Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Erfassung der Versorgungsqualität von Glaukompatienten im Großraum Hamburg

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund Daten über die Qualität der Versorgung und die Lebensqualität von Glaukompatienten existieren bisher nicht in ausreichendem Maße. In der vorliegenden prospektiven Studie sollte erfasst werden, inwiefern eine den Leitlinien der Deutschen Ophthalmologischen Gesellschaft (DOG) entsprechende, adäquate Versorgung von Glaukompatienten im Großraum Hamburg gegeben ist. Patienten und Methoden Bei 196 Patienten wurde während der stationären Tensionsanalyse ein interviewergeführter Fragebogen ausgefüllt. Dieser sollte die Qualität der Versorgung untersuchen, indem er die in den Leitlinien der DOG empfohlenen Untersuchungen und deren Häufigkeit abfragte. Die entsprechenden Ergebnisse bei der Auswertung des Fragebogens wurden in Bezug gesetzt zur Schwere des Glaukoms sowie zur vorliegenden Glaukomform. Ergebnisse Im Mittel suchten die Patienten ihren ambulanten Augenarzt 5,1-mal pro Jahr auf. Der Großteil der Patienten berichtete, dass sie quartalsmäßig ihren Augenarzt aufsuchten. Bei 92 % der Patienten wurde bei jedem ambulanten Arztbesuch eine Tensiomessung durchgeführt. Die Hälfte der Patienten gab an, dass der Augeninnendruck im ambulanten Bereich wiederholt zu verschiedenen Tageszeiten gemessen wurde. Durchschnittlich wurde 0,9-mal pro Jahr eine Perimetrie in der Augenklinik durchgeführt, dagegen 1,4-mal im ambulanten Bereich. Weitere Maßnahmen zur Glaukomdiagnostik wurden 0,8-mal pro Jahr in der Augenklinik bzw. 0,4-mal beim niedergelassenen Augenarzt durchgeführt. Für den Großteil der Patienten entstanden keine Kosten für die ambulante Glaukomdiagnostik. Nur bei 4 % der Patienten lagen diese jährlich über 100 €. Schlussfolgerungen Für die Mehrheit der Glaukompatienten im Großraum Hamburg ist eine den Leitlinien der DOG entsprechende, adäquate Versorgung durch regelmäßige Verlaufskontrollen gegeben. Bei fast allen Patienten wurden die Tensiokontrollen und perimetrischen Untersuchungen wie empfohlen durchgeführt. Dagegen erfolgte bei einem Fünftel der Patienten keine regelmäßige apparative Beurteilung des Sehnervs und der Nervenfaserschicht. Den Termin für die nächste Kontrolle bekamen die Patienten zumeist gleich genannt. Damit war eine engmaschige Verlaufskontrolle gut realisierbar, welche für die Mehrzahl der Patienten mit keinen oder geringen privaten Zusatzzahlungen verbunden war.
Prevalence of high Risk Human Papilloma Viruses 16 and 18 (HR-HPV16&18) Among Sudanese Patients with Esophageal Cancer

Objective: The aim of this study was to screen for the presence of High Risk Human Papilloma Viruses 16 and 18 (HR-HPV16&18) among Sudanese patients with esophageal cancer. Methodology: The study was retrospectively examined 100 formalin fixed paraffin wax embedded tissue’s blocks for the presence of HR-HPV subtypes 16 and 18 by Immunohistochemical methods. All samples were previously obtained from Sudanese patients with esophageal cancer. Results: Regarding IHC staining for HPV 16 and 18, positive findings were revealed in 13 (13%) and couldn’t be disclosed in 88 (87%) of the study subjects, hence, none of the cases was identified with HPV18. Conclusion: HR-HPV subtype 16 is strongly contributed to the etiology of esophageal carcinoma in Sudan. Urgent preventive strategies are highly recommended to reduce the burden of esophageal cancer in Sudan.
Pediatric Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy-Experience of a Tertiary Care Center.

