Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fear-Avoidance Model of Chronic Pain: The Next Generation

Objective:The fear-avoidance (FA) model of chronic pain describes how individuals experiencing acute pain may become trapped into a vicious circle of chronic disability and suffering. We propose to extend the FA model by adopting a motivational perspective on chronic pain and disability. Methods:A narrative review. Results:There is ample evidence to support the validity of the FA model as originally formulated. There are, however, some key challenges that call for a next generation of the FA model. First, the FA model has its roots in psychopathology, and investigators will have to find a way to account for findings that do not easily fit within such framework. Second, the FA model needs to address the dynamics and complexities of disability and functional recovery. Third, the FA model should incorporate the idea that pain-related fear and avoidance occurs in a context of multiple and often competing personal goals. Discussion:To address these 3 key challenges, we argue that the next generation of the FA model needs to more explicitly adopt a motivational perspective, one that is built around the organizing powers of goals and self-regulatory processes. Using this framework, the FA model is recast as capturing the persistent but futile attempts to solve pain-related problems to protect and restore life goals.
Predictive Factors in Global and Anesthesia Satisfaction in Ambulatory Surgical Patients

Background: Patient satisfaction is one of the variables that affect the outcome of health care and the use of health‐care services. As more procedures are performed on an ambulatory basis, the role of the anesthesiologist becomes more important. To improve the delivery of care, the predictors of dissatisfaction with the entire process (global dissatisfaction) of ambulatory surgery and with anesthesia itself must be identified. The authors conducted a hypothesis‐generating study to identify predictors; specifically, they hypothesized that satisfaction with anesthesia was a predictor of global satisfaction with ambulatory surgery and that 24‐h postoperative symptoms were a predictor of satisfaction with anesthesia. Methods: The authors prospectively studied 5,228 consecutive patients having surgery in the ambulatory setting during a 1‐yr period. Preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative variables were gathered and patient satisfaction was assessed using a postoperative telephone questionnaire administered 24 h after operation in 2,730 respondents. Significant univariate variables and clinically important variables were entered into multiple logistic regression models. Qualitative data on dissatisfaction were obtained by asking patients' reasons for dissatisfaction. Results: Sixty‐eight of the 2,730 respondents (2.5%) had global dissatisfaction with ambulatory surgery. Nine of these patients were dissatisfied with anesthesia. Dissatisfaction with anesthesia was associated with a 12‐fold increase in global dissatisfaction (P = 0.0001). Thirty‐one of the 2,730 respondents (1.1%) were dissatisfied with anesthesia. An increasing number of symptoms occurring 24 h after operation was associated with an exp(0.28 x N)‐fold increase in dissatisfaction with anesthesia for N number of symptoms (P = 0.0001). Qualitative data showed that the most common reason for global dissatisfaction with ambulatory surgery was personal preference for inpatient care (26%), whereas intraoperative and postoperative adverse outcomes were the major causes of dissatisfaction with anesthesia (88%). Conclusions: Dissatisfaction with anesthesia is a predictor of global dissatisfaction with ambulatory surgery. An increasing number of symptoms 24 h after operation is a predictor of dissatisfaction with anesthesia. The rate of global dissatisfaction and anesthesia dissatisfaction is very low. The predictors from this model need to be validated by a second data set from either this or another center. Given the low rate of dissatisfaction, a focused study testing specific interventions to improve patient satisfaction would be difficult.
PL3 Amidase, a Tailor-made Lysin Constructed by Domain Shuﬄing with Potent Killing Activity against Pneumococci and Related Species

The emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is pushing the need of alternative treatments. In this context, phage therapy is already a reality to successfully fight certain multiresistant bacteria. Among different phage gene products, murein hydrolases responsible of phage progeny liberation (also called lysins or endolysins) are weapons that target specific peptidoglycan bonds, leading to lysis and death of susceptible bacteria when added from the outside. In the pneumococcal system, all but one phage murein hydrolases reported to date share a choline-binding domain that recognizes cell walls containing choline residues in the (lipo)teichoic acids. Some purified pneumococcal or phage murein hydrolases, as well as several chimeric proteins combining natural catalytic and cell wall-binding domains (CBDs) have been used as effective antimicrobials. In this work we have constructed a novel chimeric N-acetylmuramoyl-L-alanine amidase (PL3) by fusing the catalytic domain of the Pal amidase (a phage-coded endolysin) to the CBD of the LytA amidase, the major pneumococcal autolysin. The physicochemical properties of PL3 and the bacteriolytic effect against several pneumococci (including 48 multiresistant representative strain) and related species, like Streptococcus pseudopneumoniae, Streptococcus mitis, and Streptococcus oralis, have been studied. Results have shown that low doses of PL3, in the range of 0.5–5 μg/ml, are enough to practically sterilize all choline-containing strains tested. Moreover, a single 20-μg dose of PL3 fully protected zebrafish embryos from infection by S. pneumoniae D39 strain. Importantly, PL3 keeps 95% enzymatic activity after 4 weeks at 37°C and can be lyophilized without losing activity, demonstrating a remarkable robustness. Such stability, together with a prominent efficacy against a narrow spectrum of human pathogens, confers to PL3 the characteristic to be an effective therapeutic. In addition, our results demonstrate that the structure/function-based domain shuﬄing approach is a successful method to construct tailor-made endolysins with higher bactericidal activities than their parental enzymes.
Adaptive Comanagement of a Marine Protected Area Network in Fiji

