Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nursing home staffing and its relationship to deficiencies.

OBJECTIVES The authors examined the relationships between different types of nursing home staffing and nursing home deficiencies to test the hypothesis that fewer staff hours would be associated with higher numbers of deficiencies. METHODS Data were from the On-Line Survey, Certification, and Reporting System for all certified nursing homes in the United States. Regression models examined total deficiencies, quality of care, quality of life, and other deficiencies. RESULTS Fewer registered nurse hours and nursing assistant hours were associated with total deficiencies and quality of care deficiencies, when other variables were controlled. Fewer nursing assistant staff and other care staff hours were associated with quality of life deficiencies. Fewer administrative staff hours were associated with other deficiencies. Facilities that had more depressed and demented residents, that were smaller, and that were nonprofit or government-owned had fewer deficiencies. Facilities with more residents with urinary incontinence and pressure sores and with higher percentages of Medicaid residents had more deficiencies, when staffing and resident characteristics were controlled. DISCUSSION Facility characteristics and states were stronger predictors of deficiencies than were staffing hours and resident characteristics. Because only a small portion of the total variance in deficiencies could be explained, much work remains to explore factors that influence deficiencies.
k‐t BLAST and k‐t SENSE: Dynamic MRI with high frame rate exploiting spatiotemporal correlations

Dynamic images of natural objects exhibit significant correlations in k‐space and time. Thus, it is feasible to acquire only a reduced amount of data and recover the missing portion afterwards. This leads to an improved temporal resolution, or an improved spatial resolution for a given amount of acquisition. Based on this approach, two methods were developed to significantly improve the performance of dynamic imaging, named k‐t BLAST (Broad‐use Linear Acquisition Speed‐up Technique) and k‐t SENSE (SENSitivity Encoding) for use with a single or multiple receiver coils, respectively. Signal correlations were learned from a small set of training data and the missing data were recovered using all available information in a consistent and integral manner. The general theory of k‐t BLAST and k‐t SENSE is applicable to arbitrary k‐space trajectories, time‐varying coil sensitivities, and under‐ and overdetermined reconstruction problems. Examples from ungated cardiac imaging demonstrate a 4‐fold acceleration (voxel size 2.42 × 2.52 mm2, 38.4 fps) with either one or six receiver coils. k‐t BLAST and k‐t SENSE are applicable to many areas, especially those exhibiting quasiperiodic motion, such as imaging of the heart, the lungs, the abdomen, and the brain under periodic stimulation. Magn Reson Med 50:1031–1042, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Production and characterization of novel anti-prostate-specific antigen (PSA) monoclonal antibodies that do not detect internally cleaved Lys145-Lys146 inactive PSA.

BACKGROUND The nature of free, uncomplexed prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in the circulation is still unknown. In this study, we developed novel anti-PSA antibodies using PSA produced by a metastasized cancer cell line, LNCaP, as an immunogen. METHODS Hybridoma cell lines were screened with different methods that aimed at finding antibodies specific for the forms of free PSA produced by LNCaP cell line. Obtained antibodies were further studied for their characteristics related to previously characterized monoclonal antibodies. RESULTS Numerous anti-PSA antibodies were obtained, of which four represented unique epitopes previously unrecognized by us. One free-PSA-specific antibody was bound to PSA on two distinct epitopes, and one antibody was bound to the carboxyl-terminal peptide of PSA. Two antibodies were found to bind to the peptide sequence adjacent to the internal cleavage site Lys145-Lys146. These antibodies failed to recognize internally cleaved PSA at Lys145-Lys146. We could not find anti-proPSA antibodies despite the fact that LNCaP PSA contained more than one-half of the zymogen form of PSA. CONCLUSIONS We report, for the first time, novel anti-PSA antibodies that do not recognize internally cleaved PSA at Lys145-Lys146 and thus are specific for intact, unclipped PSA.
cAMP accelerates the decay of stretch‐activated inward currents in guinea‐pig urinary bladder myocytes.

