Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Causes and Risk Factors for 30-Day Unplanned Readmissions After Lumbar Spine Surgery

Study Design. Retrospective review of a prospective cohort. Objective. To determine the incidence, causes, and risk factors for 30-day unplanned readmissions after lumbar spine surgery. Summary of Background Data. The rising costs associated with lumbar spinal surgery have received national attention. Recently, the government has chosen to target 30-day readmissions as a quality measure. Few studies have specifically analyzed the incidence, causes, and risk factors for readmission in a multicenter patient cohort. Methods. A large, multicenter clinical registry was queried for all patients undergoing lumbar spine surgery in 2012. Current Procedural Terminology codes were used to select patients undergoing lumbar discectomy, laminectomy, anterior and posterior fusions, and multilevel deformity surgery. Thirty-day readmissions rates and causes were identified and analyzed. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify patient characteristics, comorbidities, and operative variables predictive of readmission. Results. Overall, 695 of 15,668 patients undergoing lumbar spine surgery had unplanned 30-day hospital readmissions (4.4%). When separated by procedure type, readmissions were lowest after discectomy, 3.3%, and highest after deformity surgery, 9.0% (P < 0.001). The top causes for readmission were wound-related (38.6%), pain-related (22.4%), thromboembolic (9.4%), and systemic infections (8.0%). Predictors of readmission included advanced patient age more than 80 years (P = 0.03), African American race (P = 0.03), recent weight loss (P = 0.04), chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (P < 0.01), history of cancer (P = 0.04), creatinine more than 1.2 (P < 0.01), elevated ASA class (P = 0.01), operative time more than 4 hours (P = 0.01), and prolonged hospital length of stay more than 4 days (P < 0.01). Conclusion. Thirty-day unplanned readmission rates increased with procedure invasiveness. Both medical and surgical reasons contributed to readmission, many unavoidable. Surgeons should explore optimization measures for those at risk of early, unplanned readmission. Level of Evidence: 3
Sensibilité et motricité podales : leur influence sur le contrôle des activités posturo-cinétiques de sujets sains et pathologiques

La participation de la sensibilite et de la motricite podales sur le controle des activites posturo-cinetiques est analysee d'un point de vue fondamental et clinique dans une problematique de prise en charge des troubles du pied. Nous demontrons que la stimulation selective du medio-pied induit un deplacement oriente du centre des pressions et, par voie reflexe, une nouvelle repartition des pressions plantaires. Une augmentation ou une diminution selective des pressions exercees dans des zones particulieres de la sole plantaire, affecte la stabilite posturale et accroit l'activite des muscles antigravitaires. Afin de mieux connaitre l'implication de l'epine irritative d'appui plantaire inconsciente dans l'existence de troubles des activites posturo-cinetiques, des tests cliniques et une analyse baro-podometrie de la marche ont permis d'evaluer specifiquement la qualite et l'efficacite de l'appui podal chez des sujets sains et porteurs. Ce stimulus plantaire, qui n'atteint pas le seuil de declenchement de la douleur, modifie l'activite des afferences sensorielles plantaires tactiles et provoque une alteration de la motilite podale : les sujets porteurs sont classes comme potentiellement pathologiques. Le Foot Posture Index et l'index Medio Lateral (parametres cliniques) permettent de distinguer les sujets porteurs des non porteurs. Chez les porteurs, la re-harmonisation des informations cutanees plantaires ameliore l'efficacite du controle de leurs activites posturo-cinetiques. L'ensemble de ces travaux confirme l'importance du role du pied dans la regulation posturale et de la prise en charge d'anomalies plantaires avant leur decompensation douloureuse en particulier.
Mood Disorders in the Puerperium and the Role of the Midwife: Study on Improvement of Midwives’ Knowledge About Post-Natal Depression After an Educational Intervention

