Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EMG and MRI are Independently Related toShoulderExternal Rotation Function inNeonatalBrachial Plexus Palsy

Background Few studies exist with regard to the ability of electromyography (EMG) and volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the infraspinatus muscle to complement the physical assessment of active global shoulder external rotation (GER) in the neonatal brachial plexus palsy (NBPP) population. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationships of EMG and MRI with active GER based on analysis of the infraspinatus muscle. Methods Seventy-four NBPP patients (mean age, 5 y 1 m; range, 1 y 1 m to 13 y 3 m) who had undergone physical examination of the shoulder, EMG evaluation of the infraspinatus muscle, and shoulder MRI were included in this study. The outcome variable active GER was dichotomized into <0 degree active GER (poor) and ≥0 degree active GER (good). The interference pattern on EMG of the infraspinatus muscle was graded on a 6-point scale and dichotomized into ⩽4 and ≥5. On shoulder MRI, infraspinatus muscle volume was measured. The infraspinatus muscle interference pattern and volume were compared with active GER. Results Interference pattern on EMG of the infraspinatus muscle was significantly related to the Mallet Score (P=0.0022), with a poor interference pattern associated with an approximately 7 times higher likelihood [odds ratio=7.391; 95% confidence interval (2.054, 26.588)] of poor active GER. Infraspinatus muscle volume decrease on MRI was also significantly related to active GER (P=0.0413), with each percent volume decrease corresponding to an increase of 0.094 in the odds of having a poor Mallet Score for active GER [odds ratio=1.094; 95% confidence interval (1.004, 1.193)]. Conclusions The interference pattern of the infraspinatus muscle on EMG and the infraspinatus muscle volume on MRI are strongly related to active GER as assessed by the Mallet Score. Integrating clinical assessment with electrophysiological and imaging findings may improve the accuracy in evaluating shoulder dysfunction in NBPP and provide improved guidance in selecting interventions specific to the patient's pattern of deficits. Level of Evidence Diagnostic study, level II.
Glanzmann's thrombasthenia: updated

Glanzmann's thrombasthenia is an autosomal recessive disorder, rare in a global context, but a relatively more common platelet function defect in communities where consanguineous marriages are more frequent. On clinical grounds alone, it cannot be distinguished from other congenital platelet function defects. Epistaxis, gum bleeding, menorrhagia are the common clinical manifestations, whereas large muscle hematoma or hemarthrosis seldom occur in these patients. Essential diagnostic features are a normal platelet count and morphology, a greatly prolonged bleeding time, absence of platelet aggregation in response to ADP, collagen, epinephrine, thrombin and to all aggregating agents which ultimately depend on fibrinogen binding to platelets for this effect, flow cytometry, studies of GPIIb-IIIa receptors on the platelet membrane surface using monoclonal antibodies. The present review describes some of the uncommon features of the disorders and the currently available options which the treating physicians should be aware of during the management of these patients. Although by definition all patients with Glanzmann's thrombasthenia have a virtually complete failure of platelet aggregation, a number of variant forms of GT have been described in which the glycoproteins are present in normal or near normal amounts but are functionally defective. Understanding the pathophysiology of the disorder by the treating physicians is of utmost importance. Presence of high affinity platelet receptors resulting in thrombasthennia-like phenotype may require an antagonistic treatment atypical of classical GT management. It has now been established that different genetic mutations of either GPIIb or IIIa genes results in such a heterogeneity of thrombasthenia phenotype. Glanzmann's thrombasthenia is a paradigm for treating coronary artery disease patients with GPIIb-IIIa antibody and inhibitors. By using these medicines we create a temporary GT-like situation. Hence, understanding this disease is of utmost importance to the practicing cardiologist. As mutations for different variant forms of GT become known, our understanding of how GPIIb-IIIa molecules can be activated to act as a receptor for fibrinogen molecules will be increased. Such understanding undoubtedly will help us to devise better drugs with GPIIb-IIIa inhibitors. Molecular biology techniques have enabled us to equivocally detect heterozygote carriers who are clinically asymptomatic. However, there may be several laboratories in the developing world, which have no access to molecular biology techniques. Development of more robust techniques of quantitation of platelet receptors has enabled an accurate diagnosis of heterozygote carriers or an unborn fetus in the second trimester. The importance of the GPIIb-IIIa polymorphisms in carrier and prenatal diagnosis has not been properly studied. Nowadays the less direct method of PLA1 typing (determination of the levels of platelet antigen) of the foetal platelets as early as 16 weeks of intrauterine life can be used for prenatal diagnosis of GT.
Activation of κ-Opioid Receptors Inhibits Pruritus Evoked by Subcutaneous or Intrathecal Administration of Morphine in Monkeys

