Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence Function Analysis of PCA and BCM Learning

Based on the influence function (Hampel et al. 1986), we analyze several forms of learning rules under the influence of abnormal inputs (outliers). Principal component analysis (PCA) learning rules (Oja 1982, 1989, 1992) are shown to be sensitive to the influence of outliers. Biologically motivated robust PCA learning rules are proposed. The variants of BCM learning (Bienenstock et al. 1982; Intrator 1990b) with linear neurons are shown to be subject to the influence of outliers, in contrast they are shown to be robust to outliers with sigmoidal neurons.
A review of acute central serous chorioretinopathy

Central serous chorioretinopathy is a common cause of visual morbidity. It is characterized by idiopathic serous retinal detachment in macular or paramacular regions. The symptoms of the CSC include decreased vision, micropsia and metamorphopsia. The prognosis of the disease is good and almost 90% of patients obtain visual recovery in a few months. However, in less than 5% of patients the chronic disease with poor prognosis is developed. The acceptable approach is to observe patients with acute central serous chorioretinopathy, because central serous chorioretinopathy is self-limited. The pathophysiology of central serous chorioretinopathy is not clear and not well understood. Therefore, various medical treatments have been suggested such as propranolol, indomethacin, bevacizumab, acetazolamide, mifepristone, labetalol, etc. However, wait and watch would be the most recommended management of the central serous chorioretinopathy.
The Nature and Causes of Human Errors in a Medical Intensive Care Unit

The articel presents the main outcomes and conclusions of a two year research effort directed to study the causes of human errors in a Respiratory Intensive Care Unit (ICU). In the course of the study, doctors and nurses recorded errors in treatment routines that were committed during their daily work. Over a period of 4 months we collected 554 errors, which were independently judged for their criticality. In addition, 46, twenty-four hour, observations were conducted, of all activities at a patient bed. A total of 8178 activities were recorded over the 46 observations. We also performed: a detailed human factors analysis of the patient bed as a work station. It was found that the dominant cause of errors are problems related to complete and clear documantation and transfer of information between staff members. Additional causes were lack of standatization in equipment composition and layout, as well as absence of adequate marking and labeling. These problems seems” to be equally relevant to other ICU's visited by the team. Remedial steps are presently being implemented.
Stigmatised attitudes in independent pharmacies associated with discrimination towards individuals with opioid dependence

Aims and method Dispensing of methadone to individuals with opioid dependence is a discretionary service and many independent pharmacies remain unwilling to do this. We aimed to determine whether there was any correlation between negative stigmatised attitude towards these individuals and the likelihood of methadone dispensing. The 20-point Attitude to Mental Illness Questionnaire (AMIQ) was used to assess stigmatised attitudes in a cluster randomised sample of managers of community pharmacies in England. Results The response rate was 66%. The AMIQ stigma scores had a median difference of 1 and effect size of 0.42 in favour of those pharmacies which dispensed methadone (mean = 0.53; n = 138) compared with those who did not (mean = 0.93; n = 69; P Clinical implications The results show a clear behavioural distinction (discrimination) based on stigmatised attitudes towards individuals with opioid dependence. This may arise because managers with stigmatised attitudes refuse to dispense methadone to this group. Conversely, familiarity with these individuals may have a de-stigmatising effect.
2014 ACC/AHA guideline on perioperative cardiovascular evaluation and management of patients undergoing noncardiac surgery: executive summary: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines.

