Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
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Cynthia D. Lewis, MSN, RN Clinical Nurse Specialist St. Luke’s Medical Center Milwaukee, Wisconsin Peripheral arterial disease is becoming more prevalent due to the increasing age of the population. To better evaluate and care for patients with this disease, it is essential to understand its pathophysiology and etiology. Understanding the sequelae of events and treatments associated with peripheral arterial disease will help the nurse to provide a comprehensive, outcome-focused plan of care and education plan. Nurses are in a unique position to reduce the risks associated with lower extremity arterial disease.
Painful Osteoporotic Vertebral Fracture

Osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures are a frequently encountered clinical problem, and they are becoming more important as the median age of the population continues to increase. Notwithstanding the potentially devastating consequences, many of these fractures are initially asymptomatic and appear to cause little morbidity other than decreased height and a more forward stooped posture. Only 23% to 33% of these fractures become clinically evident. When such a fracture does cause pain, the patient usually can be managed successfully with a combination of medications, activity modification, and occasionally bracing. Managing a patient who does not respond to this initial treatment regimen is challenging. The risks of anesthesia and the poor quality of bone in this elderly group make operative intervention such as fusion and application of instrumentation less attractive. Internal splinting of the vertebral body by percutaneously injected methylmethacrylate may provide adequate pain relief that allows the patient to return to his or her previous level of functioning. The aim of this article is to review features of osteoporosis that are pertinent to the pathogenesis of vertebral compression fractures and to discuss the evaluation, natural history, and consequences of these fractures. Two new operative procedures, vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty, will be reviewed, and their role in the management of this condition will be discussed.
A Clinical Prediction Rule for Functional Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy

Background: Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is a progressive spinal condition that is often managed surgically. Knowledge of important predictors of surgical outcome can provide decision support to surgeons and enable them to effectively manage their patients’ expectations. The purpose of this study was to identify the most important clinical predictors of surgical outcome in patients with CSM using data from two multinational prospective studies.
Genu Recurvatum in Spastic Cerebral Palsy

Read in part at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine, Los Angeles, California. September 16, 1976. This work was supported by the Rehabilitation Engineering Centel-, Grant 23-P-55854, the United Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation, Inc. , The Charles A. Dana Foundation. Inc. . and the Hearst Foundation. :: Children’s Hospital Medical Center, 300 Longwood Avenue. Boston, Massachusetts 021 IS. Please address reprint requests to Dr. Si-
Perceptions of patients, signi ficant others and health professionals of the role of significant others in programs for chronic non-malignant pain patients: a systematic review protocol

© Review question/objective: The objective of this review is to identify and synthesize the perceptions of patients, significant others and health professionals regarding the role of significant others in chronic pain programs or healthcare regimens that target patients with chronic non-malignant pain. More specifically, the objective is to identify the role of significant others in chronic pain programs and healthcare regimens for adult patients with chronic non-malignant pain in primary, secondary or tertiary healthcare settings.
Hyponatremia in the acute phase of spinal cord trauma: Review

Hyponatremia is a common electrolyte disturbance usually observed in neurosurgical patients undergoing surgical management of traumatic, as well as, nontraumatic intracranial pathology. The spinal cord trauma is also associated with occasional development of such hyponatremia; it usually occurs within the first two-weeks of the injury. Hyponatremia can lead to alterations of consciousness, convulsions, coma, cardiac arrhythmias and on rare occasions, death. Authors present a practical oriented review of the literature.
Avaliação da Sobrevivência de Implantes Imediatos e Tardios após Levantamento de Seio Maxilar: Revisão de Literatura

A cirurgia de levantamento do assoalho do seio maxilar e uma tecnica que possibilita reabilitar areas edentulas do maxilar posterior com implantes dentarios. A colocacao destes implantes pode ser imediata (na mesma etapa cirurgica) ou tardia (apos a cicatrizacao primaria). O uso de materiais de enxerto concomitante a colocacao dos implantes e uma opcao corriqueira e viavel para melhorar a qualidade e quantidade ossea, possibilitando uma melhor interface implante-osso. Varios estudos tendem a comparar se a instalacao imediata ou tardia apos levantamento do seio maxilar influencia na sobrevivencia dos implantes, justamente pela preocupacao com uma osteointegracao ideal. Por isso, o objetivo desta revisao de literatura e evidenciar se o momento de instalacao impacta no sucesso da tecnica de levantamento do seio maxilar e, consequentemente, na longevidade do implante.
A Brief Review of Antifungal Drugs Old and New

