Abstract This paper examined the opinions of academic staff of the University of Ibadan Nigeria regarding the preparedness of stakeholders of e-learning in Nigeria for fruitful e-learning experience and action in Nigerian universities. Data was collected from 240 lecturers using a questionnaire. The lecturers considered e-learning as an add-on, as they expressed inability to integrate e-learning into their present task and do not even have the time to do so. Lecturers’ assessment...
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Abstract Pneumothorax in newborns can be life-threatening. The traditional treatment of pneumothorax is chest drain placement. Recently, modified pigtail catheter has been proposed as a less traumatic approach despite limited experience in infants. To compare the effectiveness and safety of pigtail catheters versus traditional straight chest drains in term and preterm infants with pneumothorax, in two tertiary neonatal units: Policlinico Hospital in Bari, IT and John Radcliffe...
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Abstract Tick-borne rickettsioses, most of them belonging to the spotted fever group (SFG), have been recognized as important emerging vector-borne zoonotic diseases. In order to determine the presence of Rickettsia spp. in questing ticks from north-western Spain, 1056 Ixodes ricinus, 19 Dermacentor marginatus, 17 Dermacentor reticulatus and one Ixodes acuminatus were processed. Rickettsia DNA was detected by PCR targeting rOmpA and rOmpB genes. A total of 219 (20.7%) I. ricinus,...
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Abstract We report on measurements and analysis of telegraph noise of acoustoelectric current induced the surface acoustic waves-based single-electron-transport devices at 1.7 K. Trapping and detrapping electrons in the defect are considered as the physical origin of random telegraph noise. A theoretical model is designed by regarding the impurity potential as the coulomb potential of point charge. And the transitions of different metastable states in the course of measuring current...
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Abstract Background Lynch syndrome (LS) is associated with germline mutations in one of the mismatch repair genes or EPCAM. The majority of the causative alterations are point mutations. Large genomic rearrangements represent only 5–20%. Hypothetically, the allelic imbalance, like the loss of heterozygosity, may be another high penetrance risk factor. Case presentation ...
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Abstract The production possibility of squash puree-containing edible sheet and its improvement by different hydrocolloids were studied. In this study, two hydrocolloids [carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) and tragacanth gum] and also one plasticizer (glycerol) were used to produce squash puree-based edible sheets and optimization was performed to produce an edible sheet sample with the optimum properties. The results revealed that the CMC increased the tensile strength, elongation,...
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Abstract Recent studies suggest that valuing happiness is associated with negative psychological health outcomes, including increased depression, in US samples. We aimed to replicate these associations in two studies at a UK university (Nstudy one = 151, and Nstudy two = 299). Importantly, we also investigated the role of emotional attentional control and habitual emotion regulation in the relationship between valuing happiness and depression. In both studies, we found that valuing...
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Abstract Motivational interviewing (MI) is an effective means of facilitating behavior change in a variety of health conditions. However, given its origins in western psychology, its utility in ethnic populations is unclear. Our objective was to examine the effectiveness of MI and its components in people of varying ethnicities and how they may experience MI. We undertook a narrative systematic review of the literature, searching only peer-reviewed research up until February, 2019...
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Abstract Composite scaffolds can improve regenerative capacities of scaffolds in various tissue-engineering approaches. In order to generate a 3D printable scaffold that is capable of cartilage regeneration, decellularized extracellular matrix (DECM) of porcine nasal cartilage was added to 3D printed polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds. Subsequently, scaffolds (PCL, PCL/DECM and DECM) were seeded with human primary nasoseptal chondrocytes and differentiated with cartilage inductive...
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Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine the intra-individual variation of heart rate variability (HRV) and heart rate using an orthostatic challenge in elite male athletes during a training camp. Heart rate (variability) was measured upon waking. Log-transformed HRV metrics were evaluated in three segments (first min discarded for stabilization): 0–3 min supine, 3–6 min supine, and standing. Heart rate was assessed while supine, 15 s after standing and average final...
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Abstract Purpose In most industrialized countries, the share of workers in the age 55+ age group is increasing while there is a shortage of young workers. Although data suggest that at least one in five older workers suffers from chronic musculoskeletal pain, most will continue working despite pain. The objective of this study is to explore factors associated with staying at work for workers with musculoskeletal pain. Methods An interpretive descriptive method was used. Semi-structured...
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Abstract Background Whilst the ergogenic effects of carbohydrate intake during prolonged exercise are well-documented, few investigations have studied the effects of carbohydrate ingestion during cross-country skiing, a mode of exercise that presents unique metabolic demands on athletes due to the combined use of large upper- and lower-body muscle masses. Moreover, no previous studies have investigated exogenous carbohydrate oxidation...
