Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Endoscopic Sedation and Monitoring Practice in Germany: Re-evaluation From the First Nationwide Survey 3 Years After the Implementation of an Evidence and Consent Based National Guideline

Abstract Background and study aims: The use of sedation (e. g., of short-acting propofol) for gastrointestinal endoscopy has shown an upward trend in the USA and Europe over the last decade. To improve patient’s safety different nationwide guidelines have been developed. This survey aimed at providing nationwide re-evaluated data 3 years after the implementation of consent- and evidence-based national guideline on sedation for gastrointestinal endoscopy. Methods: A 24-item survey regarding current practices of endoscopy, sedation and monitoring in gastrointestinal endoscopy was sent to 4 405 members of the German Society of Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (DGVS). Results: A total of 741/4405 (17 %) questionnaires were returned. Compared to 2007 we documented a further increase of the use of sedation during the performance of esophagogastro-duodenoscopies (EGDs) (82 vs. 74 % in 2007) and colonoscopies (91 vs. 87 % in 2007), accompanied with an increased rate of using propofol as a sedative agent in 97 vs. 74 % of the cases in 2007. In contrast the use of midazolam substantially decreased to 69 % versus 82 % in 2007. Most commonly used sedation regimens are still propofol ± benzodiazepines (43 vs. 38 % in 2007), while a combination of midazolam ± opioid decreased to 15 % versus 35 % in 2007. Unchanged to data from 2007, patients were routinely monitored by pulse oximetry (99 %). Routine use of an automated blood pressure monitoring increased to 40 % (versus 29 % in 2007) and the use of electrocardiography monitoring nearly doubled to 24 vs. 13 % in 2007. Supplemental oxygen is nowadays routinely administered in 64 % compared to 34 % of the cases in 2007. Regarding the administration of sedation we observed a profound increase of nurse-administered propofol sedation (NAPS; 73 % in 2011, 39 % in 2007) with a decrease of endoscopist-directed propofol sedation (29 % in 2011 vs. 59 % in 2007). However, monitored anaesthesia care was still only rarely used in Germany (2 %). Conclusion: After the implementation of the first national sedation guideline the use of propofol has become the most popular sedation regime in Germany, mainly administered as NAPS by trained nurses as a standard procedure. Automated blood pressure measurements and ECG recording were more often implemented in the monitoring practice and also the routine use of supplemental oxygen has been clearly improved.
Autism spectrum disorders

Pervasive developmental disorders are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by impairments in communication, reciprocal social interaction and restricted repetitive behaviors or interests. The term autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has been used to describe their variable presentation. Although the cause of these disorders is not yet known, studies strongly suggest a genetic basis with a complex mode of inheritance. More research is needed to explore environmental factors that could be contributing to the cause of these disorders. The occurrence of ASD has been increasing worldwide, with the most recent prevalence studies indicating that they are present in 6 per 1000 children. The objectives of this article are to provide physicians with relevant information needed to identify and refer children presenting with symptoms suggestive of ASDs to specialized centers early, and to make them feel comfortable in dealing with public concerns regarding controversial issues about the etiology and management of these disorders.
TEXTURE SEGMENTATION BY THE 64X64 CNN CHIP

CNN’s fast image processing technology helps us to run high-speed filtering tasks for image enhancement, recognition or segmentation. Texture analysis is a specific task, since the whole image is processed massively parallel while we have a limited number of texture-specific filtering and evaluation steps. Former results of simulations and recognition results of simple CNN chips show that the CNN is an appropriate tool for this image-processing task. Now we see what the gray-scale image processor CNN chip at its limited memory capability and data-handling/-processing accuracy can complete for multi-texture images. We demonstrate and compare some of our earlier CNNrelated texture analysis methods. Some methods to improve CNN configuration are proposed.
The Group A Streptococcus serotype M2 pilus plays a role in host cell adhesion and immune evasion