Advances in chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and the treatment of HIV have had a tremendous impact on survival significantly decreasing diseaserelated morbidity. However, such therapies have increased the number of patients with a compromised immune system thereby predisposing to opportunistic fungal infections. Despite currently available antifungal drugs, mortality rates remain elevated. Drug approvals for cancer, HIV, and transplantation continue and have significantly outpaced antifungal drug therapy development. Here, a brief review of current antifungal therapy is presented as well as investigational antifungal agents with novel mechanisms of action or molecular targets.
Familial Epilepsy – A Population Based Study in Yanbu Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Introduction; Epilepsy is a common and important neurological condition. It effects children & adults and occurs in every major population of the world. Epilepsy is heterogeneous condition, manifesting on its own or as complication of other neurological or systemic diseases and its clinical form, severity and outcome vary widely. Treatment has improved considerably in recent years and the choice of the medical therapy has widened greatly. The following study shows high incidence of familial epilepsy in a Yanbu – one of the biggest industrial city of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Objectives: To study the incidence of familial epilepsy in patient population of Yanbu, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Material and Methods: This is a retrospective study of epilepsy patients, as well as follow up of new patients of epilepsy who presented in the department of neurology at Royal Commission hospital Yanbu Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Duration of study was two years; from January 2011 to December 2012. This study included 100 patients with diagnosed of epilepsy. Results: The age range was 10-60 years; there were 39 patients (78%) of age range 10 – 20, 30 patients (60%) of age range 21 – 30, 11 patients (22%) of age range 31 – 40, 11 patients (22%) of age range 41 – 50, and 9 pat-ients (18%) of age range 51 – 61. There were both diagnosed cases of epilepsy as well as those who presented for the first time in the neurology department. Conclusions: It was seen during study that 40 patients out of 100 patients had two or more family members having epilepsy. We have not seen such high incidence in any of the studies done in the past. What could be the probable cause of this high incidence, remains to be elucidated, one possible explanation might have been polygenic inheritance amongst such patients.
Maternal Risk Factors Predisposing to Congenital Heart Disease: A study in South India

Background: Congenital Heart Diseases (CHD) are defined as malformations of the heart and great vessels that develop in utero which may manifest at birth or later in childhood. They can be caused by numerous genetic and environmental factors. Genetic factors are nonmodifiable. However, identification of modifiable environmental risk factors is important to develop population based prevention strategies to reduce the incidence of CHD. Objectives: The primary objective of the study was to find an association of the maternal lifestyles with CHD in new-borns. The secondary outcome of the study was to identify maternal factors that can be modified for the primary prevention of CHD. Materials and Methods: This prospective study involved cardiovascular system examination of newborns after delivery in term gestations in 1394 singleton pregnancies. The maternal risk factors Original Research Article Ramkumar et al.; CA, 7(4): 1-7, 2018; Article no.CA. 44524 2 considered were age, prepregnancy Body Mass Index (BMI), consanguineous marriage, caffeine intake, diabetes, stress and intake of periconceptional Folic acid tablets. Results: In this study, 22 (1.58%) out of 1394 pregnancies resulted in Congenital Heart Defects. Teenage pregnancy (p value= 0.0002), consanguineous marriage (p value=0.0004), overt diabetes mellitus (p value=0.0001), caffeine intake (p value=0.0031), prepregnancy BMI>24(p value=0.0001), maternal stress (p value<0.0001, history of previous congenital malformations (p value=0.004) and non intake of folic acid tablets in the first trimester (p value=0.0023 were found to be the most likely risk factor associated with CHD. Conclusion: Community education programmes should be initiated in the high-risk population to prevent teenage pregnancies and consanguineous marriages. Maternal counseling for periconceptional control of blood glucose, adequate weight maintenance, intake of folic acid tablets, avoidance of stress and caffeine is needed to prevent CHD.
The Flying Anchor: An Original Technique for Beach Profile Measurements in the Surf Zone

ABSTRACT Violante-Carvalho, N. ; D'Avila, V. ; Heringer Villena, H.H. , and Mendonça Filippo, A.M., 2020. The Flying Anchor: An original technique for beach profile measurements in the surf zone. Journal of Coastal Research, 36(3), 654–660. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. An original method is proposed to measure beach profiles in the surf zone. Surveying this dynamic and energetic region is usually a challenge when waves are large, which is exactly when the nearshore processes are more intense. The lack of bathymetry and wave data is indisputably a limiting factor hindering the understanding of the physics involved. Countless techniques have been proposed in the last decades to increase the temporal and spatial density of such measurements, with different degrees of success. Seeking to bring new approaches to address these issues, the proposed operation consists of launching a specially designed anchor from the beach face over the surf zone, carrying a graduated cable. When the cable is drawn taut, a pressure sensor is hand towed along the sea floor measuring the profile, as well as yielding the wave energy spectrum. The technique is efficient and fast and employs a small team at a very low cost. Some of the main limitations of the known in situ techniques, such as sea state dependency, high cost per profile, and longshore drift, are mitigated.
Machine learning algorithm for mortality prediction in patients with advanced penile cancer

