Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Health-Related Quality of Life and Psychosocial Functioning in Children With Tourette Syndrome

This study aimed to evaluate the degree of agreement between parent proxy- and child self-report on measures of child psychosocial functioning and health-related quality of life in children with Tourette syndrome. Participants included 28 children with Tourette syndrome and their parents. All participants provided ratings of children’s level of quality of life and psychosocial functioning. Results revealed strong, positive relationships between child self- and parent proxy-reports on all quality of life and psychosocial functioning domains. Parents perceived significantly higher levels of depression compared to their children, whereas children reported significantly lower Physical quality of life compared to their parents. Results suggest that assessment of quality of life and psychosocial functioning should include multiple reporters whenever feasible. Caution should be used when exclusively relying on parent proxy-reports of quality of life and psychosocial functioning, as these reports may not accurately reflect children’s difficulties or perceptions of their functioning.
Can transcutaneous carbon dioxide pressure be a surrogate of blood gas samples for spontaneously breathing emergency patients? The ERNESTO experience

Background It is known that the arterial carbon dioxide pressure (PaCO2) is useful for emergency physicians to assess the severity of dyspnoeic spontaneously breathing patients. Transcutaneous carbon dioxide pressure (PtcCO2) measurements could be a non-invasive alternative to PaCO2 measurements obtained by blood gas samples, as suggested in previous studies. This study evaluates the reliability of a new device in the emergency department (ED). Methods We prospectively included patients presenting to the ED with respiratory distress who were breathing spontaneously or under non-invasive ventilation. We simultaneously performed arterial blood gas measurements and measurement of PtcCO2 using a sensor placed either on the forearm or the side of the chest and connected to the TCM4 CombiM device. The agreement between PaCO2 and PtcCO2 was assessed using the Bland–Altman method. Results Sixty-seven spontaneously breathing patients were prospectively included (mean age 70 years, 52% men) and 64 first measurements of PtcCO2 (out of 67) were analysed out of the 97 performed. Nineteen patients (28%) had pneumonia, 19 (28%) had acute heart failure and 19 (28%) had an exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Mean PaCO2 was 49 mm Hg (range 22–103). The mean difference between PaCO2 and PtcCO2 was 9 mm Hg (range −47 to +54) with 95% limits of agreement of −21.8 mm Hg and 39.7 mm Hg. Only 36.3% of the measurement differences were within 5 mm Hg. Conclusions Our results show that PtcCO2 measured by the TCM4 device could not replace PaCO2 obtained by arterial blood gas analysis.
Vitamin A supplementation and child mortality. A meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE A two-part meta-analysis of studies examining the relationship of vitamin A supplementation and child mortality. DATA SOURCES We identified studies by searching the MEDLARS database from 1966 through 1992 and by scanning Current Contents and bibliographies of pertinent articles. STUDY SELECTION All 12 vitamin A controlled trials with data on mortality identified in the search were used in the analysis. DATA EXTRACTION Data were independently extracted by two investigators who also assessed the quality of each study using a previously described method. DATA SYNTHESIS We formally tested for heterogeneity across studies. We pooled studies using the Mantel-Haenszel and the DerSimonian and Laird methods and adjusted for the effect of cluster assignment of treatment groups in community-based studies. Vitamin A supplementation to hospitalized measles patients was highly protective against mortality (DerSimonian and Laird odds ratio, 0.39; 95% confidence interval, 0.22 to 0.66; P = .0004) (part 1 of the meta-analysis). Supplementation was also protective against overall mortality in community-based studies (DerSimonian and Laird odds ratio, 0.70; clustering-adjusted 95% confidence interval, 0.56 to 0.87; P = .001) (part 2 of the meta-analysis). CONCLUSIONS Vitamin A supplements are associated with a significant reduction in mortality when given periodically to children at the community level. Factors that affect the bioavailability of large doses of Vitamin A need to be studied further. Vitamin A supplements should be given to all measles patients in developing countries whether or not they have symptoms of vitamin A deficiency.
A Laboratory Prognostic Index Model for Patients with Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Purpose We aimed to establish a laboratory prognostic index (LPI) in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients based on hematologic and biochemical parameters and to analyze the predictive value of LPI on NSCLC survival. Patients and Methods The study retrospectively reviewed 462 patients with advanced NSCLC diagnosed between 2000 and 2010 in a single institution. We developed an LPI that included serum levels of white blood cells (WBC), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), albumin, calcium, and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), based on the results of a Cox regression analysis. The patients were classified into 3 LPI groups as follows: LPI 0: normal; LPI 1: one abnormal laboratory finding; and LPI 2: at least 2 abnormal laboratory findings. Results The median follow up period was 44 months; the median overall survival (OS) and median progression-free survival (PFS) were 11 and 6 months, respectively. A multivariate analysis revealed that the following could be used as independent prognostic factors: an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status score (ECOG PS) ≥2, a high LDH level, serum albumin <3 g/dL, serum calcium>10.5 g/dL, number of metastases>2, presence of liver metastases, malignant pleural effusion, or receiving chemotherapy ≥4 cycles. The 1-year OS rates according to LPI 0, LPI 1, and LPI 2 were 54%, 34%, and 17% (p<0.001), respectively and 6-month PFS rates were 44%, 27%, and 15% (p<0.001), respectively. The LPI was a significant predictor for OS (Hazard Ratio (HR): 1.41; 1.05–1.88, p<0.001) and PFS (HR: 1.48; 1.14–1.93, p<0.001). Conclusion An LPI is an inexpensive, easily accessible and independent prognostic index for advanced NSCLC and may be helpful in making individualized treatment plans and predicting survival rates when combined with clinical parameters.
Crystal structure of an anticoagulant protein in complex with the Gla domain of factor X

