Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Survey of Practice Patterns in Concussion Assessment and Management.

OBJECTIVES: To identify methods used by athletic trainers to assess concussions and the use of that information to assist in return-to-play decisions and to determine athletic trainers' familiarity with new standardized methods of concussion assessment. DESIGN AND SETTING: A 21-item questionnaire was distributed to attendees of a minicourse at the 1999 National Athletic Trainers' Association Annual Meeting and Clinical Symposia entitled "Use of Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) in the Immediate Sideline Evaluation of Injured Athletes. " SUBJECTS: A total of 339 valid surveys were returned by the attendees of the minicourse. MEASUREMENTS: We used frequency analysis and descriptive statistics. RESULTS: Clinical examination (33%) and a symptom checklist (15.3%) were the most common evaluative tools used to assess concussions. The Colorado Guidelines (28%) were used more than other concussion management guidelines. Athletic trainers (34%) and team physicians (40%) were primarily responsible for making decisions regarding return to play. A large number of respondents (83.5%) believed that the use of a standardized method of concussion assessment provided more information than routine clinical and physical examination alone. CONCLUSIONS: Athletic trainers are using a variety of clinical tools to evaluate concussions in athletes. Clinical evaluation and collaboration with physicians still appear to be the primary methods used for return-to-play decisions. However, athletic trainers are beginning to use standardized methods of concussion to evaluate these injuries and to assist them in assessing the severity of injury and deciding when it is safe to return to play.
Secure access to personalized Web services

In the recent years, Web systems have undergone dramatic changes, since they evolved from plain publishing-oriented facilities to sophisticated service providers. The article describes a practical experience in the provision of limited exposure services on the Web. In particular, the paper illustrates functions and procedures for requesting, issuing, and installing digital certificates, which are used to access the services provided by a Web portal. Digital certificates are an effective means for authenticating users in a networked environment. Users who participate in the experiments can install their personal certificate on their favourite browser and enter personalized service areas.
Neuropathology of inflicted head injury in children.

Geddes et al . have raised several interesting questions about the pathogenesis of non‐accidental head injury. It has been suspected previously that hypoxia secondary to apnoea rather than direct impact is responsible for the diffuse brain damage seen in non‐accidental injury (Johnson et al ., 1995). The authors’ neuro‐pathological findings support this theory and also demonstrate injuries at the cranio‐cervical junction that account for the apnoea and hypoxia in infants with non‐accidental injury (Geddes et al ., 2001 a, b ). Although we accept that it may not be necessary to shake an infant very violently to produce …
Effect of impact pulse parameters on consistency of board level drop test and dynamic responses

Board level solder joint reliability performance during drop test is a critical concern to semiconductor and electronic product manufacturers. JEDEC standard for board level drop test of handheld electronic products addresses requirements from test board design, material, construction and assembly of test board, component location, tester setup, and reporting format in details. However, the effects of peak acceleration, duration, and shape of impact pulse are not emphasized there, which should be key variables that affect the solder joint reliability during drop impact. In this paper, effect of impact pulse is investigated by both theoretical analysis and numerical modeling. The input acceleration (input-G) method established is a convenient tool to verify the conclusions made from theoretical analysis. The results show that not only the peak acceleration and pulse duration, but also the pulse shape and area under impact pulse significantly affect the solder joint performance during drop test. The variations of peak acceleration pulse duration, and pulse shape usually induce significant scattering of drop test results due to different testers, or operators although the impact pulses are all within JEDEC test specification. Therefore, the specification of impact pulse should be tightened. For this sake, electronic product manufacturers should have some strategy to minimize such effects for component qualification or selection. The stress levels under different test conditions are also examined. Numerical modeling makes it possible to convert the drop test result from one test condition to another test conditions without performing additional drop tests, and thus saving time and cost. Acceleration factors for different test conditions can be obtained based on good correlation of drop impact life between experiment and modeling.
Nonlinear integral-type sliding surface for both matched and unmatched uncertain systems