Group A Streptococcus (GAS), or Streptococcus pyogenes, is a human pathogen that causes diseases ranging from skin and soft tissue infections to severe invasive diseases, such as toxic shock syndrome. Each GAS strain carries a particular pilus type encoded in the variable fibronectin‐binding, collagen‐binding, T antigen (FCT) genomic region. Here, we describe the functional analysis of the serotype M2 pilus encoded in the FCT‐6 region. We found that, in contrast to other investigated GAS pili, the ancillary pilin 1 lacks adhesive properties. Instead, the backbone pilin is important for host cell adhesion and binds several host factors, including fibronectin and fibrinogen. Using a panel of recombinant pilus proteins, GAS gene deletion mutants and Lactococcus lactis gain‐of‐function mutants we show that, unlike other GAS pili, the FCT‐6 pilus also contributes to immune evasion. This was demonstrated by a delay in blood clotting, increased intracellular survival of the bacteria in macrophages, higher bacterial survival rates in human whole blood and greater virulence in a Galleria mellonella infection model in the presence of fully assembled FCT‐6 pili.
Local Immune Responsiveness of Mice Bearing Premalignant Oral Lesions to PD-1 Antibody Treatment

A carcinogen-induced premalignant oral lesion model that progresses to oral cancer was used to examine the immunological impact of a 5-week treatment regimen to block programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). PD-1 antibody treatment resulted in concurrent, but transient, increases in interleukin (IL)-2, IFN-γ and IL-17, and delayed increases in IL-6 and IL-10 within the lesion-bearing tongue epithelium. In contrast, cytokine secretion by lymph node cells of PD-1 antibody-treated mice was lower than for mice treated with control antibodies, with the exception of interferon (IFN)-γ, whose secretion increased late in the treatment period. This delayed secretion of IFN-γ coincided with an increase in CD4+ lymph node cells expressing IFN-γ. Lymph node cells of PD-1 antibody-treated mice reacted to a challenge with lysates of lesions or cancer by early production of IFN-γ, but this rapidly subsided. There also was increased production IL-17 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in response to the challenge, but the response was greatest by cells of control lesion-bearing mice. Clinical assessment showed an early but transient, stabilization of disease in mice treated with PD-1 antibody. These results show an early beneficial, but time-limited, response to PD-1 antibody treatment, which then fails with continued lesion progression.
Product-Forms in Multi-Way Synchronizations

A new algorithm is given to find product-form solutions for the joint equilibrium probabilities in a class of synchronized Markov processes.This is based on, and proved by, multiple applications of the Reversed CompoundAgent Theorem (RCAT) and can describe multi-way synchronizations (seen as chains of pairwise synchronizations) that occur in a prescribed order. The length of the sequence is unbounded but finite with probability 1. Several applications are given to illustrate the methodology, which include various modes of resets in queueing networks with negative customers. In particular, it is shown that there is a type of reset that can propagate further transitions in a chain actively. Furthermore, a number of completely new product-form models, for example, where the transitions in a chain are non-homogeneous, are given.
Gentamicin-Loaded Borate Bioactive Glass Eradicates Osteomyelitis Due to Escherichia coli in a Rabbit Model

ABSTRACT The treatment of osteomyelitis induced by Gram-negative bacilli is rarely reported in the literature. This study established a rabbit tibia model of osteomyelitis induced by the Gram-negative bacillus Escherichia coli. Using this model, pellets composed of a chitosan-bonded mixture of borate bioactive glass and gentamicin were evaluated in vitro and in vivo for the treatment of osteomyelitis induced by Escherichia coli. Our results showed that the pellets in phosphate-buffered saline released gentamicin continuously over 26 days. Without the simultaneous use of a systemic antibiotic, the implantation of the gentamicin-loaded pellets into the osteomyelitis region of the tibia resulted in the eradication of 81.82% of infections, as determined by microbiological, histological and radiographic evaluation, and supported the ingrowth of new bone into the tibia defects after 6 weeks of implantation. The results indicate that the gentamicin-loaded borate bioactive glass implant, combining sustained drug release with the ability to support new bone formation, could provide a method for treating osteomyelitis induced by Gram-negative bacilli.
The Effects of Gamma (γ-) Sterilization on the Redox Stability, Minerology, and Physicochemical Properties of the Synthetic Iron Oxides Ferrihydrite, Lepidocrocite, and Goethite

