Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
No preemptive analgesic effect of preoperative ketorolac administration following total abdominal hysterectomy: A randomized study

Background: Experimental models using short-duration noxious stimuli have led to the concept of preemptive analgesia. Ketorolac, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, has been shown to have a postoperative narcotic-sparing effect when given preoperatively and alternatively to not have this effect. This study was undertaken to determine whether a single intravenous (IV) dose of ketorolac would result in decreased postoperative pain and narcotic requirements. Methods: In a double-blind, randomized controlled trial, 48 women undergoing abdominal hysterectomy were studied. Patients in the ketorolac group received 30 mg of IV ketorolac 30 min before surgical incision, while the control group received normal saline. The postoperative analgesia was performed with a continuous infusion of tramadol at 12 mg/h with the possibility of a 10 mg bolus for every 10 min. Pain was assessed using the visual analog scale (VAS), tramadol consumption, and hemodynamic parameters at 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 24 h postoperatively. We quantified times to rescue analgesic (morphine), adverse effects, and patient satisfaction. Results: There were neither significant differences in VAS scores between groups (P > 0.05) nor in the cumulative or incremental consumption of tramadol at any time point (P > 0.05). The time to first requested rescue analgesia was 66.25 ± 38.61 min in the ketorolac group and 65 ± 28.86 min in the control group (P = 0.765). There were no significant differences in systolic blood pressure (BP) between both groups, except at 2 h (P = 0.02) and 4 h (P = 0.045). There were no significant differences in diastolic BP between both groups, except at 4 h (P = 0.013). The respiratory rate showed no differences between groups, except at 8 h (P = 0.017), 16 h (P = 0.011), and 24 h (P = 0.049). These differences were not clinically significant. There were no statistically significant differences between groups in heart rate (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Preoperative ketorolac neither showed a preemptive analgesic effect nor was it effective as an adjuvant for decreasing opioid requirements or postoperative pain in patients receiving IV analgesia with tramadol after abdominal hysterectomy.
General nonperturbative estimate of the energy density of lattice Hamiltonians.

Employing a theorem on lower bounds on the zeros of orthogonal polynomials, the plaquette expansion to order 1/[ital N][sub [ital p]] of the tridiagonal Lanczos matrix elements is solved for the ground-state energy density in the infinite lattice limit. The resulting nonperturbative expression for the estimate of the energy density in terms of the connected coefficients to order [l angle][ital H][sup 4][r angle][sub [ital c]] is completely general. This expression is applied to various Hamiltonian systems---the Heisenberg model in [ital D] dimensions and SU(2) and SU(3) lattice gauge theory in 3+1 dimensions. In all cases the analytic estimate to the energy density is not only a significant improvement on the trial state, but is typically accurate to a few percent. The energy density of the [ital D]-dimensional Heisenberg model is predicted to approach [ital scrE][sub 0](Neel)[minus]1/8 for large [ital D]. In the case of SU(2) and SU(3) the specific heat derived from the energy density peaks at the correct strong- to weak-coupling transition.
Changes in sputum cell counts after exposure to occupational agents: what do they mean?

BACKGROUND Exposure to occupational agents can induce eosinophilic inflammation in subjects with occupational asthma (OA). It might also induce nonspecific changes in airway inflammation in subjects without OA. OBJECTIVES We sought to investigate the changes in airway inflammation induced by exposure to occupational agents in subjects with and without OA and to determine which changes in sputum eosinophil numbers and bronchial responsiveness to methacholine should be regarded as clinically significant for predicting a 20% fall in FEV(1). METHODS We performed specific inhalation challenges (SICs) in 3 groups of subjects: subjects reporting a history consistent with OA with a positive SIC response (n = 17); subjects reporting a history consistent with OA with a negative SIC response (n = 14); and asthmatic subjects without any history of OA (n = 10). Induced sputum and methacholine challenges were performed at the end of the control day and again at the end of the last day of exposure; the last day of exposure was always performed in the laboratory. RESULTS There was an increase in median sputum eosinophil and neutrophil numbers in subjects with positive SIC responses. Cell counts remained unchanged after exposure in asthmatic subjects without OA. A combination of a greater than 0.26 10(6)/mL increase in sputum eosinophil numbers and a decrease in the concentration of methacholine inducing a 20% fall in FEV(1) of at least 1.8-fold compared with baseline values predicted a 20% fall in FEV(1) in 96% (95% CI, 70%-99%) of patients. CONCLUSION Exposure to occupational agents per se does not induce airway inflammation. Changes in both sputum eosinophil counts and methacholine responsiveness are satisfactory predictors of a significant bronchial responsiveness to occupational agents.
Neural degeneration and regeneration in human renal transplants.

