Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relative Incidence of Acute Adverse Events with Ferumoxytol Compared to Other Intravenous Iron Compounds: A Matched Cohort Study

Concerns persist about adverse reactions to intravenous (IV) iron. We aimed to determine the relative safety of ferumoxytol compared to other IV iron compounds. This retrospective cohort study with propensity-score matching for patients and drug doses used the Medicare 20% random sample to identify patients (1) without chronic kidney disease (non-CKD) and (2) with non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease (NDD-CKD) who received a first dose of IV iron in 2010–2012. Exposures were ferumoxytol, iron sucrose, sodium ferric gluconate, or iron dextran. Outcomes were hypersensitivity symptoms, anaphylaxis, emergency department (ED) encounters, hospitalizations, and death after acute IV iron exposure. In the primary analysis for reactions on the day of or following exposure, there was no difference in hypersensitivity symptoms (hazard ratio 1.04, 95% confidence interval 0.94–1.16) or hypotension (0.83, 0.52–1.34) between 4289 non-CKD ferumoxytol users and an equal number of users of other compounds; results were similar for 7358 NDD-CKD patients and an equal number of controls. All-cause ED encounters or hospitalizations were less common in both the non-CKD (0.56, 0.45–0.70) and NDD-CKD ferumoxytol-treated patients (0.83, 0.71–0.95). Fewer than 10 deaths occurred in both the non-CKD and NDD-CKD ferumoxytol users and in matched controls; the hazard for death did not differ significantly between ferumoxytol users and controls in the non-CKD patients (2.00, 0.33–11.97) or in the NDD-CKD patients (0.25, 0.04–1.52). Multiple sensitivity analyses showed similar results. Ferumoxytol did not appear to be associated with more adverse reactions than other compounds for the treatment of iron-deficiency anemia in both non-CKD and NDD-CKD patients.
Thermal Stability and Magnetic Properties of Polyvinylidene Fluoride/Magnetite Nanocomposites

This work describes the thermal stability and magnetic properties of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF)/magnetite nanocomposites fabricated using the solution mixing technique. The image of transmission electron microscopy for PVDF/magnetite nanocomposites reveals that the 13 nm magnetite nanoparticles are well distributed in PVDF matrix. The electroactive β-phase and piezoelectric responses of PVDF/magnetite nanocomposites are increased as the loading of magnetite nanoparticles increases. The piezoelectric responses of PVDF/magnetite films are extensively increased about five times in magnitude with applied strength of electrical field at 35 MV/m. The magnetic properties of PVDF/magnetite nanocomposites exhibit supermagnetism with saturation magnetization in the range of 1.6 × 10−3–3.1 × 10−3 emu/g, which increases as the amount of magnetite nanoparticles increases. The incorporation of 2 wt % magnetite nanoparticles into the PVDF matrix improves the thermal stability about 25 °C as compared to that of PVDF. The effect of magnetite particles on the isothermal degradation behavior of PVDF is also investigated.
An Investigation into the Dynamic Response of Cardboard Honeycombs

Cardboard honeycombs are used extensively in the packaging industry to protect objects from abnormally high loading conditions. They provide a substantial amount of energy dissipation while being lightweight, structurally efficient, cost-effective and easily disposed of (or recycled) once used. These beneficial properties have also led to the widespread use of cardboard honeycombs as a method to protect air-dropped cargo from the shock loading encountered during parachute deployment and impact with the ground. When cardboard honeycombs are crushed at the strain-rates typical of a lowvelocity impact event, such as an air drop, the air pressures, which develop within the honeycomb as a result of a compaction of the entrapped air, are comparable in magnitude to the stiffness of the cell wall deformation response. Thus, the dynamic energy dissipation properties of cardboard honeycombs are dependent on the mechanics of a coupled air-structure deformation mechanism. This thesis studies the mechanics of the air-structure deformation mechanism and investigates how it is affected by variations in the material and geometrical properties of the cardboard honeycomb cell walls. During a series of experimental impact tests on cardboard honeycomb samples of various known geometries, both macroscopic behaviour and the development of air pressures at four internal locations are measured (Chapter 3). An explicit Lagrangian/ALE numerical model of the cardboard honeycomb and entrapped air is then developed, using the commercial hydrocode LS-Dyna (Chapter 4). The numerical model is used to study the effects of variations in the cell wall material properties (Chapter 5), and their meso and macroscale geometrical arrangement (Chapter 6) on the cardboard honeycomb’s energy dissipating characteristics. A summary of the experimental and numerical findings is then given (Chapter 7), with consideration of implications for an end user.
ViewMap: Sharing Private In-Vehicle Dashcam Videos