Laboratory analyses were conducted on synthetic iron oxides to assess the use of gamma (γ-) irradiation as an efficient sterilization technique to remove microorganisms present in natural bacteriogenic iron oxides (BIOS) and to determine if the technique induces mineralogical changes within the Fe-rich minerals. Fe-oxides (ferrihydrite, lepidocrocite, and goethite) were synthesized with and without alginate (as a proxy for exopolysaccharides) and microbial reductions were carried out using the bacterium Shewanella putrefaciens CN32. A total of 18 Fe-oxide minerals were subjected to microbial reduction to assess redox stability, alteration due to varying levels of gamma irradiation (0, 5, and 28 kGy), and the addition of the exopolysaccharide alginate. Iron reduction rates varied for each Fe-oxide with faster Fe (III) reduction rates observed for the amorphous poorly-sorted 2-line ferrihydrite and slower Fe (III) reduction for the more crystalline Fe-oxides lepidocrocite and goethite. There was no significant impact to the Fe (III) reduction rates due to gamma irradiation (p> 0.05), which was confirmed using a t-test for statistical variance between gamma irradiated samples. However, the addition of alginate enabled lepidocrocite and goethite to achieve maximum Fe (III) reduction by an average of 7 days faster when compared to the Fe-oxides synthesized without the exopolysaccharide.
Conjugated Polymer Blends for Organic Thermoelectrics

A major attraction of organic conjugated semiconductors is that materials with new, emergent functionality can be designed and made by simple blending, as is extensively used in, e.g., bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. Herein doped blends based on organic semiconductors (OSCs) for thermoelectric applications are critically reviewed. Several experimental strategies to improve thermoelectric performance, measured in terms of power factor (PF) or figure‐of‐merit ZT, have been demonstrated in recent literature. Specifically, density‐of‐states design in blends of two OSCs can be used to obtain electronic Seebeck coefficients up to ≈2000 µV K−1. Alternatively, blending with (high‐dielectric constant) insulating polymers can improve doping efficiency and thereby conductivity, as well as induce more favorable morphologies that improve conductivity while hardly affecting thermopower. In the PEDOT:polystyrene‐sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) blend system, processing schemes to either improve conductivity via morphology or via (partial) removal of the electronically isolating PSS, or both, have been demonstrated. Although a range of experiments have at least quasi‐quantitatively been explained by analytical or numerical models, a comprehensive model for organic thermoelectrics is lacking so far.
J. K. Ghosh’s contribution to statistics: A brief outline

Professor Jayanta Kumar Ghosh has contributed massively to var- ious areas of Statistics over the last five decades. Here, we survey some of his most important contributions. In roughly chronological order, we discuss his major results in the areas of sequential analysis, foundations, asymptotics, and Bayesian inference. It is seen that he progressed from thinking about data points, to thinking about data summarization, to the limiting cases of data summarization in as they relate to parameter estimation, and then to more general aspects of modeling including prior and model selection.
Regional Variations in Orbicularis Oculi Histology

Purpose:To investigate and compare the histologic compositions of the pretarsal, preseptal, and orbital orbicularis oculi muscle (OOM) using nonpreserved, fresh-frozen, human cadavers. Methods:The OOM was exposed using sharp and blunt dissection. A metric ruler was used to measure and mark 0.5 cm × 1 cm samples from each portion of the right, superior OOM. Samples were excised, fixed in formalin, and completely embedded in paraffin. Five-micrometer-thick, hematoxylin- and eosin-stained sections were generated for each sample and analyzed by an anatomical pathologist. The relative percentages of the 4 main tissue types (skeletal muscle, fibrous tissue, adipose tissue, and neurovascular tissue) were quantified. Results:Forty-two samples were obtained from 14 Caucasian cadavers. On average, the pretarsal samples were composed of 83.5% skeletal muscle, 0.0% adipose, 5.0% neurovascular, and 11.5% fibrous tissue. Average preseptal OOM was 46.5% skeletal muscle, 12.7% adipose, 9.2% neurovascular, and 31.5% fibrous tissue. The orbital OOM was, on average, 42.7% skeletal muscle, 32.7% adipose tissue, 6.9% neurovascular, and 17.7% fibrous tissue. Conclusions:The OOM represents a histologically heterogeneous structure.
p38/MAPK Inhibitor Modulates the Expression of Dorsal Horn GABA(B) Receptors in the Spinal Nerve Ligation Model of Neuropathic Pain

