Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monitor alarm fatigue: standardizing use of physiological monitors and decreasing nuisance alarms.

BACKGROUND Reliance on physiological monitors to continuously "watch" patients and to alert the nurse when a serious rhythm problem occurs is standard practice on monitored units. Alarms are intended to alert clinicians to deviations from a predetermined "normal" status. However, alarm fatigue may occur when the sheer number of monitor alarms overwhelms clinicians, possibly leading to alarms being disabled, silenced, or ignored. PURPOSE Excessive numbers of monitor alarms and fear that nurses have become desensitized to these alarms was the impetus for a unit-based quality improvement project. METHODS Small tests of change to improve alarm management were conducted on a medical progressive care unit. The types and frequency of monitor alarms in the unit were assessed. Nurses were trained to individualize patients' alarm parameter limits and levels. Monitor software was modified to promote audibility of critical alarms. RESULTS Critical monitor alarms were reduced 43% from baseline data. The reduction of alarms could be attributed to adjustment of monitor alarm defaults, careful assessment and customization of monitor alarm parameter limits and levels, and implementation of an interdisciplinary monitor policy. DISCUSSION Although alarms are important and sometimes life-saving, they can compromise patients' safety if ignored. This unit-based quality improvement initiative was beneficial as a starting point for revamping alarm management throughout the institution.
A smooth and fast transition method for PMSM SMO based sensorless control

A simple sliding-mode back electromotive-force (EMF) based speed sensorless control for permanent magnetic synchronous machine (PMSM) is realized in this paper. In order to perform the smooth and fast transition from the open-loop control to the closed-loop field oriented control (FOC), this paper analyzes the system behavior in the vicinity of the switching instant, then proposes a novel transition method for switching process. The method adopts an integral controller to regulate the Iq current reference, during the transition process, according to the deviation between estimated angle and reference angle. The method can provide fast and smooth transition, and it is also easy to be implemented by DSP. The simulation and experiment results show the validity and feasibility of the proposed method.
Native and reconstituted HDL protect cardiomyocytes from doxorubicin-induced apoptosis.

AIMS We analysed the impact of native and reconstituted HDL on doxorubicin-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis. While it is an effective anti-cancer agent, doxorubicin has serious cardiotoxic side effects. HDL has been shown to protect cardiomyocytes, notably against oxidative stress. METHODS AND RESULTS Cultured neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes were subjected to doxorubicin-induced stress, monitored as caspase3 activation, apoptotic DNA fragmentation and cell viability. The protective effects of HDL and sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) were investigated using native HDL, reconstituted HDL of varied composition and agonists and antagonists of S1P receptors. Anti-apoptotic signalling pathways were identified with specific inhibitors. Native and reconstituted HDL significantly decreased doxorubicin-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis, essentially due to the S1P component of HDL. The latter was mediated by the S1P2 receptor, but not the S1P1 or S1P3 receptors. The extracellular signal-regulated kinases 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) signalling pathway was required for the anti-apoptotic effects of HDL and S1P. The transcription factor Stat3 also played an important role, as inhibition of its activity compromised the protective effects of HDL and S1P on doxorubicin-induced apoptosis. CONCLUSION HDL and its sphingosine-1-phosphate component can protect cardiomyocytes against doxorubicin toxicity and may offer one means of reducing cardiotoxic side effects during doxorubicin therapy. The study identified anti-apoptotic pathways that could be exploited to improve cardiomyocyte survival.
Intraductal carcinoma of the prostate can evade androgen deprivation, with emergence of castrate‐tolerant cells

To determine the relevance of intraductal carcinoma of the prostate (IDC‐P) in advanced prostate cancer by first examining whether IDC‐P was originally present in patients who later developed advanced prostate cancer and then using patient‐derived xenografts (PDXs) to investigate the response of IDC‐P to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT).
Competing Risk of Death: An Important Consideration in Studies of Older Adults