Penile cancer remains a rare cancer with an annual incidence of 1 in 100,000 men in the United States, accounting for 0.4-0.6% of all malignancies. Furthermore, to date there are no predictive models of early mortality in penile cancer. Meanwhile, machine learning has potential to serve as a prognostic tool for patients with advanced disease. We developed a machine learning model for predicting early mortality in penile cancer (survival less than 11 months after initial diagnosis. A cohort of 88 patients with advanced penile cancer was extracted from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program. In the cohort, patients with advanced penile cancer exhibited a median overall survival of 21 months, with the 25th percentila of overall survival being 11 months. We constructed predictive features based on patient demographics, staging, metastasis, lymph node biopsy criteria, and metastatic sites. We trained a multivariate logistic regression model, tuning parameters with respect to regularization, and feature selection criteria. Upon evaluation with 5-fold cross validation, our model achieved 68.2% accuracy with AUC 0.696. Criteria for advanced staging (T4, group stage IV), as well as higher age, white race and squamous cell histology, were the most predictive of early mortality. Tumor size was the strongest negative predictor of early mortality. Our study showcases the first known predictive model for early mortality in patients with advanced penile cancer and should serve as a framework for approaching the clinical problem in future studies. Future work should aim to incorporate other data sources such as genomic and metabolomic data, increase patient counts, incorporate clinical characteristics such as ECOG and RECIST criteria, and assess the performance of the model in a prospective fashion.
Model the transmission dynamics of COVID-19 propagation with public health intervention

Abstract In this work, a researcher develops S H E I Q R D (Susceptible-Stay-at-home-Exposed-Infected-Quarantine-Recovery-Death) coronavirus pandemic, spread model. The disease-free and endemic equilibrium points are computed and analyzed. The basic reproduction number R 0 is acquired, and its sensitivity analysis conducted. COVID-19 pandemic spread dies out when R 0 ≤ 1 and persists in the community whenever R 0 > 1 . Efficient stay-at-home rate, high coverage of precise identification and isolation of exposed and infected individuals, reduction of transmission, and stay-at-home return rate can mitigate COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, theoretical analysis and numerical results are shown to be consistent.
Achievement of Target A1C <7.0% (<53 mmol/mol) by U.S. Type 2 Diabetes Patients Treated With Basal Insulin in Both Randomized Controlled Trials and Clinical Practice

Objective. Many patients with type 2 diabetes do not reach glycemic goals despite basal insulin treatment. This study assessed the achievement of a target A1C <7.0% (<53 mmol/mol) after initiation of basal insulin in two settings. Methods. This was a retrospective analysis of pooled randomized controlled trial (RCT) data, from 11 24-week studies of patients initiating basal insulin performed between 2000 and 2005 and of outpatient electronic medical record (EMR) data from the General Electric Centricity database for insulin-naive patients initiating basal insulin between 2005 and 2012. Baseline characteristics stratified by target A1C and fasting plasma glucose (FPG) attainment were compared descriptively. Results. In the RCT dataset, 49.0% of patients failed to achieve the target A1C at 6 months versus 72.4% and 72.9% at 6 and 12 months in the EMR dataset, respectively. Despite this, in the RCT dataset, 79.4% of patients achieved the target A1C and/or an FPG <130 mg/dL. In the EMR dataset, only 47.6% and 47.3% of patients achieved an A1C <7.0% and/or FPG <130 mg/dL at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Overall, patients with an A1C >7.0% had a longer diabetes duration and were more likely to be female, nonwhite, and self-funding or covered by Medicaid. Among patients with an A1C >7.0%, more RCT patients (58.0%) had an FPG <130 mg/dL than EMR patients at 6 months (27.8%) and 12 months (27.7%). Conclusion. Unmet needs remain after basal insulin initiation, particularly in real-world settings, where many patients require further insulin titration. In both populations, patients failing to achieve the target A1C despite attaining an FPG <130 mg/dL require interventions to improve postprandial control.
TMS activation site estimation using multiscale realistic head models

Objective. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) activates brain structures non-invasively. Computational models can be used to elucidate the activation site; however, the exact activation site is controversial. The aim is to present an imaging technique of the TMS activation cortical site estimation using individualized multi-scale realistic head models based on experimentally-derived TMS fields. Approach. The induced electric field (EF) was computed using subject-specific head models and experimental-specific TMS coil configuration during suprathreshold stimulation for relaxed muscles. The experimentally-derived EFs were used to calculate the activation of pyramidal tract model embedded in the head models to derive the activation site on the cortical surface at the macroscopic level. Main results. The TMS activation site was located at the anterior wall of the central sulcus, which agreed with a concurrent TMS/fMRI study. In contrast, the EF strength was not entirely consistent with TMS/fMRI studies. Multiscale physical modelling is a feasible imaging technique to investigate the activation site for TMS. Significance. By combining subject-specific multiscale modelling with experimental TMS measurements, we showed that this method could serve as a TMS imaging technique at suprathreshold condition.
Glioblastoma treatment: Where to now?

