Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and correlates of coprescribing anxiolytic medications with extensive prescription opioid use in Veterans Health Administration patients with metastatic cancer.

OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence and correlates of concomitant anxiolytic prescription fills in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients with metastatic cancer who have extensive prescription opioid use. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS National VHA data for fiscal year 2012 were used to identify veterans diagnosed with metastatic cancer (ICD-9 codes 196-199) who also had extensive prescription opioid use (at least 10 opioid prescriptions during the year, comprising the highest 29 percent of opioid users). Bivariate and multivariate analyses were used to examine correlates of receiving anxiolytic medication among veterans with metastatic cancer and extensive prescription opioid use. RESULTS Of the 5,950 veterans with metastatic cancer and extensive prescription opioid use, 51 percent also received anxiolytic medication, of whom 64 percent had a medical indication and 85 percent had a psychiatric or medical indication for psychotropics. Of those with extensive prescription opioid use who filled an anxiolytic, 64 percent also received antidepressants and 38 percent received three or more classes of psychotropic medication (ie, polypharmacy). In multivariate analyses, factors associated with receipt of an anxiolytic included any anxiety disorder, insomnia, the prescription of antidepressants or antipsychotics, bipolar disorder, younger age, more emergency department visits, and greater number of opioid prescriptions. CONCLUSIONS VHA patients with metastatic cancer and extensive prescription opioid use who are prescribed anxiolytics are likely to have a Food and Drug Administration-approved indication for psychotropics, and anxiolytics in particular, but represent a clinically vulnerable group which merits careful monitoring.
Perspectives and Experiences Related to Help-Seeking Behaviors: A Content Analysis Study of Iranian Patients With Multiple Sclerosis.

BACKGROUND Patients with multiple sclerosis practice help-seeking behaviors largely because of the progression of this physically exhausting disease, which has far reaching psychosocial consequences and requires hospitalization during severe disease exacerbations. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to describe the perspectives and experiences of Iranian patients with multiple sclerosis regarding help-seeking behaviors. METHODS A qualitative design, based on the content analysis approach, was used. Data were drawn from unstructured interviews that were held with 23 participants, who were referred from two teaching hospitals and from the Multiple Sclerosis Society in Ahvaz, Iran. RESULTS During the data analysis, four main themes emerged, including "reliance on God and recourse to the imams," "striving to gain caring knowledge," "a need for comprehensive support," and "attention to spiritual care. " CONCLUSIONS/IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Healthcare team members, especially nurses, should pay attention to perspectives of patients with multiple sclerosis and try to address these patients' help-seeking behaviors to provide high-quality care.The authors hope that the findings of this study will inform the construction of interventional strategies to improve nursing care and facilitate the provision of better support services for people with MS.
Qualitative Analysis of the Resilience of Adult Japanese Patients with Type 1 Diabetes

BACKGROUND Resilience strategies are what we use to avoid and recover from error. In this study, we used the grounded theory approach to evaluate the resilience of Japanese patients with Type 1 diabetes. METHODS Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 adults with Type 1 diabetes. Then, using grounded theory, we created a new model of resilience in this population. RESULTS The results suggested a core category, "to make progress along the resilience path," comprising seven concepts classified into three stages. These seven concepts were as follows: "suffering from treatment," "damaged trust as a person," "persistence of afflictions," "awareness of supporters," "joy to be kept alive by insulin," "actively seeking a future," "being able to manage by oneself. " Individuals with Type 1 diabetes used difficult experiences to motivate their resilience and to improve their situation. Additionally, resilience was an important contributor to these individuals' beliefs in their ability to face difficulties, to accept their illness and insulin therapy, and to control their illness. Resilience was also important to these individuals' faith in the future and in medical care. Our results are applicable to clinical care and research, such as the development of preventive interventions aimed at building or strengthening protective skills related to diabetes and its management. CONCLUSION Ultimately, our goal is to equip adults with Type 1 diabetes with the tools to obtain sufficient behavioral and health-related resilience. Furthermore, these results highlight that maintaining resilience-related coping skills is important for adults and indicate that different psychological processes underlie resilience across the lifespan.
Joint Beamforming and Power Optimization With Iterative User Clustering for MISO-NOMA Systems

