Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preliminary Results on Feasibility of Outpatient Instrumented Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion

Study Design: A retrospective chart review study was performed. Objective: The primary objective of this study was to analyze our preliminary results to examine whether it is safe and effective to perform instrumented lumbar interbody fusions on an outpatient basis by comparing 2 groups of patients who were discharged the same day versus those who stayed overnight. The secondary objective was to identify the need for prolonged observation for complications that may occur in the immediate postoperative period. Summary of Background Data: There is currently no information in the literature on the safety and complication rates of instrumented transforaminal lumbar interbody fusions performed in an ambulatory surgery setting. Methods: Surgeries were performed at an ambulatory surgery center (n=27) or hospital outpatient departments (n=25). The mean age of patients was 49.8 years (range, 19–72 y). The safety of outpatient lumbar fusions was assessed by analyzing complications that occurred from the moment of discharge up to the seventh postoperative day (0–7 POD), as well as all complications that occurred up to 6 months postoperatively (>7 POD). The efficacy of surgical intervention was also evaluated by assessing change in pain, patient satisfaction scores, and fusion rates. Results: There were no cases of pneumonia, urinary tract infection, or thromboembolic complications. Four patients (14%) who had surgeries performed at an ambulatory surgery center had complications within 7 days postoperatively compared with 1 (4%) patient who had surgery performed at a hospital outpatient department. This difference was not statistically significant (P=0.36, Fisher exact test). Lower back and leg pain was significantly (P<0.0001) decreased postoperatively. The average postoperative back pain was 18.8 (range, 0–90) compared with 74.5 (range, 0–100) preoperatively as measured on a 0–100 visual analog scale. The average postoperative leg pain was 9.1 (range, 0–60) compared with 54.2 (range, 0–100) preoperatively. Conclusions: Although further confirmation is needed, this study discusses the possibility of performing instrumented lumbar interbody fusions with the transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion technique as an outpatient procedure. These results support a future prospective randomized study with a well-defined patient selection criteria.
Approaching the 29% limit efficiency of silicon solar cells

The so-called "limit efficiency" of a silicon solar operating at one-sun is well established at approximately 29%, and laboratory cells have reached 25%. The efficiencies of commercially available silicon solar cells have been increasing over time, however, only recently have the highest performance commercial cells reached 20% efficiency. This presentation discusses the prospects of how the limit efficiency may be approached more closely in practical cells. Surprisingly, presently available silicon has sufficient minority carrier lifetime to achieve the goal. In fact, all aspects are in place for approaching 29% except for the existence of a suitable passivated contact technology.
Structure et composition floristiques des agroforêts à base de caféiers arabica ( Coffea arabica L.) dans les hauts plateaux de l’Ouest du Cameroun

Un etat floristique des agroforets a base de cafeiers arabica a ete effectue dans les Hauts plateaux de l’Ouest du Cameroun. Il a porte sur 100 parcelles reparties dans quatre niveaux d’altitudes : basse (< 1200 m), moyenne inferieure (1200-1450 m), moyenne (1450-1700 m) et haute altitudes (≥ 1700 m). L’analyse de la variance au test de Fisher a revele une influence significative de l’altitude sur la densite des groupes vegetaux. En moyenne (2314 plants/ha) et haute altitudes (2181 plants/ha), les cafeiers arabica y sont plus denses; les Musacees sont plus denses en altitude moyenne inferieure (695 plants/ha). Persea americana est la plus dense en altitude intermediaire; mais en basse et haute altitudes, se trouvent respectivement Leucaena leucocephala (72 plants/ha) et Raphia mabilensis (27 plants/ha). La structure diametrique des especes ligneuses prend l’allure d’une cloche, au desssus de 1200 m. Dacryodes edulis , P. americana , Cola spp et R. mabilensi s sont les seules presentant une occurrence ≥ 10. 14% des agroforets renferment au moins un plant de Cola spp. , D. edulis, P. americana et une touffe de R. mabilensis. En dessous de 1450 m, D. edulis accroit ecologiquement son importance; par contre au niveau superieur, Cola . spp. et P. americana sont les plus importantes. Mots cles : Agroforets, Coffea arabica, altitude, densite, occurrence, importance.
Distant magnetotail reconnection and the coupling to the near‐Earth plasma sheet: Wind and Geotail case study

We have studied the coupling between the distant and near‐Earth plasma sheet during an 8 hour interval on April 1, 1999 when the interplanetary magnetic field was northward and dominated by the By component. During these 8 hours the Geotail spacecraft sampled the near‐Earth magnetotail at XGSM ∼ −25 RE while the Wind spacecraft was located in the distant magnetotail at XGSM ∼ −60 RE. Wind detected long duration (>8 hours) and likely spatially extended convective high speed flows indicative of continuous magnetic reconnection, whereas only plasma sheet boundary layer beams and some locally generated bursty bulk flows were observed at the Geotail location. Hence the high speed distant tail reconnection flows did not reach the near‐Earth plasma sheet at high speed. No apparent signatures of the long duration distant tail reconnection flows in terms of global and auroral geomagnetic activity were observed.
A note on renormalization and black hole entropy in loop quantum gravity

