Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of evidence-based acute pain management practices on inpatient costs.

OBJECTIVES To estimate hospital cost changes associated with a behavioral intervention designed to increase the use of evidence-based acute pain management practices in an inpatient setting and to estimate the direct effect that changes in evidence-based acute pain management practices have on inpatient cost. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Data from a randomized "translating research into practice" (TRIP) behavioral intervention designed to increase the use of evidence-based acute pain management practices for patients hospitalized with hip fractures. STUDY DESIGN Experimental design and observational "as-treated" and instrumental variable (IV) methods. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS Abstraction from medical records and Uniform Billing 1992 (UB92) discharge abstracts. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The TRIP intervention cost on average $17,714 to implement within a hospital but led to cost savings per inpatient stay of more than $1,500. The intervention increased the cost of nursing services, special operating rooms, and therapy services per inpatient stay, but these costs were more than offset by cost reductions within other cost categories. "As-treated" estimates of the effect of changes in evidence-based acute pain management practices on inpatient cost appear significantly underestimated, whereas IV estimates are statistically significant and are distinct from, but consistent with, estimates associated with the intervention. CONCLUSIONS A hospital treating more that 12 patients with acute hip fractures can expect to lower overall cost by implementing the TRIP intervention. We also demonstrated the advantages of using IV methods over "as-treated" methods to assess the direct effect of practice changes on cost.
Facilitation of a Person-Centered Approach in Health Assessment of patients with chronic pain: An Ethnographic Study

A phenomenologically derived assessment tool, Hermes, was developed in a rehabilitation setting for adopting the central ideals of person-centered care and patient participation into health-assessment practices in nursing. This focused ethnographic study aimed at exploring the feasibility of using Hermes for enabling the application of these ideals into assessment of patients with chronic pain upon admission to a rehabilitation center. Participants were patients with chronic pain, enrolled in rehabilitation, and their nurses. Data were collected by participant observation and interviews, and analyzed by thematic analysis. By the use of Hermes, the impact of illness was explored through supportive connection and dialogue with open, reflective, and interpretative features; understanding of the illness situation was enhanced; and possibilities provided in adjusting to health issues of concern. In sum, Hermes facilitated person-centered participation of patients with chronic pain in their health assessment and made a phenomenological philosophy usable in nursing-assessment practices.
Notice of RetractionResearch on Extraction Technology of Melanin from Black Rice

The extraction technology of melanins from black rice with ethanol was investigated to maximize the amount of melanins. Based on a preliminary study, such factors as concentration of ethanol, extracting temperature, extracting time, and liquid to solid ratio were identified as significant factors, which were subsequently optimized using response surface methodology. At the optimal condition, which was extracting time 92.42min, extracting temperature 69.26°C, concentration of ethanol 77.17% (pH=2), and liquid to solid ratio 4.24, the estimated absorbance of a melanin solution could be reached at 0.4539. The practical condition was modified as follows: extracting time 95min, extracting temperature 69°C, concentration of ethanol 79% (pH=2), and liquid to solid ratio 4.5. Experimental verification gave the value of 0.449.
Aeroacoustic analysis of a NACA 0015 airfoil with Gurney flap based on time-resolved PIV measurements

The present study investigates the feasibility of high-lift devices noise prediction based on measurements of time-resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-PIV). The model under investigation is a NACA 0015 airfoil with Gurney flap with height of 6% chord length. The velocity fields around and downstream the Gurney flap are measured by PIV and are used for the PIV-based noise predictions. The predictions are assessed via microphone measurements. Since the Gurney flap height is much smaller than the emitted acoustic wavelength, the source of noise can be considered compact and the integral implementation of Curle's analogy based on the unsteady aerodynamic loads can be followed. The results are compared with the simultaneous microphone measurements in terms of time histories and power spectra. The integral formulation of Curle's analogy yields acoustic sound pressure levels in good agreement with the simultaneous microphone measurements for the tonal component. All the calculated far-field noise power spectra reproduce the peak at vortex shedding frequency, which also agrees well with the microphone measurements.
Bipolar disorder: “pure” versus mixed depression over a 1-year follow-up