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Abstract Objective To estimate the maternity-related cost of health care services in women with and without severe maternal morbidity (SMM). Methods Women with a live inpatient birth in the calendar year 2013 were identified in the MarketScan® Commercial and Medicaid health insurance claims databases. Costs were defined as the amounts paid by insurers plus...
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Abstract The scarcity of the servers to cater to the demands of the traffic is one of the most important tasks of load balancing (LB). The increasing number of users at the same point of time does not provide enough room for all users. To provide a solution to this problem, the servers formulate a queue where the users are buffered for a period of time before they get connected to the further servers. If the requests are extremely high, then the load balancer completely aborts...
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Surface EMGs and activity of 73 single motor units (MUs) of the m. triceps brachii caput laterale (TBcl) and 25 units of the m. biceps brachii caput longum (BBcl) were recorded in five adults during unloading within the ramp phase of the isotorque ramp-and-hold movements in the elbow joint (“movement” task) and during maintaining of a certain position (“position control” task). Analysis of the surface EMGs showed that patterns of the MU responses to unloading in different motor tasks are dissimilar....
Psychophysiological sensing of pain is formed due to the activity of a number of neuronal mechanisms. Among the pain-related processes, nociception per se, peripheral sensitization, synaptic plasticity, central sensitization, forming of abnormal excitability, structural reorganization in the respective neuronal networks, modulation of recurrent suppression, and a few other phenomena/processes can be mentioned. Nociception includes the processes of transduction, transmission, spreading, and perception...
One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is extracellular deposition of amyloid-β peptides, particularly in the hippocampus. Despite the antioxidant properties of taurine, its neuroprotective potential against amyloid-β accumulation in scopolamine-induced AD model remain unclear. In such a model, we aimed to assess the effects of taurine on passive avoidance memory impairment, accumulation of congophilic amyloid-β plaques, and neuronal density in the rat hippocampus. Rats, except the control...
The paradigm of brain ischemic preconditioning (BIP) rendering protection from succeeding chemical insults has not been established in vivo. Systemic administration of 3-nitropropionic acid (3-NP) damages cerebral basal ganglia by inducing a mitochondrial dysfunction: this serves as a translational model for Huntington’s disease. We tested the potential of BIP against the neurotoxic effects of 3-NP and investigated the role of glycogen synthase kinase 3-beta (GSK-3β) and heat shock protein-72 (HSP72)...
Surface EMG (sEMG) signals along with pattern recognition algorithms demonstrate a significant potential to identify and predict human motor activity. We propose a single-channel sEMG signalbased continuous locomotion identification method using a simple classifier. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated for three daily-life locomotion modes on a dataset of 15 subjects. A ranking-based feature selection method was applied to optimize the feature vector. The performance of the proposed...
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Abstract Background The sleeve gastrectomy (SG) has gained popularity which has resulted in a rising number of patients with T2DM to undergo this procedure. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to compare the long-term effects of SG on T2DM remission with remission seen after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) or gastric banding (GB). Methods A literature...
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Abstract Background Neutral lipid storage disease with myopathy (NLSDM) is a rare clinical heterogeneous disorder caused by mutations in the patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing 2 (PNPLA2) gene. NLSDM usually presents skeletal myopathy, cardiomyopathy and the multiple organs dysfunction. Around 50 cases of NLSDM have been described worldwide, whereas the comprehensive understanding of this disease are still limited. We therefore...
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Abstract Background Despite their shared origins, medicine and dentistry are not always two sides of the same coin. There is a long history in medical philosophy of defining disease and various medical models have come into existence. Hitherto, little philosophical and phenomenological work has been done considering dental caries and periodontitis as examples of disease and illness. ...
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Abstract Introduction Oral glucocorticoids (GC) have been the mainstay of treatment for giant cell arteritis (GCA). We estimated the risk and dose–effect relationship of potential GC-related adverse events (AEs) in patients with GCA. Methods This retrospective, observational cohort study utilized data from the IBM Explorys Electronic Health Records database...
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Abstract In this paper, we present a short review of some well-known image codecs in the literature and summarize a systematic study that determines the root cause of some puzzling observations in image compression experiments. Moreover, we propose a methodology to determine whether an image is genuine or not, meaning that whether or not a given image has been compressed and decompressed before and by which codec. In image compression class projects, students may observe some strange...
Abstract In order to effectively evaluate the quality of stereoscopic images, we propose a no-reference stereoscopic image quality assessment (SIQA) method. Firstly, considering the characteristics of binocular fusion, binocular rivalry, and binocular suppression of human visual system, we propose a new color cyclopean image which is suitable for symmetric and asymmetric distortion images. And then, based on the importance of the disparity map, the enhanced image is generated...