1. Myocytes from the urinary bladder were stretched longitudinally by 5‐20%. At ‐50 mV, stretch induced whole‐cell inward currents (Iin) between ‐100 and ‐600 pA. Iin decayed slowly with time to 93 +/‐ 20% (mean +/‐ S.E.M., n = 6) of the initial value in 1 min. The mechanisms of this ‘adaptation’ and its modulation by dibutyryl cAMP (dBcAMP) were analysed with whole‐cell and single channel currents. 2. When the cells were internally perfused with 100 microM 8‐bromo‐cAMP (8BrcAMP), stretch induced an Iin of the usual amplitude that decayed completely within 40 +/‐ 13 s. When 200 microM dBcAMP was bath applied 10 s after the start of the stretch, Iin decayed to zero within 85 +/‐ 18 s. 3. dBcAMP increased the K+ current through Ca(2+)‐activated BK channels (IK(Ca)) at 0 mV with a time course that correlated well with the decay of Iin, and block of IK(Ca) by TEA suppressed the dBcAMP‐induced decay of Iin. In the presence of intracellular BAPTA, dBcAMP increased the stretch‐induced Iin. The results suggest that adaptation is caused by superimposition of IK(Ca) which is increased through elevation of near‐membrane [Ca2+] and by cAMP‐dependent phosphorylation. 4. Single channel analysis was carried out with 140 mM KCl electrode solution and at ‐50 mV. Stretch‐activated channels (SACs) were recorded during pulses of negative pressures between ‐2 and ‐5 kPa. Activity (NPo) of SACs was constant for at least 4 min, e.g. evidence for adaptation was missing. dBcAMP (200 microM) increased NPo of SACs by 142 +/‐ 35% (n = 16). 5. dBcAMP increased NPo via frequency of openings and channel open time. In five of sixteen patches, dBcAMP induced openings without suction. Similar effects were induced by the catalytic subunit of cAMP‐dependent protein kinase (PKAc), applied to inside‐out patches. 6. NPo, normalized by its maximum, increased with more negative pressure along an S‐shaped curve. dBcAMP increased the sensitivity of SACs to stretch by shifting the point of half‐maximal activity from ‐3.2 to ‐2.6 kPa. 7. The augmentation of NPo by dBcAMP is attributed to the phosphorylation of SACs promoting their opening. Adaptation of Iin is discussed as a ‘secondary’ effect of stretch‐activated channels: Ca2+ influx through SACs increases the Ca2+ concentration that activates BK channels whose Ca2+ sensitivity is increased by cAMP.
Effect on Social Game Use on the Degree of Social Capital - Based on Construal Level Theory -

ABSTRACT There are a number of studies about the impact of social games' social network. But because of conflicting results, the game's effect isn't ascertained. In this study, we defined that using social games makes increase the social capital with construal level theory. The survey results on construal level, social capital, game using time, etc, are used for the analysis of the correlation and interact. As a result, growing bridging social capital shows on the people who use high level of construal and more social game time use. This phenomenon did not appear in other online games, so that makes a social games' feature unique characteristic. And we discovered that high level construals is key point for defining the practical use of media. Keywords : Social game(소셜게임), Social capital(사회자본), construal level theory (해석수준이론) °First auther: Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Digital Culture & Contents, Konkuk University**Co-Auther: Professor, Dept. of Visual Culture, Kangwon National UniversityReceived: Sep. 18, 2013 Revised: Nov. 11, 2013 Accepted: Nov. 14, 2013Corresponding Author: Jeong, Eui Jun(Konkuk University)E-mail: jeong12@konkuk,ac.krISSN: 1598-4540 / eISSN: 2287-8211Ⓒ The Korea Game Society. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.otg/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Interleukin-4 Is Essential for the Control of Microfilariae in Murine Infection with the FilariaLitomosoides sigmodontis

ABSTRACT Litomosoides sigmodontis is the only filaria which develops from infective larvae into microfilaria-producing adults in immunocompetent laboratory mice. In this study we report that interleukin-4 knockout (IL-4 KO) mice have an up to 100-fold-higher and a significantly prolonged microfilaremia compared to wild-type BALB/c mice, as well as 20 times more microfilariae in the thoracic cavity, the site of infection. While worm development and adult worm persistence were equivalent in IL-4 KO and wild-type mice, the fertility and length of adult female worms in IL-4 KO mice was clearly enhanced. The high susceptibility to microfilariae in IL-4 KO mice required the presence of adult worms in a full infection cycle since microfilariae loads did not differ much between IL-4 KO and wild-type mice when purified microfilariae were injected into mice. In addition, we found that eosinophilia was diminished and immunoglobulin E (IgE) was absent in IL-4 KO mice. IgE, however, does not seem to be the essential factor for microfilarial containment since microfilaremia was not elevated in B-cell KO mice. In conclusion, IL-4 is shown for the first time to be essential for the control of microfilarial loads but not of adult worm loads in a fully permissive murine filarial infection. IL-4 dependent effector pathways seem to operate on adult worms rather than directly on microfilariae.
Parent Drug Use and Bonding to Parents as Predictors of Substance Use in Children of Substance Abusers.

