Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Knowledge on DNA Success Rates to Optimize the DNA Analysis Process: From Crime Scene to Laboratory

DNA analysis has become an essential intelligence tool in the criminal justice system for the identification of possible offenders. However, it appears that about half of the processed DNA samples contains too little DNA for analysis. This study looks at DNA success rates within 28 different categories of trace exhibits and relates the DNA concentration to the characteristics of the DNA profile. Data from 2260 analyzed crime samples show that cigarettes, bloodstains, and headwear have relatively high success rates. Cartridge cases, crowbars, and tie‐wraps are on the other end of the spectrum. These objective data can assist forensics in their selection process.The DNA success probability shows a positive relation with the DNA concentration. This finding enables the laboratory to set an evidence‐based threshold value in the DNA analysis process. For instance, 958 DNA extracts had a concentration value of 6 pg/μL or less. Only 46 of the 958 low‐level extracts provided meaningful DNA profiling data.
Troubles mentaux et suicide

Citer cet article Lesage, A. (1994). Troubles mentaux et suicide. Santé mentale au Québec, 19(2), 7–14. https://doi.org/10.7202/032309ar Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. [https://apropos.erudit. org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/]
Asymmetric Spatial Pattern for EEG-based emotion detection

Feature extraction has been a crucial and challenging task for EEG-based BCI applications mainly due to the problems of high-dimensionality and high noise level of EEG signals. In this paper we developed a novel feature extraction algorithm for EEG-based emotion detection problem. The proposed algorithm is derived from viewing EEG signals as the activation/deactivation of sources specific to the brain activities of interest. For binary classification problem, to be more specific, we consider the EEG signals for the two types of brain activities as characterized by the activation/deactivation of two discriminatory sources in the brain, with one source activated and the other one deactivated for one particular type of brain activities. The proposed algorithm, termed Asymmetric Spatial Pattern (ASP), extracts pairs of spatial filters, with each filter corresponding to only one of the two sources. The idea of ASP is neurologically plausible for certain situations. For example, according to the valence hypothesis of emotion, the left hemisphere is more activated in positive emotions and the right hemisphere is more activated in negative emotions. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is confirmed by application to real data for two types of EEG-based emotion detection problems: arousal detection (strong v.s. calm), and valence detection (positive v.s. negative). Experimental results on the real data also show that some of the asymmetric spatial patterns by ASP are consistent with the current neurophysiological findings on brain emotion processing.
Communication strategies for the effective promotion of dietary change

Outlines research on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food‐funded project Communication strategies for the Promotion of Dietary Change. With a view to general dietary recommendations and to Health of the Nation targets, the focus of this three‐year project is the promotion of dietary change through information provision. A multidisciplinary team of researchers at the Institute of Food Research, Reading, is conducting the research, drawing on a number of different theoretical perspectives and methodological procedures. Pays special emphasis to the issue of fat consumption, summarizes the practical role of the theory of planned behaviour, the elaboration‐likelihood model and unrealistic optimism research, and outlines the development of a novel food and drink diary. Advocates a multidisciplinary, integrative approach to information‐based health promotion efforts.
Dechlorination of chlorinated benzenes by an anaerobic microbial consortium that selectively mediates the thermodynamic most favorable reactions.

A chlorinated benzene dechlorinating anaerobic microbial consortium was obtained by selective enrichment with hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and lactate from a freshwater sediment sample that originated from an area with proven in situ HCB dechlorination. The consortium was used to determine compound selectivity and relative dechlorination rates by incubation with the individual chlorinated benzenes under methanogenic conditions. The dechlorinating activity was restricted to benzenes with at least three adjacent chlorines, except for a relative slow transformation of 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene to 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene. Optimal temperature for dechlorination was around 30 o C, significant dechlorinating activity was still observed at a temperature of 3 o C
Efficient diminished-1 modulo 2n+1 multiplier architectures

The main components of an artificial neuron are adders and multipliers. In order to implement neural network, large number of adders and multipliers are required. The efficient architectures for diminished-1 modulo 2n+1 multipliers are described. The results and operands of the new modulo 2n+1 multipliers use the diminished-1, avoiding n+1 bit circuit. And the presented multipliers can handle zero inputs and results. The proposed modulo 2n +1 multiplier are built using three major functional modules, partial products generation block, partial products reduction block and a final diminished-1 adder block. The final modulo 2n +1 addition block is built around a sparse carry computation unit for the analytical and experimental results. And this indicates that the significant area and power of the proposed multipliers is superior to the earlier proposals, with a high operation speed.
Sexual Dimorphism of the First Rib: A Comparative Approach Using Metric and Geometric Morphometric Analyses

