Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-poisoning suicide deaths in England: could improved medical management contribute to suicide prevention?

BACKGROUND Suicide by self-poisoning is a major cause of death worldwide. Few studies have investigated the medical management of fatal self-poisoning. AIM To describe the characteristics and management of a national sample of individuals who died by intentional self-poisoning in hospital and assess the quality of care that they received. DESIGN National population-based descriptive study and confidential inquiry. METHODS Adults (aged ≥ 16 years) who had died by self-poisoning in English hospitals in 2005 and received a coroner's verdict of suicide or undetermined death at inquest were included. Socio-demographic and clinical data were collected through detailed questionnaires sent to clinicians at the treating hospitals. A panel of three expert assessors rated each case with respect to quality of care and likely contribution to the fatal outcome. RESULTS We obtained information on 121 cases (response rate for questionnaires 77%). Expert assessors rated 41/104 cases [39% (95% CI 30-49%)] as having received inadequate care; in the majority (38/41-93%) of these, this poor care was felt to have potentially contributed to the patient's death. The most common reason for a rating of inadequate care was poor airway management (recorded in over half of inadequate care cases). In three cases, the receipt of inadequate care was associated with the presence of some form of advance directive. CONCLUSION In as many as 39% of in-hospital self-poisoning fatalities, the care received may be in some way sub-optimal. The challenge for clinical services is to ensure that optimal management strategies are implemented in practice.
Creating a Narrative-Based Practice Culture Across a Youth Serving Agency: The Phoenix Youth Program's Story

SUMMARY This article details a series of seven workshops held to stimulate conversations about narrative therapy and its application to work with youth in non-clinical residential and community settings. These workshops were facilitated by clinical social workers and a psychologist for a team of program managers with whom they worked in a multi-service organization for homeless youth. In this article, we report on the content of each workshop and the discussions generated regarding the ways narrative practice approaches to intervention can be adapted to a non-clinical community setting. Our goal has been to understand how non-clinical staff can integrate these concepts to create intentional practice organization-wide that promotes alternative stories for youth.
Team Composition and Learning Behaviors in Cross-Functional Teams

In this study we examined the effects of 2 types of team diversity (functional and positional diversity) and team learning behaviors on the performance of cross-functional teams. Enterprise resource planning system implementation teams were selected for investigation because of their cross-functional characteristics. The study results indicate that team learning behaviors had a significant and consistently positive effect on team performance. Functional diversity had a negative effect on team satisfaction, while the effect of positional diversity was positive. Task and relational conflicts were also found to be negatively associated with team performance, but the results did not confirm the hypothesized mediating and moderating effect. Recommendations are provided to improve the effectiveness of cross-functional teams.
Stenting for acute aortic dissection with malperfusion as "bridge therapy".

The most common treatment of acute type A aortic dissection is immediate surgical repair. However, early surgery for acute dissections with peripheral vascular compromise carries a high mortality rate. Herein, we report a case in which we placed percutaneous endovascular stents in a type A dissection patient before proceeding with proximal aortic repair. Bare-metal stents were placed into the obliterated true channel of the abdominal aorta and the left external iliac artery. Endovascular stenting immediately relieved the lower-left-extremity ischemic symptoms, and the patient underwent hemi-arch replacement 7 days after the procedure. Stent placement for patients who have acute aortic dissection with malperfusion can be used as "bridge therapy. "
Influence of design parameters on output torque of axial field flux-switching permanent magnet machine

In this paper, the influence of the design parameters of a axial field flux-switching permanent magnet (AFFSPM) machine on the maximum output torque is investigated by 3D finite element method (FEM) and validated by measurements made on a prototype AFFSPM machine. These parameters include the stator tooth width, the stator magnet thickness, the stator yoke thickness, the stator tooth shape, the rotor pole width, and the rotor pole shape, etc. The results show that the AFFSPM machine having equal stator tooth width, stator magnet thickness and slot opening produces the maximum output torque. The torque can be increased by 10% if the stator yoke thickness is reduced to 3mm. The output torque can be increased further by optimizing the rotor pole width and shape. The output torque can be increased by 40% if the rotor pole width is optimized to 13.5° and the fan-shaped rotor pole can further increase the output torque.
Survival of male breast cancer patients: a population-based study in Osaka, Japan.