Abstract Objectives. To compare two samples of Bipolar (BD) patients presenting “pure” (D) and mixed (Mx) depression to assess any difference in terms of clinical outcome, social functioning and quality of life during a 1-year follow-up. Methods. A total of 114 depressed outpatients (HDRS > 13) were included. “Pure” depressed (D, n = 76) were divided from “mixed” depressed (Mx, n = 38) by the number of concomitant manic symptoms. All patients were evaluated by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS), the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), the Social Adjustment Self-reported Scale (SASS) and the Quality of Life Scale (QoL), at baseline and after 1, 3, 6 and 12 months of treatment. Results. Mx patients were significantly younger at the onset of BD. Manic features persisted significantly higher in Mx than in D patients all over the follow-up period. Axis I comorbidities had a negative impact on the course of social functioning over the medium term period, while Mx patients showed a faster improvement in social adjustment than “pure” depressed patients. Conclusions. Mixed features may persist relatively stable throughout a depressive episode, having a negative impact over clinical and functional outcome, but not on social adjustment.
HyPro: A Multi-DoF Hybrid-Powered Transradial Robotic Prosthesis

This paper proposes a multi-DoF hybrid-powered transradial robotic prosthesis, named HyPro. The HyPro consists of two prosthetic units: hand and wrist that can achieve five grasping patterns such as power grasp, tip grasp, lateral grasp, hook grasp, and index point. It is an underactuated device with 15 degrees of freedom. A hybrid powering concept is proposed and implemented on hand unit of HyPro where the key focus is on restoration of grasp functions of biological hand. A novel underactuated mechanism is introduced to achieve the required hand preshaping for a given grasping pattern using electric power in the pregrasp stage and body power is used in grasp stage to execute the final grasping action with the selected fingers. Unlike existing hybrid prostheses where each of the joints is separately controlled by either electric or body power, the proposed prosthesis is capable of delivering grasping power in combination. The wrist unit of HyPro is designed and developed to achieve flexion-extension and supination-pronation using electric power. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the functionality and performance of the proposed hybrid-powered robotic prosthesis. The results verified the potential of HyPro to perform intended grasping patterns effectively and efficiently.
Improved Bound for Matching in Random-Order Streams

We study the problem of computing an approximate maximum cardinality matching in the semi-streaming model when edges arrive in a \emph{random} order. In the semi-streaming model, the edges of the input graph G = (V,E) are given as a stream e_1, . , e_m, and the algorithm is allowed to make a single pass over this stream while using $O(n \textrm{polylog}(n))$ space ($m = |E|$ and $n = |V|$). If the order of edges is adversarial, a simple single-pass greedy algorithm yields a $1/2$-approximation in $O(n)$ space; achieving a better approximation in adversarial streams remains an elusive open question. A line of recent work shows that one can improve upon the $1/2$-approximation if the edges of the stream arrive in a random order. The state of the art for this model is two-fold: Assadi et al. [SODA 2019] show how to compute a $2/3(\sim.66)$-approximate matching, but the space requirement is $O(n^{1.5} \textrm{polylog}(n))$. Very recently, Farhadi et al. [SODA 2020] presented an algorithm with the desired space usage of $O(n \textrm{polylog}(n))$, but a worse approximation ratio of $6/11(\sim.545)$, or $3/5(=.6)$ in bipartite graphs. In this paper, we present an algorithm that computes a $2/3(\sim.66)$-approximate matching using only $O(n \log(n))$ space, improving upon both results above. We also note that for adversarial streams, a lower bound of Kapralov [SODA 2013] shows that any algorithm that achieves a $1-1/e(\sim.63)$-approximation requires $(n^{1+\Omega(1/\log\log(n))})$ space. Our result for random-order streams is the first to go beyond the adversarial-order lower bound, thus establishing that computing a maximum matching is provably easier in random-order streams.
Effect of pre-operative physiotherapy in patients with end-stage osteoarthritis undergoing hip arthroplasty

