Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chlorpyrifos induces genotoxic effects in human leukocytes in vitro at low concentrations

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is an organophosphate widely marketed as a pesticide. However, only few studies have investigated its genotoxic potential, especially in human tissues or cells, or the minimal concentration capable of inducing damage. This study analyzed the in vitro genotoxic potential of CPF in cultured human leukocytes at concentrations of 3, 35, and 350 μg mL -1 . Results demonstrated that the two highest concentrations exhibited an increase (~2-fold) in the micronucleus frequency (p < 0.01), the number of numerical chromosomal instabilities (~10–12 times, p < 0.05), and the number of apoptotic cells (~10- to 20-fold, p < 0.001). These results demonstrate the genotoxic potential of CPF and could open new discussions regarding its safety and toxicology.
Allocation Of Space Between Service And Waiting Areas In A Service System

AbstractService systems are concerned with provision of some form of treatment or accommodation to customers or to something belonging to the customers. Typically, service systems are comprised of two physically distinct areas, one dedicated to the service itself, the other used for customers waiting for service. A limited amount of space is available for the two purposes. This paper addresses a related problem of concern to designers and managing operators of service systems, namely how to divide a total available area among service units and waiting spaces. Under Poisson arrivals and exponentially distributed service times we develop an algorithm for choosing the number of service units and the number of waiting spaces so as to minimize the expected total costs per unit time. Illustrative numerical results are presented.
Shot Boundary Detection Algorithm Based on Mutual Information

Aiming at improving the precision of shot boundary detection, a new algorithm based on mutual information is proposed. The algorithm adopts the mutual information, which is calculated based on non-uniform block histogram in HSV space, as the difference measurement between frames. Combined with the corresponding threshold strategy and the time's window strategy, the cut and gradual change shots and shot boundaries made by computer effects technology can be successfully detected. Experiments conducted on many kinds of videos such as advertising, variety shows and news video show that, compared with the original twin-threshold method, the proposed algorithm enhances the detection results by 11.9% in cut shots and 7.6% in gradual shots. The algorithm is robust for camera movement and the light changes on shot detection, with higher recall rate and precision rate.
Effects of Family Empowerment on Increasing Family Support in Patients with Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: Patients with type-2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM) need support from their families to perform self-care to prevent complications; however, not all families have effective support. Family empowerment is a family-based strategic intervention which can improve family support to those patients.Purpose: This study aimed to determine the effects of family empowerment on increasing family support in patients with type 2 DM.Methods: This study used a quasi-experiment with non-equivalent control group design. Forty-six respondents were recruited using a consecutive sampling technique and assigned to the control and intervention groups. Respondents in the intervention group were given family empowerment intervention by visiting their homes four times, for 120 minutes each. In contrast, the control group was given the intervention of standard booklets. The Hensarling Diabetes Family Support Scale (HDFSS) was used to observe the family support on both groups. Data were analyzed by independent t-test.Results: Results showed that there was a significant difference between the intervention and the control group with t=7.86 and p-value of 0.00. There were mean differences of 2.29 and 0.28 between the intervention and the control group, respectively.Conclusion: Family empowerment affected family support in patients with type-2 DM. Based on this study, it is recommended that the health workers advocate and encourage the family in the planning management of patients with diabetes mellitus.
A sparse L2-regularized support vector machines for efficient natural language learning

Linearkernelsupportvectormachines(SVMs)usingeither L1-normor L2-norm have emerged as an important and wildly used classification algorithm for many applications suchastextchunking,part-of-speechtagging,informationretrieval,anddependencyparsing. L2-norm SVMs usually provide slightly better accuracy than L1-SVMs in most tasks. How- ever, L2-norm SVMs produce too many near-but-nonzero feature weights that are highly time-consuming when computing nonsignificant weights. In this paper, we present a cutting- weightalgorithmtoguidetheoptimizationprocessofthe L2-SVMstowardasparsesolution. Before checking the optimality, our method automatically discards a set of near-but-nonzero feature weight. The final objects can then be achieved when the objective function is met by the remaining features and hypothesis. One characteristic of our cutting-weight algorithm is that it requires no changes in the original learning objects. To verify this concept, we conduct the experiments using three well-known benchmarks, i.e., CoNLL-2000 text chunk- ing, SIGHAN-3 Chinese word segmentation, and Chinese word dependency parsing. Our methodachieves1-10timesfeatureparameterreductionratesincomparisonwiththeoriginal L2-SVMs, slightly better accuracy with a lower training time cost. In terms of run-time effi- ciency, our method is reasonably faster than the original L2-regularized SVMs. For example, our sparse L2-SVMs is 2.55 times faster than the original L2-SVMs with the same accuracy.
Etkin epoklar ile motor hayaline dayalı EEG işaretlerinin sınıflandırma doğruluğunun artırılması