Today, search for dashcam video evidences is conducted manually and its procedure does not guarantee privacy. In this paper, we motivate, design, and implement ViewMap, an automated public service system that enables sharing of private dashcam videos under anonymity. ViewMap takes a profile-based approach where each video is represented in a compact form called a view profile (VP), and the anonymized VPs are treated as entities for search, verification, and reward instead of their owners. ViewMap exploits the line-of-sight (LOS) properties of dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) such that each vehicle makes VP links with nearby ones that share the same sight while driving. ViewMap uses such LOS-based VP links to build a map of visibility around a given incident, and identifies VPs whose videos are worth reviewing. Original videos are never transmitted unless they are verified to be taken near the incident and anonymously solicited. ViewMap offers untraceable rewards for the provision of videos whose owners remain anonymous. We demonstrate the feasibility of ViewMap via field experiments on real roads using our DSRC testbeds and trace-driven simulations.
Phylogenetics and Mating System Evolution in the Southern South American Valeriana (Valerianaceae)

iii Chapter 1. Mating System Evolution in the Southern South American Radiation of Valeriana (Valerianaceae) 1 Chapter 2. Exploring the Utility of Next-generation Genomic Sequence Data on Inferring Relationships Among the Southern South American Valerians 21 Works Cited 40 Vita 47
Community structure in social and biological networks

A number of recent studies have focused on the statistical properties of networked systems such as social networks and the Worldwide Web. Researchers have concentrated particularly on a few properties that seem to be common to many networks: the small-world property, power-law degree distributions, and network transitivity. In this article, we highlight another property that is found in many networks, the property of community structure, in which network nodes are joined together in tightly knit groups, between which there are only looser connections. We propose a method for detecting such communities, built around the idea of using centrality indices to find community boundaries. We test our method on computer-generated and real-world graphs whose community structure is already known and find that the method detects this known structure with high sensitivity and reliability. We also apply the method to two networks whose community structure is not well known—a collaboration network and a food web—and find that it detects significant and informative community divisions in both cases.
Six Serum miRNAs Fail to Validate as Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 Biomarkers

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is an autosomal dominant genetic disease caused by expansion of a CTG microsatellite in the 3’ untranslated region of the DMPK gene. Despite characteristic muscular, cardiac, and neuropsychological symptoms, CTG trinucleotide repeats are unstable both in the somatic and germinal lines, making the age of onset, clinical presentation, and disease severity very variable. A molecular biomarker to stratify patients and to follow disease progression is, thus, an unmet medical need. Looking for a novel biomarker, and given that specific miRNAs have been found to be misregulated in DM1 heart and muscle tissues, we profiled the expression of 175 known serum miRNAs in DM1 samples. The differences detected between patients and controls were less than 2.6 fold for all of them and a selection of six candidate miRNAs, miR-103, miR-107, miR-21, miR-29a, miR-30c, and miR-652 all failed to show consistent differences in serum expression in subsequent validation experiments.
The effect of Carbaryl on the pituitary-gonad axis in male rats

