Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Warming patients before clean surgery reduced the incidence of postoperative wound infection

(2001) Lancet 358, 876. Melling AC, Ali B, Scott EM . , et al. . Effects of preoperative warming on the incidence of wound infection after clean surgery: a randomised controlled trial. Sep 15; . : . –80 . [OpenUrl][1][CrossRef][2][PubMed][3][Web of Science][4] QUESTION: In patients having minor elective surgery, does preoperative warming reduce the incidence of wound infection after surgery? Randomised {allocation concealed}*, blinded (outcome assessor), controlled trial with 6 weeks of follow up. A district general hospital in the UK. 421 patients who were having elective hernia repair, varicose vein surgery, or breast surgery that would result in a scar >3 cm in length. Exclusion criteria were <18 years of age, pregnancy, use of long term oral steroids, radiotherapy (to the incision site) or chemotherapy in the previous 4 weeks, or infection at the time of surgery. Follow up was 99% (mean age 50 y, 58% women). Patients were allocated to local warming (n=141), systemic warming (n=139), or standard treatment (n=141). All patients were given standard preoperative care. In addition, patients in the local warming group … [1]: {openurl}? query=rft.jtitle%253DLancet%26rft.stitle%253DLancet%26rft.aulast%253DMelling%26rft.auinit1%253DA. %2BC. %26rft.volume%253D358%26rft.issue%253D9285%26rft.spage%253D876%26rft.epage%253D880%26rft.atitle%253DEffects%2Bof%2Bpreoperative%2Bwarming%2Bon%2Bthe%2Bincidence%2Bof%2Bwound%2Binfection%2Bafter%2Bclean%2Bsurgery%253A%2Ba%2Brandomised%2Bcontrolled%2Btrial. %26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1016%252FS0140-6736%252801%252906071-8%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Apmid%252F11567703%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [2]: /lookup/external-ref? access_num=10.1016/S0140-6736(01)06071-8&link_type=DOI [3]: /lookup/external-ref? access_num=11567703&link_type=MED&atom=%2Febnurs%2F5%2F2%2F48.atom [4]: /lookup/external-ref? access_num=000171087000009&link_type=ISI
Serum heat-stable alkaline phosphatase in normal and abnormal pregnancy.

The activity of serum alkaline phosphatase of normal and abnormal pregnant females were determined by the method of Neale. Heat-stable alkaline phosphatase was one of the isozynes derived from the placenta and was defined as the enzyme which retained its activity after heating at 50°C for 30 minutes. The activity of this enzyme was determined by Kind and King's method using disodium phosphate as the substrate at pH 10.0, and the results were expressed in King and Armstrong's units per 100ml of serums. The activity of the total alkaline phosphatase in normal pregnant females increased progressively with the advance of pregnancy, and this increase was regarded as the result of enhanced activity of heat-stable alkaline phosphatase, whereas heat-labile alkaline phosphatase was almost constant in its activity throughout pregnancy. Umbilical blood had practically no activity of heat-stable alkaline phosphatase. The values of this enzyme activity in complicated pregnancy including toxemia, twin pregnancy and intra-uterine fetal death did not differ from those of the normal pregnancy. Two cases of polyhydramnios showed significantly low values. The possible clinical use of this method was briefly discussed.
Age- and Gender-Related Variations of Emotion Recognition in Pseudowords and Faces

Background/Study Context: The ability to interpret emotionally salient stimuli is an important skill for successful social functioning at any age. The objective of the present study was to disentangle age and gender effects on emotion recognition ability in voices and faces. Methods: Three age groups of participants (young, age range: 18–35 years; middle-aged, age range: 36–55 years; and older, age range: 56–75 years) identified basic emotions presented in voices and faces in a forced-choice paradigm. Five emotions (angry, fearful, sad, disgusted, and happy) and a nonemotional category (neutral) were shown as encoded in color photographs of facial expressions and pseudowords spoken in affective prosody. Results: Overall, older participants had a lower accuracy rate in categorizing emotions than young and middle-aged participants. Females performed better than males in recognizing emotions from voices, and this gender difference emerged in middle-aged and older participants. The performance of emotion recognition in faces was significantly correlated with the performance in voices. Conclusion: The current study provides further evidence for a general age and gender effect on emotion recognition; the advantage of females seems to be age- and stimulus modality-dependent.
Disturbance observer based control of quadrotors with SLFN

This paper addresses a terminal sliding mode strategy to control the attitude of quadrotor while achieving the finite time convergence. To deal with system uncertainty and time-varying disturbance, a hybrid controller using single-hidden layer feedforward network (SLFN) and disturbance observer (DOB) is proposed. Fast terminal sliding mode surface is designed to construct the sliding mode control. To improve learning speed, the updating law of SLFN weight utilizes the information of the fast terminal sliding mode. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated with simulation example.
Ancient and recent clay formation on Mars as revealed from a global survey of hydrous minerals in crater central peaks