Background: Neuropathic pain is one of the most challenging clinical problems due to a lack of understanding the mechanisms. Recent studies have suggested that activated microglia in spinal cord may play a vital role in nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain, but the exact mechanisms have not been fully determined. Methods: First, we investigated the changes of dorsal horn GABA(B) receptor 1 (R1) expression in spinal nerve ligation rats. Second, we explored whether activated microglia contributed to such neuron changes by intrathecal administration of the p38 inhibitor, SB203580. Results: In this study, we found a dynamic change of GABA(B)R1a protein expression after spinal nerve ligation, and the peripheral nerve injury-induced downregulation of GABA(B)R1a expression in the spinal dorsal horn could be prevented by intrathecal administration of a p38/MAPK inhibitor SB203580. Conclusions: Our results provide valuable information for a better understanding of neuropathic pain and may contribute to developing effective treatments in future studies.
Effects of different desensitizers and lasers on dentine tubules: An in‐vitro analysis

Dentin hypersensitivity is an important clinical problem affecting a large percentage of the population, and various therapies have been suggested for its treatment—among them desensitizing agents and lasers. The aim of this study was to evaluate the in vitro effects of different in‐office desensitizing agents and different type lasers, alone or in combination, on human dentinal tubules.
A 16-valued logic FPGA architecture employing analog memory circuit

A field programmable gate array (FPGA) architecture is developed in this work for implementing multi-valued logics (MVL). The arbitrary function of sixteen-valued logic, which is four-bit equivalent to conventional binary circuitry, can be carried out for approximate computations. The number of devices and interconnections in the proposed FPGA processor are both compacted in contrast to those of the conventional binary FPGAs. To memorize MVL datum statically, a self-refreshing and latch-up analog memory cell with four-bit accuracy is designed in a standard CMOS technology. Eighteen transistors are employed by this memory cell, which is only 37.5% of four sets of static binary memory cells. A 16-to-1 multiplexer is also proposed as the look-up table by using sixteen-valued logic signals for addressing A proof-of-concept FPGA processor is designed with 16 by 16 cell-array, and each cell has a four-bit-equivalent capacity. this manner, the number of transistors in lookup tables for such a scale is reduced to 29% of binary lookup tables. The circuit simulation results are presented for the approximate computations of linearly adding, subtracting, and Gaussian functions.
Easy Plating – Study on Contact Interface Properties of Parasitic Plating-Free Ni/Cu Solar Cells

The Easy Plating process sequence is an elegant way to produce Al-BSF or PERC solar cells with laser-structured Ni/Cu-plated contacts. By eliminating the HF-treatment before metal deposition one can avoid parasitic plating at defects of the anti-reflection coating by utilizing native oxide growth to passivate these defects. Recent work demonstrated a significant improvement in terms of metal recombination, optical shading and aesthetical appearance compared to the standard plating approach. However, the Easy Plating sequence is sensitive to laser-induced and native oxide formation at the Si/Ni interface in the laser defined local contact openings. This work investigates the influence of interface oxides between the Si/Ni layer and the beneficial impact of the thermal anneal for the contact resistance. Therefore, the contact resistance is studied by transmission line measurement (TLM) and SEM is applied for visualization of silicides. Our findings are important for advanced process optimization and an advanced understanding of the processes at the interface.
Anisotropic Elastic and Lattice Dynamical Properties of Cr2AB MAX Phases Compounds