Family, not only in terms of cohabitation of two adults, but in term of intragenerational symbiosys, is formed with the birth of a child (Musek, 1995). Pregnancy and birth are one of the major transitions in the life of a family members; they can promote family’s evolution (Nastran Ule, 1993) however if they represent adaptational stress that family members are unable to cope with, can have harmful effect, resulting in the mental crisis of individuals (Zavrl, 1999); especially the mother. Being a mother nowadays is harder that ever before. Parenthood must be squeezed in the rifts between the strata of social life policy, economy, industry, trade ect. and parenthood is considered of low value in comparison with those cathegories. Child represents some sort of private luxury. Women, often professionally engaged, therefore expect the task of motherhood in a strategic spirit – they carefully plan the pregnancy, are determined to deal with the motherhood succesfully and to return as soon as possible into the ‘normal state’, this is life as before the pregnancy (Kitzinger, 1994; Gatrell, 2005). As they became aware that parenthood is a life style and that child affect all aspects of their life that is going to change forever, they can be surprised, or even feel traped. This feelings, beside the newborn care that can be stressful because of repetitive and monotonous everyday activities, can provoke in women feelings of loss – loss of professional identity, previous lifestyle, autonomy ect. (Mauthner, 1999; Beck C.T., 1995a). Because of high (and sometimes unrealistic) expectations that they developed in pregnancy for themselves as mothers, they can suffer the feelings of guilt and inadequacy because they failed to become ‘perfect mother’ and have ‘innapropriate’ feelings towards the child. They must realize that the perfect mother does not exist (Kitzinger, 1994); it is just an arteficial product of the society, created by the ilusions of the media with the reminders of praised traditional role of women. Self-esteem and self-confidence are exposed to severe stress during postpartum. A lot of women pass this transition unharmed, but some of them can not cope mentally with all the changes; they can respond with feelings of dissapointment, anger, guilt or even depression. It is ironic that family, social institution, primary constructed for reproduction, is at most at strike just with the birth of the child (Welburn, 1980).
Evaluation of the reachability subspace of general form polynomial matrix descriptions (PMDs)

We consider the concept of Reachability for systems described by PMDs, generalizing various known results from the theory of generalized state space systems using time domain analysis,which takes into account the finite and infinite pole-zero structure of the associated matrix. We extend also the theory of admissible initial conditions and we introduce the concept of Reachable subspace for PMDs providing a precise form for all future(reachable) states of our system.
β(2)-Adrenoreceptor blockade improves early posttrauma hyperglycemia and pulmonary injury in obese rats.

Early hyperglycemia after trauma increases morbidity and mortality. Insulin is widely used to control posttrauma glucose, but this treatment increases the risk of hypoglycemia. We tested a novel method for early posttrauma hyperglycemia control by suppressing hepatic glycogenolysis via β2-adrenoreceptor blockade [ICI-118551 (ICI)]. We have shown that, after severe trauma, obese Zucker (OZ) rats, similar to obese patients, exhibit increased acute lung injury compared with lean Zucker (LZ) rats. We hypothesized that OZ rats exhibit a greater increase in early posttrauma glucose compared with LZ rats, with the increased posttrauma hyperglycemia suppressed by ICI treatment. Orthopedic trauma was applied to both hindlimbs in LZ and OZ rats. Fasting plasma glucose was then monitored for 6 h with or without ICI (0.2 mg·kg(-1)·h(-1) iv. ) treatment. One day after trauma, plasma IL-6 levels, lung neutrophil numbers, myeloperoxidase (MPO) activity, and wet-to-dry weight ratios were measured. Trauma induced rapid hepatic glycogenolysis, as evidenced by decreased liver glycogen levels, and this was inhibited by ICI treatment. Compared with LZ rats, OZ rats exhibited higher posttrauma glucose, IL-6, lung neutrophil infiltration, and MPO activity. Lung wet-to-dry weight ratios were increased in OZ rats but not in LZ rats. ICI treatment reduced the early hyperglycemia, lung neutrophil retention, MPO activity, and wet-to-dry weight ratio in OZ rats to levels comparable with those seen in LZ rats, with no effect on blood pressure or heart rate. These results demonstrate that β2-adrenoreceptor blockade effectively reduces the early posttrauma hyperglycemia, which is associated with decreased lung injury in OZ rats.
New words for old: lower urinary tract symptoms for “prostatism”

Extraordinary interest currently exists in the treatment of men over 45 who are referred with the label “prostatism. ” This has been generated partly by commercial interest and patients' increased awareness and expectations and partly by the advent of new treatments. Several new drugs to relieve bladder outflow obstruction, including (alpha) adrenergic blockers and 5-(alpha) reductase inhibitors, have been or are about to be licensed. Drug companies have expended huge efforts in increasing patients' and doctors' awareness of prostatic disease. New techniques to destroy part or all of the prostate have been developed, including thermotherapy, thermal ablation, high intensity focused ultrasonography, transurethral needle ablation, and laser prostatectomy. Added to this are the techniques of intraurethral prostatic stenting and balloon dilatation of the prostate.1 Surveys have shown that urinary symptoms are very common in older men, with prevalences varying from 11% for straining up to 78% for nocturia.2 Interestingly, British and American research has suggested that symptoms are also very common in elderly women.3,4 Historically, we have used the terms “prostatism” and “symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia” to describe lower urinary tract symptoms in men. Yet because these …
Data Dependency Based Application Description Model in Grid and Its Usage in Scientific Computing

