Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Unrestricted opiate administration for pain and suffering at the end of life: knowledge and attitudes as barriers to care.

BACKGROUND Pain and symptom management is critical for quality end-of-life care in the hospital. Although guidelines support the use of unrestricted opiate administration to treat refractory pain and suffering in the dying patient, many patients die suffering with symptoms that could have been addressed. METHODS A multidisciplinary convenience sample of 381 hospital-based health care providers completed a survey evaluating their understanding of the principles of treating refractory pain and suffering at the end of life in the hospital, knowledge of the institution's policy about how to implement such care, and attitudes about and comfort with such treatment. RESULTS Respondents recognized pain and symptom management as a goal of unrestricted opiate use at the end of life, but 12% identified comfort for families or treatment of nonphysical suffering as the principal goal of this modality. Two thirds of respondents felt that unrestricted opiates were used too rarely and 45% felt they were used too late. However, 16% felt uncomfortable administering unrestricted opiates and 21% of physicians and nurses who had used restricted opiates reported having felt pressured to increase dosing of opiates. Knowledge deficits concerning appropriate candidates for unrestricted opiates and the protocol for appropriate implementation were common. CONCLUSIONS Knowledge deficits and attitudinal concerns may hamper the administration of unrestricted opiates for refractory pain and suffering at the end of life in the hospital. Clinician education and clarification of the appropriate use of this modality when there are differences in clinician and family perception of discomfort are needed.
Sex, outcrossing and mating types: unsolved questions in fungi and beyond

Variability in the way organisms reproduce raises numerous, and still unsolved, questions in evolutionary biology. In this study, we emphasize that fungi deserve a much greater emphasis in efforts to address these questions because of their multiple advantages as model eukaryotes. A tremendous diversity of reproductive modes and mating systems can be found in fungi, with many evolutionary transitions among closely related species. In addition, fungi show some peculiarities in their mating systems that have received little attention so far, despite the potential for providing insights into important evolutionary questions. In particular, selfing can occur at the haploid stage in addition to the diploid stage in many fungi, which is generally not possible in animals and plants but has a dramatic influence upon the structure of genetic systems. Fungi also present several advantages that make them tractable models for studies in experimental evolution. Here, we briefly review the unsolved questions and extant hypotheses about the evolution and maintenance of asexual vs. sexual reproduction and of selfing vs. outcrossing, focusing on fungal life cycles. We then propose how fungi can be used to address these long‐standing questions and advance our understanding of sexual reproduction and mating systems across all eukaryotes.
Transmission dynamics of primary pneumonic plague in the USA

SUMMARY Plague is thought to have killed millions during three catastrophic pandemics. Primary pneumonic plague, the most severe form of the disease, is transmissible from person-to-person and has the potential for propagating epidemics. Efforts to quantify its transmission potential have relied on published data from large outbreaks, an approach that artificially inflates the basic reproductive number (R0) and skews the distribution of individual infectiousness. Using data for all primary pneumonic plague cases reported in the USA from 1900 to 2009, we determined that the majority of cases will fail to transmit, even in the absence of antimicrobial treatment or prophylaxis. Nevertheless, potential for sustained outbreaks still exists due to superspreading events. These findings challenge current concepts regarding primary pneumonic plague transmission.
Drinking Like an Adult? Trajectories of Alcohol Use Patterns Before and After College Graduation.

BACKGROUND College students who engage in high-risk drinking patterns are thought to "mature out" of these patterns as they transition to adult roles. College graduation is an important milestone demarcating this transition. We examine longitudinal changes in quantity and frequency of alcohol consumption between the college years and the 4 years after graduation and explore variation in these changes by gender and race/ethnicity. METHODS Participants were 1,128 college graduates enrolled in a longitudinal prospective study of health-risk behaviors. Standard measures of alcohol consumption were gathered during 8 annual personal interviews (76 to 91% annual follow-up). Graduation dates were culled from administrative data and self-report. Spline models, in which separate trajectories were modeled before and after the "knot" of college graduation, were fit to 8 annual observations of past-year alcohol use frequency and quantity (typical number of drinks/drinking day). RESULTS Frequency increased linearly pregraduation, slightly decreased postgraduation, and then rebounded to pregraduation levels. Pregraduation frequency increased more steeply among individuals who drank more heavily at college entry. Quantity decreased linearly during college, followed by quadratic decreases after graduation. CONCLUSIONS Results suggest that the postcollege "maturing-out" phenomenon might be attributable to decreases in alcohol quantity but not frequency. High-frequency drinking patterns that develop during college appear to persist several years postgraduation.
Prognostic Factors of Long-Term Disability in a Workers' Compensation System