Objective: To examine the effect of pre-operative physiotherapy before hip arthroplasty in patients with end-stage hip osteoarthritis. Design: A prospective randomized controlled study. Setting: Physical medicine and rehabilitation and orthopaedic departments of Policlinico Gemelli of Rome. Subjects: Twenty-three patients randomized in study and control groups. Intervention: The study group took part in an educational and physiotherapy programme one month before surgery. Both groups took part in the same inpatient rehabilitation programme after surgery. Main outcome measures: Both groups were evaluated one month (T0) and the day before arthroplasty (T1), after 15 days (T2), four weeks (T3) and three months (T4) post surgery, using the Barthel Index, the Short Form-36 (SF-36), the Western Ontario and McMaster Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), the Hip Harris Score (HHS), visual analogue scale (VAS), the British Medical Research Council (BMRC) measures of hip abductor and quadriceps strength and range of hip abduction and external rotation. Results: There were no significant differences between groups with regard to the Barthel Index, SF-36, WOMAC and HHS at T4. The study group presented significant improvements of the SF-36 physical composite score at T1. The hip external rotation was significantly higher in the study group at each evaluation and the visual analogue scale values were lower at T1, T3 and T4. Conclusion: Pre-operative physiotherapy in patients undergoing hip arthroplasty does not improve impairment and health-related quality of life after intervention. Physiotherapy and educational therapy may be useful for end-stage osteoarthritis.
Optimization of Deep Neural Networks Using SoCs with OpenCL

In the optimization of deep neural networks (DNNs) via evolutionary algorithms (EAs) and the implementation of the training necessary for the creation of the objective function, there is often a trade-off between efficiency and flexibility. Pure software solutions implemented on general-purpose processors tend to be slow because they do not take advantage of the inherent parallelism of these devices, whereas hardware realizations based on heterogeneous platforms (combining central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs) and/or field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs)) are designed based on different solutions using methodologies supported by different languages and using very different implementation criteria. This paper first presents a study that demonstrates the need for a heterogeneous (CPU-GPU-FPGA) platform to accelerate the optimization of artificial neural networks (ANNs) using genetic algorithms. Second, the paper presents implementations of the calculations related to the individuals evaluated in such an algorithm on different (CPU- and FPGA-based) platforms, but with the same source files written in OpenCL. The implementation of individuals on remote, low-cost FPGA systems on a chip (SoCs) is found to enable the achievement of good efficiency in terms of performance per watt.
The protective effect of lidocaine on lipopolysaccharide-induced acute lung injury in rats through NF-κB and p38 MAPK signaling pathway and excessive inflammatory responses.

OBJECTIVE Acute lung injury is a severe disease with a high rate of mortality, leading to more important illness. We aimed at exploring the protective role and potential mechanisms of lidocaine on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced acute lung injury (ALI). MATERIALS AND METHODS Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were randomly assigned to control group receiving 0.9% saline solution, LPS group treated with 4 mg/kg LPS i.p., LPS + lidocaine(treated with 4 mg/kg LPS i.p. followed by giving 1 mg/kg, 3 mg/kg, 5 mg/kg of lidocaine i.v.). Lung specimens and the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) were collected for histopathological examination and biochemical analyze 12 h after LPS induction. The cytokines expression of TNF-α, IL-6 and MCP-1 was measured by ELISA. In addition, the malondialdehyde (MDA) content, the activities of total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) in lung tissues were also detected using ELISA. The protein expressions of p38, p-p38, p65, p-p65 and IκB were analyzed by Western blot. RESULTS The results indicated that after lidocaine treatment was able to decrease significantly wet-to-dry (W/D) ratio and ameliorate the histopathologic damage. Additionally, total protein content and the number of leukocytes in BALF significantly decreased. ELISA result indicated that the levels of TNF-α, IL-6 and MCP-1 in BALF were markedly suppressed. Meanwhile, the activities of T-AOC and SOD in lung tissues significantly increased, while the content of MDA significantly decreased after treatment with lidocaine. Moreover, Western blot suggested that lidocaine inhibited phosphorylation of NF-κB p65 and p38 MAPK. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, lidocaine could ameliorate the LPS-induced lung injury via NF-κB/p38 MAPK signaling and excessive inflammatory responses, providing a potential for becoming the anti-inflammatory agent against lung injury.
A High-Gain Circularly Polarized Fabry–Perot Antenna With Wideband Low-RCS Property

