Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
One-Dimensional Nanostructure and Sensing Applications: Tin Dioxide Nanowires and Carbon Nanotubes

This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. For more information, please contact pdxscholar@pdx.edu. Recommended Citation Tran, Hoang Anh, "One-Dimensional Nanostructure and Sensing Applications: Tin Dioxide Nanowires and Carbon Nanotubes" (2016). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 2689.
Longitudinal CSF biomarkers in patients with early Parkinson disease and healthy controls

Objective: To analyze longitudinal levels of CSF biomarkers in drug-naive patients with Parkinson disease (PD) and healthy controls (HC), examine the extent to which these biomarker changes relate to clinical measures of PD, and identify what may influence them. Methods: CSF α-synuclein (α-syn), total and phosphorylated tau (t- and p-tau), and β-amyloid 1–42 (Aβ42) were measured at baseline and 6 and 12 months in 173 patients with PD and 112 matched HC in the international multicenter Parkinson's Progression Marker Initiative. Baseline clinical and demographic variables, PD medications, neuroimaging, and genetic variables were evaluated as potential predictors of CSF biomarker changes. Results: CSF biomarkers were stable over 6 and 12 months, and there was a small but significant increase in CSF Aβ42 in both patients with patients with PD and HC from baseline to 12 months. The t-tau remained stable. The p-tau increased marginally more in patients with PD than in HC. α-syn remained relatively stable in patients with PD and HC. Ratios of p-tau/t-tau increased, while t-tau/Aβ42 decreased over 12 months in patients with PD. CSF biomarker changes did not correlate with changes in Movement Disorder Society–sponsored revision of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale motor scores or dopamine imaging. CSF α-syn levels at 12 months were lower in patients with PD treated with dopamine replacement therapy, especially dopamine agonists. Conclusions: These core CSF biomarkers remained stable over 6 and 12 months in patients with early PD and HC. PD medication use may influence CSF α-syn. Novel biomarkers are needed to better profile progressive neurodegeneration in PD.
Radiological comparison of conventional versus modified sauvé–kapandji procedure with stabilization of the proximal ulnar stump using the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon

Abstract The Sauvé–Kapandji procedure is a reliable option for patients with various disorders of the distal radioulnar joint (DRUJ). However, postoperative pain over the proximal ulnar stump frequently develops during forearm rotation or when lifting heavy objects, although many clinically satisfactory results have been reported. This stump pain has been suggested to result from dynamic instability of the proximal ulnar stump. Several types of tenodesis have recently been performed simultaneously with the Sauvé–Kapandji procedure to stabilize the proximal ulnar stump and thus relieve the associated pain. Although satisfactory outcomes of these stabilization procedures have been reported, correlations of the residual symptoms and radiographic findings between the conventional method and the modified method. Additionally, the mechanism of pain relief remains unclear. To elucidate the cause of proximal ulnar stump pain, the clinical results and radiographic changes were compared between 2 treatment groups in which different Sauvé–Kapandji procedures had been performed. Twenty-four wrists with distal radioulnar disorders, all of which had undergone Sauvé–Kapandji procedures, were retrospectively classified into 2 groups according to the procedure. Group A (13 wrists) was treated by the conventional surgical procedure, in which the proximal ulnar stump is not stabilized. Group B (11 wrists) was treated by the modified method, in which the proximal ulnar stump is stabilized by tenodesis with the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon. Wrist pain, proximal ulnar stump pain, ranges of forearm pronation/supination, and grip strength were investigated. The ulnar distance, ulnar gap, interosseous distance, and dorsopalmar distance were measured on both resting and dynamic radiographs. Stump pain was recognized in 6 wrists in group A and 0 in group B. However, no substantial differences in the other clinical findings or 4 radiographic parameters were found between the 2 groups. These findings suggest that stabilization of the proximal ulnar stump cannot correct either dorsal ulnar deviation or dorsal displacement of the radius. Therefore, proximal ulnar stump pain may not be caused by either radial or dorsal deviation of the proximal ulnar stump but instead by other dynamic factors.
Composition or Context: Using Transportability to Understand Drivers of Site Differences in a Large-scale Housing Experiment