Pruritus (itch sensation) is the most common side effect associated with spinal administration of morphine given to humans for analgesia. A variety of agents have been proposed as antipruritics with poorly understood mechanisms and they are effective with variable success. κ-Opioid agonists possess several actions that are opposite to μ-opioid agonists. We proposed to investigate the role of κ-opioid receptors (KORs) in morphine-induced scratching and antinociception in monkeys. Scratching responses were counted by observers blinded to treatment. Antinociception was measured by a warm water (50°C) tail-withdrawal assay. Pretreatment with low doses oftrans-(±)-3,4-dichloro-N-methyl-N-(2-[1-pyrrolidinyl]-cyclohexyl)-benzeneacetamide (U-50488H) (0.032–0.18 mg/kg s.c.), a selective KOR agonist, dose dependently suppressed the s.c. morphine dose-effect curve for scratching and potentiated s.c. morphine-induced antinociception. In addition, s.c. U-50488H attenuated i.t. morphine (10 and 32 μg)-induced scratching while maintaining or enhancing i.t. morphine-induced antinociception. The combination of s.c. or i.t. morphine with low doses of U-50488H did not cause sedation. More importantly, pretreatment with 3.2 mg/kg nor-binaltorphimine, a selective KOR antagonist, blocked the effects of s.c. U-50488H on both s.c. and i.t. morphine-induced scratching. These results indicate that activation of KOR attenuates morphine-induced scratching without interfering with antinociception in monkeys. This mechanism-based finding provides functional evidence in support of the clinical potential of KOR agonists as antipruritics in the presence of MOR agonist-induced pruritus.
Influence of nanostructure on titanium corrosion resistance in fluoridated medium

ABSTRACT Nanocrystalline titanium, mainly owing to its high corrosion resistance, mechanical strength to density ratio and biocompatibility, has a great application potential in dental implantology. However, fluoridated agents commonly used for oral hygiene could have a destructive influence on the titanium protective passive films and lead to the formation of local corrosion damages. In this work, the effect of nanostructuring on titanium corrosion resistance in the concentration of F− which is typical for toothpastes, was evaluated by different electrochemical and surface characterisation techniques. It was found that nanostructure influences beneficially on titanium corrosion resistance in fluoride solution. Furthermore, the lower increase in nanocrystalline titanium surface roughness in corrosion solutions indicates better stability of passive film formed on its surface. This paper is part of a thematic issue on Titanium.
Second Language Processing of Filler-Gap Dependencies by Late Learners

Recent evidence suggests that late learners of second and foreign languages (L2), those who begin learning after puberty, differ as to how they comprehend complex sentences in real time compared to native speakers and early L2 learners. One area in which these differences occur is in the processing of non-local dependencies where constituents are not canonically ordered, such as in sentences containing wh-dependencies: The teacher saw which girl the boy pushed ___ yesterday. This paper presents a brief overview of current research investigating this issue. To this end, differences and similarities between how L1 and L2 speakers use lexical and syntactic information to resolve these types of dependencies are discussed. In addition, a current model of L2 sentence processing is discussed with suggestions for future research.
Improving web performance by client characterization driven server adaptation

