Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Variable Clinical Presentation of Tuberculosis Otitis Media and the Importance of Early Detection

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) is a rare cause of otitis media. This study aims to increase awareness on the clinical presentation of TB otitis media and illustrate how early detection affects treatment outcome. Methods: Chart review of 12 patients (13 ears) from a tertiary hospital in Manila, Philippines, seen from 2004 to 2009. Clinical predictors of the disease were summarized. Clinical, radiologic, and audiometric outcomes after treatment were compared between treatment groups. Results: The 5 otoscopic presentations were multiple perforations, single perforation with refractory otorrhea and exuberant granulation tissue formation, single perforation with minimal otorrhea and no granulation tissue formation, intact tympanic membrane with middle ear effusion, and intact tympanic membrane with tumorlike tissue in the middle ear. Clinical predictors of the disease were history of pulmonary TB, work-related contamination of the infection, positive purified protein derivative test, positive chest radiographic finding and intraoperative granulation tissue with cheesy material, and temporal bone computed tomographic scan findings. Patients who had no middle ear surgery showed significantly better clinical, radiologic, and audiometric outcomes than those who were diagnosed late and had more complicated surgical procedure. Conclusion: The clinical presentation of TB otitis media is variable. Early detection of the early forms entail less surgical intervention and favors better treatment results.
Metabolic and Fatigue Profiles Are Comparable Between Prepubertal Children and Well-Trained Adult Endurance Athletes

The aim of this study was to determine whether prepubertal children are metabolically comparable to well-trained adult endurance athletes and if this translates into similar fatigue rates during high-intensity exercise in both populations. On two different occasions, 12 prepubertal boys (10.5 ± 1.1 y), 12 untrained men (21.2 ± 1.5 y), and 13 endurance male athletes (21.5 ± 2.7 y) completed an incremental test to determine the power output at VO2max (PVO2max) and a Wingate test to evaluate the maximal anaerobic power (Pmax) and relative decrement in power output (i.e., the fatigue index, FI). Furthermore, oxygen uptake (VO2), heart rate (HR), and capillary blood lactate concentration ([La]) were measured to determine (i) the net aerobic contribution at 5-s intervals during the Wingate test, and (ii) the post-exercise recovery kinetics of VO2, HR, and [La]. The Pmax-to-PVO2max ratio was not significantly different between children (1.9 ± 0.5) and endurance athletes (2.1 ± 0.2) but lower than untrained men (3.2 ± 0.3, p < 0.001 for both). The relative energy contribution derived from oxidative metabolism was also similar in children and endurance athletes but greater than untrained men over the second half of the Wingate test (p < 0.001 for both). Furthermore, the post-exercise recovery kinetics of VO2, HR, and [La] in children and endurance athletes were faster than those of untrained men. Finally, FI was comparable between children and endurance athletes (−35.2 ± 9.6 vs. −41.8 ± 9.4%, respectively) but lower than untrained men (−51.8 ± 4.1%, p < 0.01). To conclude, prepubertal children were observed to be metabolically comparable to well-trained adult endurance athletes, and were thus less fatigable during high-intensity exercise than untrained adults.
Adaptive Optimal Load Balancing in a Nonhomogeneous Multiserver System with a Central Job Scheduler

A model comprising several servers, each equipped with its own queue and with possibly different service speeds, is considered. Each server receives a dedicated arrival stream of jobs; there is also a stream of generic jobs that arrive to a job scheduler and can be individually allocated to any of the servers. It is shown that if the arrival streams are all Poisson and all jobs have the same exponentially distributed service requirements, the probabilistic splitting of the generic stream that minimizes the average job response time is such that it balances the server idle times in a weighted least-squares sense, where the weighting coefficients are related to the service speeds of the servers. The corresponding result holds for nonexponentially distributed service times if the service speeds are all equal. This result is used to develop adaptive quasi-static algorithms for allocating jobs in the generic arrival stream when the load parameters are unknown. The algorithms utilize server idle-time measurements which are sent periodically to the central job scheduler. A model is developed for these measurements, and the result mentioned is used to cast the problem into one of finding a projection of the root of an affine function, when only noisy values of the function can be observed. >
Weak pitch angle scattering of few MV rigidity ions from measurements of anisotropies in the distribution function of interstellar pickup H

