Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Infection Risk in Sterile Operative Procedures.

BACKGROUND The main objective of hospital hygiene and infection prevention is to protect patients from preventable nosocomial infections. It was recently stated that the proper goal should be for zero infection rates in sterile surgical procedures. In this article, we attempt to determine whether this demand is supported by the available literature. METHODS We systematically searched the Medline and EMBASE databases for studies published in the last 10 years on the efficacy of infection control measures and carried out a meta-analysis according to the PRISMA tool. We used the following search terms: "aseptic surgery," "intervention," "surgical site infection," "nosocomial infection," "intervention," and "prevention. " RESULTS 2277 articles were retrieved, of which 204 were acquired in full text and analyzed. The quantitative analysis included 7 prospective cohort studies on the reduction of nosocomial infection rates after aseptic surgery. The measures used included training sessions, antibiotic prophylaxis, and operative-site disinfection and cleaning techniques. These interventions succeeded in reducing postoperative wound infections (relative risk (RR] 0.99 [0.98; 1.00]). Subgroup analyses on antibiotic prophylaxis (RR 0.99 [0.98; 1.01]) and noncontrolled trials (RR 0.97 [0.92; 1.02]) revealed small, insignificant effects. CONCLUSION A multimodal approach with the participation of specialists from various disciplines can further reduce the rate of postoperative infection. A reduction to zero is not realistic and is not supported by available evidence.
Thermal analysis of a 30kW Switched Reluctance Starter/Generator system used in aircraft

The application background and operating principle of the Switched Reluctance Starter/Generator (SR S/G) system are briefly introduced. The structure and technical parameters of an undergoing 30kW Switched Reluctance Machine (SRM) and its converter are described. Based on these works, the thermal analysis of the SRM and its converter are presented in detail. The transient lumped-parameter thermal models are built to predict the thermal characteristics of SRM and converter. To keep the maximum temperature rise of the system in a safe range, the required thermal properties of the cooling system, such as maximum thermal resistance, are obtained. These properties are very important for the design of the cooling system, the selection of the heat sink and the optimization of the whole system.
Understanding the Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks on the Corporate Bond Market in Good and Bad Times: A Markov Switching Model

We study the effects of a conventional monetary expansion, quantitative easing, and operation twist on corporate bond yields and spreads. These policies are simulated as shocks to the Treasury yield curve, and the impulse response functions of corporate yields and spreads to shocks are computed using flexible models with regimes. We construct weekly bond portfolios sorting individual bond trades by rating and maturity using TRACE. The paper examines two types of models—single-state vector autoregressive (VAR) models and three-state Markov switching VAR models. Our results indicate that a standard single-state VAR model is inadequate to capture the dynamics of the data. We find that none of the policies—conventional or unconventional—can persistently lower corporate spreads. This result is likely due to the negative expectations about the business cycle generated by these policies, which affect bond risk premia. Operation twist is the only policy capable of lowering corporate yields. This finding can be explained by the fact that operation twist, which does not imply an expansion of the monetary base, is able to flatten the riskless yield curve without generating expectations of higher future inflation.
Altered activation of the ventral striatum under performance-related observation in social anxiety disorder

Background Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by fear of social and performance situations. The consequence of scrutiny by others for the neural processing of performance feedback in SAD is unknown. Methods We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate brain activation to positive, negative, and uninformative performance feedback in patients diagnosed with SAD and age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy control subjects who performed a time estimation task during a social observation condition and a non-social control condition: while either being monitored or unmonitored by a body camera, subjects received performance feedback after performing a time estimation that they could not fully evaluate without external feedback. Results We found that brain activation in ventral striatum (VS) and midcingulate cortex was modulated by an interaction of social context and feedback type. SAD patients showed a lack of social-context-dependent variation of feedback processing, while control participants showed an enhancement of brain responses specifically to positive feedback in VS during observation. Conclusions The present findings emphasize the importance of social-context processing in SAD by showing that scrutiny prevents appropriate reward-processing-related signatures in response to positive performances in SAD.
Clinical outcomes of a novel therapeutic vaccine with Tax peptide‐pulsed dendritic cells for adult T cell leukaemia/lymphoma in a pilot study

