Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Very Rare Cause of Lower Limb Ischemia in Young People: Popliteal Artery Entrapment

Background: Popliteal artery entrapment syndrome (PAES) is a very rare pathology that can cause lower extremity ischemia in healthy young people. Anomalous anatomic relationships between the popliteal artery (PA) and the surrounding musculo-tendinous structures cause PAES. We present 31 patients with PAES in 35 limbs that were treated surgically in our clinic within a 12-year period. Patients and Methods: From 2001 to 2015, 31 patients (mean age: 32 ± 7.4 years) underwent surgery for PAES. ; 4 patients presented had bilateral PAES. Doppler ultrasonography (US), magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), and conventional angiography were performed as diagnostic procedures. We detected Type I PAES in 4 limbs and Type II PAES in 12 limbs. In the remaining 19 limbs, we diagnosed Type III or Type IV PAES. Simple release of the PA, PA embolectomy and simple release, and the radial artery (RA) patch angioplasty, with or without thromboendarterectomy (TEA), were performed. In 12 limbs, PA continuity was provided by RA interposition. Results: With the exception of 5 patients, no complications were seen after surgery. Haematoma was detected in 2 patients and local infection in 2 patients. One patient required a revision for recurrent PA thromboembolic event 12 h after surgery. At a median follow- up of 23 months (range: 11-29 months), there were no postoperative complications. Conclusions: PAES can result in lower limb ischemia due to chronic vascular trauma in young healthy patients. The use of diagnostic tools such as US, a non-invasive method, and MRA are effective diagnostic tools for early diagnosis. With their combined approach, exact and early diagnosis can be achieved. PA release, alone or with arterial bypass using RA, is a viable treatment option when intervention is necessary to prevent limb loss in the early stages of the disease.
Exploiting packet‐sampling measurements for traffic characterization and classification

The use of packet sampling for traffic measurement has become mandatory for network operators to cope with the huge amount of data transmitted in today's networks, powered by increasingly faster transmission technologies. Therefore, many networking tasks must already deal with such reduced data, more available but less rich in information. In this work we assess the impact of packet sampling on various network monitoring‐activities, with a particular focus on traffic characterization and classification. We process an extremely heterogeneous dataset composed of four packet‐level traces (representative of different access technologies and operational environments) with a traffic monitor able to apply different sampling policies and rates to the traffic and extract several features both in aggregated and per‐flow fashion, providing empirical evidences of the impact of packet sampling on both traffic measurement and traffic classification. First, we analyze feature distortion, quantified by means of two statistical metrics: most features appear already deteriorated under low sampling step, no matter the sampling policy, while only a few remain consistent under harsh sampling conditions, which may even cause some artifacts, undermining the correctness of measurements. Second, we evaluate the performance of traffic classification under sampling. The information content of features, even though deteriorated, still allows a good classification accuracy, provided that the classifier is trained with data obtained at the same sampling rate of the target data. The accuracy is also due to a thoughtful choice of a smart sampling policy which biases the sampling towards packets carrying the most useful information. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
“…I've said I wish I was dead, you'd be better off without me”: A systematic review of people's experiences of living with severe asthma

ABSTRACT Objective: Our aim was to conduct a systematic review and synthesis of qualitative evidence exploring the lived experience of adults with severe asthma. Data sources: We searched MEDLINE via OvidSP, PsycINFO via OvidSP, PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, Sociological Abstracts, Google Scholar, the journals Qualitative Health Research and Qualitative Research, and a study of experiences of living with asthma by the Health Experiences Research group. Study selections: Studies were included if they used qualitative methods and explored the subjective experiences of adults (≥18 years) with a clear diagnosis of severe asthma. Results: From 575 identified studies, five met the inclusion criteria. Synthesis revealed an overarching theme of efforts that people living with severe asthma engage in to achieve personal control over their condition. Individuals ‘strive for autonomy’ through dealing with symptoms and treatment, acquiring knowledge, making decisions and reclaiming identity. Conclusion: This systematic review found a paucity of qualitative studies reporting on people's perspectives of living with severe asthma, and a focus on clinical rather than personal issues. Our synthesis reveals that severe asthma was disempowering, and a threat to identity and life roles. What was important to people living with severe asthma was striving to achieve a greater level of personal control over their condition, but these efforts received little support from their healthcare providers. Thus, more attention should be paid to understanding the self-management strategies and personal goals of people living with severe asthma. This may assist in designing interventions to better support patient self-management and improve health outcomes.
An Extended Model for the prediction of Strength Enhancement in Laterally Reinforced Concrete Columns