Clinical studies often face the difficult problem of how to account for participants who die without experiencing the study outcome of interest. In a geriatric population with considerable comorbidities, the competing risk of death is especially high. Traditional approaches to describe risk of disease include Kaplan‐Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazards regression, but these methods can overestimate risk of disease by failing to account for the competing risk of death. This report discusses traditional survival analysis and competing risk analysis as used to estimate risk of disease in geriatric studies. Furthermore, it illustrates a competing risk approach to estimate risk of second hip fracture in the Framingham Osteoporosis Study and compares the results with traditional survival analysis. In this example, survival analysis overestimated the 5‐year risk of second hip fracture by 37% and the 10‐year risk by 75% compared with competing risk estimates. In studies of older individuals in which a substantial number of participants die during a long follow‐up, the cumulative incidence competing risk estimate and competing risk regression should be used to determine incidence and effect estimates. Use of a competing risk approach is critical to accurately determining disease risk for elderly individuals and therefore best inform clinical decision‐making.
The Misnomer of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

We propose that attention-deficit disorder represents an inefficiency of an integrated system designed to allocate working memory to designated tasks rather than the absence or dysfunction of a particular form of attention. A significant portion of this inefficiency in the allocation of working memory represents poor engagement of the reward circuit with distinct circuits of learning and performance that control instrumental conditioning (learning). Efficient attention requires the interaction of these circuits. For a significant percentage of individuals who present with attention-deficit disorder, their problems represent the engagement, or lack thereof, of the motivational and reward circuit as opposed to problems, or disorders of attention traditionally defined as problems with orienting, focusing, and sustaining. We demonstrate that there is an integrated system of working-memory allocation that responds by recruiting relevant aspects of both cortex and subcortex to the demands of the task being encountered. In this model, attention is viewed as a gating function determined by novelty, flight-or-fight response, and reward history/valence affecting motivation. We view the traditional models of attention, rather than describe specific types of attention per se, as representing the description of the behavioral output of this integrated orienting and engagement system designed to allocate working memory to task-specific stimuli.
In chicken leukemia cells globin genes are fully transcribed but their rnas are retained in the perinucleolar area.

Using hybridization in situ with a ribo-probe recognizing transcripts of the chicken alpha A globin gene, we show here that in proliferating AEV-transformed erythroblasts this gene is strongly transcribed, but the corresponding transcripts are retained in the nuclei. Most surprisingly, this globin RNA accumulates in the perinucleolar areas in a pattern never observed before. Upon induction of cells to differentiate, leading to productive expression of the hemoglobins, the transcripts of the alpha A globin gene were found for the most part in the cytoplasm. In the nuclei of differentiated cells, the globin RNA is concentrated in one or two specific spots, which are likely to represent the "processing centers" (PCs) of the globin RNA. The results presented indicate that posttranscriptional steps of regulation involving in particular the perinuclear areas are of major importance for erythroid differentiation.
Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products (RAGE)-mediated Neurite Outgrowth and Activation of NF-κB Require the Cytoplasmic Domain of the Receptor but Different Downstream Signaling Pathways*

Receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) mediates neurite outgrowth in vitro on amphoterin-coated substrates. Ligation of RAGE by two other ligands, advanced glycation end products or amyloid β-peptide, is suggested to play a role in cell injury mechanisms involving cellular oxidant stress and activation of the transcription factor NF-κB. However, the RAGE signaling pathways in neurite outgrowth and cell injury are largely unknown. Here we show that transfection of RAGE to neuroblastoma cells induces extension of filopodia and neurites on amphoterin-coated substrates. Furthermore, ligation of RAGE in transfected cells enhances NF-κB-dependent transcription. Both the RAGE-mediated neurite outgrowth and activation of NF-κB are blocked by deletion of the cytoplasmic domain of RAGE. Moreover, dominant negative Rac and Cdc42 but not dominant negative Ras inhibit the extension of neurites induced by RAGE-amphoterin interaction. In contrast, the activation of NF-κB is inhibited by dominant negative Ras but not Rac or Cdc42. These data suggest that distinct signaling pathways are used by RAGE to induce neurite outgrowth and regulate gene expression through NF-κB.
Analysis of agreement between Duplex ultrasound scanning and arteriography in patients with lower limb artery disease