Clay minerals on Mars have commonly been interpreted as the remnants of pervasive water‐rock interaction during the Noachian period (>3.7 Ga). This history has been partly inferred by observations of clays in central peaks of impact craters, which often are presumed uplifted from depth. However, combined mineralogical and morphological analyses of individual craters have shown that some central peak clays may represent post‐impact, possibly authigenic processes. Here we present a global survey of 633 central peaks to assess their hydrous minerals and the prevalence of uplifted, detrital, and authigenic clays. Central peak regions are examined using high‐resolution Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars and High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment data to identify hydrous minerals and place their detections in a stratigraphic and geologic context. We find that many occurrences of Fe/Mg clays and hydrated silica are associated with potential impact melt deposits. Over 35% of central peak clays are not associated with uplifted rocks; thus, caution must be used when inferring deeper crustal compositions from surface mineralogy of central peaks. Uplifted clay‐bearing rocks suggest the Martian crust hosts clays to depths of at least 7 km. We also observe evidence for increasing chloritization with depth, implying the presence of fluids in the upper portions of the crust. Our observations are consistent with widespread Noachian/Early Hesperian clay formation, but a number of central peak clays are also suggestive of clay formation during the Amazonian. These results broadly support current paradigms of Mars' aqueous history while adding insight to global crustal and diagenetic processes associated with clay mineral formation and stability.
Núcleo de Informática Aplicada à Educação (NIED) - 30 anos de Atuação (1983 – 2013)

Objetivo(s) do Grupo O Núcleo de Informática Aplicada à Educação – NIED, órgão de pesquisa da Universidade Estadual de Campinas – UNICAMP, é um e spaço diferenciado em que docentes, alunos e pesquisadores, das mais diferent es áreas da universidade, podem se encontrar para a realização de trabalho de forma in terdisciplinar e colaborativa. Assim, cada um com a sua especialidade e interagindo para a realização de um trabalho comum, contribui para o desenvolvimento de um ambiente de pesquisa interdisciplinar, com o desenvolvimento de aplicações das tecnologias na ed ucação e na sociedade.
Private Sector Response to HIV/AIDS in Tanzania

This study assessed HIV/AIDS prevention practices used by employers in Tanzania. The study also aimed to provide a feasibility analysis of the readiness for HIV/AIDS prevention and other employee health promotion, disease prevention and management interventions within the private sector in Tanzania and to inform emerging scientific literature on the prevalence and composition of employee health education programs in developing countries. Responses to a questionnaire were obtained via structured, face-to-face interviews during visits with company leaders at their workplaces in Tanzania. The survey was conducted from January to March of 2008. It was found that most companies (82%) offer some form of assistance for employees living with HIV/AIDS and other chronic health conditions, and most (73%) also offered HIV/AIDS prevention programs. Use of peer educators was a common feature of HIV prevention efforts. Companies commonly provided free condoms for men (64%); somewhat fewer (55%) provide female condoms. The majority of companies (72%) had a written HIV/AIDS policy. The high rates of program offerings for employees suggest that employers have adopted HIV/AIDS prevention programs, though the wide variability in program offerings indicates employers' beliefs vary concerning the impact of programs, health benefits, and policies.
On Generic Identifiability of 3-Tensors of Small Rank

We introduce an inductive method for the study of the uniqueness of decompositions of tensors, by means of tensors of rank $1$. The method is based on the geometric notion of weak defectivity. For three-dimensional tensors of type $(a,b,c)$, $a\leq b\leq c$, our method proves that the decomposition is unique (i.e., $k$-identifiability holds) for general tensors of rank $k$, as soon as $k\leq (a+1)(b+1)/16$. This improves considerably the known range for identifiability. The method applies also to tensor of higher dimension. For tensors of small size, we give a complete list of situations where identifiability does not hold. Among them, there are $4\times 4\times 4$ tensors of rank $6$, an interesting case because of its connection with the study of DNA strings.
Transaction level model-based design methodology for fast architectural exploration and verification

System-on-chip designs are highly complex due to increase gate counts and hardware/software interactions. Development of performance, cost and power sensitive devices push for a design environment that can evaluate the system as a whole against these objectives. Transaction-level modeling (TLM) provides a well-defined structure for evaluating these architectural tradeoffs. In this paper, we described our SystemC TLM based approach using a mixture of Mathworks, CoWare and Synopsys tools, from algorithm analysis, co-design to co-verification, in the design of a low-power CORDIC engine. Using this design methodology and MIBench FFT/IFFT as our metric, we were able to achieve close to ideal performance speedup and a 95% power reduction.
Brain Stem Auditory Evoked Response