The distribution function of interstellar pickup hydrogen is measured with the SWICS instrument on Ulysses at high heliographic latitudes, over a broad range of velocities, including those below that of the solar wind. It is found that these few MV rigidity protons exhibit a pronounced inward radial streaming in the frame of the solar wind, suggesting that neither instabilities generated by the pickup ions nor ambient turbulence is effective in scattering and isotropizing these particles. These results have implications for theories for the instabilities associated with pickup ions and for the propagation of low rigidity particles in the solar wind.
Pretraining for Hyperspectral Convolutional Neural Network Classification

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been shown to be a powerful tool for image classification. Recently, they have been adopted into the remote sensing community with applications in material classification from hyperspectral images. However, CNNs are time-consuming to train and often require large amounts of labeled training data. The widespread use of CNNs in the image processing and computer vision communities has been facilitated by the networks that have already been trained on large amounts of data. These pretrained networks can be used to initialize networks for new tasks. This transfer of knowledge makes it far less time-consuming to train a new classifier and reduces the need for a large labeled data set. This concept of transfer learning has not yet been fully explored by those using CNNs to train material classifiers from hyperspectral data. This paper provides an insight into training hyperspectral CNN classifiers by transferring knowledge from well labeled data sets to data sets that are less well labeled. It is shown that these CNNs can transfer between completely different domains and sensing platforms, and still improve classification performance. The application of this work is in the training of material classifiers of data acquired from field-based platforms, by transferring knowledge from publicly accessible airborne data sets. Factors, such as training set size, CNN architectures, and the impact of filter width and wavelength interval, are studied.
Analysis of primaquine and its metabolite carboxyprimaquine in biological samples: enantiomeric separation, method validation and quantification.

The clinical formulation of primaquine (PQ) is a mixture of (-)-(R)- and (+)-(S)- primaquine enantiomers which may show different pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. To assess the efficacy and toxicity of primaquine enantiomers, a method using LC-MSD-TOF has been developed. The enantiomers were well separated using a Chiralcel OD column (250 × 4.6 mm, 10 µm) with a linear gradient of mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile (0.1% formic acid) and aqueous ammonium formate (20 mm; 0.1% formic acid) adjusted to pH 5.9 at a flow rate of 0.7 mL/min. The method was validated for linearity, precision, accuracy and limits of detection and quantification. The calibration curves were linear with all correlation coefficients being >0.999. The average recoveries of (-)-(R)- and (+)-(S)-primaquine and (-)-(R)- and (+)-(S)-carboxyprimaquine were 88 and 92%, respectively, in spiked human plasma and 89 and 93% respectively in spiked mouse plasma samples. The RSD of (-)-(R)- and (+)-(S)-primaquine and (-)-(R)- and (+)-(S)-carboxyprimaquine were 2.15, 1.74, 1.73 and 2.31, respectively, in spiked human plasma and 2.21, 1.09, 1.95 and 1.17% in spiked mouse plasma, respectively. The intra-day and inter-day precisions expressed as RSD were lower than 10% in all analyzed quality control levels. The method as reported is suitable for study of the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties of the enantiomers of primaquine. The method was successfully applied to study plasma pharmacokinetic profile of enantiomers of primaquine and carboxyprimaquine in mice administered with primaquine in racemic form. The analytical method was found to be linear, accurate, precise and specific.
An investigation into the role of alcohol in self-harm in rural Sri Lanka: a protocol for a multimethod, qualitative study