Adult T cell leukaemia/lymphoma (ATL) is a human T cell leukaemia virus type‐I (HTLV‐I)‐infected T cell malignancy with poor prognosis. We herein developed a novel therapeutic vaccine designed to augment an HTLV‐I Tax‐specific cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response that has been implicated in anti‐ATL effects, and conducted a pilot study to investigate its safety and efficacy. Three previously treated ATL patients, classified as intermediate‐ to high‐risk, were subcutaneously administered with the vaccine, consisting of autologous dendritic cells (DCs) pulsed with Tax peptides corresponding to the CTL epitopes. In all patients, the performance status improved after vaccination without severe adverse events, and Tax‐specific CTL responses were observed with peaks at 16–20 weeks. Two patients achieved partial remission in the first 8 weeks, one of whom later achieved complete remission, maintaining their remission status without any additional chemotherapy 24 and 19 months after vaccination, respectively. The third patient, whose tumour cells lacked the ability to express Tax at biopsy, obtained stable disease in the first 8 weeks and later developed slowly progressive disease although additional therapy was not required for 14 months. The clinical outcomes of this pilot study indicate that the Tax peptide‐pulsed DC vaccine is a safe and promising immunotherapy for ATL.
Hiding robot inertia using resonance

To enable compliant training modes with a rehabilitation robot, an important prerequisite is that any undesired human-robot interaction forces caused by robot dynamics must be avoided, either by an appropriate mechanical design or by compensating control strategies. Our recently proposed control scheme of “Generalized Elasticities” employs potential fields to compensate for robot dynamics, including inertia, beyond what can be done using closed-loop force control. In this paper, we give a simple mechanical equivalent using the example of the gait rehabilitation robot Lokomat. The robot consists of an exoskeleton that is attached to a frame around the patient's pelvis. This frame is suspended by a springloaded parallelogram structure. The mechanism allows vertical displacement while providing almost constant robot gravity compensation. However, inertia of the device when the patient's pelvis moves up and down remains a source of large interaction forces, which are reflected in increased ground reaction forces. Here, we investigate an alternative suspension: To hide not only gravity, but also robot inertia during vertical pelvis motion, we suspend the robot frame by a stiff linear spring that allows the robot to oscillate vertically at an eigenfrequency close to the natural gait frequency. This mechanism reduces human-robot interaction forces, which is demonstrated in pilot experimental results.
The Noncommensal Bacterium Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) Ameliorates Dextran Sulfate (Sodium Salt)-Induced Ulcerative Colitis by Influencing Mechanisms Essential for Maintenance of the Colonic Barrier Function

ABSTRACT Dietary inclusion of a bacterial meal has recently been shown to efficiently abolish soybean meal-induced enteritis in Atlantic salmon. The objective of this study was to investigate whether inclusion of this bacterial meal in the diet could abrogate disease development in a murine model of epithelial injury and colitis and thus possibly have therapeutic potential in human inflammatory bowel disease. C57BL/6N mice were fed ad libitum a control diet or an experimental diet containing 254 g/kg of body weight BioProtein, a bacterial meal consisting of Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath), together with the heterogenic bacteria Ralstonia sp. , Brevibacillus agri, and Aneurinibacillus sp. At day 8, colitis was induced by 3.5% dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) ad libitum in the drinking water for 6 days. Symptoms of DSS treatment were less profound after prophylactic treatment with the diet containing the BioProtein. Colitis-associated parameters such as reduced body weight, colon shortening, and epithelial damage also showed significant improvement. Levels of acute-phase reactants, proteins whose plasma concentrations increase in response to inflammation, and neutrophil infiltration were reduced. On the other, increased epithelial cell proliferation and enhanced mucin 2 (Muc2) transcription indicated improved integrity of the colonic epithelial layer. BioProtein mainly consists of Methylococcus capsulatus (Bath) (88%). The results that we obtained when using a bacterial meal consisting of M. capsulatus (Bath) were similar to those obtained when using BioProtein in the DSS model. Our results show that a bacterial meal of the noncommensal bacterium M. capsulatus (Bath) has the potential to attenuate DSS-induced colitis in mice by enhancing colonic barrier function, as judged by increased epithelial proliferation and increased Muc2 transcription.
Monoamine oxidase B polymorphism, cigarette smoking and risk of Parkinson's disease: A study in an Asian population

Cigarette smoking is associated with reduced monoamine oxidase B (MAO B) activity. Polymorphisms of the MAO B gene may modify the relationship between smoking and Parkinson's Disease (PD). We examined the association of MAO B intron 13 G/A polymorphism and risk of PD, and the modulation of the polymorphism on smoking and PD in an Asian study population in Singapore. Two hundred and thirty PD patients (mean age 66.0 ± 9.4 years, 63% men) and 241 age, gender, and race matched controls (mean age 64 ± 9.2 years, 58.9% males) were studied. The frequency of G and A alleles in PD and controls was; 66/315 (21.0%) vs. 73/340 (21.5%) and 249/315 (79.0%) vs. 267/340 (78.5%). For women, the genotype frequency in PD and controls was; GG: 7/85 (8.2%) vs. 8/99 (8.1%); GA: 25/85 (29.4%) vs. 27/99 (27.3%); AA: 53/85 (62.4%) vs. 64/99 (64.6%). For men, allele frequency in PD and controls was; A: 118/145 (81.4%) vs. 112/142 (78.9%) and G: 27/145 (18.6%) vs. 30/142 (21.1%). The allele and genotype frequencies were not significantly different between young and late onset PD. The frequency of “ever” smokers in PD and controls was 31/230 (13.5%) vs. 52/241 (21.6%), P = 0.02. A stepwise logistic regression analysis did not reveal any interaction of smoking and the G allele and risk of PD. The MAO B G/A genotype frequency in our Asian population was quite different from Caucasians suggesting that ethnicity specific effects need to be considered in evaluating gene‐environmental interaction. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A NEW LOW DISTORTION ANALOG MULTIPLIER R ı za Can TARCAN

