Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance effectiveness of pediatric index of mortality 2 (PIM2) and pediatricrisk of mortality III (PRISM III) in pediatric patients with intensive care in single institution: Retrospective study

Purpose : To investigate the discriminative ability of pediatric index of mortality 2 (PIM2) and pediatric risk of mortality III (PRISM III) in predicting mortality in children admitted into the intensive care unit (ICU). Methods : We retrospectively analyzed variables of PIM2 and PRISM III based on medical records with children cared for in a single hospital ICU from January 2003 to December 2007. Exclusions were children who died within 2 h of admission into ICU or hopeless discharge. We used Students t test and ANOVA for general characteristics and for correlation between survivors and non-survivors for variables of PIM2 and PRISM III. In addition, we performed multiple logistic regression analysis for Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit, receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) for discrimination, and calculated standardized mortality ratio (SMR) for estimation of prediction. Results : We collected 193 medical records but analyzed 190 events because three children died within 2 h of ICU admission. The variables of PIM2 correlated with survival, except for the presence of post-procedure and low risk. In PRISM III, there was a significant correlation for cardiovascular/neurologic signs, arterial blood gas analysis but not for biochemical and hematologic data. Discriminatory performance by ROC showed an area under the curve 0.858 (95% confidence interval; 0.779-0.938) for PIM2, 0.798 (95% CI; 0.686-0.891) for PRISM III, respectively. Further, SMR was calculated approximately as 1 for the 2 systems, and multiple logistic regression analysis showed χ2 (13)=14.986, P=0.308 for PIM2, χ2 (13)= 12.899, P=0.456 for PRISM III in Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit. However, PIM2 was significant for PRISM III in the likelihood ratio test (χ2 (4)=55.3, P
Moment-based approaches in imaging part 2: invariance.

This short survey of moment invariants points out interesting clues. Moments offer a sound theoretical framework for solving the generic problems encountered in many imaging applications. The diverse families of orthogonal moments provide the flexibility that may be required to face a particular target. However, they have to satisfy the time computation constraints that are inherent in many applications. Suk and Flusser proposed a solution of simultaneously dealing with affine transformation and blur (with centrosymmetric PSF) for pattern recognition, template matching, and image registration. Flusser and Zivota suggested a set of combined moments that are invariant to both rotation and blurring. Based on complex moments, Liu and Zhang derived a subset of moment features that are not affected by image blurring and geometric transformation such as translation, scale, and rotation. All these works, however, point out the problems related to the number of invariants to be selected, the choice of the size of the region of interest where moments are computed, and the dependence with object features (i.e., symmetry).
Expressão de galectina-3 e beta-catenina em lesões pré-malignas e carcinomatosas de língua de camundongos

INTRODUCTION: Galectin-3 plays pivotal role in tumor biology and its participation in Wnt signaling pathway translocating beta-catenin into the nucleus has been recently demonstrated. Altered galectin-3 and beta-catenin expressions have been described in different tumors, however, there are no studies evaluating their expression in dysplasias and carcinomas induced in carcinogenic tongue models. OBJECTIVES: To study galectin-3 and beta-catenin expressions in dysplasias and carcinomas experimentally induced in mouse tongue. METHODS: Twenty C57Bl/6 male mice were treated with 4NQO in their drinking water for 16 weeks and sacrificed at weeks 16 and 32. Tongues were removed, routinely processed, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin to detect dysplasias and carcinomas. An immunohistochemical assay was performed to determine the level of positivity for galectin-3 and beta-catenin in these lesions as well as their correlation in carcinomas. RESULTS: The number of mice affected by carcinomas increased from week 16 to week 32 (22.2% vs. 88.9%) and the number affected by dysplasias decreased (66.7% vs. 11.1%). There was an increase in non-membranous beta-catenin- and cytoplasmic galectin-3-positive cells in dysplasias and carcinomas, although this difference was not statiscally significant. Nonetheless, there was a significant increase of nuclear galectin-3-positive cells in the evolution from dysplasia to carcinoma (p = 0.04). There was no correlation between beta-catenin and galectin-3. CONCLUSION: Wnt signaling pathway is active in both dysplasias and carcinomas and the increase of nuclear galectin-3-positive cells in carcinomas suggests its influence on malignant transformation in the tongue epithelium.
Proceedings of the 2014 National Toxicology Program Satellite Symposium