Background Angiography is the gold standard for therapeutic decision-making in lower limb artery disease. However, both the potentiality and safety of Duplex ultrasound scanning suggest that it may become the main diagnostic tool. The present study aimed to investigate the agreement between Duplex scanning and angiography in the diagnosis of stenosis in lower limb artery disease. Methods Forty-nine patients with lower limb artery disease (24 claudication, 12 critical ischemia, 13 skin lesions) underwent angiography and Duplex scanning. The lower limb arterial axis was divided into 15 segments and graded on the basis of the degree of stenosis (0–49%, 50–69%, 70–99% and occlusion). Agreement between angiography and Duplex scanning was assessed by Cohen's kappa statistics (κ). The sensitivity and specificity of Duplex scanning in detecting significant stenosis at angiography (≥ 70%) were also calculated. Results Good diagnostic agreement (κ = 0.70; 95% CI 0.588–0.825) was achieved in the whole arterial axis. Agreement was good for the aorto–iliac district (κ = 0.63) with a sensitivity of 63% and a specificity of 96%, and for the femoro–popliteal district (κ = 0.70) with a sensitivity of 74% and a specificity of 83%. In infrapopliteal arteries, κ showed a poor agreement, but Duplex scanning detected 28 patent tibial arteries in limbs that were not opacified on arteriography. Conclusions Duplex scanning shows good agreement with angiography in lower limb artery disease on the whole, but poor agreement in infrapopliteal districts, with a low sensitivity and high specificity in detecting significant stenoses or occlusions.
Subjects and Citizens: Nation, Race, and Gender from Oroonoko to Anita Hill

Introduction / Michael Moon and Cathy N. Davidson 1 Part I. Letting Go Our Grand Obsessions: Notes Toward a New Literary History of the American Frontiers / Annette Kolodny 9 Oroonoko's Gendered Economies of Honor/Horror: Reframing Colonial Discourses Studies in the Americas / Stephanie Athey and Daniel Cooper Alarcon 27 Race and Sensibility in the Early Republic: Ann Eliza Bleecker and Sarah Wentworth Morton 57 Vanishing Americans: Gender, Empire, and New Historicism / Lora Romero 87 Part II. Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies, and Slaves / Joan Dayan 109 Critiques from Within: Antebellum Projects of Resistance / Maggie Sale 145 Radical Configurations of History in the Era of American Slavery / Russ Castronovo 169 White Slaves: The Mulatto Hero in Antebellum Fiction / Nancy Bentley 195 Part III. Masculinity and Self-Performance in the Life of Black Hawk / Timothy Sweet 219 Constructing the Black Masculine: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and the Sublimits of African American Autobiography / Maurice Wallace 245 Mark Twain and the Diseases of the Jews / Sander L. Gilman 271 Warring Fictions: Iola Leroy and the Color of Gender / Elizabeth Young 293 "Alien Hands": Kate Chopin and the Colonization of Race / Michele A. Birnbaum 319 Part IV. "The Direction of the Howling": Nationalism and the Color Line in Absalom, Absalom! / Barbara Ladd 345 Border Subjects and Transnational Sites: Americo Paredes's The Hammon and the Beans and Other Stories / Ramon Saldivar 373 Remodeling the Model Home in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Beloved / Lori Askeland 395 A Zuni Racounteur Dons the Junco Shirt: Gender and Narrative Style in the Story of Coyote and Junco / Siobhan Senier 417 "We Murder Who We Were": Jasmine and the Violence of Identity / Kristen-Carter Sanborn 433 The Queen of American Goes to Washington City: Harriet Jacobs, Frances Harper, Anita Hill / Lauren Berland 455 The Body Public / Karla F. C. Holloway 481 Index 497
Activin A and Follicle-Stimulating Hormone Control Tight Junctions in Avian Granulosa Cells by Regulating Occludin Expression1