Introduction Sri Lanka has one of the highest suicide and self-harm rates in the world and although alcohol has been found to be a risk factor for self-harm in Sri Lanka, we know little about the connection between the two. This paper comprises a protocol for a qualitative study investigating alcohol's role in self-harm in rural Sri Lanka at three levels: the individual, community and policy level. The analysis will bring new understanding of the link between alcohol and self-harm in Sri Lanka, drawing on structural, cultural and social concepts. It will equip researchers, health systems and policy makers with vital information for developing strategies to address alcohol-related problems as they relate to self-harm. Methods and analysis To capture the complexity of the link between alcohol and self-harm in the Anuradhapura district in the North Central Province in Sri Lanka, qualitative methods will be utilised. Specifically, the data will consist of serial narrative life-story interviews with up to 20 individuals who have non-fatally self-harmed and where alcohol directly or indirectly was involved in the incidence as well as with their significant others; observations in communities and families; six focus group discussions with community members; and key-informant interviews with 15–25 stakeholders who have a stake in alcohol distribution, marketing, policies, prevention and treatment as they relate to self-harm. Ethics and dissemination The study has received ethical approval from the Ethical Review Committee of the Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. A sensitive data collection technique will be used and ethical issues will be considered throughout the study. Results The results will be disseminated in scientific peer-reviewed articles in collaboration with Sri Lankan and other international research partners.
Thermodynamic assessment of oxide system In2O3‑SnO2‑ZnO

The In 2 O 3 -SnO 2 -ZnO system is of special interest for applications as transparent conducting oxides and also transparent semiconductors. In the present work, a thermodynamic assessment for this system is discussed using all available experimental data on phase equilibria and thermodynamic properties. All sub-systems including elemental combinations were considered in order to generate a self-consistent Gibbs energy dataset for further calculation and prediction of thermodynamic properties of the system. The modified associate species model was used for the description of the liquid phase. Particular attention was given to two significant solid solution phases: Spinel with the formula Zn (2-x) Sn (1-x) In 2x O 4 based on Zn 2 SnO 4 and Bixbyite based on In 2 O 3 and extending strongly toward the SnZnO 3 composition according to the formula In (2‑2x) Sn x Zn x O 3 . In addition to the component oxides, nine quasi-binary compounds located in the In 2 O 3 -ZnO binary subsystem have also been included in the database as stoichiometric phases.
On predicting in-building WiFi coverage with a fast discrete approach

A new approach for predicting coverage of wireless LAN at 2.4 GHz is presented. Coverage prediction is one of the core parts of indoor wireless LAN planning tools. The main concern it has to deal with is providing a good trade-off between prediction accuracy and computational load. Usual approaches belong to either empirical or deterministic methods. A new perspective has recently been offered that exploits a discrete formalism based on the TLM formulation. It is referred to as Multi-Resolution Frequency Domain ParFlow (MR-FDPF). While ray-tracing handles computational load by restricting the number of considered paths, the proposed approach acts by adapting the spatial resolution. This paper presents the straight lines of MR-FDPF and details the conditions for efficient in-building coverage prediction at 2.4 GHz. In a second part this paper tackles the calibration problem and claims for an automatic calibration process to improve the fit between predictions and measurements. A couple of experiments are presented.
Thermodynamics of fractal networks.

Optimal channel networks are fractal structures that bear a striking resemblance to real rivers. They are obtained by minimizing an energy functional associated with spanning trees. We show that large network development effectively occurs al zero temperature since the entropy scales subdominantly with system size compared to the energy. Thus these networks develop under generic conditions and freeze into a static scale-free structure. We suggest a link of optimal channel networks with self-organized critical systems and critical phenomena which exhibit spatial and temporal fractality, the former under generic conditions and the latter on fine tuning.
A high-fibre bean-rich diet versus a low-carbohydrate diet for obesity.