The 2014 annual National Toxicology Program (NTP) Satellite Symposium, entitled “Pathology Potpourri” was held in Washington, D.C., in advance of the Society of Toxicologic Pathology’s 33rd annual meeting. The goal of this annual NTP Symposium is to present current diagnostic pathology or nomenclature issues to the toxicologic pathology community. This article presents summaries of the speakers’ presentations, including diagnostic or nomenclature issues that were presented, along with select images that were used for audience voting and discussion. Some lesions and topics covered during the symposium included a pulmonary mucinous adenocarcinoma in a male B6C3F1 mouse; plexiform vasculopathy in Wistar Han (Crl:WI[Han]) rats; staging of the estrous cycle in rats and mice; peri-islet fibrosis, hemorrhage, lobular atrophy and inflammation in male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats; retinal dysplasia in Crl:WI[Han] rats and B6C3F1 mice; multicentric lymphoma with intravascular microemboli and tumor lysis syndrome, and 2 cases of myopathy and vascular anomaly in Tg.rasH2 mice; benign thymomas in Crl:WI[Han] rats; angiomatous lesions in the mesenteric lymph nodes of Crl:WI[Han] rats; an unusual foveal lesion in a cynomolgous monkey; and finally a series of nomenclatures challenges from the endocrine International Harmonization of Nomenclature and Diagnostic Criteria (INHAND) Organ Working Group (OWG).
The demand for psychiatric services as a result of the Gulf war

Navy, reported informally in the newspapers (Guardian. 1 May 1990) that up to 30% of the 28,000 Falklands veterans are still suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Hughes (1990), medical officer with 2nd Paratroop Regiment at Goose Green, described his realisation that he had PTSD, his subsequent treatment by the NHS and transfer to a military hospital. The Royal Navy still has a counselling service, set up in 1987, but it is clear that military services cannot deal with all the current problems, let alone those to come. The advice of the Ministry of Defence is that the initial onus to recog nise a problem lies with the family and that sufferers should seek treatment through their GP. Provision for short-term and long-term services needs to be made for all groups of victims. Describing disaster, Dudasik (1980) describes four categories of victims and Taylor & Fraser (1981) six. The wide range of victims which may report to the NHS is important, not just front line military, but all military groups, including the medical and nursing personnel, civilians in the area, including news personnel, rela tives and friends of such groups and vulnerable people in the wider community affected by the war coverage. i
PDGFR Inhibition Results in Pericyte Depletion and Hemorrhage into the Corpus Luteum of the Rat Ovary

The growth plate, ovary, adrenal gland, and rodent incisor tooth are sentinel organs for antiangiogenic effects since they respond reliably, quantitatively, and sensitively to inhibition of the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR). Here we report that treatment of rats with platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRβ) inhibitors that target pericytes results in severe ovarian hemorrhage with degeneration and eventual rupture of the corpus luteum. Evaluation of the growth plate, adrenal gland, and incisor tooth that are typical target organs for antiangiogenic treatment in the rodent revealed no abnormalities. Histologically, the changes in the ovary were characterized by sinusoidal dilatation, increased vessel fragility, and hemorrhage into the corpus luteum. Immunocytochemical staining of vessels with alpha smooth muscle actin and CD31 that recognize pericytes and vascular endothelium, respectively, demonstrated that this effect was due to selective pericyte deficiency within corpora lutea. Further experiments in which rats were treated concurrently with both PDGFRβ and VEGFR inhibitors ablated the hemorrhagic response, resulting instead in corpus luteum necrosis. These changes are consistent with the notion that selective pericyte loss in the primitive capillary network resulted in increased vessel fragility and hemorrhage, whereas concomitant VEGFR inhibition resulted in vessel regression and reduced vascular perfusion that restricted development of the hemorrhagic vessels. These results also highlight the utility of the rodent ovary to respond differentially to VEGFR and PDGFR inhibitors, which may provide useful information during routine safety assessment for determining target organ toxicity.
Measurement of vocal-tract influence during saxophone performance.