Abstract Within the avian ovarian follicle, the oocyte is surrounded by a monolayer of granulosa cells, which exhibit pronounced epithelial properties. Here we demonstrate the presence of the major tight junction protein occludin in granulosa cells. As shown by immunohistochemistry, occludin localizes to the oocyte-facing granulosa cell surface. Occludin and thus tight junctions are dynamically regulated in a developmental stage-specific manner. Small white follicles, which have not yet started yellow yolk incorporation, show pronounced occludin expression in vitro and in vivo. By contrast, yellow yolk-incorporating small yellow follicles exhibit much lower levels of occludin, and hierarchical, preovulatory follicles are virtually devoid of this essential tight junction component. Using a primary granulosa cell culture system, we demonstrate that concerted action of two well-established ovarian growth regulators, follicle-stimulating hormone and activin A, leads to strong induction of occludin expression in vitro. We suggest that the stage-dependent decrease in the granulosa cell growth factor responsiveness triggers the disruption of tight junctions, enabling rapid and high capacity transport of macromolecules into the oocyte through a paracellular pathway. Such a high-capacity transport for yolk components may represent a crucial prerequisite for rapid oocyte growth once follicles have entered the follicular hierarchy.
Pilot study: The effect of reducing treatment on exercise induced bronchoconstriction

Asthma therapy should be stepped up or stepped down in response to changes in asthma control. However, there is little evidence available on the optimal timing, sequence, and degree of medication reductions. In this study we analyzed clinically stable asthmatic children who underwent a medication reduction from a combination preparation consisting of an inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) and long acting beta2‐agonist (LABA) to monotherapy with the same dose of the ICS. We hypothesized that the extent of exercise‐induced bronchoconstriction (EIB) would not increase after the cessation of the LABA.
A three level voltage space vector generation for open end winding IM using single voltage source driven dual two-level inverter

In this paper, a new scheme for three-level voltage space vector generation is proposed. In this work, the three-level inverter topology is realized by feeding an open winding induction motor with two two-level inverters, fed from a single dc source having the magnitude half compared to the NPC three-level inverter. Compared to existing three-level inverter topologies for open-end winding induction motor drives, the present work eliminates the requirement of two isolated voltage sources or additional power circuits (like common mode voltage chokes). In a conventional 3-phase four-pole induction motor, there exist two identical winding coil groups per phase around the armature, which are connected in series and spatially apart by two pole pitches. In this work, these two identical voltage profile pole pair winding coils in each phase of the induction motor are disconnected and reconnected in two star connected groups to deny the path for common mode current. They are fed from independently controlled (decoupled control) two two-level inverters from both sides of the motor with the same dc-link voltage with half the magnitude compared to conventional NPC three-level inverter. The scheme presented in this paper, doesn't require any special design modification for the induction machine. For the present study, a four pole IM drive is used, and the scheme can be easily extended to Induction motors with more than four poles. The proposed scheme is experimentally verified on a four pole, 5HP induction motor drive.
Low back pain and musculoskeletal symptoms among Kansas farmers.

BACKGROUND Farming continues to rank as one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of low back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among the farmers and to examine the factors associated with occupational back pain. Farmers in a predominately corn and soybean growing region of Kansas served as the study sample. METHODS Questionnaires were mailed out to 499 active farmers of a Farmers' Cooperative in Southeast Kansas. The self-administered questionnaire was used to determine the prevalence of self-reported symptoms of back pain and other MSDs and to determine the strength of associations between back pain and work factors. RESULTS The participation rate was 57.2%. The low back was the anatomical area with the highest prevalence of self-reported work-related pain (37.5%), followed by the shoulders (25.9%), knees (23.6%), and neck (22.4%). Close to 60% of the farmers reported that they experienced farm work-related MSD symptoms in at least one of the nine body areas in the previous year. Nearly one quarter of the farmers reported seeing a physician for their low back symptoms, and one in five farmers had to modify their work habits due to low back symptoms during the previous year. CONCLUSIONS Low back pain and other musculoskeletal conditions are a significant problem for Kansas farmers. This group of Kansas farmers experienced low back pain at a much higher rate than the general working population and higher than other groups of farmers previously studied.
Use of aluminum films as substrates for enhanced fluorescence in the ultraviolet-blue spectral region