Beyin bilgisayar arayüzleri (BBA) sadece beyinde üretilen işaretleri kullanarak çeşitli elektronik cihazları kullanmayı olanaklı hale getiren sistemlerdir. Bu sistemlerin yüksek başarımlı olabilmesi için bu işaretlerden çıkarılan öznitelik yöntemleri ve bu işaretlere uygulanan sınıflandırıcı yöntemleri önemlidir. Bu çalışma ile motor hayaline dair kaydedilen EEG tabanlı BBA işaretlerinden yüksek sınıflandırma doğruluğu elde edebilmek için işaretlerin etkin zaman dilimlerinden çıkarılmış özniteliklerle sınıflandırma doğruluğunun artırılmasına yönelik bir yöntem önerilmiştir. Öznitelikler, etkin zaman dilimleri belirlenen EEG işaretlerine Hilbert Dönüşümü’nün uygulanması ve işaretin türevlerinin ortalamasının alınmasıyla elde edilmiştir. BCI Competition 2003 yarışmasında kullanıma sunulmuş 2-sınıflı motor hareketi hayaline dayalı Data Set Ia isimli veri kümesinden çıkarılan öznitelikler destek vektör makineleri, k-en yakın komşuluk ve doğrusal ayrım analizi ile test edilerek performans karşılaştırması yapılmıştır. Destek vektör makineleri ile test veri kümesi üzerinde %91.46 oranında yüksek bir sınıflandırma doğruluğu elde edilmiştir. Bu sınıflandırma doğruluğu EEG işaretinin bir denemesine ait tüm örneklemelerin kullanılması durumunda elde edilen sınıflandırma doğruluğundan %17.40 daha yüksektir. Elde edilen sonuçlar, önerilen yöntemin belirlenen öznitelik çıkarma yöntemi ve destek vektör makinaları sınıflandırıcısıyla birlikte EEG işaretlerinden elde edilen sınıflandırma doğruluğunu dikkat çekici miktarda arttırdığını ve hesaplama karmaşıklığını ise azalttığını göstermiştir. Brain computer interfaces (BCI) are systems which make it possible to use various electronic devices using only the signals produced in the brain. In order to ensure high performance of these systems, feature methods extracted from these signals and classifier methods applied to these signals are important. With this study, we proposed a method to obtain high classification accuracy from EEG based BBA signals recorded on the motor imaginary with the extracted features in the active time segments. Features were obtained by applying the Hilbert Transform to the active time segments selected EEG signs and calculating the average of the derivatives of the signs. Features extracted from two-class motor imaginary Data Set Ia (Presented at the BCI Competition 2003 competition) were analyzed by support vector machines, k-nearest neighborhood and linear discriminant analysis. Then the performance of the classifiers was compared. A high classification accuracy of 91.12% is calculated on the test dataset with support vector machines. This classification accuracy is 17.06% higher than the classification accuracy obtained in the case of using all samples of a trial of the EEG signal. As a result, the proposed method increased the accuracy of classification in a remarkable amount and reduced computational complexity with the feature extraction methods and support vector machine classifier.
Polyglot Speech Synthesis: A Review

ABSTRACT The term polyglot speech synthesis refers to the process of producing speech in multiple languages and single speaker's voice from a single text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) system. This report reviews existing efforts in the literature to develop a polyglot TTS. Different methods described in this review mainly focus on developing a natural, intelligible, and cost-effective TTS system for multilingual text input. Since multilingual text is becoming very common in all applications of TTS, recent focus is made on developing a cost-effective polyglot TTS system, instead of conventional monolingual TTS. This review also discusses the pros and cons of different methods and mentions possible directions to overcome the limitations.
Computational Approaches to Protein Function Prediction