We categorize the set of clients communicating with a server on the Web based on information that can be determined by the server. The Web server uses the information to direct tailored actions. Users with poor connectivity may choose not to stay at a Web site if it takes a long time to receive a page, even if the Web server at the site is not the bottleneck. Retaining such clients may be of interest to a Web site. Better connected clients can receive enhanced representations of Web pages, such as with higher quality images.We explore a variety of considerations that could be used by a Web server in characterizing a client. Once a client is characterized as poor or rich, the server can deliver altered content, alter how content is delivered, alter policy and caching decisions, or decide when to redirect the client to a mirror site. We also use network-aware client clustering techniques to provide a coarser level of client categorization and use it to categorize subsequent clients from that cluster for which a client-specific categorization is not available.Our results for client characterization and applicable server actions are derived from real, recent, and diverse set of Web server logs. Our experiments demonstrate that a relatively simple characterization policy can classify poor clients such that these clients subsequently make the majority of badly performing requests to a Web server. This policy is also stable in terms of clients staying in the same class for a large portion of the analysis period. Client clustering can significantly help in initially classifying clients for which no previous information about the client is known. We also show that different server actions can be applied to a significant number of request sequences with poor performance.
A Theoretical Study: The Impact of Cloning Failed Test Cases on the Effectiveness of Fault Localization

Statistical fault localization techniques analyze the dynamic program information provided by executing a large number of test cases to predict fault positions in faulty programs. Related studies show that the extent of imbalance between the number of passed test cases and that of failed test cases may reduce the effectiveness of such techniques, while failed test cases can frequently be less than passed test cases in practice. In this study, we propose a strategy to generate balanced test suite by cloning the failed test cases for suitable number of times to catch up with the number of passed test cases. We further give an analysis to show that by carrying out the cloning the effectiveness of two representative fault localization techniques can be improved under certain conditions and impaired at no time.
Concurrent task effects on memory retrieval

People sometimes remark that it is subjectively taxing to retrieve information from memory, especially when such retrieval is not immediately successful. For example, it is tiring to search in vain for a forgotten name, and likewise, laboratory subjects complain of fatigue when asked to devote several minutes to the recall of a previously studied list of words. Intuitively, therefore, one might suppose that memory retrieval must impose demands on limited cognitive resources or mechanisms. However, this possibility is contradicted by a large number of recent laboratory studies revealing that free recall is scarcely affected when subjects must perform a demanding concurrent task while recalling a list of study words (Anderson, Craik, & NavehBenjamin, 1998; Baddeley, Lewis, Eldridge, & Thomson, 1984; Craik, Govoni, Naveh-Benjamin, & Anderson, 1996; Craik, Naveh-Benjamin, Ishaik, & Anderson, 2000; Iidaka, Anderson, Kapur, Cabeza, & Craik, 2000; NavehBenjamin, Craik, Gavrilescu, & Anderson, 2000; NavehBenjamin, Craik, Guez, & Dori, 1998; Naveh-Benjamin, Craik, Perretta, & Tonev, 2000; Naveh-Benjamin & Guez, 2000). Although there are some exceptions to these results, they appear largely to be confined to studies requiring source memory (Troyer, Winocur, Craik, & Moscovitch, 1999) or studies in which the concurrent task and the memory retrieval task both involve verbal materials (Fernandes & Moscovitch, 2000; Park, Smith, Dudley, & Lafronza, 1989). These exceptions notwithstanding, then, the studies cited above showed that free recall is mostly unaffected by a concurrent mental task. The picture is complicated, however, by two studies in which memory paradigms other than free recall were used, because the results of these studies imply that memory retrieval is severely impaired by a concurrent task. In Carrier and Pashler (1995), single trials of cued recall were paired with a choice–response-time (RT) task. The results suggested severe competition between the retrieval and the concurrent task, with the memory retrieval apparently waiting for completion of processing in the concurrent task. Similarly, Rohrer, Wixted, Salmon, and Butters (1995) examined the impact of a concurrent task on the retrieval of category exemplars from semantic memory (e.g., kinds of fruits), and both the total number and the latency of these generated exemplars were grossly impaired by a serial-choice–RT task. The present article explores the apparent conflict between these two studies and the free recall studies by pairing free recall with a concurrent task that differs from those used in the previous free recall studies. In addition, the present study is the first to examine the effect of a concurrent task on recall latency as well as recall total. The theoretical motivation for this study is described later in the introduction, immediately after a review of the relevant literature.
Reference range of the weekly uterine cervical length at 8 to 38 weeks of gestation in the center of Iran