Adaptive management of natural resources is an iterative process of decision making whereby management strategies are progressively changed or adjusted in response to new information. Despite an increasing focus on the need for adaptive conservation strategies, there remain few applied examples. We describe the 9‐year process of adaptive comanagement of a marine protected area network in Kubulau District, Fiji. In 2011, a review of protected area boundaries and management rules was motivated by the need to enhance management effectiveness and the desire to improve resilience to climate change. Through a series of consultations, with the Wildlife Conservation Society providing scientific input to community decision making, the network of marine protected areas was reconfigured so as to maximize resilience and compliance. Factors identified as contributing to this outcome include well‐defined resource‐access rights; community respect for a flexible system of customary governance; long‐term commitment and presence of comanagement partners; supportive policy environment for comanagement; synthesis of traditional management approaches with systematic monitoring; and district‐wide coordination, which provided a broader spatial context for adaptive‐management decision making.
The Impact of Childhood Maltreatment in a Community Sample of High-Risk Youth

Childhood maltreatment represents a global phenomenon and a major public health concern. Despite considerable advances in the field, a number of important gaps have yet to be fully addressed. The current thesis set out to empirically address four outstanding research questions using data drawn from a community sample of high-risk youth. First, we examined whether childhood maltreatment and community violence exposure exert independent, additive or interactive effects on mental health (Chapter 2). Findings point to the existence of both common and distinct effects. While maltreatment predicted symptoms across a broad range of mental health domains, the impact of community violence was more constrained. Typically, these forms of adversity additively affected mental health. Second, we explored whether distinct forms of maltreatment uniquely impact mental health functioning (Chapter 3). Maltreatment types were highly interrelated and frequently co-occurring. We identified both shared and unique effects of maltreatment types on mental health. Emotional abuse emerged as the sole unique contributor to internalizing difficulties and trauma symptoms. Third, we investigated whether variants of callous-unemotional traits in youth are differentially associated with maltreatment history and markers of individual functioning (Chapter 4). Maltreatment was a key discriminating factor between variants. The combination of high anxiety and high callous-unemotional traits indexed a particularly vulnerable group of youth characterized by increased psychopathology and suicide risk. Finally, we tested the psychometric properties of the first non-verbal screening tool of family aggression (Chapter 5). We found initial support for the reliability, validity and diagnostic accuracy of this measure in detecting multiple forms of family aggression, including direct victimization and exposure to intimate partner violence. Overall, findings from the current thesis significantly advance knowledge of the processes by which interrelated forms of developmental adversity combine to affect mental health, as well as elucidating factors associated with individual heterogeneity to maltreatment responses.
Combination Therapy for Treatment of Infections with Gram-Negative Bacteria

SUMMARY Combination antibiotic therapy for invasive infections with Gram-negative bacteria is employed in many health care facilities, especially for certain subgroups of patients, including those with neutropenia, those with infections caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, those with ventilator-associated pneumonia, and the severely ill. An argument can be made for empiric combination therapy, as we are witnessing a rise in infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative organisms. The wisdom of continued combination therapy after an organism is isolated and antimicrobial susceptibility data are known, however, is more controversial. The available evidence suggests that the greatest benefit of combination antibiotic therapy stems from the increased likelihood of choosing an effective agent during empiric therapy, rather than exploitation of in vitro synergy or the prevention of resistance during definitive treatment. In this review, we summarize the available data comparing monotherapy versus combination antimicrobial therapy for the treatment of infections with Gram-negative bacteria.
Odin’s Runes: A Rule Language for Information Extraction