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the field of automated protein function prediction. It covers many techniques for solving this problem by computational means and discusses the most important principles underlying these techniques. By clearly describing a wide variety of automated techniques for protein function prediction and summarizing the main concepts behind these techniques, this book greatly reduces the time and effort required to understand the problem of protein function predictions and the numerous bioinformatics solutions that have been developed for it.
Combination of DNA Molecular Biomarkers in the Prediction of Critical Illness Outcome

Purpose: to determine the informative value of the prediction of mortality of patients with sepsis using a combination of candidate markers — the quantitative content of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) in plasma and allelic variants of TLR9 gene encoding-cellular recognition receptor TLR9 for DNA fragments. Materials and methods. The study included patients from five ICU of 4 four hospitals ( n =156). The patients were divided into 2 groups: (1) with sepsis (based on SEPSIS-3, 2016, criteria), ( n =81) and with acute cerebrovascular event ( n =75). CfDNA was isolated from patient’s blood plasma using organic solvents and its concentration was established by a spectrophotometer using fluorescent intercalating agent SYBR Green binding DNA with high affinity. Genotyping of rs352162 allele variants of TLR9 gene was carried out with the help of polymerase chain reaction using tetraprimers followed by separation of products via electrophoresis and their visualization. The cfDNA concentrations were compared in patients differ in TLR9 rs352162 genotypes and outcome was predicted in 30 days after hospitalization using the ROC analysis. Results. As regards the cfDNA content, there was no significant difference between patients with sepsis (subgroups with abdominal or non-abdominal sepsis) from two different hospitals, and cfDNA concentration in groups of patients was not associated with the source of primary infection, which allowed increasing group size by pooling up the data. Pooled data have shown that the sensitivity and specificity of the lethal outcome prediction based on the cfDNA content depends on the genotype: in homozygotic patients withg TLR9 rs352162 CC genotype, the AUC was significantly higher than in the alternative group of patients with TLR9 rs352162 CT and TT genotypes. Conclusion. The data we obtained suggest high informative value of establishing the genetic polymorphism of TLR9 as complimentary to determining the cfDNA concentration and may demonstrate potential usefulness of selecting patients according to their TLR9 genotype for investigations of the clinical effect of targeted drugs inhibiting interaction of cfDNA with receptor TLR9.
Patient Safety Culture among Health Workers in Addis Ababa regional Hospitals, Ethiopia

Background: Improving patient safety highly depends on achieving a culture that supports health workers to report their errors without the fear of punishment. Despite policy emphasis on patient safety in Ethiopia only little studies examine the perception of health workers on patient safety. Objective: The main objective of this study was to assess the magnitude of patient safety culture and associated factors among health workers in Addis Ababa regional hospitals. Methods: Facility based cross sectional study was conducted to assess the magnitude of patient safety culture and associated factors. Results: Magnitude of patient safety culture among health workers in Addis Ababa regional hospitals was 44% CI [42.75,45.36]. Among the 12 dimensions of patient safety " Team work with in Units " (74.78%) was the highest. The least score was for the dimension of " Nonpunitive Response to Errors " (28.70). Five of the 12 dimensions scored above 50%. Only 35 % of respondents gave very good and excellent grades and only 44% of respondents reported at least one event in the past 12 months. Conclusion: Magnitude of patient safety culture for regional hospitals in Addis Ababa was 44 % which is below the acceptable average value (50%), which requires responsible parties’ attention.
Operative risk stratification in the obese female undergoing implant‐based breast reconstruction