Background: There is an inverse relation between the uterine cervical length during pregnancy and the frequency of preterm delivery. The purpose of this study was to construct a chart and evaluate the cervical length at 8 to 38 weeks of normal gestation in the center of Iran. Materials and Methods: Uterine cervical length was measured on 930 asymptomatic pregnant women by abdominal ultrasonographic technique. For statistical evaluation, regression analysis and calculation of percentiles were performed. Results: Our data show a significant decrease in uterine cervical length with increasing gestational age. The mean uterine cervical length exhibits minimal changes from 10 to 24 weeks for most women in this study, although the shortening is more prominent at 33 to 38 weeks′ gestation. The mean shortening of the uterine cervical length between the second and the ninth months was 14.82% (P < 0.05). Also, the cervical length means in trimesters 1, 2 and 3 were 39.30 ± 4.33, 38.28 ± 5.13 and 36.58 ± 4.58 mm, respectively. The third trimester showed a significant reduction (P < 0.05) in cervical length compared to the first and second trimesters (6.92% and 4.44%, respectively). New charts with the 5 th , 10 th , 50 th , 90 th , and 95 th percentile are presented. Conclusion: Our study provides a new chart and reference values for normal uterine cervical length throughout gestation based on a large sample in the center of Iran. There was a progressive decrease in mean uterine cervical length with increasing gestational age in the population of this study. Our established charts for uterine cervical length throughout gestation might be more useful than a single cut-off value for more efficient prevention and management of preterm birth.
An enhanced dynamic time warping model for improved estimation of DTW parameters

We introduce an enhanced dynamic time warping model (EDTW) which, unlike conventional dynamic time warping (DTW), considers all possible alignment paths for recognition as well as for parameter estimation. The model, for which DTW and the hidden Markov model (HMM) are special cases, is based on a well-defined quality measure. We extend the derivation of the Forward and Viterbi algorithms for HMMs, in order to obtain efficient solutions for the problems of recognition and optimal path alignment in the new proposed model. We then extend the Baum-Welch (1972) estimation algorithm for HMMs and obtain an iterative method for estimating the model parameters of the new model based on the Baum inequality. This estimation method efficiently considers all possible alignment paths between the training data and the current model. A standard segmental K-means estimation algorithm is also derived for EDTW. We compare the performance of the two training algorithms, with various path movement constraints, in two isolated letter recognition tasks. The new estimation algorithm was found to improve performance over segmental K-means in most experiments.
Allergic conjunctivitis in Asia

Allergic conjunctivitis (AC), which may be acute or chronic, is associated with rhinitis in 30%–70% of affected individuals, hence the term allergic rhinoconjunctivitis (AR/C). Seasonal and perennial AC is generally milder than the more chronic and persistent atopic and vernal keratoconjunctivitis. Natural allergens like house dust mites (HDM), temperate and subtropical grass and tree pollen are important triggers that drive allergic inflammation in AC in the Asia-Pacific region. Climate change, environmental tobacco smoke, pollutants derived from fuel combustion, Asian dust storms originating from central/north Asia and phthalates may also exacerbate AR/C. The Allergies in Asia Pacific study and International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood provide epidemiological data on regional differences in AR/C within the region. AC significantly impacts the quality of life of both children and adults, and these can be measured by validated quality of life questionnaires on AR/C. Management guidelines for AC involve a stepped approach depending on the severity of disease, similar to that for allergic rhinitis and asthma. Topical calcineurin inhibitors are effective in certain types of persistent AC, and sublingual immunotherapy is emerging as an effective treatment option in AR/C to grass pollen and HDM. Translational research predominantly from Japan and Korea involving animal models are important for the potential development of targeted pharmacotherapies for AC.
Uncertainty Analysis of Shock-Bubble Interaction