The γ-carboxyglutamic acid (Gla) domain of blood coagulation factors is responsible for Ca2+-dependent phospholipid membrane binding. Factor X-binding protein (X-bp), an anticoagulant protein from snake venom, specifically binds to the Gla domain of factor X. The crystal structure of X-bp in complex with the Gla domain peptide of factor X at 2.3-Å resolution showed that the anticoagulation is based on the fact that two patches of the Gla domain essential for membrane binding are buried in the complex formation. The Gla domain thus is expected to be a new target of anticoagulant drugs, and X-bp provides a basis for designing them. This structure also provides a membrane-bound model of factor X.
Technological preparation of sugar beet pulp for its utilization in functional food processing

During the technological procedure of sugar beet processing the significant amount of spent sugar beet pulp is obtained as the feed component in livestock feed production. Sugar beet pulp is also suitable for the production of additives which contribute to the higher level of dietary fibers in food products. The presence of polyphones, phenol acids and ferules acid referees on its ant oxidative characteristics which could be important for functional food processing. The technological preparation of sugar beet pulp significantly affects the quality of the fractions obtained that is determinant in selection of raw material for biomass production, as the protein source for foods and feeds, by microbiological conversion of sugar beet pulp using Polyporus squamosus.
The disjunctive decomposition of logic functions

We present an algorithm for extracting a disjunctive decomposition from the BDD representation of F. The output of the algorithm is a multiple-level netlist exposing the hierarchical decomposition structure of the function. The algorithm has theoretical quadratic complexity in the size of the input BDD. Experimentally, we were able to decompose most synthesis benchmarks in less than one second of CPU time, and to report on the decomposability of several complex ISCAS combinational benchmarks. We found the final netlist to be often close to the output of more complex dedicated optimization tools.
Co-Allocation with Collective Requests in Grid Systems