Odin is an information extraction framework that applies cascades of finite state automata over both surface text and syntactic dependency graphs. Support for syntactic patterns allow us to concisely define relations that are otherwise difficult to express in languages such as Common Pattern Specification Language (CPSL), which are currently limited to shallow linguistic features. The interaction of lexical and syntactic automata provides robustness and flexibility when writing extraction rules. This paper describes Odin’s declarative language for writing these cascaded automata.
PLACING SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Behavioral geographers interpret cognitive associations between people and places to spatially understanding the social psychology of sense of community. This report acknowledges connections between sense of community and sense of place using Google Earth images to position experiences and meanings. Having participants identify significant spaces and places using Google Earth represents an alternative approach for researchers to understand how relationships are located in particular places—further framing this notion of sense of place with the literature on sense of community. The practical impact of this approach suggests an attempt to assist nongovernmental organization planners and community developers about the significance of further exploring social and psychological meanings embedded in space and place as a way of understanding local sense of community.
TLR-dependent cross talk between human Kupffer cells and NK cells

The liver protects the host from gut-derived pathogens yet is tolerant of antigenic challenge from food and commensal sources. Innate responses involving liver macrophages (Kupffer cells) and effector liver natural killer (NK) cells form the first line in this defense. We address the impact of Toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling on the cross talk between these two cells, and reveal how the liver displays a down-regulated inflammatory response to constitutive bacterial elements through the secretion of interleukin (IL) 10 yet retains a vigorous response to viral challenge. The data support the model that (a) human liver Kupffer cells respond to TLR ligands and indirectly activate NK cells; (b) the activation depends on cell–cell contact; (c) the Kupffer cells synthesize NK cell activating signals, among which IL-18 is critical, and NK cell inhibitory factors, including IL-10; (d) ligands that signal via myeloid differentiation factor 88 induce IL-10, giving a blunted response in the NK cells; and (e) ligands that signal via the Toll–IL-1 receptor domain–containing adaptor inducing interferon (IFN) β–IFN regulatory factor 3 pathway induce less IL-10, and also directly potentiate the stimulatory effect of IL-18 on NK cells, resulting in enhanced activation. Subversion of cellular mechanisms of innate immune response against viruses may be important for hepatotropic viruses (e.g., hepatitis B and C) to develop persistence.
A Distributed Operationalization of Conceptual Models 1

In this paper we present an interpreter which allows to support the validation of conceptual models in early stages of the development. W e compare hypermedia and expert system approaches to knowledge processing and show how an integrated approach eases the creation of expert systems. Our knowledge engineering tool CoMo-Kit allows a “smooth” transition from initial protocols via a semi-formal specification based on a typed hypertext up to an running expert system. The interpreter uses the intermediate hypertext representation for the interactive solution of problems. Thereby , tasks are distributed to agents via an local area network. This means that the specification of an expert system can directly be used to solve real world problems. If there exist formal (operational) specifications for subtasks then these are delegated to computers. Therefore, our approach allows to specify and validate distributed, cooperative systems where some subtasks are solved by humans and other subtasks are solved automatically by computers.
Larger Receptive Field Size as a Mechanism Underlying Atypical Motion Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder

Atypical visual motion perception has been widely observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The pattern of results, however, has been inconsistent. Emerging mechanistic hypotheses seek to explain these variable patterns of atypical motion sensitivity, each uniquely predicting specific patterns of performance across varying stimulus conditions. Here, we investigated the integrity of two such fundamental mechanisms—response gain control and receptive field size. A total of 20 children and adolescents with ASD and 20 typically developing (TD) age- and IQ-matched controls performed a motion discrimination task. To adequately model group differences in both mechanisms of interest, we tested a range of 23 stimulus conditions varying in size and contrast. Results revealed a motion perception impairment in ASD that was specific to the smallest sized stimuli (1°), irrespective of stimulus contrast. Model analyses provided evidence for larger receptive field size in ASD as the mechanism that explains this size-specific reduction of motion sensitivity.
Applications of the FIB lift‐out technique for TEM specimen preparation

A site‐specific technique for cross‐section transmission electron microscopy specimen preparation of difficult materials is presented. A focused ion beam was used to slice an electron transparent membrane from a specific area of interest within a bulk sample. Micromanipulation lift‐out procedures were then used to transport the electron‐transparent specimen to a carbon‐coated copper grid for subsequent TEM analysis. The FIB (focused ion beam) lift‐out technique is a fast method for the preparation of site‐specific TEM specimens. The versatility of this technique is demonstrated by presenting cross‐sectioned TEM specimens from several types of materials systems, including a multi‐layered integrated circuit on a Si substrate, a galvanized steel, a polycrystalline SiC ceramic fiber, and a ZnSe optical ceramic. These specimens have both complex surface geometry and interfaces with complex chemistry. FIB milling was performed sequentially through different layers of cross‐sectioned materials so that preferential sputtering was not a factor in preparing TEM specimens. The FIB lift‐out method for TEM analysis is a useful technique for the study of complex materials systems for TEM analysis. Microsc. Res. Tech. 41:285–290, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Child Sexual Abuse Survivors’ Grief Experiences After the Death of the Abuser

This qualitative study examined the language of women who were child sexual abuse survivors (N = 16) to gain insight into their grief experiences following the death of their abusers. Participants ranged in age from 22 to 62 years (M = 47.4) and the majority were White, had been abused by a family member, and had sought child sexual abuse-related counseling. Five primary themes emerged during analysis: (a) grief reflecting a complex relationship; (b) loss of opportunity for confrontation, clarity, and connection; (c) funeral as liability, not benefit; (d) others’ lack of understanding of multilayered grief; and (e) coping through transformation. Discussion illuminates sense-making and connections between themes and existing thanatological concepts and research.
The deterrent effect of light upon the incidence of spontaneous mammary cancer in mice.