A novel numerical method by means of solving an anti-diffusion equation based on volume-of-fluid methods for two-phase flow simulations is developed. The sharp interface and interface roll-up phenomena can be recovered reliably. A physical shock-bubble interaction experiment and its associated uncertainties are studied by stochastic collocation method. The jet formed inside the bubble and the baroclinic vorticity generation are found to be most affected by the presence of the uncertainties.
COMPETITIVE AND DOUBLE ANTIBODY SANDWICH ELISA FOR THE QUANTIFICATION OF LACTOFERRINS BY USING MONOCLONAL AND CHICKEN EGG YOLK IgY ANTIBODIES

Two effective competitive and double antibody sandwich ELISA based on monoclonal (MAb) and chicken egg yolk IgY antibodies were developed to determine lactoferrin (LF) content in infant and milk formulas. Leghorn laying hens were immunized with purified bovine and human LFs to produce anti-bovine LF and anti-human LF IgY antibody in the egg yolk. After 5–8 weeks of the immunization, anti-LF IgY was extracted and analyzed by ELISA. Specific IgY antibodies against LFs cross reacted with human and bovine LFs, examined by ELISA and western-blot assay. Such cross-reactivity suggested the presence of common antigenic determinants between human and bovine LFs. An indirect competitive ELISA was preferred to quantify LF in milk and infant formulas, since the range of detection is 3.125–50 μg/mL, which is broader compared to the biotinylated ELISA system (5–50 ng/mL). As per the indirect competitive ELISA system, IgY at a concentration of the 150 μg/mL was incubated with various concentrations of bovine LF ranged from 0.003–100 μg/mL. The immunoassay was used to estimate the total bovine LF content in the milk samples and infant formulas, ranging from 49.28–80.96 μg/mL and 29.92–60.00 μg/mL, respectively.
Gonadotropic activity in bovine serum and placental tissue.

The presence of a bovine pregnancy gonadotropin (BPG), with LH-like activity, was measured using the ventral prostate weight response in immature hypophysectomized rats. Phosphate buffer extracts (0.1 molar, pH 7.4) of maternal and fetal cotyledons and maternal and fetal intercotyledonary tissue taken at 3–5 months of pregnancy were fractionated by means of gel nitration (using Sephadex G-100) and bio-assayed with the ventral prostate test. Significant response was observed from fractions of these 4 regions of reproductive tissues. Studies on the behavior of labeled steroids on the column showed that steroids were separated from nonsteroid fractions. Significant response in the ventral prostate bio-assay indicative of LH-like activity was observed in an ammonium sulfate extract (0.25 molar, pH 7.0) of fetal cotyledons but no activity was found in the same which had been heat denatured. Some LH-like activity was measured in certain fractions of maternal jugular and uterine blood and all fractions of fetal .
Analysis of cardiac autonomic modulation in obese and eutrophic children.

INTRODUCTION Obesity causes alterations in cardiac autonomic function. However, there are scarce and conflicting data on this function with regard to heart rate variability in obese children. OBJECTIVE To compare the autonomic function of obese and eutrophic children by analyzing heart rate variability. METHODS One hundred twenty-one children (57 male and 64 female) aged 8 to 12 years were distributed into two groups based on nutritional status [obese (n = 56) and eutrophic (ideal weight range; n = 65) according to the body mass index reference for gender and age]. For the analysis of heart rate variability, heart rates were recorded beat by beat as the children rested in the dorsal (prone) position for 20 minutes. Heart rate variability analysis was carried out using linear approaches in the domains of frequency and time. Either Student's t-test or the Mann-Whitney U-test was applied to compare variables between groups. Statistical significance was set at 5%. RESULTS The SDNN, RMSSD, pNN50, SD1, SD2, LF and HF indices in milliseconds squared were lower among the obese children when compared to the eutrophic group. There were no alterations in the SD1/SD2 ratio, LF/HF ratio, LF index or HF index in normalized units. There was a significant difference between groups in the RR interval (R-to-R EKG interval). CONCLUSION The obese children exhibited modifications in heart rate variability, characterized by a reduction in both sympathetic and parasympathetic activity. These findings stress the need for the early holistic care of obese children to avoid future complications.