Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pain management following discharge after ambulatory same-day surgery.

AIM AND BACKGROUND Same-day surgeries are becoming routine for many surgical procedures. However, the degree to which patients need help with pain management at home following laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC), shoulder, or hand ambulatory day surgery has received minimal examination. This study examined pain and related interference, analgesic use and adverse events, complications and resources utilized, and adequacy of postdischarge information at four time periods. METHODS Data were collected from 180 patients by telephone interviews at 24, 48 and 72 hours, and 7 days after discharge. Patients (n = 78 hand, 48 shoulder, 54 LC surgery) were on average 41 years old. RESULTS For all patients, worst 24-hour pain was reported as moderate to severe at all time periods. Using repeated measures anova demonstrated that shoulder patients had significantly more pain and overall pain-related interference, particularly in sleep and work, from 24 hours to day 7 than did hand or LC patients. The main analgesic taken was acetaminophen (paracetamol) with codeine 30 mg; 50% took no analgesia from 72 hours. About 20% experienced analgesic adverse events within 72 hours, mainly constipation and nausea. Only </=6% used non-pharmacological strategies. Bleeding (4%) and sore throat (11%) at 24-48 hours were identified as complications; six patients (4%) called their physician. Most patients received no information about analgesic use with inadequate pain relief and/or adverse events. CONCLUSIONS Despite the considerable pain reported across all time periods, analgesic use and other interventions were minimal. Adverse events, which were problematic for some, may explain why patients stopped analgesics despite pain. These data support further research on more effective pain interventions and related education for day-surgery patients after discharge.
Temporal interval pattern languages to characterize time flow

Knowledge discovery from temporal data (e.g., time series) is among the most challenging problems in data mining. Compared to static representations like rules or decision trees, the temporal component greatly increases the pattern diversity. It is important to keep the human perception of time flow in mind when representing temporal patterns, otherwise we open the floodgates to misinterpretation and misconception. This article gives an overview of temporal interval patterns, which are considered as being a well‐suited mechanism of knowledge representation, and focusses on the various pattern representation languages. Four typical phenomena in temporal data, and how the pattern languages can cope with them, are discussed. Given the domain knowledge, this provides the reader some guidance on which pattern language may be best‐suited for a given application. WIREs Data Mining Knowl Discov 2014, 4:196–212. doi: 10.1002/widm.1122
Dilution Under Section 43(c) of The Lanham Act

Because famous trademarks are widely recognized by consumers, they are likely victims of several types of actionable harm, including confusion, dilution, tarnishment, and other injuries based on damage to brand equity. In recognition of the value of famous trademarks and the need for comprehensive federal protection, in 1946, Congress passed the Federal Trademark Act, known as the Lanham Act. ' In its original form, the Lanham Act protected trademarks by prohibiting a broad array of conduct likely to cause confusion, deception, or mistake in the marketplace, but the act did not prohibit the "dilution" of a mark.2 It thus excluded injuries caused by a blurring of the distinctiveness of a mark or tarnishment of the positive images associated with that mark. The failure of federal law to fully protect the goodwill and the positive and exclusive associations developed by the trademark owner led twenty-seven states to enact dilution statutes. On January 16, 1996, the void in federal protection was filled when President Clinton signed into law the Federal Trademark Dilution Act of 1995,' which creates section 43(c) of the Lanham Act. Section 43(c) represents federal recognition of the dilution doctrine and the corresponding need to protect the goodwill embodied in the distinctiveness and commercial magnetism of well-known marks. 4 Traditionally, the dilution doctrine targets two types of harm. First, the doctrine prevents use of a mark that causes the "blurring" or "whittling away" of the distinctive quality of a mark. This facet of the doctrine protects the ability of established marks to "evoke among prospective purchasers a positive
Variable selection for financial distress classification using a genetic algorithm

This paper is concerned with the use of a genetic algorithm to select financial ratios for corporate distress classification models. For this purpose, the fitness value associated to a set of ratios is made to reflect the requirements of maximizing the amount of information available for the model and minimizing the collinearity between the model inputs. A case study involving 60 failed and continuing British firms in the period 1997-2000 is used for illustration. The classification model based on ratios selected by the genetic algorithm compares favorably with a model employing ratios usually found in the financial distress literature.
Polylactic acid for surgical implants