Preamble 2216 1. Introduction 2217 2. Clinical Risk Factors: Recommendations 2220 3. Approach to Perioperative Cardiac Testing 2221 4. Supplemental Preoperative Evaluation: Recommendations 2221 5. Perioperative Therapy: Recommendations 2224 6. Anesthetic Consideration and Intraoperative Management: Recommendations 2228 7. Surveillance and Management for Perioperative MI: Recommendations 2229 8. Future Research Directions 2230 Appendix 1. Author Relationships With Industry and Other Entities (Relevant) 2237 Appendix 2. Reviewer Relationships With Industry and Other Entities (Relevant) 2239 Appendix 3. Related Recommendations From Other CPGs 2244 References 2230 The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA) are committed to the prevention and management of cardiovascular diseases through professional education and research for clinicians, providers, and patients. Since 1980, the ACC and AHA have shared a responsibility to translate scientific evidence into clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) with recommendations to standardize and improve cardiovascular health. These CPGs, based on systematic methods to evaluate and classify evidence, provide a cornerstone of quality …
What All Women (and Some Men) Want to Know: Does Maternal Age Affect Infant Health?

The incidence of many commonly-studied birth outcomes, such as infant mortality and prematurity, varies by maternal age. In particular, both older and younger women face an increased probability of an unfavorable birth outcome. Whether this association is causal is an open question, as a mother’s age is correlated with other determinants of infant health, such as socioeconomic and marital status. If age does directly affect infant health, then delays in childbearing, as have occurred during the past thirty years, could have important implications for health outcomes and costs. In this paper I examine the relationship between maternal age and infant health. To control for unobservable differences across mothers, I create a unique large-scale panel data set of over one million sibling births from the universe of births in Texas between 1989 and 2001. Comparing outcomes across siblings using a generalized correlated random-effects model, I find that both younger and older mothers give birth to infants who are less healthy along several dimensions. Women over age 35 and under age 18 are 30 percent more likely to have a preterm delivery when compared to women between the ages of 26 and 29. Women giving birth at older ages also face elevated risks of infant death and of having a child with an abnormal condition.
Nosologie de l’insuffisance cardiaque diastolique

Malgre des efforts de consensus, l’insuffisance cardiaque diastolique reste une pathologie aux contours imparfaitement definis. Son diagnostic repose sur l’association d’un syndrome clinique d’insuffisance cardiaque, d’une fraction d’ejection normale ou preservee (> 45 %), de signes de dysfonction diastolique et d’un processus de remodelage concentrique. On estime sa frequence a environ 50 % des cas d’insuffisance cardiaque. Il n’est pas possible de differencier l’insuffisance cardiaque diastolique de l’insuffisance cardiaque systolique sur la base de criteres cliniques. Cependant, les patients souffrant d’insuffisance cardiaque diastolique sont en moyenne plus âges, plus souvent des femmes, plus volontiers hypertendus et moins souvent coronariens que ceux souffrant d’insuffisance cardiaque systolique. Son pronostic vital parait moins severe que celui de l’insuffisance cardiaque systolique. En revanche, sa morbidite, ainsi que le cout de sa prise en charge sont comparables.
Cáncer de páncreas: nuevos avances en diagnóstico molecular

Hace treinta años el cáncer no era una causa de mortalidad tan relevante en la población; sin embargo, el aumento de los factores de riesgo a través del tiempo hizo que esta patología aumentara su frecuencia rápidamente, al punto que en la actualidad se la considera como una de las principales causas de muerte, superada solamente por las enfermedades cardiovasculares. En Chile las neoplasias representan la segunda causa de muerte (24,8%) y se cree que en el futuro será la primera causa en la mayoría de los países desarrollados (1).
Gene Therapy and the Possible Value of Microbubble Ultrasound

Gene therapy has the potential to treat and ultimately cure many diseases, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. It relies on the transfer of genetic material such as DNA to the site of disease. Clinical trials have demonstrated the feasibility of this approach, but also documented short-comings in the efficiency of DNA delivery. Several technologies have the ability to carry DNA to cells and are being investigated in the laboratory or the clinic. The most recent addition to this list is ultrasound, having the ability to cause the internalization of genetic material into cells, where it can function in a therapeutic way. This review addresses the issues pertinent to gene therapy from the perspective of gene delivery and highlights the usefulness of ultrasound in this field.
The Work Ability Index (WAI)