BACKGROUND Little information is available on the survival of male breast cancer patients because the disease is extremely rare in men. Recent studies indicated there were no gender-differences in the 5-year survival if patients' age and stage were matched. However, this problem has rarely been studied in Japan. METHODS Using the Osaka Cancer Registry's data, the 5-year survival was analyzed based on the reported 19,869 cases who lived in Osaka Prefecture excluding Osaka City and were diagnosed in 1975-1997, or who resided in Osaka City and were diagnosed in 1993-1997, because reliable follow-up information was available for them. RESULTS Breast cancer in males accounted for 0.49% of all cases during 1975-1997. The 5-year relative survivals were 71.1% in men and 81.6% in women. The survival in males decreased over older groups due to a lower proportion of localized stage, but not in females. The survival of males in the regional stage was significantly lower than that of females (49.1 versus 73.7%, P<0.05). Survival of males has increased since 1980-1984, while it has been stable in females. Compared with the survival of patients diagnosed in 1975-1979, male patients diagnosed in 1995-1997 had a noticeably lower risk of death after adjusting for age and cancer stage. CONCLUSIONS The results suggest male breast cancer patients at the regional stage had a worse 5-year survival rate compared to females. However, this gender-related difference seems to have disappeared with the increased survival of males during the 1990s. Further population-based studies are required with a greater number of male patients diagnosed after 1990.
Die Störungsgradsensitivität des SKT

Zusammenfassung: Der SKT nach Erzigkeit ist ein 1977 publizierter, seitdem zweimal uberarbeiteter Kurztest zur Erfassung von Storungen des Gedachtnisses und der Aufmerksamkeit. Der Test wird hauptsachlich bei Patienten mit leichten kognitiven Beeintrachtigungen oder mit leichter bis mittelgradiger demenzieller Symptomatik eingesetzt. Der vorliegende Literaturuberblick informiert uber quer- und langsschnittliche Studien, in denen sich der SKT als storungsgradsensitives Untersuchungsverfahren bewahrt hat. Auch wenn der Schwerpunkt des Testeinsatzes im Bereich demenzieller Alterserkrankungen liegt - hier insbesondere auf dem Wirksamkeitsnachweis therapeutischer Masnahmen -, belegen zahlreiche Untersuchungen beispielsweise aus der Chirurgie und Anasthesie seine Verwendbarkeit auch bei anderen Diagnosegruppen. Als besonderer Vorteil des SKT erwies sich hierbei das Vorliegen von funf Parallelformen fur Wiederholungstestungen innerhalb kurzer Zeitabstande. Die differenzierte Altersnormierung, die auch das pramor.
Crime and State Surveillance in Nineteenth-Century France

Historians and other social scientists argue that cultural change and increasing civility generated a five-century decline in rates of violent crime. This study presents a structural perspective that indicates that, as emerging nation-states consolidated power, they also extended surveillance, and this deterred cirme. The proposition is tested in France, between 1865 and 1913, where rates of major crimes declined and minor offenses increased as state surveillance expanded in the form of two national police forces. A time-series anlaysis suggests that, although the growth of policing initially increased charges for all types of crime, for major crimes the long-run effect was deterrence and declining rates. Subsequent deterrent effects failed to compensate for the initial inflationary effect on minor offenses, so rates increased. The effect of policing on major property crime holds when the possibility of reclassification of such crimes as minor offenses is controlled, but the deflationary effect of policing on major crimes of violence disappears when urbanization is introduced as a control. The other relationships persist, further supporting the idea that policing contributed to the decline in serious property crime. A reversal of the equations shows that crime rates had little or no effect on the growth of national policing. This, and historical evidence, suggests that state surveillance expanded less from a specific intent to control crime that from a broader interest in repressing "dangerous classes," new repertoires of social protest, and politcal challenge to the state.
Efficient Serial Message-Passing Schedules for LDPC Decoding

Conventionally, in each low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoding iteration all the variable nodes and subsequently all the check nodes send messages to their neighbors (flooding schedule). An alternative, more efficient, approach is to update the nodes' messages serially (serial schedule). A theoretical analysis of serial message passing decoding schedules is presented. In particular, the evolution of the computation tree under serial scheduling is analyzed. It shows that the tree grows twice as fast in comparison to the flooding schedule's one, indicating that the serial schedule propagates information twice as fast in the code's underlying graph. Furthermore, an asymptotic analysis of the serial schedule's convergence rate is done using the density evolution (DE) algorithm. Applied to various ensembles of LDPC codes, it shows that for long codes the serial schedule is expected to converge in half the number of iterations compared to the standard flooding schedule, when working near the ensemble's threshold. This observation is generally proved for the binary erasure channel (BEC) under some natural assumptions. Finally, an accompanying concentration theorem is proved.
Bracing for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis: Does BMI Affect Outcomes?