Although many projects, especially grid workflow projects, are trying to make grid application development easier and quicker, the process-based application description model adopted by most of the grid-enabled applications still bothers scientists who are the main users of grid and usually beginner in programming. In this paper, a data dependency based application description model, which describes an application by dependency among data items in the application is discussed, a grid application description language is proposed for scientific computing, and an engine for supporting its execution is designed and implemented. Tests show that grid-enabled scientific applications can be developed in the data dependency based application model more easily and quickly.
Low Complexity Resource Allocation Algorithm by Multiple Attribute Weighing and User Ranking for OFDMA Systems

In this paper, we propose an effective subcarrier allocation scheme for multiuser orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system in the downlink transmission with low computational complexity. In the proposed scheme, by taking multiple attributes of a user channel, such as carrier gain decrease rate and variation from the mean channel gain of the system, to determine a rank for the user, subcarriers are then allocated depending on the individual users' rank. Different channel characteristics are used to better understand a users' need to subcarriers and hence determine a priority to user. We also adopt an attribute weighing scheme to enhance the performance of the proposed scheme. The scheme is efficiently computational, by avoiding using iterations for the algorithm convergence and also common water-filling calculations which might become complex with increasing system parameters. Low complexity is achieved by allocating subcarriers to users depending on their determined rank. Our proposed scheme is simulated in comparison with other mathematically efficient subcarrier allocation schemes as well as with a conventional greedy allocation scheme. It is shown that proposed method demonstrates better results than the simulated schemes.
Exploiting links and text structure on the Web: a quantitative approach to improving search quality

As Web search is becoming a routine activity in our daily lives, users scale up their expectations concerning Search Quality. This comprises factors such as accuracy, coverage and usability of the overall system. In this thesis, I describe quantitative strategies to improving search quality from two complementary perspectives, link structure and text structure, which are key topics in the field of Web Information Retrieval. I utilize some fundamental properties of the Web, presumably of human behavior after all, that are theoretically justified as well as relatively easy to apply. Link Structure. Humans do not create or follow links to Web pages arbitrarily. In fact, most of the links refer to own pages (at host-level), a fact that I exploit for simplifying the PageRank computation, particularly the principal Eigenvector of the corresponding link matrix. Also, apparently humans seem to likely link to pages that are relevant to the originating document. I present a corresponding method for automatically identifying a topic of a text query solely based on link structure, utilizing multiple topic-specific PageRank vectors. Text Structure. Humans also do not create or read text on Web pages arbitrarily. I show that the creation process of Web text is governed by a statistical law that corroborates the Quantitative Linguistic theory, yet I extend current models by the following notions: text on Web pages can be separated into blocks of “short text” and blocks of “long text”, depending on the number of words contained in the block. A large amount of actual “full text” is attributed to the class of long text whereas short text appears to mainly cover the navigational text fragments usually referred to as “boilerplate”. I present a simple, yet very effective strategy that utilizes this property for accurate main content extraction, ranking and classification. As an attempt to unification, I conclude that the processes of browsing HTML pages and of creating HTML text can be seen as a combination of two orthogonal motivations. This perspective not only facilitates highly efficient and effective algorithms, it also aids in understanding the corresponding human behavior.
Generating Supplementary Index Records Using Morphological Analysis for High-speed Partial Matching

The telephone directory retrieval task requires high-speed partial matching, and many processes run concurrently so there is a need to reduce resource requirements such as CPU power. To realize the high-speed partial matching that satisfies these requirements, this paper proposes a method for generating supplementary index records. This method enables us to retrieve all candidates including all words within strings input by users from a DB without applying morphological analysis to the input strings on the fly. Moreover, this paper describes the results of evaluation experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed method requires about 60% less CPU power and 80% less logical disk I/0 than the simple partial matching, and that the proposed method takes less than about 5 seconds when fewer than 100 records are retrieved. Namely, the experimental results show that the proposed method satisfies the requirements mentioned above quite well. This means that the proposed method is practical when applied to the telephone directory retrieval task.
Isoflurane's Enhancement of Chloride Flux through Rat Brain gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Type A Receptors Is Stereoselective

Background Recent evidence is consistent with the view that volatile anesthetics interact directly with excitable membrane-bound channel proteins. If these agents interact directly with chiral centers in the neuronal cell membrane, then their effects should be stereoselective. Using rat brain membranes enriched in gamma-aminobutyric acid type A (GABA sub A) receptors, we investigated the hypothesis that the permeability response of this well-characterized central nervous system channel protein to stereoisomers of isoflurane is stereoselective.
Effect of verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies in basketball free throw shooting