A behaviour-oriented model is enhanced for the confinement effectiveness and strength enhancement of concrete under axial compression, subject to passive confinement by lateral reinforcement. The basic Model developed on rationalizing the behaviour of confined concrete on the basis of three dimensional concrete constitutive law based FEM simulation results and idealized experimental results on laterally confined concrete cores was extended on the lines of confinement uniformity afforded by complex lateral reinforcement arrangements and the confinement contribution of longitudinal reinforcement. Confinement efficiency of lateral reinforcement layouts were quantified through confinement effectiveness index, which is the ratio of induced spatial average confining stress to the maximum potential confinement capacity of lateral reinforcement arrangement. This index is represented by lateral reinforcement detailing as well as material parameters in the Extended Model as well. Conceptual ‘lowest confined section’ was adopted to formulate the strength enhancement due to confinement, under average confining stress and double effect of uniformity of lateral confinement layout.
Shared Risk Resource Group Complexity and Approximability Issues

This article investigates complexity and approximability properties of combinatorial optimization problems yielded by the notion of Shared Risk Resource Group (SRRG). SRRG has been introduced in order to capture network survivability issues where a failure may break a whole set of resources, and has been formalized as colored graphs, where a set of resources is represented by a set of edges with same color. We consider here the analogous of classical problems such as determining paths or cuts with the minimum numbers of colors or color disjoint paths. These optimization problems are much more difficult than their counterparts in classical graph theory. In particular standard relationship such as the Max Flow - Min Cut equality do not hold any longer. In this article we identify cases where these problems are polynomial, for example when the edges of a given color form a connected subgraph, and otherwise give hardness and non approximability results for these problems.
Investigation of Stabilised Batu Pahat Soft Soil Pertaining on its CBR and Permeability Properties for Road Construction

Soil stabilization by adding materials such as cement, lime and bitumen is one of the effective methods for improving the geotechnical properties of soils [11] Nano-particle is one of the newest additives and many studies about using nano-particle in soil improvement has been done but it was given less attention when soft clay soils stabilization is concerned. To evaluate the strength characteristics of stabilized Batu Pahat soft clay, laboratory investigation on early strength gained by the stabilized soil must be conducted to formulate a suitable and economical mix design [10]. To achieve such purpose, the study examined the effect of NanoClay on the California Bearing Ratio and the Permeability of soft clay. The results gained shows that the Nano-Clay is able to increase the strength of the soft clay [9]. The California Bearing Ratio of the soil is increase significantly where the results for the highest percentage of admixture is 14.4% while the permeability of the soil decreases significantly with increasing Nano-Clay whereby the results of the highest percentage of admixture is 2.0187x10-11 m/s. After doing this research, it is proven that Nano-clay can contribute towards better soil stabilization and enhance the quality of soil as subgrade and foundation at large.
On the Origin of Extended Resolution in Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy with a Worn Tip Apex

Abstract In this work we analyzed the effect of the atomic force microscopy probe tip apex shape on Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) potential sensitivity and spatial resolution. It was found that modification of the apex shape from spherical to planar upon thinning of the conductive coating leads to enhanced apex contribution to the total electrostatic force between the probe and the sample. The effect results in extended potential sensitivity and spatial resolution of KPFM. Experimental results were supported by calculations.
Multi-Constraint Nonnegative Matrix Factorization Approach to Speech Enhancement with Nonstationary Noise