This research investigated the sexual dimorphism of the first human rib using geometric morphometric and metric approaches on a sample of 285 specimens containing European Americans and African Americans from the Hamann‐Todd collection. Metric measurements were investigated for sexual dimorphism and ancestral differences using univariate statistics. Four type II landmarks and 40 sliding semi‐landmarks were placed outlining the dorsal and ventral curvatures of the ribs. Landmark data were processed using Generalized Procrustes Analyses with Procrustes distance sliding, and the subsequent coordinates were investigated for sexual dimorphism and ancestral differences using Procrustes ANOVAs. Both geometric morphometric and metric data were analyzed using cross‐validated discriminant function analyses to test the hypothesis that variables from both approaches can be combined to increase sex classification rate. European Americans had sex correctly classified as high as 88.05% and African Americans as high as 70.86% using a combination of metric and geometric morphometric variables.
LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR MEDICAL MALPRACTICE: VI. FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT DIRECT CAUSATION AND DAMAGE

III. DIRECT CAUSATION (PROXIMATE CAUSE) In law, as in medicine, the question of responsible cause, the relation of cause and effect, is a perennial inquiry; one constantly seeks to incriminate some causal agent when the "status quo" has been changed. In medicine, as in law, the question arises: At what point should one rest in his effort to trace back the responsible or "efficient" cause? The pure scientist will say, "I shall halt only where crudities of present science momentarily make halting necessary; no cause' can ever be too remote for concern, so long as some preceding cause still lies undiscovered. " The medical practitioner will say, "I must concern myself with the immediate cause, the cause of the sudden illness of John Jones, which will enable me to treat him intelligently and fairly and do reasonable justice to his case. Practicality will not permit me to go into remote causes
Use of dissolved h2 concentrations to determine distribution of microbially catalyzed redox reactions in anoxic groundwater.

The potential for using concentrations of dissolved H 2 to determine the distribution of redox processes in anoxic groundwaters was evaluated. In pristine aquifers in which standard geochemical measurements indicated that Fe(III) reduction, sulfate reduction, or methanogenesis was the terminal electron accepting process (TEAP), the H 2 concentrations were similar to the H 2 concentrations that have previously been reported for aquatic sediments with the same TEAPs. In two aquifers containated with petroleum products, it was impossible with standard geochemical analyses to determine which TEAPs predominated in specific locations. However, the TEAPs predicted from measurements of dissolved H 2 were the same as those determined directly through measurements of microbial processes in incubated aquifer material
Knee Arthrodesis Using the Wichita Fixation Rod

For patients with a failed total knee replacement that is unsalvageable, only few treatment options remain. Knee arthrodesis is a valuable alternative to amputation in these cases. Several fusion techniques have been described, including external fixation, plate and screw osteosynthesis, and intramedullary rods. The Wichita fusion nail is an intramedullary rod that allows compression at the arthrodesis site. Furthermore, only 1 surgical exposure is required, and early weight bearing is allowed. This article describes in detail the technique used for implantation of the Wichita fusion nail and discusses the indications, results, and complications.
Contribution for choosing the optimal prophylaxis of bacterial endocarditis

The beneficial effect of endocarditis prophylaxis was studied in 229 patients with prosthetic heart valves, in whom 287 diagnostic interventions were performed. The prevention used was similar to that recommended earlier by the American Heart Association. Prosthetic valve endocarditis was not observed in any of these patients. This result was compared with that of 304 patients with prosthetic heart valves, in whom, without any prevention, 390 similar interventions were performed during the same observation period. The incidence of prosthetic valve endocarditis occurring within 14 days after the intervention was 1 . 5/100 interventions (N = 6). All patients required re-operation. One patient died peri-operatively. Two more patients developed prosthetic valve endocarditis 8 and 13 weeks, respectively, after the initial intervention. This retrospective study documents the benefit of the endocarditis prophylaxis used.
Prevalence of hepatitis C virus infection and its correlates in a rural area of southwestern China: a community-based cross-sectional study