The majority of children with scoliosis do not need treatment because the condition is mild and corrects itself as the child grows (NHS Choices 2013). Surgery is indicated in children who have curves of 45–50° with a high risk of continued worsening throughout adulthood. Those with a spinal curvature of more than 20° or progressive scoliosis are generally treated with back braces. However, little evidence exists on the efficacy of braces compared with observation in young people with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (Negrini et al. 2010).
Investigating the relationship between negative symptoms, autobiographical memory and concept of self in people recovering from first episode psychosis

This study brings together findings from both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and first episode psychosis (FEP) research, attempting to identify similarities in cognitive processes across the two disorders. In light of the evidence that a significant proportion of people who experience FEP display symptoms indicative of PTSD, it seems plausible that current theories derived from PTSD research may be useful in explaining some of the mechanisms involved in FEP. The study initially explored the idea that negative symptoms of psychosis are a reaction to the potentially traumatic experience of a psychotic episode. Previous research has shown that possible traumagenic elements of psychosis might include the distressing nature of the psychotic symptoms or the treatment a person receives. In addition, the study investigated whether a particular finding in PTSD, the association between a discrepant self-concept and a tendency to recall more trauma-related memories, is also seen in psychosis, and whether this is related to the level of negative symptoms a person experiences. The study recruited 51 individuals from across East Anglia, England, who had experienced FEP and were considered to be in recovery from psychosis. Although participants in the study were in remission from their positive symptoms, high levels of depression, anxiety, and psychosis-related trauma symptoms were found. The findings of the study provide support for the application of a model of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), involving self-discrepancy and autobiographical memory, to individuals with FEP since there was a significant association between self-concept discrepancy and the tendency to recall memories related to psychosis for a subset of individuals who experienced their first episode of psychosis as particularly traumatic. The theoretical and clinical applications of this finding are discussed along with suggestion for future research in the area.
Constrained tuning of two-parameter controllers: a centroid approach

The problem of tuning a two-parameter controller has been formulated as finding the centroid of the admissible region specified by the set of constraints that the controller should satisfy. The constraints can be as general as the closed-loop system stability or they may include several requirements on various stability, sensitivity, or performance measures. The design of stabilizing proportional–derivative (PD) controllers using the centroid of the stability region in the controller parameter space is considered as a case study. To this end, analytical formulas are derived to describe the stability boundaries of a class of integrating time delay systems, the stability region of which has a closed convex shape. The so-called centroid stable point is then calculated analytically and the resulting algebraic formulas are utilized to tune the controller parameters. Nonfragility and robustness of the designed control systems are then studied and simulation results are provided to evaluate the performance of the proposed tuning rules.
Chelating agents and cadmium toxicity: problems and prospects.

Symptoms and signs in humans after excessive exposure to cadmium usually involve the gastrointestinal tract after single oral intake, the lung after acute inhalation, and the kidney after long-term exposure. These organs are usually considered to be the "critical" organs, i.e., the organs most sensitive at a certain type of exposure. The type of Cd-related damage that is most common in humans is probably the renal toxicity after long-term exposure. Most animal experiments, including the most recently published ones, have involved study of gross toxicity and tissue distribution after injection of cadmium in acute experiments. The observations in the older literature that the influence of chelating agents on Cd distribution and excretion is confined to the early period after acute Cd exposure has been confirmed and extended, and the relationship to the time course of metallothionein synthesis has been demonstrated. Although the injection experiments concerning cadmium distribution, particularly those employing repeated exposure, may furnish information that can form a basis for speculation about long-term toxicity to the kidney, there is a lack of direct studies in animals of possible beneficial effects of chelating agents on renal toxicity of cadmium after prolonged exposure. Among the few studies reported, either an increased renal toxicity or a lack of influence on renal toxicity has been observed. The problems in finding a treatment scheme that can be beneficial for the renal toxicity resulting from long-term cadmium exposure thus remain; however, the prospects of finding such schemes in the future seem favorable in view of some of the recent observations.
Crystal structure of the malic enzyme from Ascaris suum complexed with nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide at 2.3 A resolution.