Our multidisciplinary study group (occupational physiol-ogy, psychology, medicine, epidemiology and biostatis-tics) started cross-sectional studies among municipalemployees in 1981. The study participants were followedfor 16 years [1,2]. Since the beginning, the use of WorkAbility Index (WAI) both in research and practice haswidened to various countries, and the index has beentranslated into 24 languages.
Non-abdominal Non-thoracic Ultrasound in Cats and Dogs: Small Parts in Small Animals

Ultrasound is widely used in small animal veterinary medicine for the investigation of cardiac disease and abdominal disorders. However, non-abdominal non-thoracic ultrasound in dogs and cats currently has a much more minor role in routine diagnostic work-ups. This article, based on a presentation given to the annual BMUS meeting in 2007, aims to provide some insight into the use of diagnostic ultrasound in evaluating the small parts of small patients.
Female Family Carers for Survivors of Stroke: Occupational Loss and Quality of Life

Purpose: This study examined activity changes in female carers for working-age husbands with mild to moderate stroke. It explored whether carers who reduced or quitted some of their valued activities had more burden and decreased health compared with other carers who continued their valued activities. Method: This was a cross-sectional, quantitative self-report study. The Activity Card Sort measured reduction or termination of valued activities as a potential indicator of secondary strains, such as role captivity, constricted social life and loss of self. Outcomes were health-related quality of life and burden. Findings: Eleven of the 20 participants reduced or quitted some of their valued activities. This change was labelled ‘occupational loss’. Several statistically significant differences were found: carers with occupational loss reported more primary stressors, higher levels of burden, less vitality and lower general mental health. No difference between groups was found for physical health. Conclusion: Data from this study suggest that occupational loss may be related to deleterious outcomes for family carers. Further investigation with a larger sample and longitudinal design could explore the nature of that relationship to guide occupational therapy with this population.
Contribution of 30 Biomarkers to 10-Year Cardiovascular Risk Estimation in 2 Population Cohorts: The MONICA, Risk, Genetics, Archiving, and Monograph (MORGAM) Biomarker Project

Background— Cardiovascular risk estimation by novel biomarkers needs assessment in disease-free population cohorts, followed up for incident cardiovascular events, assaying the serum and plasma archived at baseline. We report results from 2 cohorts in such a continuing study. Methods and Results— Thirty novel biomarkers from different pathophysiological pathways were evaluated in 7915 men and women of the FINRISK97 population cohort with 538 incident cardiovascular events at 10 years (fatal or nonfatal coronary or stroke events), from which a biomarker score was developed and then validated in the 2551 men of the Belfast Prospective Epidemiological Study of Myocardial Infarction (PRIME) cohort (260 events). No single biomarker consistently improved risk estimation in FINRISK97 men and FINRISK97 women and the Belfast PRIME Men cohort after allowing for confounding factors; however, the strongest associations (with hazard ratio per SD in FINRISK97 men) were found for N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (1.23), C-reactive protein (1.23), B-type natriuretic peptide (1.19), and sensitive troponin I (1.18). A biomarker score was developed from the FINRISK97 cohort with the use of regression coefficients and lasso methods, with selection of troponin I, C-reactive protein, and N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide. Adding this score to a conventional risk factor model in the Belfast PRIME Men cohort validated it by improved c-statistics (P=0.004) and integrated discrimination (P<0.0001) and led to significant reclassification of individuals into risk categories (P=0.0008). Conclusions— The addition of a biomarker score including N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide, C-reactive protein, and sensitive troponin I to a conventional risk model improved 10-year risk estimation for cardiovascular events in 2 middle-aged European populations. Further validation is needed in other populations and age groups.
Diabetes: complications and the economic burden