The enhancement of speech degraded by nonstationary noises and low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) conditions is a high demanding but challenging task. We present a robust and effective single channel speech enhancement algorithm under the framework of Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF). Considering the sparse property of speech and low-rank property of nonstationary noise, a new formulation for NMF based speech enhancement algorithm is proposed, in which we factorize the data matrix into two nonnegative sub-matrices with the constraints of speech sparsity and low rank of nonstationary noise to guarantee the effectiveness representation of the speech components from their corrupted version by nonstationary noise. As a result, a novel multi-constraint NMF speech enhancement (MC-NMFSE) algorithm is derived accordingly. Intensive experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the MC-NMFSE algorithm and demonstrate its improvement against nonstationary noises.
Protective effects of perilla oil and alpha linolenic acid on SH-SY5Y neuronal cell death induced by hydrogen peroxide

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE Oxidative stress plays a key role in neuronal cell damage, which is associated with neurodegenerative disease. The aim of present study was to investigate the neuroprotective effects of perilla oil (PO) and its active component, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), against hydrogen peroxide (H2O2)-induced oxidative stress in SH-SY5Y neuronal cells. MATERIALS/METHODS The SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells exposed to 250 µM H2O2 for 24 h were treated with different concentrations of PO (25, 125, 250 and 500 µg/mL) and its major fatty acid, ALA (1, 2.5, 5 and 25 µ/mL). We examined the effects of PO and ALA on H2O2-induced cell viability, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) release, and nuclear condensation. Moreover, we determined whether PO and ALA regulated the apoptosis-related protein expressions, such as cleaved-poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP), cleaved caspase-9 and -3, BCL-2 and BAX. RESULTS Treatment of H2O2 resulted in decreased cell viability, increased LDH release, and increase in the nuclei condensation as indicated by Hoechst 33342 staining. However, PO and ALA treatment significantly attenuated the neuronal cell death, indicating that PO and ALA potently blocked the H2O2-induced neuronal apoptosis. Furthermore, cleaved-PARP, cleaved caspase-9 and -3 activations were significantly decreased in the presence of PO and ALA, and the H2O2-mediated up-regulated BAX/BCL-2 ratio was blocked after treatment with PO and ALA. CONCLUSIONS PO and its main fatty acid, ALA, exerted the protective activity from neuronal oxidative stress induced by H2O2. They regulated apoptotic pathway in neuronal cell death by alleviation of BAX/BCL-2 ratio, and down-regulation of cleaved-PARP and cleaved caspase-9 and -3. Although further studies are required to verify the protective mechanisms of PO and ALA from neuronal damage, PO and ALA are the promising agent against oxidative stress-induced apoptotic neuronal cell death.
Rad51/Dmc1 paralogs and mediators oppose DNA helicases to limit hybrid DNA formation and promote crossovers during meiotic recombination

During meiosis programmed DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are repaired by homologous recombination using the sister chromatid or the homologous chromosome (homolog) as a template. This repair results in crossover (CO) and non-crossover (NCO) recombinants. Only CO formation between homologs provides the physical linkages guiding correct chromosome segregation, which are essential to produce healthy gametes. The factors that determine the CO/NCO decision are still poorly understood. Using Schizosaccharomyces pombe as a model we show that the Rad51/Dmc1-paralog complexes Rad55-Rad57 and Rdl1-Rlp1-Sws1 together with Swi5-Sfr1 play a major role in antagonizing both the FANCM-family DNA helicase/translocase Fml1 and the RecQ-type DNA helicase Rqh1 to limit hybrid DNA formation and promote Mus81-Eme1-dependent COs. A common attribute of these protein complexes is an ability to stabilize the Rad51/Dmc1 nucleoprotein filament, and we propose that it is this property that imposes constraints on which enzymes gain access to the recombination intermediate, thereby controlling the manner in which it is processed and resolved.
Spatial and Seasonal Dynamics of Water Environmental Capacity in Mountainous Rivers of the Southeastern Coast, China