In this paper, we minimize the transmit power for multiple-input single-output and nonorthogonal multiple access systems. In our analysis, a large number of users are partitioned into multiple user clusters/pairs with small size and uniform power allocation across the clusters and each cluster is associated with a beamforming vector. The considered optimization problem involves how to optimize beamforming vectors, power allocation, and user clustering. Considering the high computational complexity in solving the whole problem, we decompose the problem into two parts, and design a joint algorithm to iteratively optimize them. First, given a user partition, we formulate the beamforming and power allocation problem under a set of practical constraints. The problem is nonconvex. To tackle it, we reformulate, transform, and approximate the nonconvex problem to a quadratically constrained optimization problem, and develop a joint beamforming and power allocation algorithm based on semidefinite relaxation to solve it. Second, to address the issue of high complexity in obtaining the optimal clusters, we propose a low-complexity algorithm to efficiently identify a set of promising clusters, forming as a candidate user partition. Based on these two algorithms, we design an algorithmic framework to iteratively perform them and to improve performance. By the algorithm design, the produced user partition can be further improved in later iterations, in order to further reduce power consumption. Numerical results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed solution with iterative updates for user clustering, and joint beamforming and power allocation optimization outperforms that of previous schemes.
Improvement of thermal conductivity of paraffin by adding expanded graphite

This paper investigated the use of graphite with different configuration designs to improve the thermal energy storage of phase change material systems. Two types of graphite have been combined with paraffin in order to improve thermal conductivity of phase change material: synthetic graphite (Timrex SFG75) and graphite waste obtained from damaged tubular graphite heat exchangers. Paraffin/graphite phase change material composites have been prepared by the cold uniaxial compression technique. Their morphologies have been observed and analyzed by scanning electron microscope, and their thermophysical properties have been estimated using new experimental tools. Results show that the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity can be accurately measured by these new experimental tools. Moreover, results highlight the fact that the phase change material thermal properties are greatly influenced by the graphite addition.
Tempest in a Teapot: Compromising Reflections Revisited

Reflecting objects such as tea pots and glasses, but also diffusely reflecting objects such as a user's shirt, can be used to spy on confidential data displayed on a monitor. First, we show how reflections in the user's eye can be exploited for spying on confidential data. Second, we investigate to what extent monitor images can be reconstructed from the diffuse reflections on a wall or the user's clothes, and provide information-theoretic bounds limiting this type of attack. Third, we evaluate the effectiveness of several countermeasures. This substantially improves previous work (Backes et al., IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, 2008).
Relationship between somatosensory event-related potential N140 aberrations and hemispatial agnosia in patients with stroke: a preliminary study

ABSTRACT Purpose: The somatosensory event-related potential N140 is thought to be related to selective attention. This study aimed to compare the somatosensory event-related potential N140 in healthy subjects to that in patients with stroke to determine whether N140 and attentiveness are associated in patients with stroke with or without hemispatial agnosia. Materials and Methods: Normal somatosensory event-related potential N140 values were determined using data from ten healthy subjects. Fifteen patients with stroke were divided into two groups based on the presence of hemispatial neglect. Somatosensory event-related potential N140 components were compared between the two groups. Results: Stimulation of the affected limb in the hemispatial agnosia group resulted in significantly longer N140 latency at the contralateral vs. the ipsilateral electrode. This was the inverse of the relationship observed in normal subjects, with stimulation of the intact side in patients with hemispatial agnosia, and with stimulation of both the intact and affected sides in patients without agnosia. In the hemispatial agnosia group, the peak latency of N140 following stimulation of the affected side was significantly longer than it was following stimulation of the intact side and when compared to that in patients without agnosia. In addition, abnormal N140 peak latencies were observed at the Cz and ipsilateral electrodes in patients with hemispatial agnosia following stimulation of the intact side. Conclusions: These findings suggest that somatosensory event-related potential N140 is independently generated in each hemisphere and may reflect cognitive attention.
Middleware 2007 Works in Progress

We propose a Web-service-based P2P architecture for VoIP called service-oriented VoIP. SOVoIP provides interoperability between protocols from both telephony and data networks using the converging behavior of Web services while ensuring security, extendability, and mobility. We also address other critical issues related to VoIP such as network address translation and firewall traversal, Enhanced 911, and the Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. SOVoIP also provides modularity and reusability, making client development easier. Extendability in the Web service architecture is transparent to the client, so frequent client updates aren't required in order to consume new features. This reduces the time and money spent on upgrades.
Power-Fractionizing Mechanism: Achieving Joint User Scheduling and Power Allocation via Geometric Programming