Abstract Objective: To present the experience of pediatric percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) of our center. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted from 1995 to 2015, on patients <15 years of age having renal and upper ureteral stones who underwent PCNL. Stones were classified as per Guy's stone score (GSS). Standard bull's eye technique was used for subcostal puncture. To avoid supracostal puncture, puncture was done in full inspiration or by oblique tract. If these maneuvers failed, then supracostal puncture was done. Tract was dilated to 24F. Results: Six hundred sixty PCNLs were performed on 639 patients. Puncture was subcostal in 87.6% cases with tract dilated as much as 24F. Pelvicaliceal system was most commonly accessed through middle calix (73.94%). Upper caliceal puncture (23.78%) was more frequently used in complete (82.35%) and partial staghorn (51%) stones. Two tracts were made in 16 (2.42%) cases, because of large stone burden. Average operative time was significantly longer in com.
Frecuencia de síndrome metabólico en residentes de una región andina del Perú

Objectives. To calculate the frequency of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its associated characteristics in selected populations residing in the urban areas of two districts in the Cajamarca region. Materials and methods. Cross-sectional study performed in 2014, obtaining randomized samples from three target study populations: high school students, university students, and schoolchildren mothers. In adults, MetS was defined by means of Third Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III) criteria, and in teenagers, the modified Cook criteria were used. A structured survey on healthy practices and unhealthy habits was implemented. MetS estimations were carried out for each study population, and stratified by sex. A bivariate analysis was performed to identify MetS-related characteristics. Results. We enrolled 1,427 participants (586 high school students, 305 university students, and 536 schoolchildren mothers) The estimated frequency of MetS in high school students was 3.2% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.7-4.8%), 1.6% (95% CI = 0.5-3.8%) in university students, and 23.5% (95% CI = 19.8-27.2%) in mothers. The most prevalent components were low HDL levels (37.0%, 60.5%, and 72.4%) and hypertriglyceridemia (46.4%, 29.9% and 38.4%), in high school students, university students, and mothers, respectively. Conclusions. MetS frequency was higher in the mothers of schoolchildren (adult women). The MetS phenotype profile in adult women was characterized by an elevated frequency of abdominal obesity and dyslipidemia (hypertriglyceridemia and low HDL cholesterol), while dyslipidemia was prevalent in teenagers and university students.
Modeling and learning multilingual inflectional morphology in a minimally supervised framework

Computational morphology is an important component of most natural language processing tasks including machine translation, information retrieval, wordsense disambiguation, parsing, and text generation. Morphological analysis, the process of finding a root form and part-of-speech of an inflected word form, and its inverse, morphological generation, can provide fine-grained part of speech information and help resolve necessary syntactic agreements. In addition, morphological analysis can reduce the problem of data sparseness through dimensionality reduction. This thesis presents a successful original paradigm for both morphological analysis and generation by treating both tasks in a competitive linkage model based on a combination of diverse inflection-root similarity measures. Previous approaches to the machine learning of morphology have been essentially limited to string-based transduction models. In contrast, the work presented here integrates both several new noise-robust, trie-based supervised methods for learning these transductions, and also a suite of unsupervised alignment models based on weighted Levenshtein distance, position-weighted contextual similarity, and several models of distributional similarity including expected relative frequency. Via iterative bootstrapping the combination of these models yields a full lemmatization analysis competitive with fully supervised approaches but without any direct supervision. In addition, this thesis also presents an original translingual projection model for morphology induction, where previously learned morphological analyses in a second language can be robustly projected via bilingual corpora to yield successful analyses in the new target language without any monolingual supervision. Collectively these methods outperform previously published algorithms for
Seamless Integration of Desktop and Mobile Learning Experience through an Ontology-Based Adaptation Engine: Report of a Pilot-Project.