We present a new algorithm for resource allocation in large, heterogeneous grids. Its main advantage over existing co-allocation algorithms is that it supports collective requests with partial resource reservation, where the focus is on better grid utilisation. Alongside the requests that must be fulfilled by each resource, a collective request specifies the total amount of a required resource property without a strict assumption with regard to its distribution. As a consequence, the job becomes much more flexible in terms of its resource assignment and the co-allocation algorithm may therefore start the job earlier. This flexibility increases grid utilisation as it allows an optimisation of job placement that leads to a greater number of accepted jobs. The proposed algorithm is implemented as a module in the XtreemOS grid operating system. Its performance and complexity have been assessed through experiments on the Grid'5000 infrastructure. The results reveal that in most cases the algorithm returns optimal start times for jobs and acceptable, but sometimes suboptimal resource sets.
Clay nanoplate-chitosan hybrid hydrogels through electrostatic interaction

Hybrid hydrogels with clay and polymer have excellent mechanical properties than polymer hydrogels. We use biopolymer, chitosan, instead of artificial polymers to prepare the hybrid hydrogels. When mixed components, the clay and chitosan solution can interact with other component due to its charge, then the solution was formed to the hybrid hydrogels within a few minutes. The gelation time is depends on clay/chitosan ratio and pH value of chitosan solution.
Multiwall carbon nanotubes/polyaniline: Poly‐m‐toulidine: Poly‐o‐toulidine nanocomposites—Synthesis, properties & field emission

Present paper reports synthesis of multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)/polyaniline (PAni), MWCNTs/poly-o-Toluidine (PoT), and MWCNTs/poly-m-Toluidine (PmT) nanocomposites using in situ interfacial polymerization method. Field-emission results show that among the PAni derivatives, the maximum value of field enhancement factor is obtained for MWCNTsTCE/PmT with corresponding lowest value of turn-on field. The turn-on field of the nanocomposites lies between 0.6 and 1.2 V/μm and there is a significant increase in the field enhancement factor (2.22 × 103–3.57 × 103). The average outer diameter of MWCNTs increases from 7–15 nm to 50–80 nm upon polymer coating. Raman spectrum confirms the interactions between polymer and CNTs. POLYM. COMPOS. , 2017. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers
Quantitative importance and trophic role of heterotrophic dinoflagellates in a coastal pelagial food web

The quantitative importance and trophic role of heterotrophic dinoflagellates was s tuded at a permanent station in the Kattegat, Denmark. Heterotrophlc dinoflagellates were most abundant during periods characterized by large phytoplankton forms (e.g. diatoms and dinoflagellates). During these periods the heterotrophic dinoflagellate blomass corresponded to between 13 and 77 % of the phytoplankton biornass. Large forms (> 20 lrn) dominated the heterotrophic dinoflagellate biornass, but smaller forms were important during periods dominated by nanoplankton. Observations on the feeding mechanisms of the most abundant heterotrophic dinoflagellates revealed species which engulf prey duectly as well as species which feed with a peduncle and a pallium mechanisms wh~ch all allow the ingestion of large prey. The succession of heterotrophic dinoflagellates is also discussed in relation to the distribution of potential competitors and predators.
Recent Trends in Economic Burden of Acute Myocardial Infarction in South Korea