LACTIC acid in its racemic or optically active form can undergo acid catalyzed homopolymerization to yield a polymer of lower molecular weight, which is not suitable for plastic or fibers.1However, the cyclic diester, the lactide2of lactic acid, can polymerize by anionic ring opening addition mechanism under the influence of catalysts to a high polymer, which can be cast into strong films or spun into fibers3-6comparable to the industrial polyesters like dacron. This property, and in addition, the possibility of this polyester undergoing hydrolytic de-esterification finally to the lactic acid, which is a normal intermediate in the lactic acid cycle of the carbohydrate metabolism, make this a highly interesting product as a synthetic surgical repair material possibly for vascular grafts and sutures. Moreover, the material is expected to elicit no immunological response due to the absence of peptide linkages. No literature references, however, are available
Methods to define and locate patterns of motifs in sequences

A method to define and search for complex patterns of motifs in nucleic acid and protein sequences is described. With this method nucleic acid motifs can be defined in eight different ways and protein motifs in six. A pattern is defined by a list of motifs. The motifs in a list are combined using the logical operators AND, OR and NOT. The list also defines the ranges of allowed separations of the motifs in the pattern. Programs to search for patterns in individual sequences and libraries of sequences are described. Patterns are defined by users and stored as annotated disk files. Hence the programming to define and locate new structures can be performed by users and fewer specific novel algorithms should be required. Examples are given of searches for transcription initiation regions, nematode mitochondrial tRNA genes and for members of the globin sequence family.
Essential Role of CARD14 in Murine Experimental Psoriasis

Caspase recruitment domain family member 14 (CARD14) was recently identified as a psoriasis-susceptibility gene, but its immunological role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis in vivo remains unclear. In this study, we examined the role of CARD14 in murine experimental models of psoriasis induced by either imiquimod (IMQ) cream or recombinant IL-23 injection. In all models tested, the psoriasiform skin inflammation was abrogated in Card14−/− mice. Comparison of the early gene signature of the skin between IMQ-cream–treated Card14−/− mice and Tlr7−/−Tlr9−/− mice revealed not only their similarity, but also distinct gene sets targeted by IL-23. Cell type–specific analysis of these mice identified skin Langerinhigh Langerhans cells as a potent producer of IL-23, which was dependent on both TLR7 and TLR9 but independent of CARD14, suggesting that CARD14 is acting downstream of IL-23, not TLR7 or TLR9. Instead, a bone marrow chimera study suggested that CARD14 in radio-sensitive hematopoietic cells was required for IMQ-induced psoriasiform skin inflammation, controlling the number of Vγ4+ T cells producing IL-17 or IL-22 infiltrating through the dermis to the inflamed epidermis. These data indicate that CARD14 is essential and a potential therapeutic target for psoriasis.
Cardiac beat-to-beat alternations driven by unusual spiral waves

Alternans, a beat-to-beat temporal alternation in the sequence of heartbeats, is a known precursor of the development of cardiac fibrillation, leading to sudden cardiac death. The equally important precursor of cardiac arrhythmias is the rotating spiral wave of electro-mechanical activity, or reentry, on the heart tissue. Here, we show that these two seemingly different phenomena can have a remarkable relationship. In well controlled in vitro tissue cultures, isotropic populations of rat ventricular myocytes sustaining a temporal rhythm of alternans can support period-2 oscillatory reentries and vice versa. These reentries bear “line defects” across which the phase of local excitation slips rather abruptly by 2π, when a full period-2 cycle of alternans completes in 4π. In other words, the cells belonging to the line defects are period-1 oscillatory, whereas all of the others in the bulk medium are period-2 oscillatory. We also find that a slowly rotating line defect results in a quasi-periodic like oscillation in the bulk medium. Some key features of these phenomena can be well reproduced in computer simulations of a nonlinear reaction-diffusion model.
Unsupervised learning of DNA sequence features using a convolutional restricted Boltzmann machine