We assessed the effects on basketball free throw performance of two types of verbal directions with an external attentional focus. Novices ( n = 16) were pre-tested on free throw performance and assigned to two groups of similar ability ( n = 8 in each). Both groups received verbal instructions with an external focus on either movement dynamics (movement form) or movement effects (e.g. ball trajectory relative to basket). The participants also observed a skilled model performing the task on either a small or large screen monitor, to ascertain the effects of visual presentation mode on task performance. After observation of six videotaped trials, all participants were given a post-test. Visual search patterns were monitored during observation and cross-referenced with performance on the pre- and post-test. Group effects were noted for verbal instructions and image size on visual search strategies and free throw performance. The 'movement effects' group saw a significant improvement in outcome scores between the pre-test and post-test. These results supported evidence that this group spent more viewing time on information outside the body than the 'movement dynamics' group. Image size affected both groups equally with more fixations of shorter duration when viewing the small screen. The results support the benefits of instructions when observing a model with an external focus on movement effects, not dynamics.
A single‐day treatment of tumor‐induced hypercalcemia by intravenous amino‐hydroxypropylidene bisphosphonate

Twenty patients with malignant hypercalcemia were treated with amino‐hydroxypropylidene bisphosphonate (AHPrBP, previously APD), a potent inhibitor of osteoclast‐mediated bone resorption. To assess the efficacy of a single‐day treatment and determine the optimal dose of this compound, all patients received AHPrBP intravenously over 24 h, but they were divided into two subsequent groups of 10 patients: Group A received a single dose of 60 mg AHPrBP and group B received a single dose of 30 mg. In both groups all patients responded to AHPrBP with a decrease in plasma calcium concentration after a mean time lag of 1 day. Within 6 days, plasma calcium (corrected for serum proteins) fell from 3.24 ± 0.14 to 2.24 ± 0.06 mmol/liter in group A (p < .001), but only from 3.22 ± 0.15 to 2.49 ± 0.10 mmol/liter in group B (p < .005). Whereas in all patients from group A plasma calcium was within the normal range at days 9 and 14, in 4 patients of group B it was still above the normal range at day 9, and in 5 patients at day 14. There was a significant difference in plasma calcium between group A and group B from days 5 to 14 (p < .005). In both groups, urinary calcium excretion fell dramatically and similarly, and plasma phosphate concentration decreased significantly (p < .01) to values slightly below the normal range from days 4 to 6. A similar and significant decrement in TmP/GFR was noted at days 4 and 6 (p < .01) which was related to the rise (p < .01) in plasma parathyroid hormone concentration from days 4 to 9. Urinary hydroxyproline excretion decreased significantly (p < .01) in both groups from days 0 to 9, with a trend to reincrease from day 6 on in group B. We conclude that a single intravenous dose of AHPrBP is effective in the treatment of tumor‐induced hypercalcemia; but 60 mg has a more pronounced and prolonged effect than 30 mg, achieving normocalcemia in al patients, while 30 mg normalized plasma calcium only in moderately hypercalcemic patients. The decrease in plasma calcium after a single day infusion of 60 mg is similar to that previously observed during treatment of 30 mg per day during 6 days.
Employment status and use of respiratory protection among metalworkers, solderers and welders

Objectives: Reported associations of self-employment with occupational injury and cerebrovascular disease suggest that worker safety and health precautions may vary by occupational status. The authors assessed the extent to which use of respiratory protection and ventilation equipment is associated with self-employed versus employee status among adults in an international study. Methods: The European Community Respiratory Health Survey II (ECRHS II) is a follow-up study conducted in a population-based random sample of adult ECRHS I participants. Men and women enrolled in the ECRHS II completed interviewer-administered questionnaires to provide information about their occupational status and job history during the 9-year ECRHS follow-up period. Respondents in selected occupational groups completed supplemental questionnaires about their jobs and use of respiratory protection and ventilation equipment on-the-job. The authors assessed self-reported use of respiratory and ventilation equipment among 72 self-employed and 371 employed adults in metalworking, soldering and welding occupations. Results: Local exhaust ventilation (fixed extraction: OR 0.37, 95% CI 0.17 to 0.80; mobile extraction: OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.60; on-tool extraction: OR 0.39, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.88) was reported less frequently among self-employed respondents than among employed respondents. The magnitude of the negative association between self-employment status and any of the three types of local exhaust ventilation was not attenuated by adjustment for duration of work per day or week or asthma and/or wheezing symptoms. Respiratory protection was not associated with employment status in these data. Conclusions: More limited use of local exhaust ventilation among self-employed workers compared to employees suggests the need to promote occupational safety among self-employed workers.