The paper describes a module within the distance language learning environment of the Language Centre at the Genoa University which adapts, through an ontology, learning activities to the device in use. Adaptation means not simply resizing a page but also the ability to transform the nature of a task so that it fits the device with the smallest effectiveness loss with respect to the ability the activity is meant to develop. In our environment, activities are tagged with a language-related ability so that an exercise which would not be usable on a given device can be transformed so as to be both usable and to maintain its original language learning potential. Following previous analyses of the most technical features of the engine, this paper will report on a pilot project, and the design and testing of an English course whose activities are transformable thanks to reasoning mechanisms based on the ontology. Our analysis will focus on the most important issues that have arisen during the development of the course.
Maternal and Fetal Outcome in Pregnant Women with Acute Appendicitis: A Three Year Observational Study

Objective:To assess the maternal and fetal outcome in pregnant women presented with acute appendicitis and to detect predictors of fetal loss. Methods:A prospective observational study included 118 pregnant women presented with acute appendicitis and divided into two groups, uncomplicated appendicitis group (n=64) and complicated appendicitis group (n=54). Operative details, maternal and fetal outcome were assessed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were used to detect predictors of fetal loss. Data was collected and tabulated. Results:Patients in the complicated group have gone midline incision, longer operative time, more postoperative fever, more surgical site infection, longer hospital stay (p<0.001), higher rate of abortion and fetal demise (p<0.05) than uncomplicated appendicitis patients. Conclusion:Poorer obstetric outcome was encountered in complicated cases. In addition to complicated appendicitis, the use of general anesthesia, operative time greater than 60 minutes, midline incision, postoperative pneumonia and hospital stay more than 3 days were other predictors of fetal loss. Larger studies are warranted to confirm or refute our findings.
Scene abrupt change detection

This paper introduces a new method for video scene change detection. The proposed method utilizes the luminance histogram twice difference in order to determine the dynamic threshold needed to evaluate the break. The adaptive determination of the threshold, minimizes the number of incorrect decisions leading to a robust and accurate determination of the actual scene break. The method is simple, computationally attractive and capable of detecting changes in a variety of visual inputs. Experimental results indicate that the new method constantly outperforms existing techniques that are based on static thresholds.
Systems Engineering and Safety Issues in Scientific Facilities Subject to Ionizing Radiations

The conception and development of large-scale scientific facilities emitting ionizing radiations rely more on project management practices in use in the process industry than on systems engineering practices. This paper aims to highlight possible reasons for this present situation and to propose some ways to enhance systems engineering so that the specific radiation safety requirements are considered and integrated in the approach. To do so, we have reviewed lessons learned from the management of large-scale scientific projects and more specifically that of the Large Hadron Collider project at CERN. It is shown that project management and systems engineering practices are complementary and can beneficially be assembled in an integrated and lean managerial framework that grants the appropriate amount of focus to safety and radiation safety aspects.
Hypertension and stenosis of additional renal artery - diagnostic difficulties

Badanie ultrasonograficzne tetnic nerkowych stanowi jedno z podstawowych badan nieinwazyjnych w diagnostyce zwezenia tetnicy nerkowej. Jednak badanie to ma kilka ograniczen wynikających z czestego wystepowania dodatkowych tetnic nerkowych oraz wysokiej czestości niepowodzen technicznych badania. Przedstawiono przypadek 51-letniego pacjenta z nadciśnieniem tetniczym, u ktorego przyczyną trudności diagnostycznych byla podwojna tetnica nerkowa po stronie lewej z krytycznym zwezeniem jednej z tetnic.
Role of Magnesium---A Step Ahead in Anaesthesia

Mg ++, a very important intracellular cation, which regulates many intracellular enzyme reactions and thus homeostasis inside the cell. Deficiency of Mg++ is catastrophic for cell survival Magnesium sulfate has been used in preeclampsia patients in order to prevent seizure. It is also used for the treatment of arrhythmia, asthma and as an anesthetic adjunct, and in patients undergoing surgery for pheochromocytoma. It has high therapeutic index and cost effectiveness. However its potentiating effect on perioperative analgesia and muscle relaxation has drawn attention recently, it has been used as an adjunct in general anaesthesia, to prevent pressor response to laryngoscopy, as an analgesic, and to potentiate muscle relaxation. Mg++ deficiency is usually associated with hypokalamia and hypocalcemia Correction of Mg++ ion is an important step to prevent Arrhythmias, intractable hypertension, sudden cardiac arrest. It is a good anticonvulsant and regulates Ca++ metabolism through parathormone release.
Development of a Scheduling Mechanism for Single Radio Stub Wireless Mesh Networks