Background: The Moving To Opportunity (MTO) experiment manipulated neighborhood context by randomly assigning housing vouchers to volunteers living in public housing to use to move to lower poverty neighborhoods in five US cities. This random assignment overcomes confounding limitations that challenge other neighborhood studies. However, differences in MTO’s effects across the five cities have been largely ignored. Such differences could be due to population composition (e.g., differences in the racial/ethnic distribution) or to context (e.g., differences in the economy). Methods: Using a nonparametric omnibus test and a multiply robust, semiparametric estimator for transportability, we assessed the extent to which differences in individual-level compositional characteristics that may act as effect modifiers can account for differences in MTO’s effects across sites. We examined MTO’s effects on marijuana use, behavioral problems, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder among black and Latino adolescent males, where housing voucher receipt was harmful for health in some sites but beneficial in others. Results: Comparing point estimates, differences in composition partially explained site differences in MTO effects on marijuana use and behavioral problems but did not explain site differences for major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder. Conclusions: Our findings provide quantitative, rigorous evidence for the importance of context or unmeasured individual-level compositional variables in modifying MTO’s effects.
Estimation of erosion, deposition, and net volumetric change caused by the 1996 Skeiðarársandur jökulhlaup, Iceland, from Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry

Using repeat‐pass satellite synthetic aperture radar interferometry, we develop a methodology to measure flood‐induced erosion and deposition and apply it to a record 1996 glacier outburst flood (jökulhlaup) on Skeiðarársandur, Iceland. The procedures include (1) coregistration of backscatter intensity images to observe morphological differences; (2) mapping of interferometric phase correlation to identify preserved and modified surfaces; and (3) construction, correction, and differencing of pre‐jökulhlaup and post‐jökulhlaup topography. Procedures 1 and 2 are robust and should be widely applicable to other fluvial environments, while procedure 3 is complicated by uncertainties in phase measurement, baseline estimate, and atmospheric effects. After a correction procedure involving interpolation of digital elevation model elevation differences across low‐correlation areas, we find ∼4 m of elevation change are required to calculate volumes of erosion or deposition. This condition was satisfied for the 40 km2 proglacial zone of Skeiðarársandur, where we estimate +38×106 m3 of net sediment deposition along the ice margin, −2 ×106 m3 of net erosion in channels downstream, and a total net balance of +13 × 106. These estimates are supported by field observations and survey data collected in 1997.
Interactions of mucins with the Tn or Sialyl Tn cancer antigens including MUC1 are due to GalNAc-GalNAc interactions.

The molecular mechanism(s) underlying the enhanced self-interactions of mucins possessing the Tn (GalNAcα1-Ser/Thr) or STn (NeuNAcα2-6GalNAcα1-Ser/Thr) cancer markers were investigated using optical tweezers (OT). The mucins examined included modified porcine submaxillary mucin containing the Tn epitope (Tn-PSM), ovine submaxillary mucin with the STn epitope (STn-OSM), and recombinant MUC1 analogs with either the Tn and STn epitope. OT experiments in which the mucins were immobilized onto polystyrene beads revealed identical self-interaction characteristics for all mucins. Identical binding strength and energy landscape characteristics were also observed for synthetic polymers displaying multiple GalNAc decorations. Polystyrene beads without immobilized mucins showed no self-interactions and also no interactions with mucin-decorated polystyrene beads. Taken together, the experimental data suggest that in these molecules, the GalNAc residue mediates interactions independent of the anchoring polymer backbone. Furthermore, GalNAc-GalNAc interactions appear to be responsible for self-interactions of mucins decorated with the STn epitope. Hence, Tn-MUC1 and STn-MUC1 undergo self-interactions mediated by the GalNAc residue in both epitopes, suggesting a possible molecular role in cancer. MUC1 possessing the T (Galβ1-3GalNAcα1-Ser/Thr) or ST antigen (NeuNAcα2-3Galβ1-3GalNAcα1-Ser/Thr) failed to show self-interactions. However, in the case of ST-MUC1, self-interactions were observed after subsequent treatment with neuraminidase and β-galactosidase. This enzymatic treatment is expected to introduce Tn-epitopes and these observations thus further strengthen the conclusion that the observed interactions are mediated by the GalNAc groups.
Multiple Drug Transporters Are Involved in Renal Secretion of Entecavir