Microscopic state counting for a black hole in loop quantum gravity yields a result proportional to the horizon area, and inversely proportional to Newton's constant and the Immirzi parameter. It is argued here that before this result can be compared to the Bekenstein–Hawking entropy of a macroscopic black hole, the scale dependence of both Newton's constant and the area must be accounted for. The two entropies could then agree for any value of the Immirzi parameter, if a certain renormalization property holds.
Pathogenic Escherichia coli in children with and without chronic diarrhea in Tanzania.

the 102 EID so was significantly lower (P < .05) than for the 10 inoculum. Low inocula therefore produce significantly less virus than higher inocula and are associated with less respiratory (nasal inflammatory cells) and constitutional (fever) illness. Thus, if similar results occur in humans with relevant inocula, unfavorable environmental conditions in the summer (higher air temperatures and relative humidity) may reduce inocula, leading to low-level shedding with expression of asymptomatic or "coldlike" rather than "influenza-like" symptoms [2]. Transmission would be reduced because of poor replication and reduced nasal discharge. However, during the winter season, environmental conditions (reduced relative humidity and air temperature, impaired ciliary action following chilling of the respiratory tract, overcrowding, and increased sneezing and coughing) facilitate enhanced replication and aerial transmission of the virus [7]. Initially, virus levels may be sufficient only to infect children who are more susceptible than adults and usually represent the index case [8]. Children shed more virus for longer periods than adults [9], increasing the level and duration of transmitted virus and ultimately leading to symptomatic infection in adults. Such low-level transmission may allow new variants to emerge at different times during the summer season, depending upon prevailing climatic conditions [1]. Monitoring for influenza in the summer in temperate climates may indicate viruses likely to cause epidemics or pandemics in the next winter season.
The Impact of BK Channels on Cellular Excitability Depends on their Subcellular Location

Large conductance calcium-activated potassium channels (or BK channels) fulfil a multitude of roles in the central nervous system. At the soma of many neuronal cell types they control the speed of action potential (AP) repolarization and therefore they can have an impact on neuronal excitability. Due to their presence in nerve terminals they also regulate transmitter release. BK channels have also been shown to be present in the dendrites of some neurons where they can regulate the magnitude and duration of dendritic spikes. Here, we investigate the impact of modulating the activation of BK channels at different locations on the cellular excitability of cortical layer 5 pyramidal neurons. We find that while somatic BK channels help to repolarize APs at the soma and mediate the fast after-hyperpolarization, dendritic BK channels are responsible for repolarization of dendritic calcium spikes and thereby regulate somatic AP burst firing. We found no evidence for a role of dendritic BK channels in the regulation of backpropagating AP amplitude or duration. These experiments highlight the diverse roles of BK channels in regulating neuronal excitability and indicate that their functional impact depends on their subcellular location.
Bioengineering the Endocrine Pancreas: Intraomental Islet Transplantation Within a Biologic Resorbable Scaffold

Transplantation of pancreatic islets is a therapeutic option to preserve or restore β-cell function. Our study was aimed at developing a clinically applicable protocol for extrahepatic transplantation of pancreatic islets. The potency of islets implanted onto the omentum, using an in situ–generated adherent, resorbable plasma-thrombin biologic scaffold, was evaluated in diabetic rat and nonhuman primate (NHP) models. Intraomental islet engraftment in the biologic scaffold was confirmed by achievement of improved metabolic function and preservation of islet cytoarchitecture, with reconstitution of rich intrainsular vascular networks in both species. Long-term nonfasting normoglycemia and adequate glucose clearance (tolerance tests) were achieved in both intrahepatic and intraomental sites in rats. Intraomental graft recipients displayed lower levels of serum biomarkers of islet distress (e.g., acute serum insulin) and inflammation (e.g., leptin and α2-macroglobulin). Importantly, low-purity (30:70% endocrine:exocrine) syngeneic rat islet preparations displayed function equivalent to that of pure (>95% endocrine) preparations after intraomental biologic scaffold implantation. Moreover, the biologic scaffold sustained allogeneic islet engraftment in immunosuppressed recipients. Collectively, our feasibility/efficacy data, along with the simplicity of the procedure and the safety of the biologic scaffold components, represented sufficient preclinical testing to proceed to a pilot phase I/II clinical trial.
A review of the medical aspects of adolescent fertility in Kenya.