In 2010, ischemic heart disease was the leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) worldwide. More specially, the prevalence of acute myocardial infarctions (AMI) is increasing in the aged population as mortality decreases; South Korea is no exception. This study aims to examine the economic burden of AMI in the Korean population between 2007 and 2012. AMI-related costs were assessed from a societal perspective. A prevalence-based cost-of-illness framework was used for this analysis. The subjects included all South Koreans with AMI-related ICD-10 codes (I21, I22, I23, I25.0, and I25.1). Data on direct (medical and non-medical) costs and indirect (productivity loss due to AMI-associated morbidity and mortality) costs were collected from the Korean National Health Insurance Service’s claims data. The human capital approach was used to calculate indirect costs. The total estimated cost of AMI in 2012 was $1,177,649,323 USD. The majority (52%) of this amount was made up of medical costs, followed by productivity losses due to mortality and morbidity (42% of annual cost). Although the total cost declined by approximately 18% compared to 2007 ($1,427,643,854 USD), the cost of AMI in the over 60 age group amounted to 47% of the total cost of AMI in 2012. AMI led to a high economic burden in 2012. This study, which identified not only the size, but also the trends of AMI-related costs, will provide information to evaluate effects of governmental health projects and the effective allocation of public research funds.
Monocyte Recruitment Versus Macrophage Proliferation in Atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis, the underlying pathology in most cardiovascular disease, is a chronic inflammatory disease,1 characterized by accumulation of macrophages in the subendothelial space. Macrophages are protagonists of the disease, both early in the disease as well as during later stages of atherosclerotic lesion progression, with a continuous turnover of the cells.2 Blood monocytes enter the artery wall and differentiate into macrophages, contributing to atherosclerotic lesion growth,3 but local proliferation and survival of existing artery wall macrophages also contribute to lesional macrophage plaque burden (Figure). 2 Figure. Macrophages play an important role in all phases of atherosclerosis. Monocyte recruitment is critical during early atherosclerotic disease (and perhaps during certain other situations; left ), and thus at this stage of the disease, blood monocyte levels are an important determining factor. Local macrophage proliferation dominates macrophage accumulation in later stages of atherosclerosis ( right ). Macrophage protein kinase C (PKC) δ is induced by modified lipids that can be found in the plaque. Myeloid cell PKCδ primarily impairs macrophage survival and proliferation, via regulation of phosphorylation of Akt and Foxo3a and ultimately the apoptotic regulator Bim. Deletion knockout (KO) of PKCδ results in increased proliferation and survival, both in the artery wall and in the spleen resulting in more atherosclerosis and enlargement of the spleen. SMC indicates smooth muscle cells. Article, see p …
Properties of soy protein isolate films fortified with underutilized quinoa stalks and leaves

PROPERTIES OF SOY PROTEIN ISOLATE FILMS FORTIFIED WITH UNDERUTILIZED QUINOA STALKS AND LEAVES Jiangyu Gao Advisor: University of Guelph, 2014 Dr. Massimo Marcone Quinoa (Chenopodium Quinoa Wild) stalk and leaf are abundant and underutilized materials. Quinoa stalk and leaf extracts were used to modify properties of soy protein isolate films thus extending the application of films. Quinoa stalk cellulose (QSC) was extracted by NaOH and HCl. QSC was added in film forming solution then the solution was casted into film. QSC can be incorporated into soy protein isolate (SPI) films to improve their tensile strength. This was because of the possible interaction of hydrogen bonding between QSC and SPI macromolecules. However, the color of soy protein isolate films was affected by QSC. Quinoa leaf extract (QLE) was rich in phenolic compounds. QLE and gallic acid were used as fillers to modify edible SPI films. Ethanol/water extracted QLE, contributed to the improved mechanical, antioxidant, and antimicrobial properties of SPI films. Hydrogen bonding was the major interaction between phenolic compounds and SPI macromolecules. This contributed to reinforcing the mechanical properties. The antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of SPI films were significantly improved by adding QLE. QSC and QLE both can increase the mechanical properties of SPI films, and QLE added films had also showed improved antioxidant and antimicrobial capacities.
Basal breast cancer molecular subtype predicts for lower incidence of axillary lymph node metastases in primary breast cancer.

BACKGROUND Axillary lymph node involvement remains the most important prognostic factor in early-stage breast cancer. We hypothesized that molecular classification based on breast cancer biology would predict the presence of nodal involvement at diagnosis, which might aid treatment decisions regarding the axilla. PATIENTS AND METHODS From a clinically annotated tissue microarray of 4444 early-stage breast cancers, expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PgR), HER2, epidermal growth factor receptor, and cytokeratin 5/6 was determined by immunohistochemistry. Cases were classified by published criteria into molecular subtypes of luminal, luminal/HER2 positive, HER2 positive/ER negative/PgR negative, and basal. Risk of axillary nodal involvement at diagnosis was determined in 2 multivariable logistic regression models: a "core biopsy model" including molecular subtype, age, grade, and tumor size and a "lumpectomy model," which also included lymphovascular invasion. Luminal was used as the reference group. After internal validation of findings in 2 independent sets, we conducted combined analysis of both. RESULTS In the core biopsy model, the molecular subtypes had a predictive effect for nodal involvement (P= .000001), with the basal subtype having an odds ratio for axillary lymph node involvement of 0.53 (95% CI, 0.41-0.69). Tumor grade (P=5.43 x 10(-12)) and size (P=8.52 x 10(-35)) were also predictive for nodal involvement. Similar results were found in the lumpectomy model, where lymphovascular invasion was also predictive (P=2.74 x 10(-115)). CONCLUSION These results indicate that the basal breast cancer molecular subtype predicts a lower incidence of axillary nodal involvement, and including biomarker profiles to predict nodal status at diagnosis could help stratification for decisions regarding axillary surgery and locoregional radiation.
Research on Fault-tolerant Mechanism of Integrating Water-Domain Oriented Computing Resources