A new method has been proposed to reduce the mobility degradation effect on square-law characteristic of the MOS transistor. This method has been applied to an analog multiplier to form a new low distortion multiplier circuit. This analog multiplier operates with ± 5V power supply. The operating range for each input is ± 3V. In this operating range the nonlinearity for Vx is 0.6% and for Vy is 0.5%. The 3dB bandwidth is specified for Vx as 33MHz and for Vy as 34MHz, respectively.
Pattern and types of non-saphenous vein reflux

Venous reflux often originates from saphenous trunks and their tributaries. In about 10% of the patients reflux derived from non-saphenous veins (NSV) such as those located in the buttock, posterolateral thigh, vulva, lower posterior thigh, popliteal fossa, knee or along the peripheral nerves such as the tibial and sciatic nerve. It is also important to note that patients who had saphenous vein stripping or ablation have higher odds of presenting with NSV reflux. The majority of patients with NSV reflux have varicose veins and lower extremity oedema; however, about 10% of those patients present with skin damage. This paper analyses the patterns and types of NSV reflux for diagnosis and treatment purposes.
Advanced glycation end products-induced gene expression of scavenger receptors in cultured human monocyte-derived macrophages.

We investigated the effects of advanced glycation end products (AGEs) on the expression of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (OxLDL) receptors in human monocyte-derived macrophages and THP-1 cells treated with PMA. Both RT-PCR procedure and Northern blot analysis revealed that AGEs induced not only the gene expression of two major OxLDL receptors, macrophage scavenger receptor (MSR) class A and CD36, but also MSR-B I and lectin-like oxidized low-density lipoprotein receptor 1. Also, as a result of gel shift assay, AGEs increased transcriptional activities of AP-1, NF-kappaB, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma. These findings indicate that AGEs-induced enhancement of these transcriptional activities might be involved in increased levels of mRNA for some of OxLDL receptors in THP-1-cells treated with PMA. The upregulated surface expression of these receptors on macrophage membranes was closely associated with increased uptake of modified LDL, and culminated in enhanced foam cell transformation. Thus, AGEs may be involved in the cause of variable levels of foam cell formation via the increased numbers of OxLDL receptors in accelerated atherosclerotic lesions of individuals with diabetes.
An Informational Cause to the Intra Day Transaction Patterns? The Case of the Paris Bourse

In this paper, we study the existence of an informational component to intraday patterns. The analysis of patterns according to several measures of the information flow reveals that those measures act on the patterns. We prove that an activity time has a small but significant decreasing influence on the return patterns. The impact on volatility is much more important. An activity time nearly wrecks the closing effect whereas it often increases the opening effect. This influence varies greatly with the index membership. The impact of the time measurement on the patterns proves that a part, at least, of the observed configurations is due to the information flow. Consequently, an calendar time is not the best choice to assess the return process as it aggregates the variations of the returns and of the information flow. The differential impact of the time measurement on the volatility patterns can be interpreted as a need of improvement of our proxies, as a variation in the mechanism of the information incorporation or, as an evidence of other causes.
Mental rotation abilities in language-disordered children.

This study investigated the possibility that language-disordered children suffer a pervasive representational deficit. A mental rotation task was used to measure proficiency in visual imagery, one of the major nonlinguistic symbolic modes. Normal and language-disordered first and third graders (matched for sex and cognitive level) were asked to decide whether two geometric arrays were similarly ordered. Arrays were presented parallel or with the right hand array rotated about its center either 45 degrees, 90 degrees, or 135 degrees in the picture plane. A significant (p less than .001) linear relationship between degree of rotation and reaction time indicated that children in all groups were using imagistic processes. Language-disordered children did not differ from normal children in accuracy of judgment or require more training trials, but they did respond more slowly (p less than .02). These findings suggest an impairment of visual imagery and hence representational deficits which extend beyond language. Current evidence does not, however, indicate whether difficulties with nonverbal and verbal symbolic modes stem from a single source.
C O ] 1 3 D ec 2 01 3 Ramsey numbers of cubes versus cliques