In 1990, the annual population growth rate in Kenya was 3.8%, among the highest rates world wide. The ever growing adolescent fertility rate (111-152/1000 from 1969-1989) contributed to this rapid growth. Further repeat pregnancies among adolescents remained high in the 1980's and ranged from 20%-28.6%, depending on the survey. Even though overall prevalence of pregnancy fell 15.4% between 1978-1984, it remained the same for the 15-19 year old group. Teenage births have made up at least 35% of total deliveries. 1985 data revealed that even though adolescents represent 11-35% of the total obstetric population, problems ranked high among them: 38% of all eclampsia cases and high maternal mortality (102/100,000 vs. 57/100,000 older mothers). Studies showed that adolescents are sexually active, are ignorant about contraception, and do not use contraception. Yet contraceptive and family planning services are free in Kenya. Nevertheless the teenagers are at high risk of an unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and AIDS. In the early 1980s, Kenyatta National Hospital reported 53% of 74.1% of septic abortion cases being single women were between 14-20 years old. Similar results emerged from other studies. Health professionals believed these results to be underestimated, however. In the 1980s, 33% of all adolescents between 13-15 years old in a rural area had gonorrhea. In Kenyatta, 36% of pregnant 15-24 year olds had at least 1 STD while,e only 16% of those 24 years old did. Further, teenagers are especially vulnerable to psychological problems when they 1st learn of their pregnancy. Health services should be geared to meet the specific needs of adolescents, such as contraception education and antenatal services.
Common Sense Based Joint Training of Human Activity Recognizers

Given sensors to detect object use, commonsense priors of object usage in activities can reduce the need for labeled data in learning activity models. It is often useful, however, to understand how an object is being used, i.e., the action performed on it. We show how to add personal sensor data (e.g., accelerometers) to obtain this detail, with little labeling and feature selection overhead. By synchronizing the personal sensor data with object-use data, it is possible to use easily specified commonsense models to minimize labeling overhead. Further, combining a generative common sense model of activity with a discriminative model of actions can automate feature selection. On observed activity data, automatically trained action classifiers give 40/85% precision/recall on 10 actions. Adding actions to pure object-use improves precision/recall from 76/85% to 81/90% over 12 activities.
STUDY OF THE DIFFERENT PARAMETERS THAT INFLUENCE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF WATER JET PUMP

The aim of this study is to investigate the performance of water jet pump. This study is reported in a series of three papers. In this paper, the performance of water jet pump was studied. The effects of the pump operating conditions and geometries on its performance were investigated. The experimental rig was constructed such a way it can be changing the driving nozzle, mixing chamber and diffuser. During experimental program water is used in both motive and pumped sides. In this study three different diameters of driving nozzles, namely (10, 12.7 and 16 mm) have been used with one mixing chamber of 25.4 mm diameter (i.e. three different area ratios of 0.155, 0.25 and 0.4). Furthermore three different mixing chamber lengths to mixing chamber diameter ratio of 6.75, 7.25 and 7.86. And three different diffuser angles of 4 o , 5.5 o and 7 o respectively with one suction nozzle of semi cone angle of 22 o . The effect of nozzle to throat spacing to nozzle diameter ratio "X" with values of 0 D, D, 1.5 D and 2 D, on the jet pump performance was also tested under different flow rates and motive pressures. In all cases, it was found that the best efficiency for the jet pump is attained with "X" equal one, and the best values for these design parameters have been obtained from the experimental work. The performance of slurry jet pump and the comparison between them will later be discussed in another further paper.
1 Frequency-dependent representation of reinforcement-related information in the 1 human medial and lateral prefrontal cortex 2 ( Reinforcement-related information in human prefrontal cortex ) 3

Frequency-dependent representation of reinforcement-related information in the 1 human medial and lateral prefrontal cortex 2 (Reinforcement-related information in human prefrontal cortex) 3 Elliot H. Smith, Garrett P. Banks, Charles B. Mikell, Syndey S. Cash, Shaun R. Patel, 4 Emad A. Eskandar, Sameer A. Sheth 5 1. Department of Neurological Surgery, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, 6 NY, 10032 7 2. Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, 02114 8 3. Department of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, 02114 9 Corresponding author: Sameer A. Sheth, ss4451@cumc.columbia. edu, 710 West 168 10 Street, NI 4. New York, NY, 10032 11
Normalized Mutual Information Feature Selection

A filter method of feature selection based on mutual information, called normalized mutual information feature selection (NMIFS), is presented. NMIFS is an enhancement over Battiti's MIFS, MIFS-U, and mRMR methods. The average normalized mutual information is proposed as a measure of redundancy among features. NMIFS outperformed MIFS, MIFS-U, and mRMR on several artificial and benchmark data sets without requiring a user-defined parameter. In addition, NMIFS is combined with a genetic algorithm to form a hybrid filter/wrapper method called GAMIFS. This includes an initialization procedure and a mutation operator based on NMIFS to speed up the convergence of the genetic algorithm. GAMIFS overcomes the limitations of incremental search algorithms that are unable to find dependencies between groups of features.
Defining a temporal order of genetic requirements for development of mycobacterial biofilms