Abstract Multi-level thresholding is one of the most popular techniques in image segmentation. However, selecting the optimal thresholds with high accuracy and efficiency is still challenging. In this paper, a novel multi-level thresholding method using between-class variance (Otsu) based on an improved invasive weed optimization algorithm (FIWO) is proposed. In the FIWO algorithm, the forking technique of the lightning search algorithm is introduced to guarantee the quality of...
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Abstract Studies in the U.S. and Mexico have observed the clustering of food resources around schools, which may promote the use of these resources. Our study characterized and compared school neighborhood food environments in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Houston, Texas, and examined socioeconomic disparities in food resource availability across school neighborhoods. We used the Goods and Services Inventory to document the frequency and type of resources within each school neighborhood....
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Abstract Background Treatment of bipolar disorder (BD) usually requires drug combinations. Combinations of lithium plus valproic acid (Li/VPA) and lithium plus carbamazepine (Li/CBZ) are used in clinical practice but were not previously compared in a head-to-head trial. Objective The objective of this trial was to compare the efficacy and tolerability...
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Abstract Two-dimensional HPLC (2D-HPLC) recently has received great attention due to providing high resolving power and higher peak capacities than that of 1D-HPLC, especially dealing with a wide spectrum of sample matrices containing several components. In this work, an on-line heart-cutting two-dimensional liquid chromatography (2D-LC) method was developed using monolithic columns coupled with reversed-phase liquid chromatography (RPLC). 2D-HPLC was successfully carried out...
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Abstract Considering the great importance of Ramsar Site for biodiversity, we measured the invasibility - the habitat characteristic that refers to the susceptibility to invasions, in six Ramsar Sites of the southern part of the Pannonian Plain. We selected 18 invasive neophytes of different life forms, due to their different habitat preferences, to cover as many habitat types as possible. We made 669 plots during the period 2011-2015, in which at least one target invasive taxa...
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Publication date: January 2020Source: Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Volume 65Author(s): Saeed Jerban, Eric Y. Chang, Jiang DuAbstractOsteoarthritis (OA) is a very common disease that affects the human knee joint, particularly the articular cartilage and meniscus components which are regularly under compressive mechanical loads. Early-stage OA diagnosis is essential as it allows for timely intervention. The primary non-invasive approaches currently available for OA diagnosis include magnetic resonance...
Publication date: January 2020Source: Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Volume 65Author(s): Ponnada A. Narayana, Ivan Coronado, Sheeba J. Sujit, Xiaojun Sun, Jerry S. Wolinsky, Refaat E. GabrAbstractBackgroundMagnetic resonance images with multiple contrasts or sequences are commonly used for segmenting brain tissues, including lesions, in multiple sclerosis (MS). However, acquisition of images with multiple contrasts increases the scan time and complexity of the analysis, possibly introducing factors...
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Purpose The objective of this study is to evaluate the suitability and performance of ultra‐short echo time (UTE) sequences for imaging and quantifying the deposition of nebulized MRI contrast agents in human‐sized lungs. Methods Nebulization of clinically used contrast agent or gadolinium‐based nanoparticles were performed using a commercial jet nebulizer in isolated and ventilated porcine lungs connected to a 3D‐printed human upper airways replica. MR images of isolated lungs were acquired...
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Publication date: Available online 25 October 2019Source: Archives des Maladies Professionnelles et de l'EnvironnementAuthor(s):
Publication date: Available online 25 October 2019Source: Archives des Maladies Professionnelles et de l'EnvironnementAuthor(s): L.J. Owona Manga, P. Ayelo, S.H. Mandengue, V.P. Djientcheu, S.A. Tassin Foguem, B. Wognin SangahRésuméIntroductionL’accident vasculaire cérébral est un problème majeur de santé publique en Afrique et dans le monde. C’est la 1re cause de handicap moteur acquis et la 2e cause de démence chez l’adulte. Ces conséquences et séquelles des AVC posent le problème du devenir professionnel...
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Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic, polygenic, and multifactorial syndrome characterized by erosive polyarthritis, damage to joint architecture, and presence of autoantibodies against several self-structures in the serum and synovial fluid. These autoantibodies (anticitrullinated protein/peptide antibodies (ACPAs), rheumatoid factors (RF), anticollagen type II antibodies, antiglucose-6 phosphate isomerase antibodies, anticarbamylated protein antibodies, and antiacetylated protein antibodies) have...
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Publication date: Available online 25 October 2019Source: Medical Image AnalysisAuthor(s): Gongning Luo, Suyu Dong, Wei Wang, Kuanquan Wang, Shaodong Cao, Clara Tam, Henggui Zhang, Joanne Howey, Pavlo Ohorodnyk, Shuo LiAbstractAccurate and automated cardiac bi-ventricle quantification based on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) image is a very crucial procedure for clinical cardiac disease diagnosis. Two traditional and commensal tasks, i.e., bi-ventricle segmentation and direct ventricle function...
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