Abstract Neural degeneration and regeneration were studied histologically with hematoxylin–eosin and Bodian stains in 33 human renal transplants. By the fifteenth day after transplantation few intact axons were recognizable, and by the twenty-sixth day, only axonal debris remained. As early as the twenty-eighth day, regenerating axons appeared distal to the graft's arterial anastomosis. Regenerating axons could be traced to the nerves accompanying the interlobular arteries, but the axon population did not reach the number observed in normal nerves of comparable size. Allografts and isografts exhibited comparable patterns of neural regeneration.
Somatic Exocytosis of Serotonin Mediated by L‐Type Calcium Channels in Cultured Leech Neurones

We studied somatic exocytosis of serotonin and its mediation by L‐type calcium (Ca2+) channels in cultured Retzius neurones of the leech. Exocytosis was induced by trains of impulses at different frequencies or by depolarisation with 40 mm potassium (K+), and was quantified by use of the fluorescent dye FM 1–43. Stimulation increased the membrane fluorescence and produced a pattern of FM 1–43 fluorescent spots of 1.28 ± 0.01 μm in diameter, provided that Ca2+ was present in the bathing fluid. Individual spots lost their stain during depolarisation with 40 mm K+. Electron micrographs showed clusters of dense core vesicles, some of which were in contact with the cell membrane. Presynaptic structures with clear vesicles were absent from the soma. The number of fluorescent spots per soma, but not their diameter or their fluorescence intensity, depended on the frequency of stimulation. Trains at 1 Hz produced 19.5 ± 5 spots per soma, 77.9 ± 13.9 spots per soma were produced at 10 Hz and 91.5 ± 16.9 spots per soma at 20 Hz. Staining patterns were similar for neurones in culture and in situ. In the presence of the L‐type Ca2+ channel blocker nimodipine (10 μm), a 20 Hz train produced only 22.9 ± 6.4 spots per soma, representing a 75 % reduction compared to control cells (P < 0.05). Subsequent incubation with 10 mm caffeine to induce Ca2+ release from intracellular stores increased the number of spots to 73.22 ± 12.5. Blockers of N‐, P‐, Q‐ or invertebrate Ca2+ channels did not affect somatic exocytosis. Our results suggest that somatic exocytosis by neurones shares common mechanisms with excitable endocrine cells.
Implementation fachdidaktischer Innovation am Beispiel des Münchener Unterrichtskonzepts zur Quantenmechanik

Zu den Aufgaben fachdidaktischer Forschung gehort die Verbesserung von Lehr-Lern-Prozessen auf Grundlage von empirischen Forschungsergebnissen. Ein moglicher Weg, solche Innovationen an Schulen zu implementieren, verlauft uber die Bereitstellung von Unterrichtsmaterialien. Allerdings liegen bisher nur wenige Erkenntnisse zu ihrer Nutzung vor. Ziel der vorgestellten Studie ist es daher, mehr uber die Wirkmechanismen bei der Implementation von Unterrichtsmaterialien herauszufinden. Dazu werden zehn Lehrkrafte, welche das Munchener Unterrichtskonzept zur Quantenmechanik zur Verfugung gestellt bekommen, im Unterricht begleitet. In zwei Interviews zu Beginn und am Ende einer Unterrichtsreihe zur Quantenmechanik werden mogliche Einflussfaktoren der Materialnutzung erfragt. Um zudem die Implementation genauer zu untersuchen, werden drei Unterrichtsstunden videographiert und durch Stimulated Recall-Interviews Hintergrunde zu den Entscheidungen der Lehrkrafte abgefragt. Aus den Ergebnissen der Pilotierungsinterviews lasst sich ableiten, dass Lehrkrafte oftmals nur Teile des bereitgestellten Konzepts umsetzen.
Nucleotide sequence and analysis of the centromeric region of yeast chromosome IX