This paper presents experimental results that quantify the range of influence of vocal tract manipulations used in saxophone performance. The experiments utilized a measurement system that provides a relative comparison of the upstream windway and downstream air column impedances under normal playing conditions, allowing researchers and players to investigate the effect of vocal-tract manipulations in real time. Playing experiments explored vocal-tract influence over the full range of the saxophone, as well as when performing special effects such as pitch bending, multiphonics, and "bugling. " The results show that, under certain conditions, players can create an upstream windway resonance that is strong enough to override the downstream system in controlling reed vibrations. This can occur when the downstream air column provides only weak support of a given note or effect, especially for notes with fundamental frequencies an octave below the air column cutoff frequency and higher. Vocal-tract influence is clearly demonstrated when pitch bending notes high in the traditional range of the alto saxophone and when playing in the saxophone's extended register. Subtle timbre variations via tongue position changes are possible for most notes in the saxophone's traditional range and can affect spectral content from at least 800-2000 Hz.
On the POCS-based postprocessing technique to reduce the blocking artifacts in transform coded images

We propose a novel postprocessing technique, based on the theory of projections onto convex sets (POCS), to reduce the blocking artifacts in transform coded images. It is assumed, in our approach, that the original image is highly correlated. Thus, the global frequency characteristics in two adjacent blocks are similar to the local ones in each block. We consider the high-frequency components in the global characteristics of a decoded image, which are not found in the local ones, as the results from the blocking artifact. We employ an N-point discrete cosine transform (DCT) to obtain the local characteristics, and a 2N-point DCT to obtain the global ones, and then derive the relation between the N-point and 2N-point DCT coefficients. A careful comparison of the N-point with the 2N-point DCT coefficients makes it possible to detect the undesired high-frequency components, mainly caused by the blocking artifact. Then, we propose novel convex sets and their projection operators in the DCT domain. The performance of the proposed and conventional techniques are compared on the still images, decoded by JPEG. The results show that, regardless of the content of the input images, the proposed technique yields significantly better performance than the conventional techniques in terms of objective quality, subjective quality, and convergence behavior.
Histological Development of Male Reproductive Organs in Microminipigs

Microminipigs are becoming increasingly attractive alternatives for various experimental applications, such as general toxicology studies, owing to their manageable size. However, there are limited studies on the male reproductive organs of microminipigs, particularly on the histological aspects of sexual maturity. To clarify the development of male reproductive organs, 35 male microminipigs, aged 0 to 12 months, were used in this study. Histological and histomorphological evaluation was performed based on spermatogenic development, measurement of tubular structure in testes and epididymides, and histological progress of accessory glands. In addition, spontaneous testicular changes were quantitatively assessed. Histologically, male microminipigs sexually matured around 4.5 months of age, when spermatogenesis in testes and structural development in genital organs were completed. Spontaneous testicular changes occurred in all the animals investigated. Multinucleated giant cell was most commonly observed, followed by hypospermatogenesis and tubular atrophy/hypoplasia. However, the number of affected tubules was less than 1% in testes after 4.5 months of age, suggesting that the influence of these changes on evaluation of toxicity studies may be minimal. It is preferable to use sexually mature animals in toxicology studies; therefore, the information obtained by the present study will be helpful for future toxicity evaluations in microminipigs.
Predictive Value of Regular Cocaine Use Among Opioid-dependent Patients for Long-term Outcome: A 4-year Follow-up Study