Objective: We identified predictive factors of long-term disability in new workers' compensation claims to guide secondary prevention research and target interventions for high-risk claims. Methods: Workers with 4 or more days of work disability resulting from workplace injuries were followed for approximately 6 years in a population-based retrospective inception cohort study of 81,077 workers. Results: Predictors of long-term disability included delay between injury and first medical treatment, older age, construction industry, logging occupation, longer time from medical treatment to claim filing, back injury, smaller firm size, female gender, higher unemployment rate, and having dependents. We used logistic and quantile regression to investigate predictors of disability. These models produced consistent information regarding predictors. Conclusion: These factors can be used to identify jobs or workers at increased risk for long-term disability that warrant prevention intervention.
Adjunctive Rifampin Is Crucial to Optimizing Daptomycin Efficacy against Rabbit Prosthetic Joint Infection Due to Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT Daptomycin is an attractive option for treating prosthetic joint infection, but the 6-mg/kg of body weight/day dose was linked to clinical failure and emergence of resistance. Using a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) knee prosthesis infection in rabbits, we studied the efficacies of high-dose daptomycin (22 mg/kg given intravenously [i.v.] once daily [o.d.]; equivalent to 8 mg/kg/day in humans) or vancomycin (60 mg/kg given intramuscularly [i.m.] twice daily [b.i.d.]), both either alone or with adjunctive rifampin (10 mg/kg i.m. b.i.d.). After partial knee replacement with a silicone implant, 107 MRSA CFU was injected into the knees. Treatment started 7 days postinoculation and lasted 7 days. Positive cultures were screened for the emergence of mutant strains, defined as having 3-fold-increased MICs. Although in vivo mean log10 CFU/g of daptomycin-treated (4.23 ± 1.44; n = 12) or vancomycin-treated (4.63 ± 1.08; n = 12) crushed bone was significantly lower than that of controls (5.93 ± 1.15; n = 9) (P < 0.01), neither treatment sterilized bone (2/12 and 0/12 rabbits with sterile bone, respectively). Daptomycin mutant strains were found in 6/12, 3/12, and 2/9 daptomycin-treated, vancomycin-treated, and control rabbits, respectively; no resistant strains emerged (MIC was always <1 mg/liter). Adjunctive rifampin with daptomycin (1.47 ± 0.04 CFU/g of bone [detection threshold]; 11/11 sterile bones) or vancomycin (1.5 ± 0.12 CFU/g of bone; 6/8 sterile bones) was significantly more effective than monotherapy (P < 0.01) and prevented the emergence of daptomycin mutant strains. In this MRSA joint prosthesis infection model, combining rifampin with daptomycin was highly effective. Daptomycin mutant strains were isolated in vivo even without treatment, but adjunctive rifampin prevented this phenomenon, previously found after monotherapy in humans.
Dropping like Flies: Environmentally Induced Impairment and Protection of Locomotor Performance in Adult Drosophila melanogaster

In Drosophila, heat shock (HS) during the pupal stage chronically hinders adult locomotor performance by disrupting wing development and cellular and/or tissue‐level mechanisms that support walking and flight. Furthermore, heat pretreatment (PT) protects locomotor function against these disruptions. HS flies with abnormal wings were less able to alter trajectory in free fall relative to control, PT‐only, and \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $$\mathrm{PT}\,+\mathrm{HS}\,$$ \end{document} wild‐type flies. This deficit was less severe but still present in HS‐only flies with wild‐type wings. Transgenic increases in the copies of genes encoding the major inducible heat‐shock protein of Drosophila melanogaster, Hsp70, also protected walking ability from disruption due to pupal HS. Walking velocity did not differ between excision (five natural hsp70 copies) and extra‐copy (five natural and six transgenic hsp70 copies) flies in the control, PT, and \documentclass{aastex} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{bm} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{pifont} \usepackage{stmaryrd} \usepackage{textcomp} \usepackage{portland,xspace} \usepackage{amsmath,amsxtra} \usepackage[OT2,OT1]{fontenc} \newcommand\cyr{ \renewcommand\rmdefault{wncyr} \renewcommand\sfdefault{wncyss} \renewcommand\encodingdefault{OT2} \normalfont \selectfont} \DeclareTextFontCommand{\textcyr}{\cyr} \pagestyle{empty} \DeclareMathSizes{10}{9}{7}{6} \begin{document} \landscape $$\mathrm{PT}\,+\mathrm{HS}\,$$ \end{document} groups, nor did velocity vary among these thermal treatment groups. HS dramatically reduced walking velocity, however, but this effect occurred primarily in the excision flies. These results suggest that Hsp70 and other mechanisms protect against heat‐induced locomotor impairment.
Co-opting ATP-generating glycolytic enzyme PGK1 phosphoglycerate kinase facilitates the assembly of viral replicase complexes