The cube graph Qn is the skeleton of the n-dimensional cube. It is an n-regular graph on 2 n vertices. The Ramsey number r(Qn,Ks) is the minimum N such that every graph of order N contains the cube graph Qn or an independent set of order s. In 1983, Burr and Erdős asked whether the simple lower bound r(Qn,Ks) ≥ (s − 1)(2n − 1) + 1 is tight for s fixed and n sufficiently large. We make progress on this problem, obtaining the first upper bound which is within a constant factor of the lower bound.
Oral Candida spp carriage and periodontal diseases in HIV-infected patients in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

ABSTRACT The majority of HIV-infected patients develop Candida spp-associated clinical oral lesions. Studies have shown that asymptomatic oral colonization of Candida spp may lead to oral lesions or become a source of disseminated infections. The aim of this study was to verify the effects of periodontal conditions on Candida spp prevalence and Candida spp carriage in the oral cavity of HIV-infected patients compared to non-infected patients. Twenty-five patients not infected with HIV and 48 HIV-infected patients were classified according to periodontal conditions as being periodontal healthy or with periodontal disease. Candida spp carriage and classification were performed in oral rinse samples. Viral load and CD4+ T lymphocyte (CD4+L) counts were performed in blood samples from HIV-infected patients. No differences in Candida spp prevalence related to HIV status or periodontal condition were detected. However, Candida spp carriage was increased in periodontally affected HIV-infected patients when compared to periodontally healthy HIV-infected patients (p= 0.04). Periodontally healthy HIV-infected patients presented Candida spp carriage in similar levels as healthy or periodontally affected non-HIV-infected patients. Candida spp carriage was correlated with CD4+L counting in HIV-infected patients. We concluded that periodontal disease is associated with increased Candida spp carriage in HIV-infected patients and may be a predisposing factor to clinical manifestations of candidiasis.
Liquidity Risk and Stock Return

This paper examines the relationship between liquidity risk and stock return with the trade data of the A shares in ShangHai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange.The method used in this paper is two-pass cross-section regression.After decomposing the liquidity risk into systematic liquidity risk and individual liquidity risk,we find that both risks have significant effect on the stock return.What is different from empirical evidence in developed markets is that individual liquidity risk has more significant effect on stock return than systematic liquidity risk in both Chinese stock markets.Therefore future research on the liquidity pricing in Chinese stock market has to consider factors of individual liquidity risk.
A new stopping criterion for fast low-density parity-check decoders

Nonbiliary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes can lead to excellent error performance while the codewords are of short or moderate length. However, the high decoding complexity of nonbiliary LDPC codes inevitably depreciates their practical values. The computational bottleneck arises from the check node processing in the iterative message passing (MP) algorithms which terminate when either all parity checks are satisfied or the maximum iteration number is reached. We have observed that for undecodable blocks, the MP algorithms always run up to the maximum iteration limit and therefore cannot generate the correct codeword. Thus, it would be better to terminate the algorithms early so as to save the unnecessary computational time and reduce the extra power consumption when undecodable blocks are experienced. In this paper, we propose a new T-tolerance stopping criterion for LDPC decoders by exploiting the fact that the total a posteriori probability (APP) should increase as the iteration number grows. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed new T-tolerance criterion can greatly reduce the average iteration number (complexity) while restricting the decoding performance degradation within 0.1 dB in low bit-energy-to-noise ratio scenarios.
E-mail contact as an effective strategy in the maintenance of weight loss in adults.

BACKGROUND Professional face-to-face contact is known to be beneficial in effective weight management, but costly, in supporting weight maintenance. Within the UK, studies have examined using the Internet to achieve weight loss; however, there is a need to evaluate the use of dietetic intervention via e-mail to support the maintenance of weight loss in a National Health Service (NHS) setting. The present study aimed to assess the effects of dietetic support through e-mail on weight loss maintenance on individuals who were successful in weight loss. METHODS Fifty-five patients, who had lost ≥5% body weight, were assigned to either an intervention group (weekly e-mail messages and monthly personal e-mail message with reporting of weight, n = 28) or a control group (n = 27). The level of weight maintenance, plus dietary changes and the ability to maintain a level of activity, were recorded after 6 months. RESULTS At 6 months, the e-mail group maintained an average weight loss of 10%, which was significantly (P = 0.05) greater than the mean percentage weight loss maintained by the control group (7.3%). The control group regained weight at a statistically significant greater velocity (P = 0.02) than the intervention group. There were correlations between the amount of fruits and vegetables (P = 0.07) eaten and exercise episodes (P = 0.01) against weight change in maintenance. CONCLUSIONS The present study showed that dietetic support using e-mail can be used effectively in reducing weight gain velocity and assisting in the maintenance of weight loss. It is a system that can be used in the UK NHS to reach many people.