layer is adjusted to make the bit rate of the video stream adapt to the varying throughput of the physical link. Moreover, the error-resilient rate-distortion optimization is adopted in the proposed cross-layer optimization to suppress the effect of error propagation on the video quality degradation. Experimental results show that the proposed cross-layer optimization scheme can maintain more structural information than the conventional schemes in the received video, which correspondingly improves the video quality perceived by the end user.
An Extensive Unified Thermo-Electric Module Characterization Method

Thermo-Electric Modules (TEMs) are being increasingly used in power generation as a valid alternative to batteries, providing autonomy to sensor nodes or entire Wireless Sensor Networks, especially for energy harvesting applications. Often, manufacturers provide some essential parameters under determined conditions, like for example, maximum temperature difference between the surfaces of the TEM or for maximum heat absorption, but in many cases, a TEM-based system is operated under the best conditions only for a fraction of the time, thus, when dynamic working conditions occur, the performance estimation of TEMs is crucial to determine their actual efficiency. The focus of this work is on using a novel procedure to estimate the parameters of both the electrical and thermal equivalent model and investigate their relationship with the operating temperature and the temperature gradient. The novelty of the method consists in the use of a simple test configuration to stimulate the modules and simultaneously acquire electrical and thermal data to obtain all parameters in a single test. Two different current profiles are proposed as possible stimuli, which use depends on the available test instrumentation, and relative performance are compared both quantitatively and qualitatively, in terms of standard deviation and estimation uncertainty. Obtained results, besides agreeing with both technical literature and a further estimation method based on module specifications, also provides the designer a detailed description of the module behavior, useful to simulate its performance in different scenarios.