We have determined the nucleotide sequence of a cosmid (pIX338) containing the centromere region of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) chromosome IX. The complete nucleotide sequence of 33·8 kb was obtained by using an efficient directed sequencing strategy in combination with automated DNA sequencing on the A.L. F. DNA sequencer. Sequence analysis revealed the presence of 17 open reading frames (ORFs), four of them previously known yeast genes (sly12, pan1, sts1 and prl1), a tRNA gene and the centromere motif. Exhaustive database searches detected sequence homologues of known function for as many as 14 of the 17 ORFs. These include a mammalian tyrosine kinase substrate; the Escherichia coli cell cycle protein MinD; the human inositol polyphosphate‐5‐phosphatase (gene OCRL) involved in Lowe's syndrome, a developmental disorder; and helicases, for which the new yeast member defines a distinct DEAD/H‐box subfamily. A surprisingly large fraction of the ORFs (at least six out of 17) in the centromeric region are apparently involved in RNA or DNA binding.
LS-EM Algorithm of Parameters Estimation for Gaussian Mixture Autoregressive Model

By Gaussian mixture autoregressive model, the probability density and power spectrum density of non-Gaussian colored processes can be well fit. Its parameters can be exact estimated through the LS-EM algorithm discussed in this paper. After descriptions of the model and estimation problem, LS-EM algorithm is deduced. And a numerical instance is illustrated. In fact, LS-EM is an algorithm for coupling estimation of parameters between probability density and power spectrum density. Firstly, rough estimation of the latter is obtained using the conventional least squares technology and then prewhitening is applied to forecast white driving source, based on which estimation of the former is produced by the EM iteration. And then, a weighted function is founded on probability density parameter, with which the weighted least squares estimation is built up. In such a way, the accurate estimation of model parameters is obtained
How do Individual Investors React to Global IFRS Adoption?

We examine the impact of global IFRS adoption on cross-border equity investments by individual investors. Our proxy for cross-border equity investments is trading volume in the Open Market at Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The Open Market is a segment designed for German individual investors to trade a large selection of foreign stocks. Using a sample of 5,637 firms from 31 countries around the world, we find that stocks experience a significant increase in Open Market trading volume following mandatory adoption of IFRS. This effect is more pronounced for attention-grabbing stocks (e.g., stocks experiencing an increase in media coverage following IFRS adoption). Our results suggest that global IFRS adoption enhances cross-border equity investments by individual investors. However, this effect does not materialize equally across stocks due individual investors’ limited attention.
A robust state estimator for medium voltage distribution networks

A closed-loop robust distribution state estimator was investigated. An approach that is suitable for medium voltage distribution networks which are either under-determined with limited real-time measurements or over-determined but with delayed information from smart meters was developed. The state estimator was designed to be robust against the effect of measurement errors, the type, location and accuracy of measurements, as well as temporary failure of the smart metering communication system. A machine learning function provides reliable input information to a robust state estimation algorithm. The output of the state estimator is then fed back to the machine learning function creating a closed-loop information flow which improves the performance of the state estimator. Test results and analysis on a 33-node system are provided.
Bayesian Induction of Verb Sub-categorization Frames in Imbalanced Heterogeneous Data