One of the wireless technologies mostly used today to access the Internet is based on the IEEE 802.11 standard. With the growing demand of Internet access in contrast with the limited 802.11 range, 802.11-based Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) have been proposed as an evolution to cover wider areas and reach places where the use of wired infrastructures is not viable. Besides their flexibility and cost-effectiveness, WMNs constitute today one important area of research with many potential applications. However, there are still several challenges that have not yet been properly achieved in relation with a fair and efficient share of the available resources in WMNs, like the rules implemented to exchange data or even the occupation of the medium, which are especially important for the Quality of Service offered by the network. Based on a recently created solution for 802.11-based WMNs named WiFIX (Wi-Fi Network Infrastructure eXtension), this dissertation proposes a scheduling mechanism that can attenuate or eliminate some known problems of WMNs implementations in order to improve the Quality of Service of these networks. The results achieved with the implementation of the scheduling mechanism demonstrate, on one hand, that this method is feasible from a functional point of view and has a great potential but, on the other hand, there are still some practical limitations that imply a non-negligible degradation of the maximum achievable throughput, which justifies further investigation in order to mitigate or eliminate this problem.
Segmentation of ulcerated plaque: a semi-automatic method for tracking the progression of carotid atherosclerosis

A semi-automatic method for segmentation of three-dimensional carotid vascular ultrasound (US) images is presented. The method is based on a dynamic balloon model represented by a triangulated mesh. The mesh is manually placed within the interior of the carotid arteries, then is driven outward until it reaches the vessel wall by applying an inflation force to the mesh. Once the mesh is in close proximity to the vessel wall, it is further deformed using an image-based force, in order to better localize the boundary. The authors examine the ability of the segmentation method to segment in vivo 3D US images of the carotid arteries. They furthermore examine its ability to distinguish subtle changes in vessel morphology, with the ultimate goal being to detect the progression or regression of atherosclerotic plaque. Two nearly identical common carotid vessel phantoms were imaged using a three-dimensional US imaging system, automatically registered, then segmented using the semi-automatic algorithm. The fabrication of the two phantoms was identical except for the inclusion of a hemispherical ulceration cut into one of the vessels. The two segmented surfaces were compared by determining the distance between them at each point along one of the two surfaces. Since the 3D US images had been previously registered, the two segmented surfaces are expected to overlap everywhere except near the region of ulceration. This was confirmed to within a 0.3 mm error.
Is There Hope? Is She There? How Families and Clinicians Experience Severe Acute Brain Injury.

BACKGROUND Patients with severe acute brain injury (SABI) raise important palliative care considerations associated with sudden devastating injury and uncertain prognosis. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to explore how family members, nurses, and physicians experience the palliative and supportive care needs of patients with SABI receiving care in the neuroscience intensive care unit (neuro-ICU). DESIGN Semistructured interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. SETTING/SUBJECTS Thirty-bed neuro-ICU in a regional comprehensive stroke and level-one trauma center in the United States. We completed 47 interviews regarding 15 patients with family members (n = 16), nurses (n = 15), and physicians (n = 16). RESULTS Two themes were identified: (1) hope and (2) personhood. (1) Families linked prognostic uncertainty to a need for hope and expressed a desire for physicians to acknowledge this relationship. The language of hope varied depending on the participant: clinicians used hope as an object that can be given or taken away, generally in the process of conveying prognosis, while families expressed hope as an action that supported coping with their loved one's acute illness and its prognostic uncertainty. (2) Participants described the loss of personhood through brain injury, the need to recognize and treat the brain-injured patient as a person, and the importance of relatedness and connection, including personal support of families by clinicians. CONCLUSIONS Support for hope and preservation of personhood challenge care in the neuro-ICU as identified by families and clinicians of patients with SABI. Specific practical approaches can address these challenges and improve the palliative care provided to patients and families in the neuro-ICU.
A Preparatory Study Towards a Body of Knowledge in the Field of Formal Methods for the Railway Domain