Transcription factors (TFs) are important contributors to gene regulation. They specifically bind to short DNA stretches known as transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs), which are contained in regulatory regions (e.g. promoters), and thereby influence a target gene’s expression level. Computational biology has contributed substantially to understanding regulatory regions by developing numerous tools, including for discovering de novo motif. While those tools primarily focus on determining and studying TFBSs, the surrounding sequence context is often given less attention. In this paper, we attempt to fill this gap by adopting a so-called convolutional restricted Boltzmann machine (cRBM) that captures redundant features from the DNA sequences. The model uses an unsupervised learning approach to derive a rich, yet interpretable, description of the entire sequence context. We evaluated the cRBM on a range of publicly available ChIP-seq peak regions and investigated its capability to summarize heterogeneous sets of regulatory sequences in comparison with MEME-Chip, a popular motif discovery tool. In summary, our method yields a considerably more accurate description of the sequence composition than MEME-Chip, providing both a summary of strong TF motifs as well as subtle low-complexity features.
Decoding subjective preference from single-trial near-infrared spectroscopy signals

Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has recently been identified as a safe, portable and relatively low-cost signal acquisition tool for non-invasive brain–computer interface (BCI) development. The ultimate goal of BCI research is for the user to be able to communicate functional intent directly through thoughts. In this paper we propose an NIRS-BCI paradigm based on directly decoding neural correlates of decision making, specifically subjective preference evaluation. Nine subjects were asked to mentally evaluate two possible drinks and decide which they preferred. Frequency domain near-infrared spectroscopy was used to image each subject's prefrontal cortex during the task. Using mean signal amplitudes as features and linear discriminant analysis, we were able to decode which drink was preferred on a single-trial basis with an average accuracy of 80%.
Efficient I/O of grid hierarchies for AMR computations on parallel disks

Adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is a promising computational approach that investigates a scientific problem using grids of different resolutions in different portions of the problem space. This allows the more "interesting" areas of the problem space to be investigated in more detail than other areas. We present efficient ways for AMR-type applications to do input/output on the IBM SP2. We propose a disk layout that minimizes I/O costs for checkpoint/restart operations and investigate several allocation approaches to decluster grid data to multiple disks to enhance I/O parallelism for timestep/visualization operations. The experiments on the SP2 show that our strategies can help to shorten the I/O time to meet the performance requirements of the two types of I/O operations.
Polymorphism of GRIK1 gene in alcholics

Glutamat, glavni ekscitacijski neurotransmitor u mozgu, ima znacajnu ulogu u posredovanju ucinaka alkohola i razvoju alkoholizma. Od svih glutamatnih receptora, kainatni receptori kao i njihova uloga u alkoholizmu, do sada su najmanje istraženi. Jedan od gena za glutamatne receptore za koji se utvrdila povezanost s alkoholizmom je gen GRIK1 koji kodira za podjedinicu GluR5 kainatnih receptora. Iako istraživanja pokazuju da pojedini polimorfizmi u genu GRIK1 znacajno utjecu na djelovanje topiramata, lijeka ucinkovitog u lijecenju alkoholizma, potrebne su daljnje studije. Cilj istraživanja bio je istražiti postoji li povezanost polimorfizma rs2186305 u genu GRIK1 i alkoholizma u ispitanika hrvatskog podrijetla. Ucestalost pojedinih genotipova i alela gena GRIK1 uspoređena je između alkoholicara i zdravih ispitanika, razlicitog spola i pusackog statusa. Istražila se je i raspodjela genotipova i alela polimorfizma rs2186305 u skupinama alkoholicara podijeljenih s obzirom na dob pocetka zlouporabe alkohola, suicidalno i agresivno ponasanje, kao i na tip alkoholizma prema Cloningeru. Haplotipska analiza polimorfizma rs2186305 u kombinaciji s polimorfizmom rs2832407 napravljena je u zdravih osoba, kao i u osoba ovisnih o alkoholu. Dobiveni rezultati trebali bi pridonijeti boljem razumijevanju uloge gena koji kodira za podjedinicu GluR5 glutamatnih kainatnih receptora u razvoju alkoholizma, te doprinijeti istraživanjima novih potencijalnih ciljeva u lijecenju ove kronicne bolesti.
Considering the Pedophile Subculture Online