This paper studies the effect of otologic disease on the brain stem auditory evoked response (BAER). Both conductive and neurosensory hearing losses are analyzed by plotting wave V latencies and amplitudes as a function of sound intensity. It was found that the BAER is elicited primarily by frequencies greater than 2000 Hz. Conductive hearing losses produce a latency intensity function which approaches the norm with high decibel stimulation. Neurosensory losses produce a variety of latency intensity functions. In determining the degree of hearing loss, wave threshold is found to be the best index. Wave latency at high decibels is found to have little correspondence to degree of neurosensory loss; wave amplitude is highly variable among subjects but still a useful indicator for detecting pathology. Between-ear comparisons of wave latencies elicited by high decibel sound stimulation suggest that unilateral nonrecruiting or partially recruiting hearing losses will result in a latency difference. This method can be used to detect unilateral acoustic neuromas, and the false positives found by this technique are probably caused by other unilateral nonrecruiting hearing losses. In evaluating neurological disease, and especially when testing for a second occult lesion in multiple sclerosis (MS) an audiogram should be obtained because the criterion of a normal wave latency with decreased amplitude for the diagnosis of MS can be mimicked by peripheral hearing loss.
A visually guided spherical underwater robot

This paper proposes a visual servoing system for a spherical underwater robot. Based on the spherical robot design, the forces and moments acting on it are analyzed and the governing motion equations are derived. The system consists of an on-board bottom facing camera module which is color coded to extract the position information and then guide the robot to follow the reference pattern placed at the bottom of the test tank. The visual servoing system proposed here allows the spherical underwater robot to track and follow a given target underwater. The main features of the system are, to track the color coded pattern and simultaneously feedback the orientation command to the onboard controller. Experimental results with real time data feedback demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can track the color pattern well and a better control on the spherical underwater robot can be achieved, even under various dynamic operating conditions.
Polymyxins Revisited

SUMMARY The global emergence of multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacilli has spurred a renewed interest in polymyxins. Once discarded due to concerns regarding nephrotoxicity and neurotoxicity, polymyxins now hold an important role in the antibiotic armamentarium. However, more reliable information is needed to determine the optimal dosing of these agents. Also, unanswered questions regarding in vitro testing remain, including questions regarding the reliability of automated systems and the establishment of appropriate breakpoints for defining susceptibility. Most contemporary clinical studies examining the use of these agents have involved patients with infections due to multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii strains. It has been reassuring that polymyxin therapy for resistant bacteria has resulted in clinical responses and toxicity rates similar to those for carbapenem therapy for susceptible isolates. While most surveillance studies demonstrated high rates of susceptibility, several reports noted the emergence of polymyxin-resistant nosocomial pathogens. Polymyxins have assumed an important antibiotic niche for therapy for hospital-acquired infections; further studies defining the optimal use of these agents will likely extend the duration of their clinical usefulness.
Characterization of Field-of-View for Energy Efficient Application-Aware Visual Sensor Networks

Energy consumption is one of the primary concerns in a resource-constrained visual sensor network (VSN). The existing VSN design solutions under particular resource-constrained scenarios are application specific, whereas the degree of sensitivity of the resource constraints varies from one application to another. This limits the implementation of the existing energy efficient solutions within a VSN node, which may be considered to be a part of a heterogeneous network. The heterogeneity of image capture and processing within a VSN can be adaptively reflected with a dynamic field-of-view (FoV) realization. This is expected to allow the implementation of a generalized energy efficient solution to adapt with the heterogeneity of the network. In this paper, an energy efficient FoV characterization framework is proposed, which can support a diverse range of applications. The context of adaptivity in the proposed FoV characterization framework is considered to be: 1) sensing range selection; 2) maximizing spatial coverage; 3) adaptive task classification; and 4) minimizing the number of required nodes. Soft decision criteria is exploited, and it is observed that for a given detection reliability, the proposed framework provides energy efficient solutions, which can be implemented within heterogeneous networks. It is also found that the proposed design solution for heterogeneous networks leads to 49.8% energy savings compared with the trivial design solution.
Neuropsychological impairments in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder: findings from the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) study.