The structure of the Ascaris suum mitochondrial NAD-malic enzyme in binary complex with NAD has been solved to a resolution of 2.3 A by X-ray crystallography. The structure resembles that of the human mitochondrial enzyme determined in complex with NAD [Xu, Y. , Bhargava, G. , Wu, H. , Loeber, G. , and Tong, L. (1999) Structure 7, 877-889]. The enzyme is a tetramer comprised of subunits possessing four domains organized in an "open" structure typical of the NAD-bound form. The subunit organization, as in the human enzyme, is a dimer of dimers. The Ascaris enzyme contains 30 additional residues at its amino terminus relative to the human enzyme. These residues significantly increase the interactions that promote tetramer formation and give rise to different subunit-subunit interactions. Unlike the mammalian enzyme, the Ascaris malic enzyme is not regulated by ATP, and no ATP binding site is observed in this structure. Although the active sites of the two enzymes are similar, residues interacting with NAD differ between the two. The structure is discussed in terms of the mechanism and particularly with respect to previously obtained kinetic and site-directed mutagenesis experiments.
Transcriptional Analysis Implicates Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a fatal, transmissible, neurodegenerative disease of cattle. To date, the disease process is still poorly understood. In this study, brain tissue samples from animals naturally infected with BSE were analysed to identify differentially regulated genes using Affymetrix GeneChip Bovine Genome Arrays. A total of 230 genes were shown to be differentially regulated and many of these genes encode proteins involved in immune response, apoptosis, cell adhesion, stress response and transcription. Seventeen genes are associated with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and 10 of these 17 genes are involved in stress related responses including ER chaperones, Grp94 and Grp170. Western blotting analysis showed that another ER chaperone, Grp78, was up-regulated in BSE. Up-regulation of these three chaperones strongly suggests the presence of ER stress and the activation of the unfolded protein response (UPR) in BSE. The occurrence of ER stress was also supported by changes in gene expression for cytosolic proteins, such as the chaperone pair of Hsp70 and DnaJ. Many genes associated with the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway and the autophagy-lysosome system were differentially regulated, indicating that both pathways might be activated in response to ER stress. A model is presented to explain the mechanisms of prion neurotoxicity using these ER stress related responses. Clustering analysis showed that the differently regulated genes found from the naturally infected BSE cases could be used to predict the infectious status of the samples experimentally infected with BSE from the previous study and vice versa. Proof-of-principle gene expression biomarkers were found to represent BSE using 10 genes with 94% sensitivity and 87% specificity.
Active suppression of distractors that match the contents of visual working memory

The biased competition theory proposes that items matching the contents of visual working memory will automatically have an advantage in the competition for attention. However, evidence for an automatic effect has been mixed, perhaps because the memory-driven attentional bias can be overcome by top-down suppression. To test this hypothesis, the Pd component of the event-related potential waveform was used as a marker of attentional suppression. While observers maintained a colour in working memory, task-irrelevant probe arrays were presented that contained an item matching the colour being held in memory. We found that the memory-matching probe elicited a Pd component, indicating that it was being actively suppressed. This result suggests that sensory inputs matching the information being held in visual working memory are automatically detected and generate an “attend-to-me” signal, but this signal can be overridden by an active suppression mechanism to prevent the actual capture of attention.
Multilingual text-to-speech synthesis : the Bell Labs approach

List of Figures. List of Tables. Foreword L. Pols. Preface. 1. Introduction J. van Santen, R. Sproat. 2. Methods and Tools J. van Santen, R. Sproat. 3. Multilingual Text Analysis R. Sproat, et al. 4. Further Issues in Text Analysis R. Sproat. 5. Timing J. van Santen. 6. Intonation J. van Santen, et al. 7. Synthesis J. Olive, et al. 8. Evaluation J. van Santen. 9. Further Issues R. Sproat, et al. A: Character Set Encodings. B: Glossary of Grammatical Labels. References. Name Index. Subject Index.
Estimating the Quality of Translated User-Generated Content

Previous research on quality estimation for machine translation has demonstrated the possibility of predicting the translation quality of well-formed data. We present a first study on estimating the translation quality of user-generated content. Our dataset contains English technical forum comments which were translated into French by three automatic systems. These translations were rated in terms of both comprehensibility and fidelity by human annotators. Our experiments show that tried-and-tested quality estimation features work well on this type of data but that extending this set can be beneficial. We also show that the performance of particular types of features depends on the type of system used to produce the translation.
16S rRNA Gene Sequencing for Bacterial Identification in the Diagnostic Laboratory: Pluses, Perils, and Pitfalls

The use of 16S rRNA gene sequences to study bacterial phylogeny and taxonomy has been by far the most common housekeeping genetic marker used for a number of reasons. These reasons include (i) its presence in almost all bacteria, often existing as a multigene family, or operons; (ii) the function of
Performance comparison of path matching algorithms over compressed control flow traces

A control flow trace captures the complete sequence of dynamically executed basic blocks and function calls. It is usually stored in compressed form due to its large size. Matching an intraprocedural path in a control flow trace faces path interruption and path context problems and therefore requires the extension of traditional pattern matching algorithms. In this paper we evaluate different path matching schemes including those matching in the compressed data directly and those matching after the decompression. We design simple indices for the compressed data and show that they can greatly improve the performance. Our experimental results show that these schemes are useful and can be adapted to environments with different hardware settings and path matching requests.