This note presents a new nonlinear integral-type sliding surface which incorporates a virtual nonlinear nominal control to achieve prescribed specifications. First, the plant with matched uncertainties is considered. The resultant closed-loop system during ideal sliding mode behaves exactly like the nominal plant under the nonlinear nominal control, which completely nullifies the matched uncertainties and consequently satisfies the prescribed specifications. Second, the stability analysis of the proposed sliding mode for the systems with unmatched uncertainties is performed to exploit the stability conditions. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of the proposed concept.
Existence and Asymptotic Behavior of Solutions to a Quasi-linear Hyperbolic-Parabolic Model of Vasculogenesis

We consider a hyperbolic-parabolic model of vasculogenesis in the multidimensional case. For this system we show the global existence of smooth solutions to the Cauchy problem, using suitable energy estimates. Since this model does not enter in the classical framework of dissipative problems, we analyze it combining the features of the hyperbolic and the parabolic parts. Moreover we study the asymptotic behavior of those solutions showing their decay rates by means of detailed analysis of the Green function for the linearized problem.
Converting trypsin to chymotrypsin: residue 172 is a substrate specificity determinant.

Trypsin and chymotrypsin have very similar tertiary structures, yet very different substrate specificities. Recent site-directed mutagenesis studies have shown that mutation of the residues of the substrate binding pocket of trypsin to the analogous residues of chymotrypsin does not convert trypsin into a protease with chymotrypsin-like specificity. However, chymotrypsin-like substrate specificity is attained when two surface loops are changed to the analogous residues of chymotrypsin, in conjunction with the changes in the S1 binding site [Hedstrom, L. , Szilagyi, L. , & Rutter, W. J. (1992) Science 255, 1249-1253). This mutant enzyme, Tr-->Ch[S1+L1+L2], is improved to a protease with 2-15% of the activity of chymotrypsin by the mutation of Tyr172 to Trp. Residue 172 interacts synergistically with the residues of the substrate binding pocket and the loops to determine substrate specificity. Further, these trypsin mutants demonstrate that substrate specificity is determined by the rate of catalytic processing rather than by substrate binding.
Validation of the cholesteatoma diagnosis in the Danish National Hospital Register.

INTRODUCTION The aim was to evaluate the validity and the degree of completeness of the cholesteatoma diagnosis in the Danish National Hospital Register (DNHR). MATERIAL AND METHODS VALIDITY A random sample of 286 patients with a cholesteatoma diagnosis who had been admitted to an ear-nose-throat department on Funen between 1977 and 2007 were selected from the DNHR for validation. The diagnosis was verified on the basis of surgical chart review. Completeness: The DNHR was compared with the local Ear-database at Odense University Hospital (EDOUH) covering the 1996-2007 period. RESULTS VALIDITY A total of 273 patients had 422 registrations of a cholesteatoma diagnosis combined with relevant surgery (CWRS). The remaining 13 of the initially 286 selected patients had a cholesteatoma diagnosis, but without relevant surgery. Surgical charts could be retrieved for 262 patients with 401 registrations. The positive predictive value (PPV) of the CWRS in the DNHR was 85.8%. When only the first-time patients with CWRS were recorded, the PPV was 89.3%. Completeness: A total of 329 cases of surgery were recorded in the DNHR, the EDOUH or both. Surgical charts could be retrieved for 322. The diagnosis was confirmed for 277. Based on the confirmed cases, the degree of completeness of the CWRS in the DNHR was estimated to 91.0%. When only the first-time patients were included, the degree of completeness was estimated to 89.3%. CONCLUSION Misclassification of the first CWRS in the NHR was close to 10%, and the DNHR may be considered a useful tool for epidemiological research on cholesteatoma.
MASK IMAGE GENERATION FOR SEGMENTING RETINAL FUNDUS IMAGE FEATURES INTO ISNT QUADRANTS USING ARRAY CENTROID METHOD

Retinal fundus image processing paves the way for diagnosis of many eye disorders. The fundus image features such as optic disc, optic cup, optic rim and blood vessels help to analyse the pathological condition of eye. The analysis involves calculation of ocular parameters such as Rim to Disc Ratio (RDR) and Inferior Superior Nasal Temporal (ISNT) Ratio and verification of ISNT Rule. For this analysis the fundus image features have to be segmented into ISNT quadrants. This paper presents a novel approach towards mask image generation for segmenting fundus image feature into ISNT quadrants using array centroid method. The existing method uses a predefined mask image which is not accurate and the proposed array centroid method overcomes the limitations of existing method. The method involves centroid calculation, array initialization; mask image generation and, mask- feature image multiplication. The proposed method is applied to the fundus images collected from a reputed eye hospital.
Testosterone synthesis in the bovine corpus luteum.