BACKGROUND High-fibre and low-carbohydrate diets may enhance satiety and promote weight loss. We compared a diet rich in beans aiming to increase dietary fibre and promote weight loss with a low-carbohydrate diet in a randomised controlled trial to assess effect and tolerability of the high-fibre bean-rich diet. METHODS AND RESULTS One hundred and seventy-three women and men, with a mean body mass index of approximately 36 kg m(-2) (one-fifth with diabetes type 2) were randomised to a high-fibre bean-rich diet that achieved mean (SD) fibre intakes of 35.5 (18.6) g day(-1) for women and 42.5 (30.3) g day(-1) for men, or a low-carbohydrate diet. Both diets were induced gradually over 4 weeks and included a 3-day feeding phase. Among 123 (71.1%) completers at 16 weeks, mean (SD) weight loss was 4.1 (4.0) kg in the high-fibre versus 5.2 (4.5) kg in the low-carbohydrate group [difference, 1.1 kg, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -2.6 to -0.5; P = 0.2], with results similar to the intent-to-treat population. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol levels decreased with the high-fibre diet (difference in LDL-cholesterol versus low-carbohydrate diet, 0.2 mmol L(-1) , 95% CI = 0.01-0.44 mmol L(-1) ; P = 0.045), as did total cholesterol (P = 0.038), whereas changes in other lipids and glucose did not differ. After 52 weeks, the low-carbohydrate (n = 24) group tended to retain weight loss better than the high-fibre group (P = 0.06), although total cholesterol remained lower with the bean-rich diet (P = 0.049). CONCLUSIONS A high-fibre bean-rich diet was as effective as a low-carbohydrate diet for weight loss, although only the bean-rich diet lowered atherogenic lipids.
Intra-Arterial Nimodipine for Severe Cerebral Vasospasm after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Influence on Clinical Course and Cerebral Perfusion

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The efficacy of intra-arterial administration of nimodipine (IAN) in patients with severe vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) remains unproved. The goal of the present study was to investigate the clinical effect and cerebral perfusion after IAN in patients with severe vasospasm refractory to hemodynamic treatment. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-six of 214 patients with aneurysmal SAH were included in the prospective study, approved by the local ethics committee. All patients met the criteria of medically refractory cerebral vasospasm. Effectiveness was monitored angiographically by digital subtraction angiography and by transcranial Doppler (TCD), perfusion CT (PCT), and neurologic examination during treatment course and follow-up. RESULTS: No angiographic effect was observed in 8 patients. The pooled PCT values revealed a reduction of time to peak (P = .03) and mean transit time (P = .17) 1 day after intervention. This effect did not persist during the following days. The pooled TCD analysis demonstrated a transient increase in flow 1 day after intervention (P = .03). No trend was evident during the next 7 days after intervention. Additional infarction was experienced by 61.1% of patients. CONCLUSIONS: IAN in a selective patient group resulted in a positive response with reduction of angiographic vasospasm and increase in cerebral perfusion as detected by PCT after 24 hours. Therefore, IAN appears more effective than intra-arterial papaverine. Nevertheless the efficacy of IAN is temporary. Therefore, the search for more effective treatment strategies to reduce critical vasospasm and to improve cerebral perfusion must be continued.
The Validity and Reliability of Developmental Test of Visual Perception—2nd Edition (DTVP-2)

ABSTRACT The Developmental Test of Visual Perception—2nd edition (DTVP-2) is frequently used by occupational therapists to evaluate school-age children. It is important that therapists use assessments with established validity and reliability. This study investigated the convergent validity and internal consistency of the DTVP-2. Forty-five healthy participants from Australia, aged 6–12 years, completed the DTVP-2, the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration—6th edition (VMI), and the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills—3rd edition (TVPS-3). A Spearman rho correlation coefficient was used to investigate the DTVP-2's convergent validity and Cronbach alpha coefficients were used to determine the DTVP-2's internal consistency. Statistically significant correlations between the DTVP-2, VMI, and TVPS-3 total scale scores and subscale scores were found. Internal consistency of items for the DTVP-2, VMI, and TVPS-3 total scores was >0.80 and internal consistency of items for subscale scores was >0.70. The DTVP-2 exhibited evidence of convergent validity with the VMI and TVPS-3, and moderate to high levels of internal consistency.
Mechanical Properties and Impact Toughness of Nickel and Aluminum Alloyed High Silicon Ductile Iron

