Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PLASTIC COMPRESSION OF SPHERES

Abstract An experimental investigation is reported of the compression of metal spheres between smooth parallel platens. Measurements have been made of the mean contact pressure P as a function of the radius of the contact area a. For work-hardened metals, P was found to increase to a maximum value of 0·7 to 0·8 times the Vickers hardness of the sphere material, at a value of a/R ≃ 0·20 to 0·28, where R is the radius of the sphere before deformation. The contact pressure then declined steadily with increasing a/R. Annealed metals showed oither no maximum in pressure, or a very broad peak. Qualitative explanations of these results are given by analogy with other deformation geometries.
Study on Personality Types of Dentists in different Disciplines of Dentistry.

AIM The purpose of this study was to determine the most common personality type among dentists in seven selected clinical dentistry specialties using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and to compare between these different types of personalities. MATERIALS AND METHODS A survey containing the MBTI and demographic and practice questions was used to assess the personality styles of 243 dental specialists in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The survey results were analyzed using descriptive statistics. RESULTS The results of the MBTI for 243 specialist dentists revealed, generally, a higher percentage of scoring for introversion (I) with an average of 65% than extroversion (E). The study identified 10 common personality types among these specialists: ISTJ, ISFJ, INFJ, ISTP, INFP, INTP, ENFP, ENTP, ENFJ, and ENTJ (extraversion-introversion (E-I), sensing-intuition (S-N), thinking-feeling (T-F), and judging-perception (J-P)). The dominant personality type in all seven clinical specialties in dentistry was ISTJ, with an average of 54%. CONCLUSION The personality types showed variation among the seven clinical dentistry specialties. However, among these seven clinician's specialties in dentistry, more than 50% of the individuals shared one common type of personality (ISTJ). CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE The identification of the personality type might help in their association with coworkers, students, and patients as well as knowing the individual preferences toward different specialties in dentistry.
Esophageal Perforations after Forceful Dilatation in Achalasia

The reported incidence of esophageal perforation after forceful dilatation in achalasia is between 1-5%. Over the past nine years we have treated five patients with this complication. After demonstrating the perforation with a Gastrografin swallow, a left posterolateral thoracotomy is made. The full-thickness laceration is sutured in two layers. A Heller esophagocardiomyotomy is then performed on the contralateral side of the esophagus. The muscular layer on either side of the esophagocardiomyotomy is mobilized well so as to allow easy closure of the outer muscular layer of the esophagus in the area of the laceration. There were no deaths and minimal morbidity in these five patients, and functional results were excellent. It is concluded that perforations of the esophagus after dilatation in achalasia should be operated on promptly and undergo closure of the laceration with a complimentary esophagocardiomyotomy.
Differential Activation of Staphylococcus aureus Heme Detoxification Machinery by Heme Analogues

ABSTRACT The reactive nature of heme enables its use as an enzymatic cofactor while rendering excess heme toxic. The importance of heme detoxification machinery is highlighted by the presence of various types of these homeostatic systems in Gram-positive and Gram-negative microorganisms. A number of pathogens possess orthologs of the HssRS/HrtAB heme detoxification system, underscoring a potential role this system plays in the survival of bacteria in heme-rich environments such as the vertebrate host. In this work, we sought to determine the role of this system in protection against metalloporphyrin heme analogues identified by previous studies as antimicrobial agents. Our findings demonstrate that only toxic metalloporphyrins maximally activate expression of the Staphylococcus aureus heme detoxification system, suggesting that the sensing mechanism of HssRS might require a component of the associated toxicity rather than or in addition to the metalloporphyrin itself. We further establish that only a subset of toxic metalloporphyrins elicit the oxidative damage previously shown to be a significant component of heme toxicity whereas all toxic noniron metalloporphyrins inhibit bacterial respiration. Finally, we demonstrate that, despite the fact that toxic metalloporphyrin treatment induces expression of S. aureus heme detoxification machinery, the HrtAB heme export pump is unable to detoxify most of these molecules. The ineffectiveness of HrtAB against toxic heme analogues provides an explanation for their increased antimicrobial activity relative to heme. Additionally, these studies define the specificity of HssRS/HrtAB, which may provide future insight into the biochemical mechanisms of these systems.
Activation of RhoA by Thrombin in Endothelial Hyperpermeability: Role of Rho Kinase and Protein Tyrosine Kinases