Corpora lutea removed from four Holstein heifersat the 12th day of the estrous cycle were slicedand incubated in Krebs-Ringer bicarbonate buffer at 37#{176}C for 2 h. Samples were analysed for testosterone and progesterone by radioimmunoassays following separationof steroidsby column chromatography. Incubation alone increased testosteronefrom a mean of 2.65 to 6.60 ng/g of tissue (P O.05). These results show that bovine corpora lutea at the 12th day of the estrous cycle are capable of producing testosterone and that LH, PGF2 0 and arachidonic acid significantly stimulate testosteronesynthesisby bovine lutealtissuein vitro.
River Blindness: An Old Disease on the Brink of Elimination and Control

For decades, onchocerciasis (or river blindness) was one of the most common infectious causes of blindness in the world. Primarily an infection of Africa, with limited distribution in the new world, disease due to the nematode Onchocerca volvulus is rapidly diminishing as a result of large public health campaigns targeting at risk populations in Africa and the Americas. Existing and newly-developed treatment strategies offer the chance to eliminate onchocercal ocular morbidity in some parts of the world. This article reviews these treatment strategies, current clinical and epidemiologic aspects of onchocerciasis, and the next steps toward elimination.
Binding of polymyxin antibiotics to tissues: the major determinant of distribution and persistence in the body.

The polymyxin antibiotics are inactivated in vitro by tissues because they are bound to phospholipids of cell membranes. A method that liberates bound drug in an active form from tissues permitted study of distribution and persistence in vivo. Studies using single injections in the rabbit showed that bound drug persists in liver, kidney, brain, heart, muscle, and lung for as long as 72 hr. Accumulation in tissue but not in serum was noted on repeated injection, with persistence for at least five days after seven daily injections. Free polymyxin B was detectable in liver, kidney, muscle, and brain and persisted for many days in muscle and brain. Free colistimethate was detectable in all tissues other than brain and persisted for many days in liver, kidney, and muscle. Colistimethate appears to be incompletely converted in vivo to the parent compound, colistin. These observations may account for differences in toxicity and chemotherapeutic efficacy of polymyxin B and colistimethate.
How to make agents that display believable empathy ? An ethological approach to empathic behavior ( Extended

The plan to engineer “empathic agents” is very ambitious, specifically because many researchers resist attributing such ability to any animal other than humans. Thus it seems to be paradoxical to have emphatic agents but no empathic animals. This review suggests that affective computing may be boosting force for developing a unified approach to the evolution in empathic behaviour in living systems, and the knowledge gained could be utilised for designing machines that produce empathic behaviour which is believable for the human partners.
Ciglitazone Inhibits Oxidized-Low Density Lipoprotein Induced Immune Maturation of Dendritic Cells