The prevalence of obesity is growing, and breast reconstruction in the obese patient is becoming the norm rather than the exception. Our aim was to evaluate implant reconstruction outcomes in the obese female in the presence of coincident surgical risk factors and identify potential risk‐reducing interventions. A review of consecutive obese women (BMI ≥ 30) who underwent mastectomy and implant breast reconstruction was performed. Patient demographics, comorbidities, oncologic treatments, and reconstructive procedures and their complications were recorded. A total of 151 women (242 breast reconstructions) were included with mean follow‐up of 28 months. Average BMI was 36. Eighty percent of cases were immediate and 20% delayed. ADMs were utilized in 58% of cases. About 25% of patients had diabetes with one‐third achieving perioperative glycemic control. About 18% of women were active smokers, and 33% had radiotherapy. Major and minor complications occurred in 42% and 11% of patients, respectively. About 24% of reconstructed breasts required implant removal. Obese patients with prior radiation were three times as likely to develop infection (P = 0.008) and 2.5× as likely to undergo explantation (P = 0.002). Skin flap necrosis was three times as likely in obese smokers (P = 0.01). Increased rates of wound breakdown were identified in obese patients with increasing age (P = 0.005), smoking (P = 0.0035), and radiation (P = 0.023). In the obese radiated and smoking patient subgroups, surgical modifications (use of autologous tissue, delayed breast reconstruction timing, and no ADM) were associated with reduction in the relative risk for implant complications. While obesity alone increases implant breast reconstruction complication rates, the presence of additional risk factors compounds these rates. The use of surgical modifications may reduce the occurrence of perioperative complications in the obese female with coincident surgical risk factors undergoing implant breast reconstruction.
Avaliação in vitro do sêmen congelado de carneiros com diluidor suplementado com miricetina

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the supplementation of ram semen frozen with extender with the flavonoid myricetin against damage to sperm. Eight pools of semen obtained from four ram breeders, were frozen with different concentrations of myicetin (0, 1, 10, 100 and 1000nM). After thawing, the semen was evaluated for spermatic kinetics, plasma and acrosome membrane integrity, mitochondrial membrane potential, intracellular ROS levels, lipid peroxidation, and membrane stability. Samples treated with 10nM myricetin preserved a lower percentage of rapid cells (P≤0.05) when compared to the 1000nM myricetin group. Samples from the control group presented higher (P≤0.05) VAP than 10nM group of myricetin, while cryopreserved samples with myicetin (10, 100 and 1000nM) showed greater (P<0.05) BCF, when compared to control group. The group treated with 1000nM myricetin had a higher percentage (P<0.05) of cells with lipid peroxidation, when compared to the control group. In conclusion, supplementation of ram semen cryopreservation extender with 10 and 100nM myricetin affects sperm kinetics, without causing changes in the overall structure of the gamete, while 1000nM myricetin causes changes in the kinetics associated with peroxidative damage.
Personal resources in recovery : a quantitative study of resiliency, grit, and coping in rehabilitation following acquired brain injury

Objective: To synthesise the current literature examining the effectiveness of coping skills groups in improving coping following acquired brain injury (ABI) in adults. Data Sources: A search of Web of Science, PsychInfo, and PubMed (1990 – 2017) was conducted, including both concepts of ABI and coping skills groups. References were also identified by extending the previous search to include names of frequently used measures of coping, and review of references of eligible articles. Article Selection: The review included articles written in English with a quantitative, experimental design where participants with a mild, moderate, or severe ABI completed a group-based intervention to develop coping skills, and that included at least one outcome measure of coping. Data Extraction: Following PRISMA guidelines 65 full-length articles were reviewed; 5 articles, with a total of 238 participants, met the inclusion criteria. Baseline and postintervention data for coping measures were extracted for single group design articles, and for both the intervention and control arms of randomised controlled trial design articles from each eligible article by the principal author. Data Synthesis: Articles were assessed for quality based on Reichow (2011) indicators of quality; all articles were found to have weak methodological rigor. A random effects meta-analysis revealed an overall effect size of 0.21 (95% CI = -0.12 to 0.53). Conclusions: The present meta-analysis found that coping skills groups do not improve coping following ABI, although they do show improvement in measures of psychological wellbeing, cognitive functioning, and quality of life. Issues around the heterogeneity of measures of coping are discussed. Since only a small number of RCTs exist in the literature the authors recommend that further research with coping skills groups use this experimental design.
Therapeutic Inertia in Stroke Prevention