In the 4G and forthcoming 5G, the throughput is largely improved. Let edge users be the users beyond a certain distance to the associated BS in their covering cell, where the receiving intended signal is relative small. Throughput of edge users is the key metric measuring system performance. Originally designed for improving the performance of edge users under different scenarios, many technologies of user scheduling and power allocation, such as coordinated multipoint and Nash noncooperative power game are proposed. However, the existing algorithms are generally heuristic leading to a large performance gap in different scenarios. In this paper, we formulate a joint optimization to integrate user scheduling and power allocation into a unified optimization framework. By proposing a novel power-fractionizing mechanism, binary optimization can be avoided and the scheduling can be incorporated into the power allocation process. Thereafter, the joint optimization problem is then transformed into a signomial programming (SP) problem, which is further approximated by iteratively solving a series of tractable geometric programming problems that can converge to at least a local optimum of the SP problem. Unlike the existing heuristic algorithms dedicated to specific scenarios, our algorithm is more robust and environment adaptive. Simulation results show that the proposed joint optimization outperforms the existing heuristic approaches by significantly improving the total edge user throughput with stable performance.
A Longitudinal Study of Predictors for Adolescent Electronic Cigarette Experimentation and Comparison with Conventional Smoking

Little is known of the predictors of electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) use among adolescents, even though the use is increasing. We studied here the predictors for e-cigarette experimentation (tried and tried more than twice) and compared them with predictors for conventional smoking. A baseline school survey was conducted in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland, in 2011 for seventh graders (12 to 13-year-olds). Response rate was 73%. The same students were followed up in 2014 (9th grade, 15 to 16-year-olds), N = 5742. Generalized linear mixed models controlling for school clustering were used. In the follow-up, 43.3% of boys and 25.6% of girls had tried e-cigarettes and 21.9% and 8.1% correspondingly more than twice. The strongest predictors for both genders were conventional smoking, drunkenness and energy drink use. Furthermore, poor academic achievement predicted e-cigarette experimentation for both genders, and for boys, participation in team sports was a predictor. The predictors for experimenting and for experimenting more than twice were very similar, except for boys’ participation in team sports. They were also similar compared to the predictors of conventional smoking but the associations were weaker. To conclude, smoking and other addictive behaviors predict adolescents’ experimentation with e-cigarettes. Family’s socioeconomic background had little significance.
Decomposing the Gap in Childhood Undernutrition between Poor and Non–Poor in Urban India, 2005–06

Background Despite the growing evidence from other developing countries, intra-urban inequality in childhood undernutrition is poorly researched in India. Additionally, the factors contributing to the poor/non-poor gap in childhood undernutrition have not been explored. This study aims to quantify the contribution of factors that explain the poor/non-poor gap in underweight, stunting, and wasting among children aged less than five years in urban India. Methods We used cross-sectional data from the third round of the National Family Health Survey conducted during 2005–06. Descriptive statistics were used to understand the gap in childhood undernutrition between the urban poor and non-poor, and across the selected covariates. Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition technique was used to explain the factors contributing to the average gap in undernutrition between poor and non-poor children in urban India. Result Considerable proportions of urban children were found to be underweight (33%), stunted (40%), and wasted (17%) in 2005–06. The undernutrition gap between the poor and non-poor was stark in urban India. For all the three indicators, the main contributing factors were underutilization of health care services, poor body mass index of the mothers, and lower level of parental education among those living in poverty. Conclusions The findings indicate that children belonging to poor households are undernourished due to limited use of health care services, poor health of mothers, and poor educational status of their parents. Based on the findings the study suggests that improving the public services such as basic health care and the education level of the mothers among urban poor can ameliorate the negative impact of poverty on childhood undernutrition.
Is Serum Zinc Level Associated with Prediabetes and Diabetes?: A Cross-Sectional Study from Bangladesh

Aims To determine serum zinc level and other relevant biological markers in normal, prediabetic and diabetic individuals and their association with Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA) parameters. Methods This cross-sectional study was conducted between March and December 2009. Any patient aged ≥30 years attending the medicine outpatient department of a medical university hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh and who had a blood glucose level ordered by a physician was eligible to participate. Results A total of 280 participants were analysed. On fasting blood sugar results, 51% were normal, 13% had prediabetes and 36% had diabetes. Mean serum zinc level was lowest in prediabetic compared to normal and diabetic participants (mean differences were approximately 65 ppb/L and 33 ppb/L, respectively). In multiple linear regression, serum zinc level was found to be significantly lower in prediabetes than in those with normoglycemia. Beta cell function was significantly lower in prediabetes than normal participants. Adjusted linear regression for HOMA parameters did not show a statistically significant association between serum zinc level, beta cell function (P = 0.07) and insulin resistance (P = 0.08). Low serum zinc accentuated the increase in insulin resistance seen with increasing BMI. Conclusion Participants with prediabetes have lower zinc levels than controls and zinc is significantly associated with beta cell function and insulin resistance. Further longitudinal population based studies are warranted and controlled trials would be valuable for establishing whether zinc supplementation in prediabetes could be a useful strategy in preventing progression to Type 2 diabetes.
Review of Mesoscopic Modeling of Liquids in Materials Science