The problem of high imbalance in data in the binary classification task of determining whether a syntactic construction (environment) co-occurring with a verb in a natural text corpus consists of a subcategorization frame of the verb or not is the central focus of the present paper. Each environment is encoded as a vector of heterogeneous attributes, where a very high imbalance between positive and negative examples is observed (an imbalance ratio of approximately 1:80). In order to cope with the plethora of negative examples, we propose a search tactic during training that employs Tomek links for eliminating unnecessary negative examples from the training set. As for a classification mechanism, we argue that Bayesian networks are well suited and we propose a novel network structure which efficiently handles heterogeneous attributes without discretization and is more classification-oriented. Comparing the experimental results with those of other known machine learning algorithms, our methodology performs significantly better in detecting instances of the rare positive class.
RAPID EVOLUTION OF CUTICULAR HYDROCARBONS IN A SPECIES RADIATION OF ACOUSTICALLY DIVERSE HAWAIIAN CRICKETS (GRYLLIDAE: TRIGONIDIINAE: LAUPALA)

Abstract Understanding the origin and maintenance of barriers to gene exchange is a central goal of speciation research. Hawaiian swordtail crickets (genus Laupala) represent one of the most rapidly speciating animal groups yet identified. Extensive acoustic diversity, strong premating isolation, and female preference for conspecific acoustic signals in laboratory phonotaxis trials have strongly supported divergence in mate recognition as the driving force behind the explosive speciation seen in this system. However, recent work has shown that female preference for conspecific male calling song does not extend to mate choice at close range among these crickets, leading to the hypothesis that additional sexual signals are involved in mate recognition and premating isolation. Here we examine patterns of variation in cuticular lipids among several species of Laupala from Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii. Results demonstrate (1) a rapid and dramatic evolution of cuticular lipid composition among species in this genus, (2) significant differences among males and females in cuticular lipid composition, and (3) a significant reduction in the complexity of cuticular lipid profiles in species from the Big Island of Hawaii as compared to two outgroup species from Maui. These results suggest that behavioral barriers to gene exchange in Laupala may be composed of multiple mate recognition signals, a pattern common in other cricket species.
On the Robust Measurement of Inflectional Diversity

Lexical diversity measures are notoriously sensitive to variations of sample size and recent approaches to this issue typically involve the computation of the average variety of lexical units in random subsamples of fixed size. This methodology has been further extended to measures of inflectional diversity such as the average number of wordforms per lexeme, also known as the mean size of paradigm (MSP) index. In this contribution we argue that, while random sampling can indeed be used to increase the robustness of inflectional diversity measures, using a fixed subsample size is only justified under the hypothesis that the corpora that we compare have the same degree of lexematic diversity. In the more general case where they may have differing degrees of lexematic diversity, a more sophisticated strategy can and should be adopted. A novel approach to the measurement of inflectional diversity is proposed, aiming to cope not only with variations of sample size, but also with variations of lexematic diversity. The robustness of this new method is empirically assessed and the results show that while there is still room for improvement, the proposed methodology considerably attenuates the impact of lexematic diversity discrepancies on the measurement of inflectional diversity.
Tensor Similarity in Two Modes

Multiway datasets are widespread in signal processing and play an important role in blind signal separation, array processing, and biomedical signal processing, among others. One key strength of tensors is that their decompositions are unique under mild conditions, which allows the recovery of features or source signals. In several applications, such as classification, we wish to compare factor matrices of the decompositions. Though this is possible by first computing the tensor decompositions and subsequently comparing the factors, these decompositions are often computationally expensive. In this paper, we present a similarity method that indicates whether the factors in two modes are essentially equal without explicitly computing them. Essential equality conditions, which ensure the theoretical validity of our approach, are provided for various underlying tensor decompositions. The developed algorithm provides a computationally efficient way to compare factors. The method is illustrated in a context of emitter movement detection and fluorescence data analysis.
Dynamic cerebral autoregulation during brain activation paradigms.