The south-east littoral is one of the most populous and developed regions in China suffering from serious water pollution problems, and the Xian-Jiang Basin in the mid of this region is among the most polluted watersheds. Critical information is needed but lacking for improved pollution control and water quality assessment, among which water environmental capacity (WEC) is the most important variable but is difficult to calculate. In this study, a one-dimensional water quality model combined with a matrix calculation algorithm was first developed and calibrated with in-situ observations in the Xian-Jiang basin. Then, the model was applied to analyze the spatial and temporal patterns of WEC of the entire basin. The results indicated that, in 2015, the total pollutant discharges into the river reached 6719.68 t/yr, 488.12 t/yr, and 128.57 t/yr for COD, NH3-N and TP, respectively. The spatial pattern suggested a strong correlation between these water contaminants and industrial enterprises, residential areas, and land-use types in the basin. Furthermore, it was noticed that there was a significant seasonal pattern in WEC that the dry season pollution is much greater than that in the plum season, while that in the typhoon season appears to be the weakest among all seasons. The WEC differed significantly among the 24 sub-basins during the dry season but varied to a smaller extent in other seasons, suggesting differential complex spatial-temporal dependency of the WEC.
MechRNA: prediction of lncRNA mechanisms from RNA–RNA and RNA–protein interactions

Motivation Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are defined as transcripts longer than 200 nucleotides that do not get translated into proteins. Often these transcripts are processed (spliced, capped, polyadenylated) and some are known to have important biological functions. However, most lncRNAs have unknown or poorly understood functions. Nevertheless, because of their potential role in cancer, lncRNAs are receiving a lot of attention, and the need for computational tools to predict their possible mechanisms of action is more than ever. Fundamentally, most of the known lncRNA mechanisms involve RNA-RNA and/or RNA-protein interactions. Through accurate predictions of each kind of interaction and integration of these predictions, it is possible to elucidate potential mechanisms for a given lncRNA. Approach Here we introduce MechRNA, a pipeline for corroborating RNA-RNA interaction prediction and protein binding prediction for identifying possible lncRNA mechanisms involving specific targets or on a transcriptome-wide scale. The first stage uses a version of IntaRNA2 with added functionality for efficient prediction of RNA-RNA interactions with very long input sequences, allowing for large-scale analysis of lncRNA interactions with little or no loss of optimality. The second stage integrates protein binding information pre-computed by GraphProt, for both the lncRNA and the target. The final stage involves inferring the most likely mechanism for each lncRNA/target pair. This is achieved by generating candidate mechanisms from the predicted interactions, the relative locations of these interactions and correlation data, followed by selection of the most likely mechanistic explanation using a combined p-value. Results We applied MechRNA on a number of recently identified cancer-related lncRNAs (PCAT1, PCAT29, ARLnc1) and also on two well-studied lncRNAs (PCA3 and 7SL). This led to the identification of hundreds of high confidence potential targets for each lncRNA and corresponding mechanisms. These predictions include the known competitive mechanism of 7SL with HuR for binding on the tumor suppressor TP53, as well as mechanisms expanding what is known about PCAT1 and ARLn1 and their targets BRCA2 and AR, respectively. For PCAT1-BRCA2, the mechanism involves competitive binding with HuR, which we confirmed using HuR immunoprecipitation assays. Availability MechRNA is available for download at https://bitbucket.org/compbio/mechrna Contact backofen@informatik.uni-freiburg.de, cenksahi@indiana.edu Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Time-domain channel shortening and equalization of OFDM over doubly-selective channels

We discuss time-domain equalization of OFDM over doubly-selective channels. We consider the most general case, where the channel delay spread is larger than the cyclic prefix (CP), which results in inter-block interference (IBI). IBI, in conjunction with the Doppler effect, destroys the orthogonality between subcarriers and, hence, results in intercarrier interference (ICI). The time-domain equalizer (TEQ) is assumed to be a time-varying finite impulse response (TV FIR). The purpose of the TEQ is to convert the doubly-selective channel into a purely frequency-selective channel whose delay spread fits within the CP. In other words, the purpose of the TEQ is to restore orthogonality between subcarriers in the OFDM system.
Copper-Free ‘Click’ Chemistry-Based Synthesis and Characterization of Carbonic Anhydrase-IX Anchored Albumin-Paclitaxel Nanoparticles for Targeting Tumor Hypoxia