ABSTRACT Entecavir (ETV) is a first-line antiviral agent for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Renal excretion is the major elimination path of ETV, in which tubular secretion plays the key role. However, the secretion mechanism has not been clarified. We speculated that renal transporters mediated the secretion of ETV. Therefore, the aim of our study was to elucidate which transporters contribute to the renal disposition of ETV. Our results revealed that ETV (50 μM) remarkably reduced the accumulation of probe substrates in MDCK cells stably expressing human multidrug and toxin efflux extrusion proteins (hMATE1/2-K), organic cation transporter 2 (hOCT2), and carnitine/organic cation transporters (hOCTNs) and increased the substrate accumulation in cells transfected with multidrug resistance-associated protein 2 (hMRP2) or multidrug resistance protein 1 (hMDR1). Moreover, ETV was proved to be a substrate of the above-described transporters. In transwell studies, the transport of ETV in MDCK-hOCT2-hMATE1 showed a distinct directionality from BL (hOCT2) to AP (hMATE1), and the cellular accumulation of ETV in cells expressing hMATE1 was dramatically lower than that of the mock-treated cells. The accumulation of ETV in mouse primary renal tubular cells was obviously affected by inhibitors of organic anion transporter 1/3 (Oat1/3), Oct2, Octn1/2, and Mrp2. Therefore, the renal uptake of ETV is likely mediated by OAT1/3 and OCT2 while the efflux is mediated by MATEs, MDR1, and MRP2, and OCTN1/2 may participate in both renal secretion and reabsorption.
Internet of Things and Blockchain: Legal Issues and Privacy. The Challenge for a Privacy Standard

The IoT is innovative and important phenomenon prone to several services ad applications, but it should consider the legal issues related to the data protection law. However, should be taken into account the legal issues related to the data protection and privacy law. Technological solutions are welcome, but it is necessary, before developing applications, to consider the risks which we cannot dismiss. Personal data is a value. In this context is fundamental to evaluate the legal issues and prevent them, adopting in each project the privacy by design approach. Regarding the privacy and security risks, there are some issues with potential consequences for data security and liability. The IoT system allows us to transfer data on the Internet, including personal data. In this context, it is important to consider the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - already in force from 24 May 2016 - that will be applicable on 25 May 2018. The GDPR introduces Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), data breach notification and very hard administrative fines in respect of infringements of the Regulation. A correct law analysis allows evaluating risks preventing the wrong use of personal data. The IoT ecosystem is evolving quickly, developing several applications in different sectors. The main topics for the last time are Big Data and the blockchain. People are paying attention to the latest one because of its potential concrete use for services and applications, increasing the security measures to guarantee a secure system. However, it is equally important to analyse the legal issues related to them. Everyone has the right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her. In this context, we cannot dismiss to guarantee an adequate protection of personal data designing any application. The contribution describes the main legal issues related to privacy and data protection especially regarding the blockchain, focusing on the Privacy by Design approach, according to the GDPR. Furthermore, I resolutely believe that is possible to develop a worldwide privacy standard framework that organisations can use for their data protection activities.
Vehicle Re-Identification by Deep Hidden Multi-View Inference

Vehicle re-identification (re-ID) is an area that has received far less attention in the computer vision community than the prevalent person re-ID. Possible reasons for this slow progress are the lack of appropriate research data and the special 3D structure of a vehicle. Previous works have generally focused on some specific views (e.g., front); but, these methods are less effective in realistic scenarios, where vehicles usually appear in arbitrary views to cameras. In this paper, we focus on the uncertainty of vehicle viewpoint in re-ID, proposing two end-to-end deep architectures: the Spatially Concatenated ConvNet and convolutional neural network (CNN)-LSTM bi-directional loop. Our models exploit the great advantages of the CNN and long short-term memory (LSTM) to learn transformations across different viewpoints of vehicles. Thus, a multi-view vehicle representation containing all viewpoints’ information can be inferred from the only one input view, and then used for learning to measure distance. To verify our models, we also introduce a Toy Car RE-ID data set with images from multiple viewpoints of 200 vehicles. We evaluate our proposed methods on the Toy Car RE-ID data set and the public Multi-View Car, VehicleID, and VeRi data sets. Experimental results illustrate that our models achieve consistent improvements over the state-of-the-art vehicle re-ID approaches.
Pathogen-mediated manipulation of arthropod microbiota to promote infection