Dynamic cerebral autoregulation (CA) describes the transient response of cerebral blood flow (CBF) to rapid changes in arterial blood pressure (ABP). We tested the hypothesis that the efficiency of dynamic CA is increased by brain activation paradigms designed to induce hemispheric lateralization. CBF velocity [CBFV; bilateral, middle cerebral artery (MCA)], ABP, ECG, and end-tidal Pco(2) were continuously recorded in 14 right-handed healthy subjects (21-43 yr of age), in the seated position, at rest and during 10 repeated presentations (30 s on-off) of a word generation test and a constructional puzzle. Nonstationarities were not found during rest or activation. Transfer function analysis of the ABP-CBFV (i.e., input-output) relation was performed for the 10 separate 51.2-s segments of data during activation and compared with baseline data. During activation, the coherence function below 0.05 Hz was significantly increased for the right MCA recordings for the puzzle tasks compared with baseline values (0.36 +/- 0.16 vs. 0.26 +/- 0.13, P < 0.05) and for the left MCA recordings for the word paradigm (0.48 +/- 0.23 vs. 0.29 +/- 0.16, P < 0.05). In the same frequency range, significant increases in gain were observed during the puzzle paradigm for the right (0.69 +/- 0.37 vs. 0.46 +/- 0.32 cm.s(-1). mmHg(-1), P < 0.05) and left (0.61 +/- 0.29 vs. 0.45 +/- 0.24 cm.s(-1). mmHg(-1), P < 0.05) hemispheres and during the word tasks for the left hemisphere (0.66 +/- 0.31 vs. 0.39 +/- 0.15 cm.s(-1). mmHg(-1), P < 0.01). Significant reductions in phase were observed during activation with the puzzle task for the right (-0.04 +/- 1.01 vs. 0.80 +/- 0.86 rad, P < 0.01) and left (0.11 +/- 0.81 vs. 0.57 +/- 0.51 rad, P < 0.05) hemispheres and with the word paradigm for the right hemisphere (0.05 +/- 0.87 vs. 0.64 +/- 0.59 rad, P < 0.05). Brain activation also led to changes in the temporal pattern of the CBFV step response. We conclude that transfer function analysis suggests important changes in dynamic CA during mental activation tasks.
Cooperative content delivery for cost minimization in wireless networks

In this paper, cooperative caching based content delivery management is analyzed in wireless networks. The wireless network consists of mobile devices which can download mobile contents (e.g., e-book, multimedia data, Apps etc.) and share these contents with other devices. Each device can download contents from the content provider (CP) via cellular network by paying network infrastructure cost, or receive support from another device via complementary WLAN or WPAN. In this paper, a cluster-based cooperative content delivery structure in wireless networks is proposed, and the cooperative caching scheme is analyzed to reduce the content delivery cost of each wireless devices.
Intervention effects on foster parent stress: Associations with child cortisol levels

Abstract Foster children exhibit high rates of atypical neuroendocrine functioning compared to children in the general population. In particular, alterations in the daytime diurnal activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis have been observed in foster children, often characterized by blunted salivary cortisol levels (i.e., low morning levels that remain low throughout the day). There is emerging evidence that therapeutic interventions for foster children can affect this pattern of HPA axis activity, but the specific intervention components responsible for change have not been fully explicated. Within a randomized trial to evaluate a therapeutic intervention for foster preschoolers (n = 57 intervention condition; n = 60 comparison condition; n = 60 community comparison condition), the present study examined whether diurnal cortisol activity was associated with caregiver self-reported stress in response to child problem behavior. Results showed immediate reductions in caregiver stress that were sustained through 12 months postbaseline in the intervention condition. In contrast, caregivers in the regular foster care condition showed higher rates of stress across time and increased stress sensitivity to child problem behaviors. In addition, among caregivers in regular foster care, higher self-reported stress was associated with lower morning cortisol levels and more blunted diurnal cortisol activity. These results provide evidence that interventions can simultaneously impact caregiver stress and buffer children from the negative impacts of caregiver stress on HPA axis regulation.