Most mycobacterial species spontaneously form biofilms, inducing unique growth physiologies and reducing drug sensitivity. Biofilm growth progresses through three genetically programmed stages: substratum attachment, intercellular aggregation and architecture maturation. Growth of Mycobacterium smegmatis biofilms requires multiple factors including a chaperonin (GroEL1) and a nucleoid‐associated protein (Lsr2), although how their activities are linked remains unclear. Here it is shown that Lsr2 participates in intercellular aggregation, but substratum attachment of Lsr2 mutants is unaffected, thereby genetically distinguishing these developmental stages. Further, a suppressor mutation in a glycopeptidolipid synthesis gene (mps) that results in hyperaggregation of cells and fully restores the form and functions of Δlsr2 mutant biofilms was identified. Suppression by the mps mutation is specific to Δlsr2; it does not rescue the maturation‐deficient biofilms of a ΔgroEL1 mutant, thereby differentiating the process of aggregation from maturation. Gene expression analysis supports a stepwise process of maturation, highlighted by temporally separated, transient inductions of iron and nitrogen import genes. Furthermore, GroEL1 activity is required for induction of nitrogen, but not iron, import genes. Together, the findings begin to define molecular checkpoints during development of mycobacterial biofilms.
Going Places: Notes on a Modular Development of Knowledge about Travel

The paper presents a formalization of a comparatively simple traveling story. The emphasis is on the development and implementation of a library of knowledge modules needed for axiomatization of journey a movement of a group of objects from one place (the origin) to another (the destination). The movement should be able to follow a predefined route, and to achieve its goal even in the presence of natural interruptions, e.g. unexpected stops. We outline a languageM for defining knowledge modules and for assembling them into a coherent knowledge base in CR-Prolog an extension of Answer Set Prolog capable of encoding rare events. The formalization generalizes theory of action by introducing a notion of activity a sequence of intended actions which can be interrupted by unexpected and unplanned events. The notion of journey presented in the paper is a special case of a more general notion of activity.
Evaluation of fault-slip potential due to shearing of fault asperities1

Mining activities in underground mines could induce fault-slip that inflicts devastating damage to mine openings. Thus, enhancing current knowledge about fault-slip taking place in underground mines is of paramount importance. In this study, static and dynamic analyses are performed using mine-wide models encompassing a fault running parallel to a steeply dipping, tabular orebody. In the static analysis, modelled stopes within the orebody are extracted and backfilled in accordance with a sublevel stoping method. Dynamic analyses may be performed, depending on the stress states at the end of each mining stage during the static analysis, to simulate fault-slip induced by a stress drop resulting from asperity shear. Selected seismic source parameters of the simulated fault-slip are then computed for each mining stage. The relation between D/H (where D is distance between the fault and the orebody, and H is height of the mined-out ore) and seismic source parameters is examined. It is shown that seismic moment.
Prevalence of Anemia and Correlated Factors in the Reproductive Age Women in Rural Areas of Tabas

Objective To find out the prevalence and relationship of anemia in reproductive age women in rural area of Tabas, center of Iran. Iron deficiency anemia is the most common nutritional problem, affecting about 41.8% of pregnant and 30.2% of non-pregnant women worldwide. Materials and methods A cross-sectional study was conducted on the random sample of 382 reproductive age women in rural areas of Tabas in March 2010. Independent sample t-test, one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and logistic regression were applied for the data analysis. Results The obtained data revealed a total response rate of 13.8% for prevalence of anemia, while 14.5% and 5.9% belonged to non-pregnant and pregnant participants, respectively. Low socioeconomic status (odds ratio 3.35) and high parity index (odds ratio 2.31) were associated with higher prevalence of anemia. Conclusion Although this study was conducted in a rural area of Tabas, where their average incomes were lower than average income of major cities in Iran, the prevalence of anemia was lower than the rate reported in previous studies carried out in other locations of Iran, even in high risk (pregnant women) groups.
A framework relating soil surface condition to infiltration and sediment and nutrient mobilization in grazed rangelands of northeastern Queensland, Australia

The effect of grazing‐induced variation in soil surface condition on inﬁltration and runoff composition was studied at the small patch scale using a rainfall simulator. A range of sites was selected to represent soil surface conditions typical of the more widely distributed rangeland soils in northeastern Queensland. A simple soil surface condition classiﬁcation scheme relates ground cover and a few easily recognizable surface features to mean inﬁltration, sediment and nutrient concentration data. Earthworm activity was identiﬁed as being a signiﬁcant factor in recovery of soil hydrological function. A broader framework is proposed that encapsulates past, current and future trends in soil surface condition in relation to landscape hydrological response and that provides a basis for future research. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.