The intricate interactions between viruses and hosts include exploitation of host cells for viral replication by using many cellular resources, metabolites and energy. Tomato bushy stunt virus (TBSV), similar to other (+)RNA viruses, induces major changes in infected cells that lead to the formation of large replication compartments consisting of aggregated peroxisomal and ER membranes. Yet, it is not known how TBSV obtains the energy to fuel these energy-consuming processes. In the current work, the authors discovered that TBSV co-opts the glycolytic ATP-generating Pgk1 phosphoglycerate kinase to facilitate the assembly of new viral replicase complexes. The recruitment of Pgk1 into the viral replication compartment is through direct interaction with the viral replication proteins. Altogether, we provide evidence that the ATP generated locally within the replication compartment by the co-opted Pgk1 is used to fuel the ATP-requirement of the co-opted heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) chaperone, which is essential for the assembly of new viral replicase complexes and the activation of functional viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase. The advantage of direct recruitment of Pgk1 into the virus replication compartment could be that the virus replicase assembly does not need to intensively compete with cellular processes for access to ATP. In addition, local production of ATP within the replication compartment could greatly facilitate the efficiency of Hsp70-driven replicase assembly by providing high ATP concentration within the replication compartment.
Exposure to a 900 MHz electromagnetic field for 1 hour a day over 30 days does change the histopathology and biochemistry of the rat testis

Abstract Purpose: To investigate the effect of exposure to a 900 megahertz (MHz) electromagnetic field (EMF) on the rat testicle. Materials and methods: Twenty-four adult male rats were divided into control, sham and EMF groups. The EMF group rats were exposed to 900 MHz EMF (1 h/30 day), and testicles were extracted at the end of the experiment. Malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione levels and apoptotic index and histopathological damage scores were compared. Results: Histopathologically, EMF group rats exhibited vacuoles in seminiferous tubules basal membrane and edema in the intertubular space. Seminiferous tubule diameters and germinal epithelium thickness were both smaller, and apoptotic index was higher, in the EMF group than in the other groups. Malondialdehyde, superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione values in the EMF group decreased significantly compared to those of the control group. Conclusions: The results show that exposure to 900 MHz EMF causes alterations in adult rat testicular morphology and biochemistry.
Research on frequency hopping signal sparsity and its rconstruction performance via theoretical analysis and dictionary learning

To solve the problem of high sampling rate and massive data processing brought by high bandwidth in the Aerospace Communication System, researchers proposed compressive sensing theory to deal with wideband signal processing. Sparsity analysis is the fundamental point for the application of compressive sensing theory. This article studies the sparsity of the frequency hopping signal, which is a widely used spread spectrum signal in current Aerospace Communication System. Based on the theoretical analysis we get the sparse dictionary, then the dictionary is optimized by K-SVD dictionary learning algorithm. Besides we do a research on the reconstruction performance under different algorithm on the basis of the constructed dictionary, including OMP, ROMP, StOMP, Sp, SAMP and CoSaMP. The simulation results show that the signal have strong sparsity in the constructed sparse base dictionary and the property of recover under different algorithm, which lays a foundation for the FH signal processing based on CS theory.
Sensory effects of pulling or vibrating exposed tendons in man.

The role of muscle receptors in proprioception has been demonstrated in a variety of ways (for review see McCloskey, 1978) but is still doubted by some. One simple but critical experiment has produced conflicting results: when a tendon of a conscious subject is exposed at operation under local anaesthesia, and pulled so as to stretch its muscle while the joint at which the muscle acts is held still, the subject is claimed by some to perceive nothing (Gelfan and Carter, 1967; Moberg, 1972), while others claim that the subject feels that the joint seems to move (Matthews and Simmonds, 1974). In the present study 4 patients were studied while undergoing surgery at the wrist or hand under local anaesthesia, and a more extensive study was carried out in the laboratory on the exposed, transected tendon of extensor hallucis longus of one of the authors (D.I.McC.). All 4 patients and the experimental subject detected stretches imposed on their muscles, and reported them as rotations of the joint or joints to which those muscles attach. In all cases the movements reported were in the direction of joint rotation that would normally stretch the muscle tested. In the experimental subject it was shown that stretches were detected with comparable acuity to that demonstrable for the detection of movements imposed on the intact toe. Also, the subject was able to detect, as joint movements, sinusoidal stretches of less than 1 mm imposed on the tendon at 1 or 5 Hz. The experimental subject experienced illusory movements of plantar flexion of the big toe when longitudinal vibration at 100 Hz, 20 to 100 microns amplitude was applied. These were sometimes partly masked by spread of the vibration through the foot. These vibration-induced illusions correspond to those reported by Goodwin et al. (1972) for transverse vibration applied through the skin. The subject could maintain a constant tension through the tendon in a contraction in which his effort was held constant. If, during such an effort, a downward movement was imposed on the toe to which the tendon normally connects, or the skin on the bottom of the toe was scratched, achieved tension fell.
Effect of Carisbamate on the Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Warfarin in Healthy Participants