ObjectivesOwing to the limited knowledge of the effect of cocaine use on the outcome of opioid dependence, a long-term follow-up study was conducted to assess the importance of cocaine use in the long-term course. MethodsA representative sample of 350 opioid-dependent patients in treatment was studied over a 4-year period using the European version of the Addiction Severity Index. The sample was split into 2 groups according to cocaine use at baseline: 1 group with regular cocaine use and 1 group with irregular or no cocaine use. ResultsThe group of regular cocaine using opioid-dependent patients had a significantly higher severity of dependence and a higher need for treatment at baseline compared to those with irregular or no cocaine use. At the 4-year follow-up examination no differences were found between the 2 groups. ConclusionsThe lack of evidence of long-term effects weakens the predictive value of the negative effect of cocaine use on outcome.
Better validation in a world-wide development environment

Increasingly, software projects are handled in a global and distributed project setup. Global software development, however, also challenges traditional techniques of software engineering, such as peer reviews or teamwork. In particular, validation activities during development, such as inspections, need to be adjusted to achieve results which are both efficient and effective. Effective teamwork and the coaching of engineers contribute highly to successful projects. In this article, we evaluate experiences with validation activities in a global setting within Alcatel's switching and routing business. We investigate three hypotheses related, respectively, to the effects of collocated inspections, intensive coaching and feature-oriented development teams on globally distributed projects. As all these activities mean initial investment compared to a standard process with scattered activities, the major validation criterion for the three hypotheses is cost reduction due to earlier defect detection and less defects introduced. The data is taken from a sample of over 60 international projects of various sizes, from which we have collected all types of software product and process metrics in the past four years.
A hardware-oriented gold-washing adaptive vector quantizer and its VLSI architectures for image data compression

The gold-washing (GW) mechanism is an efficient on-line codebook refining technique for adaptive vector quantization (AVQ). However, the mechanism is essentially not suitable for hardware implementation. We propose a hardware-oriented GW-AVQ scheme based on the least-recently-used (LRU) strategy for codevector selection and the block-data-interpolation (BDI) algorithm for vector generation. We also present the VLSI architectures for the key components of GW-AVQ, including a 2-D systolic array (SABVQ) and a 1-D linear array (LABVQ) for full-search VQ, a pipeline BDI encoder (PBDI-E) and decoder (PBDI-D), and the LRU strategy. The SABVQ architecture can perform in O(k) time with O(N+N/k) area and O(k) I/O complexity; the LABVQ architecture reaches O(N) time, O(k+1) area, and O(k) I/O complexity, where k and N are the codevector dimension and codebook size, respectively. The PBDI architecture reaches O(1) time, O(k) area, and O(1) I/O complexity. The LRU architecture can perform in O(1) time, O(N) area and O(1) I/O complexity. With VHDL implementation, the maximum computational capacity of SABVQ, LABVQ, five-stage PBDI-E, PBDI-D, and LRU are 45, 2.8, 1667, 2232, and 246 (10/sup 6/ samples/s), respectively. These results are good enough for most of the practical image compression systems.
Reed-Solomon VLSI codec for advanced television

A VLSI implementation of a Reed-Solomon codec circuit is reported. The 1.6- mu m double metal CMOS chip is 8.2 mm by 8.4 mm, contains 200000 transistors, operates at a sustained data rate of 80 Mbits/s and executes up to 1000 MOPS while consuming less than 500 mW of power. The 10-MHz sustained byte rate for the data is independent of the error pattern. The circuit has complete decoder and encoder functions and uses a single data/system clock. Block lengths of 255 bytes as well as shortened codes are supported with no external buffering. Erasure corrections as well as random error corrections are supported with selectable correction of up to ten symbol errors. Corrected data is output at a fixed latency. These features make this Reed-Solomon processor suitable for use in advanced television systems. >
The Gift Relationship