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a difficult to treat disease due to the absence of the three unique receptors estrogen, progesterone and herceptin-2 (HER-2). To improve the current therapy and overcome the resistance of TNBC, there is unmet need to develop an effective targeted therapy. In this regard, one of the logical and economical approaches is to develop a tumor hypoxia-targeting drug formulation platform for selective delivery of payload to the drug-resistant and invasive cell population of TNBC tumors. Toward this, we developed a Carbonic Anhydrase IX (CA IX) receptor targeting human serum albumin (HSA) carriers to deliver the potent anticancer drug, Paclitaxel (PTX). We used Acetazolamide (ATZ), a small molecule ligand of CA IX to selectively deliver HSA-PTX in TNBC cells. A novel method of synthesis involving copper free ‘click’ chemistry (Dibenzocyclooctyl, DBCO) moiety with an azide-labeled reaction partner, known as Strain-Promoted Alkyne Azide Cycloaddition (SPAAC) along with a desolvation method for PTX loading were used in the present study to arrive at the CA IX selective nano-carriers, HSA-PTX-ATZ. The anticancer effect of HSA-PTX-ATZ is higher compared to HSA, PTX and non-targeted HSA-PTX in MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-468 cells. The cell killing effect is associated with induction of early and late phases of apoptosis. Overall, our proof-of-concept study shows a promising avenue for hypoxia-targeted drug delivery that can be adapted to several types of cancers.
Magnetic structure and crystal-field states of the pyrochlore antiferromagnetNd2Zr2O7

In this paper, we present synchrotron x-ray diffraction, neutron powder diffraction, and time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering measurements on the rare earth pyrochlore oxide Nd2Zr2O7 to study the ordered state magnetic structure and cystal-field states. The structural characterization by high-resolution synchrotron x-ray diffraction confirms that the pyrochlore structure has no detectable O vacancies or Nd/Zr site mixing. The neutron diffraction reveals long-range all-in/all-out antiferromagnetic order below TN≈0.4 K with propagation vector k = (0 0 0) and an ordered moment of 1.26(2) μB/Nd at 0.1 K. The ordered moment is much smaller than the estimated moment of 2. 65μB/Nd for the local Ising ground state of Nd3+ (J=9/2) suggesting that the ordering is partially suppressed by quantum fluctuations. The inelastic neutron scattering experiment further confirms the Ising anisotropic ground state of Nd3+ and also reveals its dipolar-octupolar character which possibly induces the quantum fluctuation. Lastly, the crystal-field level scheme and ground state wave function have been determined.
Effect of Supplementing Betaine on Performance, Carcass Traits and Immune Responses in Broiler Chicken Fed Diets Containing Different Concentrations of Methionine

An experiment was conducted with broiler (Cobb 400) male chicks (n = 480) to determine the effect of betaine (Bet) supplementation (0 and 800 mg/kg) to diets containing five concentrations (15, 18, 20, 22 and 24 g/kg crude protein, CP) of methionine (Met) in a factorial study for performance, carcass traits, immune responses, and serum parameters. Each diet was fed ad libitum from 1 to 42 d of age to 8 replicates of 6 chicks. Birds were housed in battery brooders placed in an open-sided poultry shed. Body weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion efficiency and slaughter variables were recorded at 21 and 42 d of age. Serum biochemical profile, antibody production against Newcastle disease (ND) and lymphocyte proliferation ratio (LPR) were analysed at 42 d of age. Supplementing Bet to diets containing sub-optimal concentrations of Met (15 g/kg) improved weight gain and breast yield at 21 d of age (p0.05) by the interaction. LPR increased (p