Significance The importance of arthropod microbiota in the capacity of pathogens (including malaria and flaviviruses, among others) to persist in vectors and cause infection is just beginning to be appreciated. The influence of pathogens, either directly or indirectly, to manipulate vector microbiota for their own benefit, has not been described. In this study, we demonstrate that a pathogen can use an arthropod molecule to alter vector microbiota and enhance infection. We believe that this work will help others consider that pathogens are not passive microbes when they enter the arthropod vector but actively influence vector gene expression that can manipulate the local environment (in this case the microbiota) and facilitate pathogen infection of the vector. Arthropods transmit diverse infectious agents; however, the ways microbes influence their vector to enhance colonization are poorly understood. Ixodes scapularis ticks harbor numerous human pathogens, including Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis. We now demonstrate that A. phagocytophilum modifies the I. scapularis microbiota to more efficiently infect the tick. A. phagocytophilum induces ticks to express Ixodes scapularis antifreeze glycoprotein (iafgp), which encodes a protein with several properties, including the ability to alter bacterial biofilm formation. IAFGP thereby perturbs the tick gut microbiota, which influences the integrity of the peritrophic matrix and gut barrier—critical obstacles for Anaplasma colonization. Mechanistically, IAFGP binds the terminal d-alanine residue of the pentapeptide chain of bacterial peptidoglycan, resulting in altered permeability and the capacity of bacteria to form biofilms. These data elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which a human pathogen appropriates an arthropod antibacterial protein to alter the gut microbiota and more effectively colonize the vector.
Bolus administration of intravenous lidocaine reduces pain after an elective caesarean section: Findings from a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Abstract We conducted a randomised double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to assess whether a bolus dose of lidocaine during the induction of general anaesthesia would reduce postoperative pain over 24 h. Level of satisfaction with pain control at 48 h after surgery and Apgar score were also examined. A total of 100 women aged 20–35 years, who were candidates for elective caesarean section (CS) were randomised to receive either 1.5 mg/kg lidocaine or placebo during the induction of general anaesthesia. Results showed that lidocaine decreased pain intensity over 24 h after surgery (p < .001), and decreased postoperative morphine consumption from median (range) of 3.79 (0–9) mg in the placebo group to 0 (0–12) mg and in the lidocaine group (p <.001). Lidocaine was not associated with postoperative nausea and vomiting or any side effects in women and newborn babies. We conclude that a small bolus dose of lidocaine attenuates postoperative pain, thus reducing the requirement for opioid consumption in the postoperative period. Impact statement • With its anti-inflammatory, anti-hyperalgesic and analgesic properties, intravenous perioperative lidocaine infusion (IVLI) has been used for optimal postoperative care in different surgeries. Limited evidence suggests that IVLI may be a useful adjuvant during general anaesthesia. There is a report of a positive effect on several outcomes after surgery including postoperative pain over 24 h after laparoscopic abdominal surgery or open abdominal surgery. However, there was a paucity of information regarding the efficacy of a bolus dose of lidocaine in patients undergoing caesarean section (CS). In this randomized, placebo-controlled trial the use of a bolus dose of 1.5 mg/kg lidocaine 2%, compared with placebo, during the induction of general anaesthesia for elective CS resulted in a significant decrease in postoperative pain score as well as decreased postoperative morphine consumption over 24 h. Lidocaine use was not associated with any side effect in participants and newborns. • This study provides the first evidence that a bolus dose of lidocaine may be a safe and simple alternative therapeutic intervention for enhanced postoperative recovery in terms of pain and postoperative opioid consumption. Future studies are needed to examine pain reducing effect of perioperative bolus dose of lidocaine after CS under spinal or epidural anesthesia.
Facilitators and barriers to participation of private sector health facilities in government-led schemes for maternity services in India: a qualitative study

Objective Despite provision of accreditation of private sector health providers in government-led schemes for maternity services in India, their participation has been low. This has led to an underutilisation of their presence, resources and expertise for providing quality maternal and newborn health services. This study explores the perception of various stakeholders on expectations, benefits, barriers and facilitators to private sector participation in government-led schemes—specifically Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)—for maternity service delivery. Design Narrative-based qualitative study. Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with study participants. The interviews were transcribed, translated and analysed using a reflexive and inductive approach to allow codes, categories and themes to emerge from within the data. Setting Private obstetricians, government health officials and FOGSI (Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecological Societies of India) members, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, India. Participants Eighteen purposefully selected private obstetricians from 9 cities across states of Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, 11 government health officials and 2 FOGSI members. Results The major factors serving as barriers to participation of private practitioners in JSY—which emerged on thematic analysis—were low reimbursement amounts, delayed reimbursements, process of interaction with the government and administrative issues, previous experiences and trust deficit, lack of clarity on the accreditation process and patient-level barriers. On the other hand, factors which were facilitators to participation of private practitioners were ease of process, better communication, branding, motivation of increasing clientele as well as satisfaction of doing social service. Conclusion Factors such as financial processes and administrative delays, mistrust between the stakeholders, ambiguity in processes, lack of transparency and lack of ease in the process of empanelment of private sector are hindering effective public–private partnerships under JSY. Simplifying and strengthening the processes, communication strategies and branding can help revitalise it.