The structural, mechanical and lattice dynamical properties of the MAX Phase borides compounds Cr 2 AB (A= Al, P, Si) have been investigated using the first principles calculations with the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) based on Density Functional Theory (DFT). The obtained negative formation energies of Cr 2 AB indicate that these compounds are stable and could be synthesized. Some basic physical parameters such as lattice constants, elastic constants, bulk modulus, Shear modulus, Young’s modulus, and Poison’s ratio have been calculated. Ionic character has been found for Cr 2 AB compounds. Also, Cr 2 AlB is a brittle material while Cr 2 SiB and Cr 2 PB are ductile materials. In addition, the elastic anisotropy has been visualized in detail by plotting the directional dependence of linear compressibility, Poisson ratio, Young’s and Shear moduli. Furthermore, electronic band structures and corresponding partial density of stated have been examined and it has been found that these compounds have metallic character. Moreover, the phonon dispersion curves as well as corresponding phonon partial density of states (PDOS) have been obtained. This study is the first investigation of the MAX Phase borides compounds Cr 2 AB (A= Al, P, Si) and could lead to the future studies.
Role of membrane cholesterol and lipid peroxidation in regulating the Na+/K+-ATPase activity in schizophrenia

Background: Na+/K+-ATPase (NKA) activity is compromised in several neuropsychiatric disorders. Oxidative stress and membrane lipid composition play important roles in regulating NKA activity. Aims: The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of oxidative stress-induced membrane lipid damage and membrane cholesterol composition on NKA pump activity in schizophrenia. Settings and Design: It was a hospital-based, cross-sectional, observational study in 49 cases and 51 controls for 1 year. Materials and Methods: NKA pump activity in red blood cell membrane, serum levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS), protein carbonyl (PC) adducts, and cholesterol were measured by standard spectrophotometric techniques in newly diagnosed schizophrenia patients by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition, Text Revision criteria. Membrane cholesterol was analyzed by chloroform and isopropanol extraction followed by measuring the cholesterol concentration by spectrophotometric technique. Statistical Analysis and Results: Mean values for NKA pump activity, membrane cholesterol level, and serum cholesterol levels were significantly lower in the case group (P < 0.001). The activity of NKA pump was found to be directly correlated to membrane cholesterol level rather than with the serum cholesterol values. Although the NKA pump activity showed inverse relationship with the serum values of TBARS and PC products both, on multiple linear regression analysis, it was found to be significantly positively dependent on the membrane cholesterol (β = 0.268, P = 0.01) and negatively dependent on the serum TBARS (β = −0.63, P < 0.001) levels only. Conclusion: Reduced membrane cholesterol and oxidative stress-induced damage to membrane lipids play crucial roles in decreasing the NKA activity in schizophrenia. Hence, for a better prognosis and treatment, measures are required to maintain optimum levels of cholesterol in neuronal tissues along with a proper control on oxidative stress.
Clinical and economic benefits of advanced microplegia delivery system in cardiac surgery: evidence from 250 hospitals.

AIM Determine the impact of a second generation microplegia delivery system (MPS2) compared with traditional cardioplegia. Materials & methods: Multivariable difference-in-differences analysis using fixed effects was performed for each outcome: adverse event (AE) composite, total visit cost, medication cost, length of stay (LOS) and intensive care unit (ICU) days. RESULTS A 2.25% absolute risk reduction in AE composite was found with MPS2 compared with traditional cardioplegia, which equates to relative risk reduction of 5.25%. Significant reductions in LOS and ICU days (0.1 α level). Per case reduction of US$1231 total visit and US$192 medication costs were found in MPS2 hospitals. CONCLUSION For hospitals with MPS2, significant reductions were seen in AEs, LOS and ICU days, which lead to reductions in total visit and medication costs.
Small cell carcinoma lung presenting as life-threatening hypercalcemia - A rare association

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