Bodies or Books of Knowledge (BoKs) have only been transcribed in mature fields where practices and rules have been well established (settled) and are gathered for any prospective or current practitioner to refer to. As a precursor to creating a BoK, it is first important to know if the domain contains settled knowledge and how this knowledge can be isolated? One approach, as described in this work, is to use Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) to structure the knowledge (or parts of it) and construct a pruned concept lattice to highlight patterns of use and filter out the common and established practices that best suit the solving of a problem within the domain. In the railway domain, formal methods have been applied for a number of years to solve various modelling and verification problems. Their common use and straightforward application (with some refinement) makes them easy to identify and therefore a prime candidate to test for settled knowledge within the railway domain. They also provide other assurances of settled knowledge along the way.
Servo control of a dual-stage actuator for a high performance disk drive. Part 1: modeling and simulation

In this paper we describe the modeling and analysis of a dual stage servo actuation system for a high performance disk drive. The system utilizes a standard voice coil motor (VCM) combined with a piezoelectric microactuator in a dual stage drive. The VCM provides low-speed motion with a very large stroke enabling coarse positioning and rejection of large amplitude low-frequency disturbances. The microactuator provides very high-speed motion, but with limited stroke, enabling fine positioning and rejection of high frequency disturbances. The overall dual-stage system provides a high bandwidth actuation system, capable of very fine positioning despite disturbances with a wide variety of spectral content. In this paper we focus on the drive and its analysis, modeling, and simulation.
Bridging of Peripheral Nerve Defects by Autologous Nerve Grafting Personal Experience

The majority of peripheral nerve injuries occur in the upper limb and are from traumatic causes [1]. These injuries disproportionately affect young healthy civilians and military officers who are most at risk of traumatic injuries [1]. Severe nerve injury has a devastating impact on a patients’ quality of life. Typical symptoms are sensory and motor dysfunction that can result in complete paralysis of the affected limb or development of neuropathic pain [2]. Nerve fibers of the transected nerve regenerate spontaneously to the extent limited by the size of the nerve gap, neuroma, and scar tissue formation [2].
Scaffold degradation during bone tissue reconstruction in Macaca nemestrina mandible.

OBJECTIVE To examine the degradation of three scaffolds composed of hydroxyapatite/tricalcium phosphate (HA/TCP) with 70∶30 ratio, HA/TCP with 50∶50 ratio, and HA/TCP/chitosan scaffold as analyzed by the RNA expression of matrix metalloprotease 2 (MMP2), interleukin 13 (IL13), and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) genes. METHODS The three tested scaffolds and dental pulp stromal cells (DPSCs) were transplanted into the mandibular bone defect of six young male Macaca nemestrina. Defect on the left mandible served as the experimental group and the right mandible served as control group (split mouth design). The biopsies were retrieved at 0, 2, and 4 weeks after cell-scaffold transplantation. The expression of MMP2, IL13, and TRAP was analyzed by real-time PCR (RT-PCR). RESULTS The inflammatory cells were still detected in areas where active bone and blood vessel formation occurred. The remnants of scaffold biomaterials were rarely seen. The expression of MMP2, IL13, and TRAP was observed in all samples. Their expressions were increased at week 4 and the decrease of TRAP gene expression in the experimental group was found higher than the control group. TRAP gene in the HA/TCP/chitosan group was found to be the highest at week 2 and lowest at week 4. CONCLUSIONS Degradation of the scaffold did not induce higher inflammatory response compared to the control yet it induced more osteoclast activity.
A Decade after the TGN1412 Disaster: What have we Learnt about Safety-Predicting Methods for New Biological Agents?

The capability of CD28 antibodies activating T-cells coupled with signal from T-cell receptors initiated studies to evaluate the potential of T-cell activation of these CD28 antibodies. Hence, large numbers of mouse hybridomas were isolated to investigate functional activity through CD28 antibodies. A category of the CD28 antibodies was identified as superagonist as it was capable of activating T-cells irrespective of signal received from the T-cell receptor. The superagonists are similar to conventional CD28 antibodies. However, they differed in the epitope-binding site which required an intact CD28 C”D loop for binding. Based on these investigations, TeGenero began the screening of several monoclonal CD28 superagonists antibodies obtained from mouse hybridomas.Following the screening, TGN1412 emerged as the ideal drug candidate. However, TGN1412 is a genetically engineered humanised form of the anti-CD28 antibody from the investigational mouse. This is because the use of mouse antibody in humans would result in dysfunction of the antibody as well as immunogenic toxic responses [3].