Glioblastoma (GBM) remains an incurable disease with a poor overall survival. Despite extensive research into clinical trials, temozolomide remains the only therapeutic agent to improve patient survival in the past 50 years. This is despite only providing a modest increase of 2.5 months to median survival. Resistance to traditional therapies has become a hallmark of GBM, owing to its complex and undetermined molecular landscape. Studies now suggest that GBM is a disease of genetic subtypes and require tailored approaches to therapeutic care. Further strategies for GBM treatment involve targeting tumour associated neovascularisation. While early attempts to attenuate the tumour vascularisation with anti-VEGF has not been successful, studies are now looking towards other angiogenic factors and novel mechanisms of neovascularisation that have yet to be explored. A shift towards understanding the molecular and biological mechanisms of GBM pathogenesis represents a promising new strategy for treatment. Here we highlight some of the major developments to genetic profiling and anti-neovascularisation therapy.
Redundancy masking: The loss of repeated items in crowded peripheral vision

Crowding is the deterioration of target identification in the presence of neighboring objects. Recent studies using appearance-based methods showed that the perceived number of target elements is often diminished in crowding. Here we introduce a related type of diminishment in repeating patterns (sets of parallel lines), which we term “redundancy masking. ” In four experiments, observers were presented with arrays of small numbers of lines centered at 10° eccentricity. The task was to indicate the number of lines. In Experiment 1, spatial characteristics of redundancy masking were examined by varying the inter-line spacing. We found that redundancy masking decreased with increasing inter-line spacing and ceased at spacings of approximately 0.25 times the eccentricity. In Experiment 2, we assessed whether the strength of redundancy masking differed between radial and tangential arrangements of elements as it does in crowding. Redundancy masking was strong with radially arranged lines (horizontally arranged vertical lines), and absent with tangentially arranged lines (vertically arranged horizontal lines). In Experiment 3, we investigated whether target size (line width and length) modulated redundancy masking. There was an effect of width: Thinner lines yielded stronger redundancy masking. We did not find any differences between the tested line lengths. In Experiment 4, we varied the regularity of the line arrays by vertically or horizontally jittering the positions of the lines. Redundancy masking was strongest with regular spacings and weakened with decreasing regularity. Our experiments show under which conditions whole items are lost in crowded displays, and how this redundancy masking resembles—and partly diverges from—crowded identification. We suggest that redundancy masking is a contributor to the deterioration of performance in crowded displays with redundant patterns.
Soil fungal communities differ between shaded and sun-intensive coffee plantations in El Salvador

Coffea arabica is a highly traded commodity worldwide, and its plantations are habitat to a wide range of organisms. Coffee farmers are shifting away from traditional shade coffee farms in favor of sun-intensive, higher yield farms, which can impact local biodiversity. Using plant-associated microorganisms in biofertilizers, particularly fungi collected from local forests, to increase crop yields has gained traction among coffee producers. However, the taxonomic and spatial distribution of many fungi in coffee soil, nearby forests and biofertilizers is unknown. We collected soil samples from a sun coffee system, shade coffee system, and nearby forest from Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador. At each coffee system, we collected soil from the surface (upper) and 10 cm below the surface (lower), and from the coffee plant drip line (drip line) and the walkway between two plants (walkway). Forest soils were collected from the surface only. We used ITS metabarcoding to characterize fungal communities in soil and in the biofertilizer (applied in both coffee systems), and assigned fungal taxa to functional guilds using FUNGuild. In the sun and shade coffee systems, we found that drip line soil had higher richness in pathotrophs, symbiotrophs, and saprotrophs than walkway soil, suggesting that fungi select for microhabitats closer to coffee plants. Upper and lower soil depths did not differ in fungal richness or composition, which may reflect the shallow root system of Coffea arabica. Soil from shade, sun, and forest had similar numbers of fungal taxa, but differed dramatically in community composition, indicating that local habitat differences drive fungal species sorting among systems. Yet, some fungal taxa were shared among systems, including seven fungal taxa present in the biofertilizer. Understanding the distribution of coffee soil mycobiomes can be used to inform sustainable, ecologically friendly farming practices and identify candidate plant-growth promoting fungi for future studies.