Background: Knowledge-to-action gaps inﬂuence therapeutic decisions in atrial ﬁbrillation (AF). Physician-related factors are common, but the least studied. We evaluated the prevalence and determinants of physician-related factors and knowledge-to-action gaps among physicians involved in the management of AF patients. Design: In this cross-sectional study, participants from 6 South American countries re-cruited during an educational program answered questions regarding 16 case scenarios of patients with AF and completed experiments assessing 3 outcome measures: therapeutic inertia, herding, and errors in risk stratiﬁcation knowledge translated into action (ERSKTA) based on commonly used stratiﬁcation tools (Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age ≥ 75 years (double), Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke/transient ischemic attack/thromboembolism (double), Vascular disease, Age 65-74 years, and female gender (score of 0 for males and 1 for female) (CHA 2 DS 2 VASc) and Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age ≥ 75 years, Diabetes mellitus, and previous Stroke/transient ischemic attack (double) (CHADS 2 )). Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine factors associated with the outcomes. Results: Overall, 149 physicians were invited to participate, of which 88 (59.1%) completed the online assessment tool. Cardiology was the most frequent specialty (69.3%). Therapeutic inertia was present in 53 participants (60.2%), herding in 66 (75.0%), and ERSKTA in 46 (52.3%). Therapeutic inertia was inversely associated with willingness to take ﬁnancial risks (odds ratio [OR] .72, 95% conﬁdence interval [CI] .59-.89 per point in the ﬁnancial risk propensity score), herding was associated with aversion 1.70, 95% CI 1.15-2.50, per point in score). Conclusions: Among physicians involved in stroke prevention in AF, individual risk preferences and aversion to ambiguity lead to therapeutic inertia, herding, and errors in risk stratiﬁcation and subsequent use of oral anticoagulants. Educational interventions, including formal training in risk management and decision-making are needed.
Effects of maternal bromocriptine and melatonin treatments during early gestation on fetal lamb growth

Lower birth weights of autumn-born than of spring-born lambs may be due to a seasonal impairment of placental development, established by d84 of gestation, and perhaps mediated by high summer prolactin concentrations. This study attempted to determine whether reducing circulating summer prolactin concentrations in ewes during early gestation, using bromocriptine and melatonin, would improve placental and fetal growth and birth weights of autumn-born lambs. Pregnant mixed-age Romney ewes were randomly allocated to three treatment groups, balanced for age, live weight (LW) and source flocks, on d15 after mating. Ewes in the Bromocriptine group (n=20, LW 58.3±6.7 kg) were injected with 50 mg Parlodel®LA, the Melatonin group (n=20, LW 58.6±6.6 kg) each received one 18-mg Regulin® implant, while the Control group (n=21, LW 58.5±5.8 kg) was injected with saline solution (0.9% NaCl). At d139 of gestation, ewes were randomly allocated to a ‘Slaughter group’ sacrificed at d140-2 (n=30 LW 61.2±5.6 kg) and a ‘Live-birth group’ (n=31, LW 60.0±7.1 kg). Maternal plasma prolactin concentrations were significantly reduced by both bromocriptine (Control vs. Bromocriptine): 48.3±9.2 vs. 0.7±9.9 ng/ml (P<0.001) at d20 of gestation, and 82.6±8.5 vs. 4.5±9.1 ng/ ml (P<0.001) at d40 of gestation, and melatonin treatments (Control vs. Melatonin): 82.6±8.5 vs. 18.4±9.5 ng/ml (P<0.001) at d40 of gestation, and 16.8±3.7 vs. 2.9±4.2 ng/ml (P<0.05) at d60 of gestation. Fetal plasma prolactin concentrations were not affected by treatments (Control vs. Bromocriptine vs. Melatonin): 32.4±18.3 vs. 32.4±19.1 vs. 59.8±16.4 ng/ml. At d140 of gestation, there were no treatment effects (adjusted for sex and litter size) on fetal weight, crown-rump length, placental parameters, and maternal and fetal organ weights, except thymus reduced 20% (P<0.05) by melatonin treatment. Birth weights and subsequent growth rates were similar among groups. Despite treatments reducing plasma prolactin concentrations there was no affect on placental or fetal growth, indicating that high prolactin concentrations early in pregnancy are not responsible for low birth weight in ewes lambing in May.