The development of the Internet and computer-mediated communications has fostered the growth of a wide range of deviant sexual behaviors along with deviant subcultures that support and approve of these behaviors. Some of these practices pose little risk to public safety, though acts such as pedophilia and the creation and distribution of child pornography have significant negative ramifications for victims. A growing literature has examined the function of the Internet for child pornography distribution, social networks of pedophiles, and tactics of child solicitation. Few, however, have explored the utility of the Internet to develop a subculture of pedophiles and its role in fostering attitudes and justifications for relationships with children. This study will explore the subcultural norms and enculturation of the pedophile community using a qualitative analysis of five Web forums run by and for pedophiles. The findings suggest that the values of the pedophile culture support and encourage emotional and, in some cases, sexual relationships with boys and girls in virtual and real settings. Implications for the study of pedophiles and the role of the Internet are explored.
Discovery of the twisted-wing parasite family Myrmecolacidae (Insecta: Strepsiptera) from China, with description of two new species of the genus Myrmecolax Westwood, 1861.

The twisted-wing parasite family Myrmecolacidae is recorded from China for the first time based on the discovery of the genus Myrmecolax Saunders. Two species of Myrmecolax are described as new to science, Myrmecolax pachygnathus sp. nov. and Myrmecolax arcuatus sp. nov.
WindowGuard: Systematic Protection of GUI Security in Android

Android graphic user interface (GUI) system plays an important role in rendering app GUIs on display and interacting with users. However, the security of this critical subsystem remains under-investigated. In fact, Android GUI has been plagued by a variety of GUI attacks in recent years. GUI attack refers to any harmful behavior that attempts to adversely affect the integrity or availability of the GUIs belonging to other apps. These attacks are real threats and can cause severe consequences, such as sensitive user information leakage, user device denial of service, etc. Given the seriousness and rapid growth of GUI attacks, we are in a pressing need for a comprehensive defense solution. Nevertheless, existing defense methods fall short in defense coverage, effectiveness and practicality. To overcome these challenges, we systematically scrutinize the security implications of Android GUI system design and propose a new security model, Android Window Integrity (AWI), to comprehensively protect the system against GUI attacks. The AWI model defines the user session to be protected and the legitimacy of GUI system states in the unique mobile GUI environment. By doing so, it can protect a normal user session against arbitrary manipulation by attackers, and still preserve the original user experience. Our implementation, WindowGuard, enforces the AWI model and responds to a suspicious behavior by briefing the user about a security event and asking for the final decision from the user. This design not only improves the detection accuracy, but also makes WindowGuard more usable and practical to meet diverse user needs. WindowGuard is implemented as an Xposed module, making it practical to be quickly deployed on a large number of user devices. Our evaluation shows that WindowGuard can successfully detect all known GUI attacks, while yielding small impacts on user experience and system performance.
Correlation between sperm creatine phosphokinase activity and sperm concentrations in normospermic and oligospermic men.

Toward the development of biochemical probes for the assessment of sperm function we have measured the activities of sperm creatine-N-phosphotransferase (CPK). There was a highly significant inverse correlation (P less than 0.001 in all comparisons) between sperm CPK activities and sperm concentrations in specimens of normospermic and oligospermic men with greater than 30 million sperm/ml (0.106 +/- 0.01 SEM, N = 90, expressed as CPK U/100 million sperm), 20-30 million sperm/ml (0.333 +/- 0.07 SEM, N = 30) and 10-20 million sperm/ml (0.583 +/- 0.12 SEM, N = 30) when compared with the CPK values of the less than 10 million/ml specimens (2.242 +/- 0.46 SEM, N = 30). Furthermore, the distribution of CPK activities within these four groups showed that 96%, 67%, 43%, and 4% of the samples, respectively, were in the less than 0.250 CPK U/100 million sperm normal range (mean + 2 SD of the greater than 30 million sperm/ml group). However, there was no relationship between sperm CPK activities and the values of sperm motility (P greater than 0.15) or morphology (P = 0.38) in the samples. The migrated sperm fractions (significantly improved in motility and velocity parameters) showed CPK activities lower than the initial semen specimens (P less than 0.01, N = 150). In fact, in some oligospermic men the CPK activities of the migrated sperm fractions were within the range of normospermic samples. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Induction of Mucosal Protection against Primary, Heterologous Simian Immunodeficiency Virus by a DNA Vaccine