ABSTRACT The social development model (Catalano and Hawkins 1996) hypothesizes that strong bonds to prosocial others and institutions contribute to prosocial behavior, while strong bonds to antisocial others and institutions contribute to antisocial behavior. Consistent with this perspective, previous research indicates that bonding to parents and child substance use are negatively associated for children of non-substance abusers but are negligibly or positively associated for children of substance abusers. This paper examines the interactive relationship between parent drag use, bonding to parents, and child substance use in a longitudinal study of families headed by substance abusers in methadone treatment for opiate addiction. Bonding to parents and child substance use are moderately negatively correlated in children whose parents ceased using drugs but are weakly positively correlated in children whose parents continued using drugs. These results support the social development model and suggest that f.
Stability of Evolving Multiagent Systems

A multiagent system is a distributed system where the agents or nodes perform complex functions that cannot be written down in analytic form. Multiagent systems are highly connected, and the information they contain is mostly stored in the connections. When agents update their state, they take into account the state of the other agents, and they have access to those states via the connections. There is also external user-generated input into the multiagent system. As so much information is stored in the connections, agents are often memory less. This memory-less property, together with the randomness of the external input, has allowed us to model multiagent systems using Markov chains. In this paper, we look at multiagent systems that evolve, i.e., the number of agents varies according to the fitness of the individual agents. We extend our Markov chain model and define stability. This is the start of a methodology to control multiagent systems. We then build upon this to construct an entropy-based definition for the degree of instability (entropy of the limit probabilities), which we used to perform a stability analysis. We then investigated the stability of evolving agent populations through simulation and show that the results are consistent with the original definition of stability in nonevolving multiagent systems, proposed by Chli and De Wilde. This paper forms the theoretical basis for the construction of digital business ecosystems, and applications have been reported elsewhere.
Development and Evaluation of Intelligent Energy Management Strategies for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

In this study, we proposed an intelligent energy management strategy for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. At the trip level, the strategy takes into account a priori knowledge of vehicle location, roadway characteristics, and real-time traffic information on the travel route from intelligent transportation system technologies in generating synthesized velocity trajectory for the trip. The synthesized velocity trajectory is then used to determine charge-depleting control that is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming to minimize the total fuel consumption for the trip. The strategy can be extended to optimize fuel consumption at the tour level if a pre-planned travel itinerary for the tour and the information about available battery recharging opportunities at intermediate stops in the tour are available. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy, both for the trip-based and tour-based controls, was evaluated against the existing binary mode energy management strategy using a real-world example trip/tour in Southern California. The evaluation results show that the fuel savings of the proposed strategy over the binary mode strategy are around 10-15%.
The problematic nature of conflating use and advocacy in CAM integration: Complexity and differentiation in UK cancer patients’ views

Abstract The integration of complementary and alternative medicine into cancer care is widely debated. Advocates of integration frequently cite the popularity of such therapies amongst patients in support of their case. However, little specific empirical attention has been given to how integration is actually regarded by these patients. Based on semi structured interviews with 80 cancer patients in the UK, this article examines the assumption of a link between use and support for integration. On the basis of this study we argue that: 1) a characterisation of unequivocal cancer patients’ support for integration (even amongst those who use CAM) is an over-simplification and distortion of the situation; 2) it is inappropriate to conflate ‘use’ with ‘advocacy’; 3) patients’ engagement with the idea of integration is complex and multi-layered; and, 4) this complexity can be explicated by looking at key dimensions of an integrative process: evidence and risk, cost, and provider legitimacy.
Dynamic active catching using a high-speed multifingered hand and a high-speed vision system

A new robotic hand system with high-speed finger motion of 180 [deg] per 0.1 [s] has been developed. With high-speed visual feedback at a rate of 1 [kHz], various dynamic manipulations are achieved. As examples of dynamic manipulation we describe the dynamic active catching tasks for a falling ball and a falling cylinder using a high-speed multifingered hand. We achieved these difficult tasks by utilizing high-speed motion and impact forces actively. Experimental results using active catching strategy based on visual feedback are shown.
A Wearable Face Recognition System Built into a Smartwatch and the Visually Impaired User

Practitioners usually expect that real-time computer vision systems such as face recognition systems will require hardware components with high processing power. In this paper, we present a concept to show that it is technically possible to develop a simple real-time face recognition system in a wearable device with low processing power ? in this case an assistive device for the visually impaired. Our platform of choice here is the first generation Samsung Galaxy Gear smartwatch. Running solely in the watch, without pairing to a phone or tablet, the system detects a face in the image captured by the camera, and then performs face recognition (on a limited dictionary), emitting an audio feedback that either identifies the recognized person or indicates that s/he is unknown. For the face recognition approach we use a variation of the K-NN algorithm which accomplished the task with high accuracy rates. This paper presents the proposed system and preliminary results on its evaluation.
Cyberbullying: An Exploratory Analysis of Factors Related to Offending and Victimization