Diabetes mellitus (DM), a chronic metabolic disorder, has been recognised as a major public health problem with far-reaching consequences not just for its adverse impact on the health of people affected by this condition, but also for the economic burden it places on the healthcare system. To reduce cost, it is imperative that diabetes management aims to achieve optimal glucose control to minimise the risk of long-term complications and to enable the person with diabetes to lead a good quality of life. This is often achieved through the use of a vast array of lifestyle and pharmaceutical interventions designed to prevent and control hyperglycaemia. However, evidence asserts not maintaining blood glucose within a normal range can result in chronic hyperglycaemia. This in turn leads to the development of micro and macrovascular complications. Such complications incur additional indirect costs to patients, employers and society due to absence from work caused by sickness and early retirement.
Haematological changes and recovery associated with treated and untreated Plasmodium falciparum infection in children in the Mount Cameroon Region

Pre-hospital antimalarial treatment of febrile children remains a significant common practice among individuals in the Mount Cameroon region. To evaluate the effect of routinely administered monotherapy sulphadoxine pyrimethamine (SP), treatment using amodiaquine artesunate (AQAS) combination therapy and untreated malaria on haematological and parasitological parameters, 332 malaria positive subjects were assigned to three groups comprising 138 children treated with AQAS, 43 treated with SP and 151 untreated. The changes and recovery in red cell indices, white blood cell and differential and platelets counts were compared. The highest haematological recovery (39.1%) occurred in the AQAS treatment group. The majority (94%) of the untreated cases never achieved haematological recovery even though there was spontaneous clearance of parasites in some cases. Haematological insult was greatest in untreated children followed by those treated with SP, the 1.1 - 3 year age group whether or not they received treatment and in those with high parasitaemia. Delayed parasite clearance observed in the untreated and SP treatment group may be responsible for the occurrence of haematological insult. Treatment type and parasitological cure was associated with haematological recovery. Prompt use of effective arthemisinin combination therapy reduced the burden of malaria, hence the greater clinical and haematological benefits observed in our study. Key words:
Effect of Vitamin E or Selenium on Blood Profile and Oxidative Stability of Turkey Meat

A 56-day trial to evaluate the performance characteristics, selected blood profile and oxidative stability of meat of laying turkeys was conducted using 48, thirty six weeks old turkeys which were randomly allotted to four treatments: T1 (control-the basal diet), T2 (250mg/kg vitamin E supplementation), T3 (0.03mg/kg selenium supplementation) and T4 (combination of 125mg/kg vitamin E and 0.15mg/kg selenium supplementation) in a completely randomized design. Performance data indicated similar (P>0.05) feed intake and body weight gain across the treatment. However, Average egg produced was significantly (p
Assessment of sputum staining techniques for the diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis

Introduction: Sputum smear examination plays a key role in routine diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). The sensitivity of sputum microscopy is influenced by the number of mycobacterium present in the specimen, technique/s and quality of specimen. Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining is commonly used methodology for the diagnosis of PTB but not very useful in paucibacillary cases. Although fluorescent microscopy is costly, it is considered more sensitive than ZN staining. The purpose of the study was to assess the efficiency of these two staining techniques for the detection of tuberculosis. Material and methods: We collected satisfactory sputum samples from 100 new symptomatics of PTB cases. This study was carried out from 2008-2011. For every sample, ZN and fluorescent (FL) staining was done and LJ (Lowenstein-Jensen) medium was used for isolation. Results were analysed using SPSS software. Results: Positivity by ZN method was 33% and 34% with FL staining. The sensitivity of ZN microscopy was 82.9% and specificity was 93.8%, similar to that observed with FL microscopy and 94.3% correlation was found between ZN and LJ positive cases. Conclusion: ZN staining alone is sufficient for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis from a single sample, with no added advantage of FL staining.
Examining the cognitive demands of analogy instructions compared to explicit instructions