High silicon grades of ductile cast iron are known to be highly advantageous in regard to technically relevant properties and economic efficiency. In particular, the outstanding mechanical properties lead to an increasing demand since 2011, the year of incorporation to the EN 1563 standard. However, low impact resistance and spontaneous failure are concerns that limit the application, especially at lower temperatures. Silicon serves as a solid solution strengthener. By the addition of cobalt, aluminum and nickel as additional solid solution strengthener, an improvement in mechanical properties compared to only silicon could be obtained. Previous studies showed that the addition of 1.5 wt. % Ni to an EN-GJS-500-14 grade with 3.8 wt. % Si resulted in a tensile strength of 650 MPa at 15 % elongation. In the present study, silicon was substituted stepwise by nickel and aluminum, simultaneously aiming at the retention of the mechanical properties of the EN-GJS-500-14 grade. By decreasing the silicon content to 3.3 wt. % Si at 1.1 wt. % Ni and 0.2 wt. % Al, EN-500-14 was obtained. Even though, the presence of pearlite in the matrix was observed, this substitution of silicon led to an increase in Charpy-V-notch toughness by 4 Joule at room temperature. For further alloy design of high silicon ductile cast iron for simultaneously substituting silicon and improving the mechanical properties and notch toughness, the restrictions for pearlite formation must be complied.
Sarcoidosis and tuberculosis: the same disease with different manifestations or similar manifestations of different disorders

Purpose of reviewEver since sarcoidosis was first described, its relationship with tuberculosis has been debated. Whereas some consider sarcoidosis and tuberculosis as two extremes of the same disease process, other researchers have negated the role of mycobacteria in causation of sarcoidosis. Whether or not linked causally, there are obvious clinical similarities that make differential diagnosis of the two conditions very challenging, particularly in countries with high burden of tuberculosis. Herein we analyze the relationship between sarcoidosis and tuberculosis and its implications in clinical practice. Recent findingsInitial studies had focused on finding an epidemiological link between the two conditions or demonstration of mycobacteria in sarcoid lesions on histology. Results from these studies were at best suggestive. Recent molecular and immunological studies suggest mycobacterial antigens are the inciting agents in a proportion of sarcoidosis patients. Evidence is stronger from countries with high burden of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis can manifest as a complication of treatment in sarcoidosis and the two conditions can rarely co-exist. SummaryThe balance of evidence favors mycobacteria or their products as a trigger for inciting immune responses leading to sarcoidosis in a proportion of patients, which is likely to be higher in countries with high tuberculosis burden. This evidence also highlights the limitations of molecular or serological studies to discriminate between the two conditions.
Supervised Person Re-ID based on Deep Hand-crafted and CNN Features

Gaussian Fisher Vector (GFV) encoding is an extension of the conventional Fisher Vector (FV) that effectively discards the noisy background information by localizing the pedestrian position in the image. Nevertheless, GFV can only provide a shallow description of the pedestrian features. In order to capture more complex structural information, we propose in this paper a layered extension of GFV that we called LGFV. The representation is based on two nested layers that hierarchically refine the FV encoding from one layer to the next by integrating more spatial neighborhood information. Besides, we present in this paper a new rich multi-level semantic pedestrian representation built simultaneously upon complementary deep hand-crafted and deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) features. The deep hand-crafted feature is depicted by the combination of GFV mid-level features and high-level LGFV ones while a deep CNN feature is obtained by learning in a classification mode an effective embedding of the raw pedestrian pixels. The proposed deep hand-crafted features produce competitive accuracy with respect to the deep CNN ones without needing neither pre-training nor data augmentation, and the proposed multi-level representation further boosts the re-ID