Background: Carbaryl is a carbamate insecticide widely used to control pests in agriculture and farm. Carbaryl adversely affect the reproductive endocrine systems in animals. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate Carbaryl effects on the pituitary-gonad axis in rats. Materials and Methods: In this experimental - analytical study, 60 adult male rats were divided into four equal groups: control, sham and experimental (1 and 2) groups that received 10 and 30 mg/kg Carbaryl via intraperitoneally injection. The sham group was subjected to intraperitoneally injection with olive oil while the control group did not receive any injection. Animals were sacrificed 35 days after the last treatment. Tissue sections were prepared from testes to investigate possible changes occurring in spermatogenic and Leydig cells. Blood samples were collected in which the levels of testosterone, luteinizing hormones (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) were measured. Results: The results showed significant reduction in testes weight (p=0.042) and seminiferous diameters (p<0.001) within the experimental groups compared with control group. Also, the number of germ cells, spermatocyts, spermatids and Leydig cells on the testes of the experimental groups was significantly decreased (p<0.001). Accordingly, significant decline in the testosterone levels (p<0.001) and increase in LH and FSH levels were observed (p<0.05). Conclusion: These results demonstrated that Carbaryl has capacity to exert adverse effects on fertility. Therefore, have to be taken to account in applying Carbaryl for any studies and or commercial use.
Treatment of wash water from road tunnels.

Tunnels have become increasingly important in the development of road networks to meet rising transportation demands. Washing of road tunnels must be performed regularly to ensure traffic safety. The washing procedure generates significant amount of polluted wash water. Before discharge to a receiving water body, treatment is necessary to avoid potential degradation of the water quality. In this study, 12 in situ sedimentation experiments were conducted to evaluate treatment efficiency of sedimentation, with and without the addition of chemical flocculent. The findings showed that untreated tunnel wash water was highly polluted with total suspended solids (804-9690 mg/l), PAHs (0.4–29 μg/l) and heavy metals. Most pollutants were associated with the particulate material. Significant correlations (r2 > 0.95) were found between suspended solids and metals. Efficient removal of pollutants was possible by sedimentation with addition of flocculent. Within 20 hours of sedimentation low concentrations were reached of suspended solids (<15mg/l), PAHs (<0.1 μg/l), Cd (<0.05 μg/l), Cr (< 8 μg/l), Hg (<0.02 μg/l), Pb (<0.5 μg/l) and Zn (< 60 μg/l). The results confirm the possibility to treat tunnel wash water with sedimentation and flocculation and to discharge treated wash water to a recipient, provided particular attention is given to very sensitive water bodies.
Track splitting technique for the contact lens problem

The contact lens problem in tracking has severe measurement nonlinearity that will cause consistency problems and large errors for existing nonlinear filtering techniques including the EKF, the UKF and the particle filter. In our previous work, the proposed measurement covariance adaptive (MCA) extended Kalman filter (MCAEKF) was shown to be consistent and have superior tracking accuracy. The only drawback of the filter is that it has loss in accuracy in the early stages of the filtering due to the artificially enlarged measurement noise covariance. In this paper, a novel track splitting technique is proposed to divide an inaccurate track into a set of sub-tracks that are accurate enough such that the linearized EKF consistency requirement is satisfied for each sub-track. Simulation results show that the proposed track splitting EKF (TS-EKF) approach can effectively prevent filter divergence and has no loss in range accuracy in the early stages of filtering.
Risk of Osteoporotic Fractures With Angiotensin II Receptor Blockers Versus Angiotensin‐Converting Enzyme Inhibitors in Hypertensive Community‐Dwelling Elderly

Angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) are used to treat hypertension; however, in vivo and clinical studies suggest that ARBs and ACE inhibitors may exert different effects on bone. The association between long‐term use of ARBs and ACE inhibitors and fracture requiring medical attention is limited. We conducted a population‐based, retrospective cohort study with propensity score matching using administrative databases in Ontario, Canada, to examine the risk of osteoporosis‐related fractures in hypertensive elderly treated with ARBs versus ACE inhibitors. We identified a cohort of newly treated hypertensive patients aged 66 years and older who initiated an ACE inhibitor from May 1, 2004, to March 31, 2012, and matched them to ARB users on propensity score, sex, and age at drug initiation. The primary outcome was hip fracture, and secondary outcomes were non‐hip major osteoporotic fractures (other femoral, clinical vertebral, forearm, wrist, humerus) and other osteoporotic fractures (pelvis, clavicle, patella, shoulder, upper arm, tibia, fibula, ankle, scapula, ribs, sternum, trunk). We calculated hazard ratios (HRs) using Cox proportional hazards model with robust standard errors. Of the 87,635 patients who initiated treatment, 28,819 (32.9%) started ARBs and 58,816 (67.1%) started ACE inhibitors. Among new ARB users, 27,815 (96.5%) were successfully matched to ACE inhibitor users. Without dose adjustment, no significant association was observed for ARBs relative to ACE inhibitor users for hip fractures (HR = 0.88; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.70–1.11), with a decreased risk of other major osteoporotic fractures (HR = 0.81; CI 0.70–0.93) and no significant association for other osteoporotic fractures (HR = 0.88; CI 0.74–1.05). When adjusted for dosage, there was no significant difference between the effects of ARBs and ACE inhibitors on hip (HR = 0.99; CI 0.78–1.25), other major osteoporotic (HR = 0.87; CI 0.75–1.01), and other osteoporotic fractures (HR = 0.90; CI 0.74–1.08). © 2014 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Steatosis caused by experimental periodontitis is reversible after removal of ligature in rats

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Periodontitis may promote harmful systemic effects such as changes in hepatic tissues. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the steatosis and oxidative stress caused by experimental periodontitis are reversible in the liver. MATERIAL AND METHODS Twenty-four rats were divided into three groups: control, periodontitis and P20-20 (20 days with experimental periodontitis and 20 days without experimental periodontitis, to verify the reversibility of hepatic injuries). The following parameters were assessed: gingival bleeding index, probing pocket depth, myeloperoxidase activity, alveolar bone loss for periodontal tissues; liver weights, histopathological scores for steatosis, inflammation and necrosis in liver; glutathione, malondialdehyde, total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations in hepatic tissues; and blood levels of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, albumin, gamma-glutaryl transferase, total cholesterol and random glucose. RESULTS Gingival bleeding index, probing pocket depth, myeloperoxidase and alveolar bone loss parameters demonstrated the development of periodontitis. There was a significant reduction in the steatosis score of animals from the P20-20 group when compared with the periodontitis group. P20-20 group presented significantly higher glutathione (11 times) and lower malondialdehyde (nearly 23%), total cholesterol (both in blood and hepatic tissue) and triglyceride concentrations compared with the periodontitis group. For levels of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, albumin, gamma-glutaryl transferase and random glucose, a significant difference between the groups was not observed. CONCLUSION Our results demonstrate that the microvesicular steatosis caused by periodontitis in rats is reversible after removal of the ligature, which is associated with the increase in oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation in the liver.
Investigation of intra-ply shear behavior of out-of-autoclave carbon/epoxy prepreg

The successful formation of composite parts without defects remains a challenging issue due to the complexity of the forming process. A better understanding of the factors that cause these flaws is necessary to optimize the operation. The present work investigates the in-plane shear behavior of out-of-autoclave carbon epoxy thermoset prepregs OOA and its effect on wrinkling using the picture frame test. The deformability of OOA at the real processing conditions helps to understand the applicability of such material for forming processes such as the double-diaphragm forming technique with aims to minimize overall manufacturing time and cost. Tests were performed at varying temperatures and displacement rates in order to determine their contribution to the fabric deformability. Digital image correlation was used to take sequential images at various stages of deformation and capture the onset of wrinkling. It was found that the processing temperature (resin viscosity), displacement rate, and layer counts (layer interactions) are the three most important parameters that influence the wrinkling. Presence of resin between the layers makes them interact with each other and therefore has an impact on the each layer shear angle. These parameters were then analyzed using the Taguchi and analysis of variance techniques to determine which factor has the most significant influence on the wrinkling.
Multiple calcifying hyperplastic dental follicles: A case report