Mesoscopic theories can be used in the field of materials science to derive local average properties of relevance to the engineer such as flux, pressure, average density or composition. In the following density functional theory will be described and applied to different systems of interest and in particular, to materials formed from complex liquids as characterized by atomic structure and the type of interaction between the individual particles. The calculation of the solid to liquid transition will be explained in detail as a prototype for other order disorder transitions. The theory of polymers in solution will be revisited and used to calculate phase separation in mixtures. An extension of the theory to include the orientation of rodlike, long molecules will be applied to liquid crystals. In the presence of an interface, the system properties depend strongly on position in space and can be predicted from parameters obtained in the bulk in a square gradient approximation for sufficiently smooth and small deviations from the uniform distribution. A phase transition is often used to prepare heterogeneous materials by nucleation and growth. It will be shown how the equilibrium theory can be extended to study the dynamics of nonequilibrium phenomena.
Ocean Eddy Identification and Tracking Using Neural Networks

Global climate change plays an essential role in our daily life. Mesoscale ocean eddies have a significant impact on global warming, since they affect the ocean dynamics, the energy as well as the mass transports of ocean circulation. From satellite altimetry we can derive high-resolution, global maps containing ocean signals with dominating coherent eddy structures. The aim of this study is the development and evaluation of a deep-learning based approach for the analysis of eddies. In detail, we develop an eddy identification and tracking framework with two different approaches that are mainly based on feature learning with convolutional neural networks. Furthermore, state-of-the-art image processing tools and object tracking methods are used to support the eddy tracking. In contrast to previous methods, our framework is able to learn a representation of the data in which eddies can be detected and tracked in more objective and robust way. We show the detection and tracking results on sea level anomalies (SLA) data from the area of Australia and the East Australia current, and compare our two eddy detection and tracking approaches to identify the most robust and objective method.
Prenatal Exposure to Organohalogens, Including Brominated Flame Retardants, Influences Motor, Cognitive, and Behavioral Performance at School Age

Background Organohalogen compounds (OHCs) are known to have neurotoxic effects on the developing brain. Objective We investigated the influence of prenatal exposure to OHCs, including brominated flame retardants, on motor, cognitive, and behavioral outcome in healthy children of school age. Methods This study was part of the prospective Groningen infant COMPARE (Comparison of Exposure-Effect Pathways to Improve the Assessment of Human Health Risks of Complex Environmental Mixtures of Organohalogens) study. It included 62 children in whose mothers the following compounds had been determined in the 35th week of pregnancy: 2,2′-bis-(4 chlorophenyl)-1,1′-dichloroethene, pentachlorophenol (PCP), polychlorinated biphenyl congener 153 (PCB-153), 4-hydroxy-2,3,3′,4′,5-pentachlorobiphenyl (4OH-CB-107), 4OH-CB-146, 4OH-CB-187, 2,2′,4,4′-tetrabromodiphenyl ether (BDE-47), BDE-99, BDE-100, BDE-153, BDE-154, and hexabromocyclododecane. Thyroid hormones were determined in umbilical cord blood. When the children were 5–6 years of age, we assessed their neuropsychological functioning: motor performance (coordination, fine motor skills), cognition (intelligence, visual perception, visuomotor integration, inhibitory control, verbal memory, and attention), and behavior. Results Brominated flame retardants correlated with worse fine manipulative abilities, worse attention, better coordination, better visual perception, and better behavior. Chlorinated OHCs correlated with less choreiform dyskinesia. Hydroxylated polychlorinated biphenyls correlated with worse fine manipulative abilities, better attention, and better visual perception. The wood protective agent (PCP) correlated with worse coordination, less sensory integrity, worse attention, and worse visuomotor integration. Conclusions Our results demonstrate for the first time that transplacental transfer of polybrominated flame retardants is associated with the development of children at school age. Because of the widespread use of these compounds, especially in the United States, where concentrations in the environment are four times higher than in Europe, these results cause serious concern.
Binding energy and mechanical stability of two parallel and crossing carbon nanotubes

The binding energy between two parallel (and two crossing) single-walled (and multi-walled) carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is obtained by continuum modelling of the van der Waals interaction between them. The dependence of the binding energy on their diameters, number of walls and crossing angles is systematically analysed. The critical length for the mechanical stability and adhesion of the CNTs is determined by the function of EiIi, h and γ, where EiIi, h and γ are the CNTs bending stiffness, distance and binding energy between them, respectively. Checking against full atom molecular dynamics calculations show that the continuum solution has high accuracy. The established analytical solutions should be of great help for designing nanoelectromechanical devices.