Many observers have noted the fact that cancer mortality rates vary in different parts of the world, even when peoples of the same European stock, but living in different climates, are compared. In 1941 a comparison by Apperly of the general cancer mortalities of the various Canadian provinces and American states showed that, in contradistinction to skin cancer, the mortalities fell with (a) increasing solar radiation, and (b) the number of people exposed thereto (1). Whether solar radiation is causally connected with this lowered mortality or not is unknown, but certain experimental work on animals suggests a direct relationship. Thus (a) Pearce and Van Allen (30) and Pearce and Brown (29) found in a series of experiments extending over 4 years that continuous exposure to light (Mazda and mercury arc lamps) lowers the malignancy (i.e., incidence, mortality, and number of metastases) of transplanted cancers in rabbits. (b) Morton, Luce-Clausen, and Mahoney (26) found that, of 2 groups of mice painted with benzpyrene for 17 weeks, the group exposed to artificial daylight for 12 hours daily had fewer tumors (papillomas and skin cancers) than the group kept in darkness. The appearance of tumors was also delayed. (c) Doniach and Mottram (14) obtained similar results, but (d) Taussig, Cooper, and Seelig (35), using a General Electric type SI sun lamp, could find little difference between their groups. Since no one, however, had reported similar work on spontaneous tumors, it was decided to investigate the effects of light on strains of mice subject to mammary cancer. Our first experiments, begun in 1939 with 65 strain A mice, were published in 1942 (2). After preliminary tests to determine the best methods and times of exposure, the animals were irradiated with light from a G. E. model F ultraviolet lamp for 2 89 minutes daily at 30 inches, in divided dosage or for 5 minutes 3 times a week. Exposure to larger doses than these had resulted in the development of ear and eye tumors. However, with the doses selected, none of these tumors developed, but an early reddening and later a slight tanning easily distinguished the light-treated mice from the controls. As Table I illustrates, the incidence of spontaneous tumors was reduced from 80 per cent in the controls to 41 per cent in the irradiated animals. Although these experiments were suggestive, the number of animals used was too small to warrant definite conclusions. Accordingly a larger series was undertaken, which is the subject of the present report.
Local Detection and Recovery from Multi-Failure Patterns in MPLS-TE Networks

MPLS Fast Reroute advocates local protection mechanisms to rapidly reroute traffic onto pre-computed and signaled bypass tunnels. When the network is subject to multiple element failures, it becomes challenging to handle all the possible failure scenarios, for they are more disruptive and may require many more bypass tunnels to be dealt with. The objective of this paper is to adapt the MPLS local recovery schemes to deal with multi-failure scenarios, while retaining as much as possible the simplicity and the fast failure detection feature of current (single failure) local recovery mechanisms. This objective is achieved by optimally grouping failure patterns into clusters and minimizing the overall additional network resources - i.e., bypass tunnels and bidirectional forwarding detection sessions - while yielding full recovery from such failure patterns.
Teenage childbearing is not so bad after all...or is it? A review of the new literature.

W hat are the socioeconomic effects of teenage childbearing for women and their families? A decade ago, the answer seemed clear, and it provided a solid basis for public policy. "Kids having kids," the research literature conclusively showed, was a very serious problem. It exacerbated the already difficult situation of young women from poor families and contributed importantly to the higher incidence of poverty and welfare dependence of these women. The summary in Risking the Future, the 1987 report of the National Research Council, is well known: "Women who become parents as teenagers are at greater risk of social and economic disadvantage throughout their lives than those who delay childbearing. "1 President Clinton echoed this perspective in his 1995 State of the Union address, when he declared, with some understandable political hyperbole, that teenage pregnancy is "our most serious social problem. " Now the consensus of the research community is much less settled. Research conducted in the decade since Risking the Future has challenged the conventional view, arguing instead that the problem of teenage childbearing has been exaggerated, perhaps substantially. Authors of these studies contend that a teenage birth does not make a young woman's situation very much worse and that it may even have a beneficial effect on her socioeconomic status. These conclusions have gotten a great deal of attention, and they have a lot of researchers and policymakers scratching their heads. What are we to make of all this? Should we be rethinking our public policy about