In this letter, a low radar cross section (RCS) and the high-gain circularly polarized (CP) antenna using a novel linear-to-circular polarization converter is presented. A simple linearly polarized patch antenna rotated 45° relative to x-axis is used as the primary source. The polarization converter is an asymmetrical metastructure composed of different metal patterns printed on the two sides of a dielectric substrate, which can transmit a CP wave. The top-side metallic pattern is an absorbing surface to realize the RCS reduction, while the bottom-side one is a partially reflective surface (PRS). A CP Fabry–Perot resonance cavity is constituted by the PRS and the anisotropic high-impedance surface (HIS) plane to obtain the gain enhancement. The simulation and measured results demonstrate that the proposed antenna exhibits good circular polarization performance in the operating frequency. In addition, the gain of the proposed antenna can be improved by about 3.2 dB at 10.7 GHz, and the RCS can be reduced significantly over a wideband ranging from 4 to 13 GHz for both polarizations, compared with the conventional patch antenna.
The Ecological Significance of the Herbaceous Layer in Temperate Forest Ecosystems

ABSTRACT Despite a growing awareness that the herbaceous layer serves a special role in maintaining the structure and function of forests, this stratum remains an underappreciated aspect of forest ecosystems. In this article I review and synthesize information concerning the herb layer's structure, composition, and dynamics to emphasize its role as an integral component of forest ecosystems. Because species diversity is highest in the herb layer among all forest strata, forest biodiversity is largely a function of the herb-layer community. Competitive interactions within the herb layer can determine the initial success of plants occupying higher strata, including the regeneration of dominant overstory tree species. Furthermore, the herb layer and the overstory can become linked through parallel responses to similar environmental gradients. These relationships between strata vary both spatially and temporally. Because the herb layer responds sensitively to disturbance across broad spatial and temporal scales, its dynamics can provide important information regarding the site characteristics of forests, including patterns of past land-use practices. Thus, the herb layer has a significance that belies its diminutive stature.
La política europea de I+D. Situación actual y perspectivas

La politica europea en materia de investigacion, desarrollo tecnologico e innovacion esta comprometida con el objetivo de lograr que la UE llegue a realizar un esfuerzo en I+D de 3 por 100 del PIB a lo largo de la presente decada. El proyecto de construccion del Espacio Europeo de Investigacion es entendido como fundamental si se pretende alcanzar una dinamica mas competitiva de la UE, reto que se refleja en la orientacion y los compromisos asumidos tanto en el Sexto Programa Marco de Investigacion, Desarrollo Tecnologico y Demostracion (PM), como en la definicion de las lineas estrategicas de los trabajos preparativos del Septimo PM. En este articulo se revisan las bases conceptuales, la situacion actual y las perspectivas de futuro de este ambito de la politica europea.
Dictionary Learning and Sparse Coding on Statistical Manifolds

In this paper, we propose a novel information theoretic framework for dictionary learning (DL) and sparse coding (SC) on a statistical manifold (the manifold of probability distributions). Unlike the traditional DL and SC framework, our new formulation does not explicitly incorporate any sparsity inducing norm in the cost function being optimized but yet yields sparse codes. Our algorithm approximates the data points on the statistical manifold (which are probability distributions) by the weighted Kullback-Leibeler center/mean (KL-center) of the dictionary atoms. The KL-center is defined as the minimizer of the maximum KL-divergence between itself and members of the set whose center is being sought. Further, we prove that the weighted KL-center is a sparse combination of the dictionary atoms. This result also holds for the case when the KL-divergence is replaced by the well known Hellinger distance. From an applications perspective, we present an extension of the aforementioned framework to the manifold of symmetric positive definite matrices (which can be identified with the manifold of zero mean gaussian distributions), $\mathcal{P}_n$. We present experiments involving a variety of dictionary-based reconstruction and classification problems in Computer Vision. Performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparing it to several state-of-the-art methods in terms of reconstruction and classification accuracy as well as sparsity of the chosen representation.
La mémoire olfactive humaine : neuroanatomie fonctionnelle de la discrimination et du jugement de la familiarité