Thermal evaporation was used to deposit particulate aluminum films of varied thicknesses on quartz substrates. These substrates were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), which reveal that with an increase in aluminum thickness, the films progress from particulate towards smooth surfaces. Until now, metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) has primarily been observed in the visible-NIR wavelength region using silver or gold island films and roughened surfaces. We now report that fluorescence can also be enhanced in the ultraviolet-blue region of the spectrum using nano-structured aluminum films. We used two probes, one in the ultraviolet (a DNA base analogue 2-aminopurine: 2- AP) and another one in blue spectral region (a coumarin derivative: 7-HC) for the present study. We observed increased emission, decrease in fluorescence lifetime and increase in photostability of the dyes in a 10 nm spin-casted polyvinyl alcohol film on the Al nanostructured surfaces. We observe that the fluorescence enhancement factor depends on the thickness of the Al films because the size of the nanostructures formed varies with Al thickness. These studies indicate that Al nano-structured substrates can potentially find widespread use in MEF applications particularly in the UV - blue spectral regime. Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) calculations were performed that revealed enhanced near-fields induced around aluminum nanoparticles by a radiating fluorophore emitting at the emission wavelength of 2-AP. The effect of such enhanced fields on the fluorescence enhancement observed is also discussed.
Selective Advantage of Resistant Strains at Trace Levels of Antibiotics: a Simple and Ultrasensitive Color Test for Detection of Antibiotics and Genotoxic Agents

ABSTRACT Many studies have examined the evolution of bacterial mutants that are resistant to specific antibiotics, and many of these focus on concentrations at and above the MIC. Here we ask for the minimum concentration at which existing resistant mutants can outgrow sensitive wild-type strains in competition experiments at antibiotic levels significantly below the MIC, and we define a minimum selective concentration (MSC) in Escherichia coli for two antibiotics, which is near 1/5 of the MIC for ciprofloxacin and 1/20 of the MIC for tetracycline. Because of the prevalence of resistant mutants already in the human microbiome, allowable levels of antibiotics to which we are exposed should be below the MSC. Since this concentration often corresponds to low or trace levels of antibiotics, it is helpful to have simple tests to detect such trace levels. We describe a simple ultrasensitive test for detecting the presence of antibiotics and genotoxic agents. The test is based on the use of chromogenic proteins as color markers and the use of single and multiple mutants of Escherichia coli that have greatly increased sensitivity to either a wide range of antibiotics or specific antibiotics, antibiotic families, and genotoxic agents. This test can detect ciprofloxacin at 1/75 of the MIC.
3D position estimation using an artificial neural network for a continuous scintillator PET detector

Continuous crystal based PET detectors have features of simple design, low cost, good energy resolution and high detection efficiency. Through single-end readout of scintillation light, direct three-dimensional (3D) position estimation could be another advantage that the continuous crystal detector would have. In this paper, we propose to use artificial neural networks to simultaneously estimate the plane coordinate and DOI coordinate of incident γ photons with detected scintillation light. Using our experimental setup with an ‘8 + 8’ simplified signal readout scheme, the training data of perpendicular irradiation on the front surface and one side surface are obtained, and the plane (x, y) networks and DOI networks are trained and evaluated. The test results show that the artificial neural network for DOI estimation is as effective as for plane estimation. The performance of both estimators is presented by resolution and bias. Without bias correction, the resolution of the plane estimator is on average better than 2 mm and that of the DOI estimator is about 2 mm over the whole area of the detector. With bias correction, the resolution at the edge area for plane estimation or at the end of the block away from the readout PMT for DOI estimation becomes worse, as we expect. The comprehensive performance of the 3D positioning by a neural network is accessed by the experimental test data of oblique irradiations. To show the combined effect of the 3D positioning over the whole area of the detector, the 2D flood images of oblique irradiation are presented with and without bias correction.