Objectives Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major public health problem in southwestern China. Our aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of HCV infection and its correlates in the Yi population of this region. Methods A community-based survey was conducted to investigate sociodemographic characteristics and other associated factors for HCV infection in a rural area of southwestern China. Blood samples were collected and tested for antibodies to HCV. Anti-HCV positive samples were further assessed for HCV RNA. Results A total of 2558 participants aged ≥14 years were included in our analysis. Of them, 2.8% (95% CI 2.2% to 3.5%) were positive for HCV antibody. Multiple logistic regression analysis revealed that sex (male vs female: adjusted OR (aOR)=3.30, 95% CI 1.80 to 6.07), marital status (unmarried vs married: aOR=0.27, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.80), ever using injection drug (aOR=28.65, 95% CI 15.9 to 51.64) and ever having blood transfusion (aOR=7.64, 95% CI 1.94 to 30.16) were significantly associated with HCV infection (indicated by positive HCV antibody). Stratified analysis by HIV infection found that in HIV-negative individuals, sex (male vs female: aOR=3.84, 95% CI 1.88 to 7.85), ever using injection drug (aOR=22.15, 95% CI 8.45 to 58.04), having multiple sexual partners (aOR=2.57, 95% CI 1.26 to 5.23), and ever having blood transfusion (aOR=16.54, 95% CI 4.44 to 61.58) were significantly associated with HCV infection and in HIV-positive individuals, ever using injection drug (aOR=8.96, 95% CI 3.16 to 25.38) was associated with HCV infection. Conclusion The data suggested a higher risk of HCV infection in this area when compared with the rest of China and some unique associated factors. Rapid scale-up of targeted interventions are needed to prevent further transmission and consequent morbidities.
Improving patient safety through better teamwork: how effective are different methods of simulation debriefing? Protocol for a pragmatic, prospective and randomised study

Introduction Medical errors have an incidence of 9% and may lead to worse patient outcome. Teamwork training has the capacity to significantly reduce medical errors and therefore improve patient outcome. One common framework for teamwork training is crisis resource management, adapted from aviation and usually trained in simulation settings. Debriefing after simulation is thought to be crucial to learning teamwork-related concepts and behaviours but it remains unclear how best to debrief these aspects. Furthermore, teamwork-training sessions and studies examining education effects on undergraduates are rare. The study aims to evaluate the effects of two teamwork-focused debriefings on team performance after an extensive medical student teamwork training. Methods and analyses A prospective experimental study has been designed to compare a well-established three-phase debriefing method (gather–analyse–summarise; the GAS method) to a newly developed and more structured debriefing approach that extends the GAS method with TeamTAG (teamwork techniques analysis grid). TeamTAG is a cognitive aid listing preselected teamwork principles and descriptions of behavioural anchors that serve as observable patterns of teamwork and is supposed to help structure teamwork-focused debriefing. Both debriefing methods will be tested during an emergency room teamwork-training simulation comprising six emergency medicine cases faced by 35 final-year medical students in teams of five. Teams will be randomised into the two debriefing conditions. Team performance during simulation and the number of principles discussed during debriefing will be evaluated. Learning opportunities, helpfulness and feasibility will be rated by participants and instructors. Analyses will include descriptive, inferential and explorative statistics. Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by the institutional office for data protection and the ethics committee of Charité Medical School Berlin and registered under EA2/172/16. All students will participate voluntarily and will sign an informed consent after receiving written and oral information about the study. Results will be published.
From CPU to FPGA — Acceleration of self-organizing maps for data mining

Big data and machine learning applications are posing steadily increasing challenges to the used compute platforms in terms of performance and energy efficiency. In this paper we utilize the highly scalable heterogeneous server platform RECS for evaluation of a wide variety of hardware platforms ranging from general purpose CPUs via ARM-based SoCs to GPGPUs and FPGAs. The self-organizing map, a popular neural network model for unsupervised clustering and dimensionality reduction, is used as a typical example for machine learning applications in the big data domain. Optimized implementations of the algorithm have been developed for each of the target architectures. An in-depth analysis of the achieved performance and energy efficiency for a wide variety of application parameters shows that no single architecture performs best in terms of energy efficiency for the complete design space. In our study, ARM-based SoCs achieved the highest efficiency for small network sizes while FPGAs and GPGPUs perform best for large data sets. Compared to an implementation based on the Matlab SOM toolbox, our optimized multi-threaded CPU implementation achieves two orders of magnitude higher performance and energy efficiency. Large simulations especially benefit from the FPGA implementation, which outperforms the optimized CPU implementation by a factor of 220 and provides a 28-times higher energy efficiency.
RADAR study: protocol for an observational cohort study to identify early warning signals on the pathways to alcohol use disorder

Introduction Harmful alcohol consumption, particularly alcohol use disorder (AUD), is a worldwide health priority, contributing substantially to global morbidity and mortality. The peak age of onset of AUD is 18–24, thus a deeper understanding of the young adult experience is vital if we are to identify modifiable risk factors and intervene early in the developmental course of this disabling disorder. Critical unanswered questions include: How soon after drinking initiation do AUD symptoms begin to emerge? Which symptoms come first? Do the symptoms unfold in a predictable pattern? In what ways do the emerging symptoms interact with individual, peer, family and environmental risk factors to impact on the transition to disorder? Methods and analysis The proposed RADAR study will examine the prospective development of AUD symptoms over the young adulthood (18–24) years. We will capitalise on an existing cohort of 1911 community-based adolescents who were recruited at age 13 and have completed a baseline and five annual follow-up assessments as part of an observational cohort study. We will interview these adolescents every 6 months between the ages of 19 and 23 to derive monthly histories of both alcohol use and AUD symptomatology, along with a comprehensive battery of risk and protective factor scales hypothesised to predict the emergence and course of AUD. The results of this study will inform the natural history of AUD and will be used to identify specific targets for prevention and early intervention of AUD. Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval has already been granted for the study (UNSW HREC 10144). We will disseminate the results of the study through published manuscripts, conferences and seminar presentations. Data used in published manuscripts will be made available through a suitable online repository (eg, Dryad–datadryad.org).
Design and rationale of the Cardiovascular Health and Text Messaging (CHAT) Study and the CHAT-Diabetes Mellitus (CHAT-DM) Study: two randomised controlled trials of text messaging to improve secondary prevention for coronary heart disease and diabetes