Carisbamate's effect (200 mg twice‐daily [study 1], 600 mg twice‐daily [study 2]) on warfarin's (25 mg single dose) pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (international normalized ratio) was assessed during 2 open‐label studies in healthy participants. Coadministration of either carisbamate regimen produced small changes on the mean maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) and mean area under the plasma concentration—time curve to the last measurable time point (AUClast) of (S)‐ and (R)‐warfarin, which are unlikely to be clinically significant. For (S)‐warfarin, the ratios (with carisbamate/without carisbamate) of geometric means for Cmax were 105.44 (study 1) and 98.48 (study 2) and for AUClast were 109.33 (study 1) and 114.43 (study 2); the corresponding 90% confidence intervals were within the bioequivalence limits of 80% to 125%. Results were similar for (R)‐warfarin. Carisbamate at 600 mg (but not 200 mg) twice‐daily prolonged the elimination half‐life of (S)‐ and (R)‐warfarin by ∼10 hours (25% and 32% increase, respectively). Prothrombin time was unaltered by either carisbamate dose. Adverse events with the highest incidence were dizziness (50%) and headache (50%) in study 1 and somnolence (56%) in study 2. Warfarin exposure and international normalized ratio were unaffected by coadministration of carisbamate 200 mg or 600 mg twice‐daily. Carisbamate was well tolerated.
Women, work and industrial relations in Australia in 2012

The year 2012 saw a number of initiatives and debates around measures that directly and indirectly affect women’s working conditions. This article first considers the extent of women’s workforce participation, an issue that has informed both policy debates and legislative changes over the last year. It then briefly assesses the potential of the Fair Work Act Review and the ongoing Modern Awards Review to improve women’s working conditions, before turning to action on a number of fronts. Pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment have remained a constant in Australian anti-discrimination jurisdictions for many years. However, in 2012, there was also strong enforcement action by the Fair Work Ombudsman in cases of pregnancy discrimination, a new sexual harassment prevalence survey and the second phase of the Treatment of Women in Defence Review. Apart from the Social and Community Sector equal pay case, finalised in February 2012. Action ‘outside’ formal equal pay provisions also saw potential gains for the predominantly female and low-paid workforces in aged care and childcare.
Can a Website-Delivered Computer-Tailored Physical Activity Intervention Be Acceptable, Usable, and Effective for Older People?

Despite the numerous health benefits, population physical activity levels are low and declining with age. A continued increase of Internet access allows for website-delivered interventions to be implemented across age-groups, though older people have typically not been considered for this type of intervention. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate a website-delivered computer-tailored physical activity intervention, with a specific focus on differences in tailored advice acceptability, website usability, and physical activity change between three age-groups. To mimic “real-life” conditions, the intervention, which provided personalized physical activity feedback delivered via the Internet, was implemented and evaluated without any personal contact for the entire duration of the study. Data were collected online at baseline, 1-week, and 1-month follow-up and analyzed for three age-groups (≤44, 45-59, and ≥60 years) using linear mixed models. Overall, 803 adults received the intervention and 288 completed all measures. The oldest age-group increased physical activity more than the other two groups, spent the most time on the website, though had significantly lower perceived Internet self-confidence scores when compared with the youngest age-group. No differences were found in terms of website usability and tailored advice acceptability. These results suggest that website-delivered physical activity interventions can be suitable and effective for older aged adults.
Physical and Functional Interaction between Ribosomal Protein L11 and the Tumor Suppressor ARF*

Background: ARF and L11 can activate p53 in response to different stress signals. Results: ARF and L11 physically and functionally interact with each other to activate p53. Conclusion: ARF crosstalks with L11 in p53 response to stress. Significance: Discovery of a direct link between ARF and L11 in the p53 network. The ARF tumor suppressor protein activates p53 in response to oncogenic stress, whereas ribosomal protein L11 induces p53 following ribosomal stress. Both proteins bind to central, albeit non-overlapping, regions of MDM2 and suppress MDM2 activity toward p53. However, it is not known whether the two pathways are functionally connected. Here we show that ARF directly binds to L11 in vitro and in cells, which then forms a complex with MDM2 and p53. L11 collaboratively enhances ARF-induced p53 transcriptional activity and cell cycle arrest. Supporting these results, knocking down L11 reduces ARF-mediated p53 accumulation and alleviates ARF-induced cell cycle arrest. Interestingly, overexpression of ARF increases the levels of ribosome-free L11 and enhances the interaction of L11 with MDM2 and p53. These results demonstrate that ARF activates p53, at least partly by induction of ribosomal stress, which results in L11 suppression of MDM2, and suggest that the ARF-MDM2-p53 and the L11-MDM2-p53 pathways are functionally connected.