ABSTRACT An effective vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) should protect against mucosal transmission of genetically divergent isolates. As a safe alternative to live attenuated vaccines, the immunogenicity and protective efficacy of a DNA vaccine containing simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) strain 17E-Fr (SIV/17E-Fr) gag-pol-env was analyzed in rhesus macaques. Significant levels of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), but low to undetectable serum antibody responses, were observed following multiple immunizations. SIV-specific mucosal antibodies and CTL were also detected in rectal washes and gut-associated lymphoid tissues, respectively. Vaccinated and naive control monkeys were challenged intrarectally with SIV strain DeltaB670 (SIV/DeltaB670), a primary isolate whose env is 15% dissimilar to that of the vaccine strain. Four of seven vaccinees were protected from infection as determined by the inability to identify viral RNA or DNA sequences in the peripheral blood and the absence of anamnestic antibody responses postchallenge. This is the first report of mucosal protection against a primary pathogenic, heterologous isolate of SIV by using a commercially viable vaccine approach. These results support further development of a DNA vaccine for protection against HIV.
Fatal circumstances of human herpesvirus 6 infection: transcriptosome data analysis suggests caution in implicating HHV-6 in the cause of death

Human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6), a T-lymphotropic enveloped double stranded DNA virus of the Herpesviridae family, can be divided into two major variants, designated A and B. The B variant is associated with exanthema subitum (roseola infantum, 6th disease), characterised by fever and lymphadenopathy, followed or not by a maculo-papular rash primarily on the neck and trunk. HHV-6, however, is also an important opportunistic agent in patients with impaired immune systems. In recent years, increased antibody titres and positive amplification of the viral genome by PCR have been shown in chronic fatigue syndrome, lymphoproliferative diseases, autoimmune thyroiditis, Sjogren syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and sarcoidosis.1 Complications of primary infection in infancy and childhood and simultaneous occurrence of sudden death or short-term mortality include pneumonitis, hepatosplenomegaly, fulminant hepatitis, aseptic meningitis, intussusception, thrombocytopenic purpura, fatal haemophagocytic syndrome, and disseminated infection.2–4 However, the aetiological contribution of the virus in fatal cases is still debated and the presence of HHV-6 in a latent status supports the possibility that viral DNA may be amplified in tissue without clinical signs for any of the related diseases. In order to examine the relationship of causality between HHV-6 infection and mortality in infants and children, we investigated HHV-6 infection in four children, who died suddenly or shortly after hospital admission. Case 1 is a female baby (body weight 2580 g, body length 47 cm) born by vaginal delivery following 37 weeks’ gestation (Apgar 7/8/9). There was a history of twin pregnancy, with death of the co-twin in the 16th week of gestation and tocolysis from the 24th week of gestation. Following rupture of the membranes, the amniotic liquid was green. Leucocytosis (40 200/µl), thrombocytopenia (14 000/µl), and C-reactive protein of 1.1 mg/dl were found. Antibiotic therapy (penicillin and claforan) was started. She fed orally and became stabile. …
Vigilancia de la gripe en España.Resumen de la temporada 2007-2008

La gripe constituye un importante problema de salud publica en el mundo. Las epidemias estacionales anuales de gripe estan asociadas a una importante tasa de hospitalizaciones y mortalidad1,2, asi como a una considerable demanda de recursos en salud. Otro aspecto importante es la amenaza de un nuevo virus altamente patogenico con elevada capacidad de propagacion, para el que no existe inmunidad previa y por tanto capaz de causar una pandemia de gripe. La vigilancia nacional e internacional de la gripe tiene como objetivo fundamental caracterizar puntualmente los virus gripales circulantes y su difusion entre la poblacion.