Background The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) activation has generally been shown to have anti-inflammatory effects and dendritic cells (DCs) are the most efficient antigen presenting cells that play an active role in the development of atherosclerosis. The effects of PPARγ on DCs maturation and immune function remain unknown now and we, therefore, studied the influence of PPARγ agonist ciglitazone on the maturation and immune function of DCs. Methods Human monocytes were purified and immature DCs derived; ciglitazone (25 μmol/L) was added to the medium for 24 hours; ox-LDL (50 μg/ml) was then added to the medium for another 24 hours. The immunophenotypic expressions (CD1a, CD40, CD86, and HLA-DR) were analyzed by FACS and endocytosis function by FITC-dextran and the cytokines secretions of culture supernatants (IL-12,IL-10,TNFα, and IL-2) were measured with ELISA. Results Ciglitazone reduced ox-LDL induced immunophenotypic expressions of DCs (CD40, CD1a, and HLA-DR). Ox-LDL inhibited the endocytosis of DCs, which was prevented by ciglitazone; ciglitazone attenuated ox-LDL induced cytokine secretions of DCs (IL-12, 116 ± 29 versus 34 ± 3 pg/ml*; IL-10, 49 ± 1 versus 28 ± 9 pg/ml*; TNFα, 46 ± 16 versus 24 ± 8pg/ml*, *P < 0.05 compared with ox-LDL, respectively). Conclusion Our study suggested that one of the anti-inflammatory mechanisms of PPAR-γ agonist ciglitazone was mediated by inhibiting the ox-LDL induced maturation and immune function of DCs.
Liver hydatid disease: long-term results of percutaneous treatment.

PURPOSE To evaluate the long-term effectiveness of percutaneous treatment of liver hydatid cysts. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-one patients (19 female patients and 12 male patients; age range, 8-78 years; mean age, 41 years) with 57 liver hydatid cysts underwent percutaneous treatment. The cysts were treated with hypertonic saline (15% NaCl) and/or absolute alcohol. Sonographic and/or fluoroscopic guidance was used. RESULTS Repeated sonography revealed a gradual decrease in cyst size. Volume reduction was 18%-99% (mean, 83%). With the disappearance of the fluid component, pseudotumor appearance occurred. In all treated cases, the cyst wall became irregular and thicker during follow-up. No mortality occurred. No abdominal dissemination was encountered during follow-up. Major complications were infection of the cavity, hypersensitivity reaction, and development of biliary fistula. One cyst recurred 11 months after primary drainage. CONCLUSION Long-term results indicate that percutaneous treatment of liver hydatid cysts is an effective and safe method in selected cases.
Generalised granuloma annulare successfully treated with PUVA

Disseminated granuloma annulare is an uncommon disorder in which both topical and systemic therapy may have limited success. Anecdotal reports have suggested that PUVA may result in complete clearance of disease; however, maintenance PUVA therapy has usually been required in order to maintain remission. We report the successful treatment of a patient with 5‐methoxypsoralen over a 7‐month period who remained in remission during a 20‐month follow up period.
Defect of nephrogenesis induced by gentamicin in rat metanephric organ culture.

BACKGROUND In the rat, in utero exposure to gentamicin during early renal differentiation leads to a permanent nephron deficit. The aim of the present study was to analyze, in vitro, the potential direct effect of gentamicin on early nephrogenesis. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We used paired rat metanephric organ cultures from 14 (F14) or 15-day-old (F15) fetuses. We measured gentamicin accumulation into explanted metanephroi and then assessed in vitro growth in the absence or presence of the drug. Glomerular labeling and counting were performed on the whole explant to analyze the effect of antibiotics on early nephrogenesis. RESULTS Growth of F14 metanephric explants in the presence of 50 micrograms of gentamicin/ml was significantly reduced from 4 days onwards as compared to controls, whereas F15 explants grown with gentamicin displayed a normal in vitro development. After 6 days of culture, F14 and F15 explants had the same accumulation of gentamicin (1 microgram/mg protein) but the gentamicin content was 4 times larger in F15 explants. At both ages, gentamicin-exposed metanephric explants exhibited a significant reduction in their number of nephrons. However, the effects of 50 micrograms of gentamicin/ml on nephrogenesis were significantly more drastic on F14 than F15 explants (35% versus 18%). When grown with 0.5 microgram of gentamicin/ml, F14 explants still exhibited a 16% defect in nephrogenesis as compared with controls, and about the same reduction was observed for cultures in the presence of 100 micrograms/ml of streptomycin and 100 IU/ml of penicillin. Incubation of F14 explants with streptomycin alone for 6 days had no effect on nephrogenesis. CONCLUSIONS These results indicate that gentamicin induces a significant reduction in the number of nephrons in metanephric explants and that this effect is more important on less differentiated metanephroi. Metanephric organ culture combined with glomerular labeling represents a useful model to test the effect of various growth factors and other drugs on early nephrogenesis.
Purification and partial characterization of lactacin F, a bacteriocin produced by Lactobacillus acidophilus 11088