OBJECTIVE Familial neuropsychological deficits are well established in schizophrenia but remain less well characterized in other psychotic disorders. This study from the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) consortium 1) compares cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with psychosis, 2) tests a continuum model of cognitive dysfunction in psychotic disorders, 3) reports familiality of cognitive impairments across psychotic disorders, and 4) evaluates cognitive impairment among nonpsychotic relatives with and without cluster A personality traits. METHOD Participants included probands with schizophrenia (N=293), psychotic bipolar disorder (N=227), schizoaffective disorder (manic, N=110; depressed, N=55), their first-degree relatives (N=316, N=259, N=133, and N=64, respectively), and healthy comparison subjects (N=295). All participants completed the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) neuropsychological battery. RESULTS Cognitive impairments among psychotic probands, compared to healthy comparison subjects, were progressively greater from bipolar disorder (z=-0.77) to schizoaffective disorder (manic z=-1.08; depressed z=-1.25) to schizophrenia (z=-1.42). Profiles across subtests of the BACS were similar across disorders. Familiality of deficits was significant and comparable in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Of particular interest were similar levels of neuropsychological deficits in relatives with elevated cluster A personality traits across proband diagnoses. Nonpsychotic relatives of schizophrenia probands without these personality traits exhibited significant cognitive impairments, while relatives of bipolar probands did not. CONCLUSIONS Robust cognitive deficits are present and familial in schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder. Severity of cognitive impairments across psychotic disorders was consistent with a continuum model, in which more prominent affective features and less enduring psychosis were associated with less cognitive impairment. Cognitive dysfunction in first-degree relatives is more closely related to psychosis-spectrum personality disorder traits in psychotic bipolar disorder than in schizophrenia.
Metaphase I Arrest in LT/Sv Mouse Oocytes Involves the Spindle Assembly Checkpoint1

Abstract During meiotic maturation, the majority of oocytes from LT/Sv mice arrest at metaphase I. However, anaphase may be induced through parthenogenetic activation. If this happens within the ovary, it often results in the development of ovarian teratomas. Here, we show that the induction of first meiotic anaphase in LT/Sv oocytes results in incorrect chromosome segregation. In search of the molecular basis of this complex phenotype, we analyzed the localization/destruction of cohesins, as well as the function of the components of the spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC). Both localization and removal of meiotic cohesin REC8 from chromosomes are unperturbed. In contrast, there is prolonged localization of SAC proteins BUB1 and MAD2L1 (MAD2) at the metaphase I kinetochores in mutant oocytes compared with the wild-type. Interfering with BUB1 function through expression of a dominant-negative mutant protein resulted in the increase of the number of LT/Sv oocytes completing the first meiosis, which indicates SAC involvement in metaphase I arrest. These data show for the first time that there is a direct link between the SAC function and the heritable meiotic incompetence of a mammalian oocyte.
Unilateral focal polymicrogyria in a patient with classical Aarskog–Scott syndrome due to a novel missense mutation in an evolutionary conserved RhoGEF domain of the faciogenital dysplasia gene FGD1

Faciogenital dysplasia or Aarskog–Scott syndrome (AAS) is an X‐linked disorder characterized by craniofacial, skeletal, and urogenital malformations and short stature. Mutations in the only known causative gene FGD1 are found in about one‐fifth of the cases with the clinical diagnosis of AAS. FGD1 is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) that specifically activates the Rho GTPase Cdc42 via its RhoGEF domain. The Cdc42 pathway is involved in skeletal formation and multiple aspects of neuronal development. We describe a boy with typical AAS and, in addition, unilateral focal polymicrogyria (PMG), a feature hitherto unreported in AAS. Sequencing of the FGD1 gene in the index case and his mother revealed the presence of a novel mutation (1396A>G; M466V), located in the evolutionary conserved α‐helix 4 of the RhoGEF domain. M466V was not found in healthy family members, in >300 healthy controls and AAS patients, and has not been reported in the literature or mutation databases to date, indicating that this novel missense mutation causes AAS, and possibly PMG. Brain cortex malformations such as PMG could be initiated by mutations in the evolutionary conserved RhoGEF domain of FGD1, by perturbing the signaling via Rho GTPases such as Cdc42 known to cause brain malformation. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Melasma treatment in Korean women using a 1064‐nm Q‐switched Nd:YAG laser with low pulse energy

The efficacy of a 1064‐nm Q‐switched neodymium:yttrium–aluminium–garnet (QS Nd:YAG) laser with low pulse energy in the treatment of melasma in 25 women was assessed by retrospective analysis of clinical photographs and patient satisfaction rates. Follow‐up results 2 months after the last treatment revealed that, as defined by our grading scale, 11 of the 25 patients (44%) had marked clinical improvement: 7 of these (28%) had near‐total clinical improvement, 5 had moderate clinical improvement and 2 had minimal to no improvement. Our data suggest that the use of a QS Nd:YAG laser with low pulse energy is an effective, easily performed treatment for melasma in selected East Asian patients.