This report describes a 31-year-old female patient with six impacted teeth. The crowns of the impacted teeth were surrounded with cyst-like lesions with a mixed internal structure and well-defined cortical borders. Microscopic examination of the specimen obtained from the follicle of the left mandibular third molar tooth revealed loose to moderately dense collagenous connective tissue with abundant calcified material and sparse epithelial islands. A diagnosis of multiple calcifying hyperplastic dental follicles was made.
Strontium Ranelate Promotes Osteoblastic Differentiation and Mineralization of Murine Bone Marrow Stromal Cells: Involvement of Prostaglandins

Strontium ranelate is a new anti‐osteoporosis treatment. This study showed that strontium ranelate stimulated PGE2 production and osteoblastic differentiation in murine marrow stromal cells, which was markedly reduced by inhibition of COX‐2 activity or disruption of COX‐2 gene expression. Hence, some anabolic effects of strontium ranelate may be mediated by the induction of COX‐2 and PGE2 production.
Antigenic and genomic characterization of human influenza A and B viruses circulating in Argentina after the introduction of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09.

This study was conducted as part of the Argentinean Influenza and other Respiratory Viruses Surveillance Network, in the context of the Global Influenza Surveillance carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO). The objective was to study the activity and the antigenic and genomic characteristics of circulating viruses for three consecutive seasons (2010, 2011 and 2012) in order to investigate the emergence of influenza viral variants. During the study period, influenza virus circulation was detected from January to December. Influenza A and B, and all current subtypes of human influenza viruses, were present each year. Throughout the 2010 post-pandemic season, influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, unexpectedly, almost disappeared. The haemagglutinin (HA) of the A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses studied were segregated in a different genetic group to those identified during the 2009 pandemic, although they were still antigenically closely related to the vaccine strain A/California/07/2009. Influenza A(H3N2) viruses were the predominant strains circulating during the 2011 season, accounting for nearly 76 % of influenza viruses identified. That year, all HA sequences of the A(H3N2) viruses tested fell into the A/Victoria/208/2009 genetic clade, but remained antigenically related to A/Perth/16/2009 (reference vaccine recommended for this three-year period). A(H3N2) viruses isolated in 2012 were antigenically closely related to A/Victoria/361/2011, recommended by the WHO as the H3 component for the 2013 Southern Hemisphere formulation. B viruses belonging to the B/Victoria lineage circulated in 2010. A mixed circulation of viral variants of both B/Victoria and B/Yamagata lineages was detected in 2012, with the former being predominant. A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses remained antigenically closely related to the vaccine virus A/California/7/2009; A(H3N2) viruses continually evolved into new antigenic clusters and both B lineages, B/Victoria/2/87-like and B/Yamagata/16/88-like viruses, were observed during the study period. The virological surveillance showed that the majority of the circulating strains during the study period were antigenically related to the corresponding Southern Hemisphere vaccine strains except for the 2012 A(H3N2) viruses.
Ordered Slicing of Very Large-Scale Overlay Networks

Recently there has been an increasing interest to harness the potential of P2P technology to design and build rich environments where services are provided and multiple applications can be supported in a flexible and dynamic manner. In such a context, resource assignment to services and applications is crucial. Current approaches require significant "manual-mode" operations and/or rely on centralized servers to maintain resource availability. Such approaches are neither scalable nor robust enough. Our contribution towards the solution of this problem is proposing and evaluating a gossip-based protocol to automatically partition the available nodes into "slices", also taking into account specific attributes of the nodes. These slices can be assigned to run services or applications in a fully self-organizing but controlled manner. The main advantages of the proposed protocol are extreme scalability and robustness. We present approximative theoretical models and extensive empirical analysis of the proposed protocol
Erratum: Finite Element Approximation of the Cahn-Hilliard-Cook Equation

We prove an additional result on the linearized Cahn-Hilliard-Cook equation to fill a gap in the main argument in our paper that was published in SIAM J. Numer. Anal. , 49 (2011), pp. 2407-2429. The result is a pathwise error estimate, which is proved by an application of the factorization argument for stochastic convolutions.