Introduction Mobile health interventions have the potential to promote risk factor management and lifestyle modification, and are a particularly attractive approach for scaling across healthcare systems with limited resources. We are conducting two randomised trials to evaluate the efficacy of text message-based health messages in improving secondary coronary heart disease (CHD) prevention among patients with or without diabetes. Methods and analysis The Cardiovascular Health And Text Messaging (CHAT) Study and the CHAT-Diabetes Mellitus (CHAT-DM) Study are multicentre, single-blind, randomised controlled trials of text messaging versus standard treatment with 6 months of follow-up conducted in 37 hospitals throughout 17 provinces in China. The intervention group receives six text messages per week which target blood pressure control, medication adherence, physical activity, smoking cessation (when appropriate), glucose monitoring and lifestyle recommendations including diet (in CHAT-DM). The text messages were developed based on behavioural change techniques, using models such as the information-motivation-behavioural skills model, goal setting and provision of social support. A total sample size of 800 patients would be adequate for CHAT Study and sample size of 500 patients would be adequate for the CHAT-DM Study. In CHAT, the primary outcome is the change in systolic blood pressure (SBP) at 6 months. Secondary outcomes include a change in proportion of patients achieving a SBP <140 mm Hg, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), physical activity, medication adherence, body mass index (BMI) and smoking cessation. In CHAT-DM, the primary outcome is the change in glycaemic haemoglobin (HbA1C) at 6 months. Secondary outcomes include a change in the proportion of patients achieving HbA1C<7%, fasting blood glucose, SBP, LDL-C, BMI, physical activity and medication adherence. Ethics and dissemination The central ethics committee at the China National Center for Cardiovascular Disease and the Yale University Institutional Review Board approved the CHAT and CHAT-DM studies. Results will be disseminated via usual scientific forums including peer-reviewed publications. Trial registration number CHAT (NCT02888769) and CHAT-DM (NCT02883842); Pre-results.
Development and validation of an instrument for measuring the burden of medicine on functioning and well-being: the Medication-Related Burden Quality of Life (MRB-QoL) tool

Objective Medication-related burden (MRB) is a negative experience with medicine, which may impact on psychological, social, physical and financial well-being of an individual. This study describes the development and initial validation of an instrument specifically designed to measure MRB on functioning and well-being—the Medication-Related Burden Quality of Life (MRB-QoL) tool. Methods An initial pool of 76-items for MRB-QoL was generated. The link to MRB-QoL survey was sent to a sample of consumers living with at least one chronic medical condition and taking ≥3 prescription medicines on a regular basis. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to determine the underlining factor structure. Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) and construct validity were examined. The latter was examined through correlation with Medication Regimen Complexity Index (MRCI), Drug Burden Index (DBI) and Charlson’s Comorbidity Index (CCI). Results 367 consumers completed the survey (51.2% male). EFA resulted in a 31-item, five-factor solution explaining 72% of the total variance. The five subscales were labelled as ‘Routine and Regimen Complexity’ (11 items), ‘Psychological Burden’ (six items), ‘Functional and Role Limitation’ (seven items), ‘Therapeutic Relationship’ (three items) and ‘Social Burden’ (four items). All subscales showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α 0.87 to 0.95). Discriminant validity of MRB-QoL was demonstrated via its correlations with MRCI (Spearman’s r −0.16 to 0.08), DBI (r 0.12 to 0.28) and CCI (r −0.23 to −0.15). Correlation between DBI and ‘Functional and Role Limitation’ subscale (r 0.36) indicated some evidence of convergent validity. Patients with polypharmacy, multiple morbidity and DBI >0 had higher median scores of MRB-QoL providing evidence for known group validity. Conclusions The MRB-QoL V.1 has good construct validity and internal consistency. The MRB-QoL may be a useful humanistic measure for evaluating the impact of pharmaceutical care interventions on patients’ quality of life. Future research is warranted to further examine additional psychometric properties of MRB-QoL V.1 and its utility in patient care.