Cette these porte sur l'etude des bases neuronales des processus mnesiques olfactifs chez le sujet sain et le patient atteint de schizophrenie, par les techniques d'imagerie cerebrale de TEP et d'IRMf. La premiere etude montre que la discrimination olfactive, qui met en jeu des processus de memoire a court terme, active l'insula ventrale anterieure et le gyrus frontopolaire gauches, impliques respectivement dans l'evaluation de la qualite des odeurs et dans les processus plurimodaux de memoire de travail. La deuxieme etude montre l'implication du cortex piriforme droit lors du jugement de la familiarite des odeurs, et suggere ainsi que le cortex olfactif primaire est aussi implique dans les processus de memoire olfactive a long terme. La troisieme etude vise a dissocier les correlats neuronaux associes aux sentiments de familiarite et de non familiarite, des odeurs et de la musique. Elle montre que le sentiment de familiarite active un large reseau neuronal bimodal impliquant des structures participant a des processus mnesiques ou semantiques. Elle suggere par extension l'existence d'un reseau neuronal plurimodal du sentiment de familiarite. La quatrieme etude montre que les patients atteints de schizophrenie, en comparaison des sujets temoins, jugent les odeurs moins familieres et jugent les odeurs plaisantes moins plaisantes. De facon concomitante, ils presentent des alterations fonctionnelles dans les aires temporo-limbiques et orbitales gauches. L'ensemble des etudes suggere une dissociation des bases neuronales des memoires olfactives a court et long termes, et avance des preuves en faveur de l'hypothese du caractere plurimodal d'une partie des processus mnesiques.
VEGFR2 is activated by high‐density lipoproteins and plays a key role in the proangiogenic action of HDL in ischemia

High‐density lipoproteins augment hypoxia‐induced angiogenesis by inducing the key angiogenic vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) and total protein levels of its receptor 2 (VEGFR2). The activation/ phosphorylation of VEGFR2 is critical for mediating downstream, angiogenic signaling events. This study aimed to determine whether reconstituted high‐density lipoprotein (rHDL) activates VEGFR2 phosphorylation and the downstream signaling events and the importance of VEGFR2 in the proangiogenic effects of rHDL in hypoxia. In vitro, rHDL increased VEGFR2 activation and enhanced phosphorylation of downstream, angiogenic signaling proteins ERK1/2 and p38 MAPK in hypoxia. Incubation with a VEGFR2‐neutralizing antibody attenuated rHDL‐induced phosphorylation of VEGFR2, ERK1/2, p38 MAPK, and tubule formation. In a murine model of ischemia‐driven neovascularization, rHDL infusions enhanced blood perfusion and augmented capillary and arteriolar density. Infusion of a VEGFR2‐neutralizing antibody ablated those proangiogenic effects of rHDL. Circulating Sca1+/CXCR4+ angiogenic progenitor cell levels, important for neovascularization in response to ischemia, were higher in rHDL‐infused mice 3 d after ischemic induction, but that did not occur in mice that also received the VEGFR2‐neutralizing antibody. In summary, VEGFR2 has a key role in the proangiogenic effects of rHDL in hypoxia/ischemia. These findings have therapeutic implications for angiogenic diseases associated with an impaired response to tissue ischemia. —Cannizzo, C. M. , Adonopulos, A. A. , Solly, E. L. , Ridiandries, A. , Vanags, L. Z. , Mulangala, J., Yuen, S. C. G. , Tsatralis, T. , Henriquez, R. , Robertson, S. , Nicholls, S. J., Di Bartolo, B. A. , Ng, M. K. C. , Lam, Y. T. , Bursill, C. A. , Tan, J. T. M. VEGFR2 is activated by high‐density lipoproteins and plays a key role in the proangiogenic action of HDL in ischemia. FASEB J. 32, 2911–2922 (2018). www.fasebj. org