Lactacin F, a bacteriocin produced by Lactobacillus acidophilus 11088 (NCK88), was purified and characterized. Lactacin F is heat stable, proteinaceous, and inhibitory to other lactobacilli as well as Enterococcus faecalis. The bacteriocin was isolated as a floating pellet from culture supernatants brought to 35 to 40% saturation with ammonium sulfate. Native lactacin F was sized at approximately 180 kDa by gel filtration. Column fractions having lactacin F activity were examined by electron microscopy and contained micelle-like globular particles. Purification by ammonium sulfate precipitation, gel filtration, and high-performance liquid chromatography resulted in a 474-fold increase in specific activity of lactacin F. The purified bacteriocin was identified as a 2.5-kDa peptide by sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The lactacin F peptide retained activity after extraction from SDS-PAGE gel slices, confirming the identity of the 2.5-kDa peptide. Variants of NCK88 that failed to exhibit lactacin F activity did not produce the 2.5-kDa band. Sequence analysis of purified lactacin F identified 25 N-terminal amino acids containing an arginine residue at the N terminus. Composition analysis indicates that lactacin F may contain as many as 56 amino acid residues.
Short Text Classifications 3 . 1 . Pretreatment of Short Text

Short text is a popular text form, which is widely used in real-time network news, short commentary, micro-blog and many other fields. With the development of the application such as QQ, mobile phone text messages and movie websites, the size of data is also becoming larger and larger. Most data is useless for us while other data is significant for us. Therefore, it is necessary for us to extract the useful short text from the big data. However, there are many problems with the short text classification, such as fewer features, irregularity and so on. To solve these problems, we should pretreat the short text set first, and then choose the significant features. This paper use semi-supervised learning method and SVM classifier to improve the traditional methods and it can classify a large number of short texts to mining the useful massage from the short text. The experimental results in this paper also show a good promotion.
Word Sense Disambiguation Based on Perceptron Model

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is an important research topic in natural language processing field, which is very useful for machine translation and information retrieval. In this paper, a linear combination model based on multiple discriminative features is proposed to determine correct sense of an ambiguous word, in which morphology and part of speech in left and right words around ambiguous word are used as features. Then, perceptron algorithm is applied to optimize the WSD model. Experiments show that the WSD performance is improved after the proposed method is applied.
Occult hepatitis B virus infection: implications in transfusion

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) presents a higher residual risk of transmission by transfusion than hepatitis C virus (HCV) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). While most infectious blood units are removed by screening for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), there is clear evidence that transmission by HBsAg‐negative components occurs, in part, during the serologically negative window period, but more so during the late stages of infection. Donations negative for HBsAg, but positive for HBV DNA, with or without the presence of HBV antibodies, correspond to ‘occult’ HBV infection (OBI). The frequency of OBI depends on the relative sensitivity of both HBsAg and HBV DNA assays. It also depends on the prevalence of HBV infection in the population. OBI may follow recovery from infection, displaying antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti‐HBs) and persistent low‐level viraemia, escape mutants undetected by the HBsAg assays, or healthy carriage with antibodies to hepatitis B e antigen (anti‐HBe) and to hepatitis B core antigen (anti‐HBc). Over time, in the latter situation, anti‐HBe and, later, anti‐HBc may become undetectable. The critical question is whether or not OBI is infectious by transfusion. All forms have been shown to be infectious in immunocompromised individuals, such as organ‐ or bone marrow‐transplant recipients. In immunocompetent recipients, there is no evidence that anti‐HBs‐containing components (even at low titre) are infectious. Anti‐HBc only, with HBV DNA, can be associated with infectivity, as can rare cases of HBV DNA without any serological HBV marker. If HBV nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT) is considered, the OBI viral load would usually be < 500 IU/ml, making testing of plasma pools unsuitable unless the sensitivity of NAT significantly increases by genome enrichment or test improvement.