Victimization on the Internet through what has been termed cyberbullying has attracted increased attention from scholars and practitioners. Defined as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text” (Patchin and Hinduja 2006:152), this negative experience not only undermines a youth's freedom to use and explore valuable on-line resources, but also can result in severe functional and physical ramifications. Research involving the specific phenomenon—as well as Internet harassment in general—is still in its infancy, and the current work seeks to serve as a foundational piece in understanding its substance and salience. On-line survey data from 1,378 adolescent Internet-users are analyzed for the purposes of identifying characteristics of typical cyberbullying victims and offenders. Although gender and race did not significantly differentiate respondent victimization or offending, computer proficiency and time spent on-line were positively related to both cyberbullying victimization and offending. Additionally, cyberbullying experiences were also linked to respondents who reported school problems (including traditional bullying), assaultive behavior, and substance use. Implications for addressing this novel form of youthful deviance are discussed.
Insulin Secretion, myo-Inositol Transport, and Na+-K+-ATPase in Glucose-Desensitized Rat Islets

Glucose-induced insulin secretion is desensitized during long-term exposure of pancreatic islet beta-cells to elevated glucose levels. This study characterizes an in vitro model of glucose-induced desensitization in cultured isolated islets of the rat. Insulin secretion in desensitized islets cultured with 11 mM glucose for 4–7 days was progressively reduced compared with the normal freshly isolated (fresh) islets. When desensitized islets were returned to a basal concentration of glucose (5.5 mM) for up to 2 h, the glucose sensitivity of insulin secretion was restored to normal (recovered islets). Carbachol and L-arginine also reversed the effects of desensitization. However, basal insulin release was elevated in desensitized and recovered islets. Sodium-dependent myo-inositol uptake was reduced during desensitization by up to 49% within 4 days. myo-Inositol uptake was restored to normal in a time-dependent manner during recovery of islets at 5.5 mM glucose. The recovery of myo-inositol uptake paralleled that of insulin release. The apparent transport constant for myo-inositol uptake was significantly increased during desensitization, whereas the maximum uptake was not changed. myo-Inositol supplementation (35 or 250 µM) during islet culture did not alter myo-inositol uptake or insulin secretion in desensitized islets. Na+)-K+)-ATPase activity, but not 5′-nucleotidase activity, in desensitized islets was also inhibited by 65 and 47% when compared with fresh islet and recovered islet Na+)-K+-ATPase activity, respectively. Thus, cultured islets represent an appropriate model to study biochemical parameters associated with the onset and reversibility of glucose desensitization of insulin secretion. associated with the onset and reversibility of glucose desensitization of insulin secretion. Alterations in Na+-K+-ATPase activity and coupled myo-inositol uptake during desensitization may contribute to the defective pattern of insulin release in this model.
Magnetic induction tomography modeling in biological tissue imaging using two-port network technique

Magnetic Induction Tomography (MIT) is a non-invasive and non-intrusive imaging technique which interested in passive electrical properties of a material that are permittivity, permeability and conductivity. MIT applies sinusoidal electromagnetic field generated by excitation coil. The electromagnetic signal propagates and then penetrates the material located in the region of interest (ROI). The eddy currents are induced within the material itself due to its conductivity property. These eddy currents generate secondary fields and then are measured at the receiver by the sensors. Secondary magnetic field carries the information of the electrical properties inside the material, thus it is very important in reconstructing the image of the material through the use of image reconstruction algorithm. This paper is intended to discuss the modeling of Magnetic Induction tomography (MIT) in biological tissue imaging using two-port network technique hence developed the sensitivity maps which is vital in image reconstruction algorithm. Copyright © 2013 IFSA.
Mental model of blind users to assist designers in system development

The vast growing technologies for blind users has attracted many researchers to get involved in developing and improving software and system applications useful for the blinds. However, the challenge before such development is in understanding how the users behave and interact with the system. This paper presents a mental model for blind users to assist designers in developing better systems for blind computer users. An explanation on mental model as generally is presented. Related papers on mental model for blind user were reviewed to examine the strengths and weaknesses. Kurniawan and Sutcliffe's work was chosen as a basis to investigate on mental model of blind users. This paper also provides a discussion on the implication of the proposed mental model to designers in designing system applications for the blinds. This includes the need to get domain experts involvement in the design phase of the mental model proposed
Pigment pattern formation in zebrafish: A model for developmental genetics and the evolution of form

The zebrafish Danio rerio is an emerging model organism for understanding vertebrate development and genetics. One trait of both historical and recent interest is the pattern formed by neural crest–derived pigment cells, or chromatophores, which include black melanophores, yellow xanthophores, and iridescent iridophores. In zebrafish, an embryonic and early larval pigment pattern consists of several stripes of melanophores and iridophores, whereas xanthophores are scattered widely over the flank. During metamorphosis, however, this pattern is transformed into that of the adult, which comprises several dark stripes of melanophores and iridophores that alternate with light stripes of xanthophores and iridophores. In this review, we place zebrafish relative to other model and non‐model species; we review what is known about the processes of chromatophore specification, differentiation, and morphogenesis during the development of embryonic and adult pigment patterns, and we address how future studies of zebrafish will likely aid our understanding of human disease and the evolution of form. Microsc. Res. Tech. 58:442–455, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.