Abstract Purpose: In many learning domains, instructions are presented explicitly despite high cognitive demands associated with their processing. This study examined cognitive demands imposed on working memory by different types of instruction to speak with maximum pitch variation: visual analogy, verbal analogy and explicit verbal instruction. Method: Forty participants were asked to memorise a set of 16 visual and verbal stimuli while reading aloud a Cantonese paragraph with maximum pitch variation. Instructions about how to achieve maximum pitch variation were presented via visual analogy, verbal analogy, explicit rules or no instruction. Pitch variation was assessed off-line, using standard deviation of fundamental frequency. Immediately after reading, participants recalled as many stimuli as possible. Result: Analogy instructions resulted in significantly increased pitch variation compared to explicit instructions or no instructions. Explicit instructions resulted in poorest recall of stimuli. Visual analogy instructions resulted in significantly poorer recall of visual stimuli than verbal stimuli. Conclusion: The findings suggest that non-propositional instructions presented via analogy may be less cognitively demanding than instructions that are presented explicitly. Processing analogy instructions that are presented as a visual representation is likely to load primarily visuospatial components of working memory rather than phonological components. The findings are discussed with reference to speech therapy and human cognition.
Selective progesterone receptor modulators 2: use in reproductive medicine

Background: Synthetic compounds can bind to progesterone receptors and these progesterone receptor ligands exhibit a spectrum of activities ranging from pure antagonism to a mixture of agonism and antagonism. These substances have been classified as antiprogestins or as selective progesterone receptor modulators. Objective: There are several hundred selective progesterone receptor modulators available, although only a dozen or so have been evaluated to any significant extent. The best-known selective progesterone receptor modulators are mifepristone (RU 486), asoprisnil (J 867), onapristone (ZK 98299), ulipristal (CDB 2914), Proellex™ (CDB 4124), ORG 33628 and ORG 31710. Methods: A careful evaluation of existing major review papers and of recently published articles was carried out for the indications under review, focusing not only on mifepristone, but also on those other selective progesterone receptor modulators for which data are available. Results/conclusions: Outside pregnancy, selective progesterone receptor modulators are used or have been tested clinically for a number of indications in reproductive medicine: as oral contraceptives, alone or in combination with a progestin, to improve cycle control in users of progestin-only contraceptives, as emergency contraceptives, for the medical treatment of uterine fibroids, in cases of endometriosis and premenstrual syndrome and to improve ovarian stimulation prior to in vitro fertilisation. In the authors' opinion, as of today, few applications outside pregnancy seem worthy of large-scale use: emergency contraception and long-term medical management of uterine fibroids and possibly of endometriosis.
A Multistate Markov Model Based on CD4 Cell Count for HIV/AIDS Patients on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)

Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to assess the impact of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) by using a multistate Markov model to estimate transition intensities and transition probabilities among various states (transient as well as absorbing) of the AIDS patients. A total of 580 AIDS patients were included in this study who are undergoing Antiretroviral Therapy treatment in the ART centre in New Delhi during the period of April 2004 to April 2011. The patients are classified in different states on the basis of their available CD4 cell counts. The authors also estimated the mean sojourn time and total length of stay in each state before absorption, and also examined the effects of explanatory variables (i.e Age, Sex, Mode of transmission) on the rates of transition using Cox’s proportional hazard model.
Helicobacter pylori eradication prevents the development of gastric cancer – results of a long-term retrospective study in Japan

Summary Aim This large-scale study was designed to investigate the incidence of gastric cancer after Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication in Japan. Methods This study was a retrospective multicentre study performed at 23 centres in Japan. Patients in whom H. pylori had been successfully eradicated and those in whom the infection persisted were entered into the study if they had undergone an upper endoscopic examination at least once a year for five consecutive years. The incidence rates of gastric cancer during follow-up were compared between those whose infections had been successfully eradicated and those with persistent H. pylori infection. Results Three-thousand twenty-one patients were enrolled. The median follow-up was 7.7 years for the infected group and 5.9 years for the eradicated group. Gastric cancer developed in 23 (1%) of those in whom H. pylori was successfully eradicated compared with 44 (4%) of those with persistent H. pylori infection (OR = 0.36; 95% CI = 0.22–0.62). Conclusion This large-scale retrospective clinical study in Japan, which has a high mortality rate for gastric cancer, indicates that H. pylori eradication may prevent the development of gastric cancer.