Richard Titmuss’s book The Gift Relationship , first published in 1970, became a foundational text on the ethics and organisational principles governing healthcare and social policy. Read and reread by at least three generations of public policy makers, health professionals, health advocates, and researchers, the book continues to provoke and engage us to explore more deeply how each society decides how it meets the health needs of its citizens. The Gift Relationship was written as a response to MH Cooper and AJ Culyer’s 1968 monograph The Price of Blood , which appeared under the imprimatur of the free market think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs. The Price of Blood argued that there was a role for competitive markets …
Effects of methanolic seed extract of Telfairia occidentalis on blood coagulation in Albino rats

Background: Medicinal plants have played a key role in the world healthcare with about 80% of Africans depending on phytomedicine, which has shown a wide range of uses in the treatment of diseases especially priority diseases of Africa. The objective of this study was to investigate the sub-acute effects of methanolic seed extracts Telfairia Occidentalis on prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), and platelet values in Albino Wistar rats. Materials and Methods: Thirty rats were equally divided into groups A (control), B, C, D, and E (test). Groups B, C, D, and E were gavaged with 20, 40, 80 and 160 mg/kg body weight, respectively, of the extract for 9 days. Four milliliters of venous blood was collected from each animal and 2 ml delivered into 0.25 ml tri-sodium citrate and K 3 ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid (EDTA) anticoagulant bottles for the determination of PT, APTT, and platelet values, respectively. Results: APTT showed a statistically significant increase in groups D (P < 0.01) and E (P < 0.05) when compared with the control on Day 3. Platelet value demonstrated a time-dependent statistically significant decrease (P < 0.05). Conclusion: In conclusion. T. occidentalis demonstrated sub-acute inhibitory effects on coagulation.
Study of Understanding Pharmacists' Perspectives on Remuneration and Transition toward Chronic Disease Management (SUPPORT-CDM): Results of an Alberta-Wide Survey of Community Pharmacists

Background: Strong evidence supports the benefits of pharmacist intervention and chronic disease management (CDM) for patients, yet most pharmacists are not providing such services. The purpose of this study was to better understand pharmacists' perceptions of CDM and potential remuneration models. Methods: We developed and tested a web-based survey based on the issues identified in a series of focus groups involving pharmacists: current practice setting, education, remuneration models, current practice environment and implementation. An invitation to complete the survey was e-mailed to registered pharmacists and was included in a weekly newsletter to Alberta pharmacists in January 2008, with 3 subsequent reminders to complete the survey. Results: Responses from 140 pharmacists were included. Pharmacists were most interested in providing CDM for diabetes (79%), although only 49% were presently comfortable with managing diabetes. The top enablers for provision of CDM included pharmacists' desire to change their scope of practice, a supportive work environment and patient demand. The top barriers included a lack of time to engage in CDM, lack of remuneration and staffing issues. Interestingly, relatively few identified pharmacists' resistance to change and difficulty finding eligible patients (38% and 25%, respectively) as important barriers. The majority of pharmacists agreed that payment should be shared between the pharmacy and the pharmacist as a fee-for-service. The average amount pharmacists expected for this model was $44.23/service. Conclusions: Pharmacists showed interest but may lack the confidence to provide CDM services to patients. Many of the facilitators and barriers point toward the need for a sustainable remuneration model for pharmacists' clinical care. We plan to use these results to help develop such a model.
The Five Giants: A Biography of the Welfare State

Nicholas Timmins Harper Collins £25, pp 606 ISBN 0002553880 It is fashionable to be pessimistic about the welfare state. From the left comes the argument that the policies of successive Conservative governments have, over the past 15 years, betrayed the postwar vision that gave birth to the welfare state. From the right comes the argument that the welfare state aggravates many of the problems that it is supposed to solve. And indeed Beveridge's five giants--Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness--seem to have shown a remarkable capacity for survival. Fifty years …