Water domain grid platform, a Grid platform based on cycle stealing technology is used to harness idle computing resources in one or several labs of one or several sites for its low costs and high performance. Volatility is the key challenge of this kind of platform and one fault will generate when a computing node leaves the platform. So how to make these volatile nodes work together without being influenced by generated faults is a key issue. So this paper presents a fault tolerance architecture aiming at minimizing generating faults. Once faults generated, other idle computation nodes in this platform can go on executing the unfinished task immediately. Finally some experiments based on this platform show that the framework has good performance in dealing with fault tolerance in water domain oriented computing resources integrated platform.
The Pumping Ability of the Left Heart and the Effect of Coronary Occlusion

In an isolated preparation of cat heart we studied the pumping capacity of the left heart while left atrial filling pressure was kept constant. We used the source impedance concept to quantify the pumping capacity. In this source impedance concept the relation between left ventricular output and left ventricular pressure is given by the formula where Z, = source impedance, PH = left ventricular pressure, Iao = flow in the ascending aorta, and ω = 2πf, f being frequency. The pressure obtained at zero flow is called the hydromotive pressure (HMP). Only the mean values of pressure and flow were studied. We studied the behavior of 10 hearts in three different experimental situations and in the following sequence: (1) control conditions, (2) after ligating a part of the left coronary arterial system, and (3) after restoring left ventricular output to control level by raising left atrial filling pressure. It was found that source resistance was not significantly different in the three situations but that mean hydromotive pressure (HMP) was significantly lower after ligation of a part of the left coronary arterial system. It was concluded that the decrease in pumping capacity of the left heart after infarction can be compensated for almost completely by an increase in left atrial filling pressure. This compensating mechanism therefore seems to be very efficient.
Dimensional sentiment analysis of traditional Chinese words using pre-trained Not-quite-right Sentiment Word Vectors and supervised ensemble models

This work focuses on two specific types of sentimental information analysis for traditional Chinese words, i.e., valence represents the degree of pleasant and unpleasant feelings (i.e., sentiment orientation), and arousal represents the degree of excitement and calm (i.e., sentiment strength). To address it, we proposed supervised ensemble learning models to assign appropriate real valued ratings to each word on two sentimental dimensions, incorporating pre-trained semantic and sentiment word vectors into the models. Experimental results on IALP 2016 Shared Task data set showed that our method achieves desirable performance in predicting real valued ratings of given words in valence subtask and forecasting the order of words in arousal subtask. Specifically, for the valence subtask, our system ranks the first in terms of MAE measure.
Ontology-based visual word matching for near-duplicate retrieval

This paper proposes a novel approach to exploit the ontological relationship of visual words by linguistic reasoning. A visual word ontology is constructed to facilitate the rigorous evaluation of linguistic similarity across visual words. The linguistic similarity measurement enables cross-bin matching of visual words, compromising the effectiveness and speed of conventional keypoint matching and bag-of-word approaches. A constraint EMD is proposed and experimented to efficiently match visual words. Empirical findings indicate that the proposed approach offers satisfactory performance to near-duplicate retrieval, while still enjoying the merit of speed efficiency compared with other techniques.