Endothelial cells (ECs) actively regulate the extravasation of blood constituents. On stimulation by vasoactive agents and thrombin, ECs change their cytoskeletal architecture and small gaps are formed between neighboring cells. These changes partly depend on a rise in [Ca2+]i and activation of the Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent myosin light chain kinase. In this study, mechanisms that contribute to the thrombin-enhanced endothelial permeability were further investigated. We provide direct evidence that thrombin induces a rapid and transient activation of RhoA in human umbilical vein ECs. Under the same conditions, the activity of the related protein Rac was not affected. This was accompanied by an increase in myosin light chain phosphorylation, the generation of F-actin stress fibers, and a prolonged increase in endothelial permeability. Inhibition of the RhoA target Rho kinase with the specific inhibitor Y-27632 reduced all of these effects markedly. In the presence of Y-27632, the thrombin-enhanced permeability was additionally reduced by chelation of [Ca2+]i by BAPTA. These data indicate that RhoA/Rho kinase and Ca2+ represent 2 pathways that act on endothelial permeability. In addition, the protein tyrosine kinase inhibitor genistein reduced thrombin-induced endothelial permeability without affecting activation of RhoA by thrombin. Our data support a model of thrombin-induced endothelial permeability that is regulated by 3 cellular signal transduction pathways.
A comparison and case studies of electronic product reliability prediction methods based on handbooks

Currently three handbooks: MIL-HDBK-217F, GJB-Z 299C-2006 and Telcordia SR-332 are widely used in the prediction of electronic products, but engineers often face the problem to choose a proper handbook from them. In this paper the comparison and case studies of reliability prediction methods based on these handbooks are conducted. First of all, the history of reliability prediction based on handbooks is introduced, then the theory, prediction process and advantages of these standards are presented. And the reliability of separate power supply board is predicted based on the three standards, including the failure rate of each components and their contribution to the general failure rate of the power supply board. From the analysis results carried out by the three standards, some suggestions for choosing standards are given.
Epidemiology of Kawasaki Disease in Asia, Europe, and the United States

Kawasaki disease (KD) is a systemic vasculitis that mainly affects children younger than 5 years. Although Dr. Tomisaku Kawasaki first reported KD over 40 years ago, the cause of the disease remains unknown. Currently, KD has been diagnosed in more than 60 countries, including those in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa, as well as in North America and Europe. The purpose of this review is to describe the epidemiologic features of KD—particularly its incidence, seasonality, and the occurrence of coronary artery abnormalities—primarily in Japan and the United States, but also in Europe and other Asian countries.
Hidden Convexity in QCQP with Toeplitz-Hermitian Quadratics

Quadratically Constrained Quadratic Programming (QCQP) has a broad spectrum of applications in engineering. The general QCQP problem is NP-Hard. This article considers QCQP with Toeplitz-Hermitian quadratics, and shows that it possesses hidden convexity: it can always be solved in polynomial-time via Semidefinite Relaxation followed by spectral factorization. Furthermore, if the matrices are circulant, then the QCQP can be equivalently reformulated as a linear program, which can be solved very efficiently. An application to parametric power spectrum sensing from binary measurements is included to illustrate the results.
Pilot Study of Radical Hysterectomy Versus Radical Trachelectomy on Sexual Distress

Radical trachelectomy, which leaves the uterus intact, has emerged as a desirable surgical option for eligible women with early-stage cervical cancer who wish to preserve fertility. The available data suggest excellent obstetrical outcomes with radical trachelectomy, and no differences in sexual responding between radical trachelectomy and radical hysterectomy. There is a need to examine the effect of radical hysterectomy on sexual distress given that it is distinct from sexual function. Participants were 34 women diagnosed with early-stage cervical cancer. The authors report 1-month postsurgery data for 29 women (radical hysterectomy group: n = 17, M age = 41.8 years; radical trachelectomy group: n = 12, M age = 31.8 years), and 6-month follow-up data on 26 women. Whereas both groups experienced an increase in sex-related distress immediately after surgery, distress continued to increase 6 months after surgery for the radical hysterectomy group but decreased in the radical trachelectomy group. There were no between-group differences in mood, anxiety, or general measures of health. The decrease in sex-related distress in the radical trachelectomy but not in the radical hysterectomy group suggests that the preservation of fertility may have attenuated sex-related distress. Care providers should counsel women exploring surgical options for cervical cancer about potential sex distress-related sequelae.
Comparison of rheological parameters of asphalt binders obtained from bending beam rheometer and dynamic shear rheometer at low temperatures

In this paper, an investigation was performed to determine if the complex modulus obtained from frequency sweeps performed with the dynamic shear rheometer (DSR) can be used to accurately predict the creep compliance obtained experimentally using the bending beam rheometer (BBR). Two sets of asphalt binders were tested at low, intermediate, and high temperatures and the results were analysed using 2S2P1D and DBN rheological models. DSR and BBR testing was performed in two different laboratories using different equipment manufacturers. It was found that significant differences are observed between the creep stiffness obtained with DSR and BBR devices, most likely due to the different preparation and conditioning of the test specimens in different cooling media.
Interactions with Combined Chemical Cues Inform Harvester Ant Foragers' Decisions to Leave the Nest in Search of Food

Social insect colonies operate without central control or any global assessment of what needs to be done by workers. Colony organization arises from the responses of individuals to local cues. Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) regulate foraging using interactions between returning and outgoing foragers. The rate at which foragers return with seeds, a measure of food availability, sets the rate at which outgoing foragers leave the nest on foraging trips. We used mimics to test whether outgoing foragers inside the nest respond to the odor of food, oleic acid, the odor of the forager itself, cuticular hydrocarbons, or a combination of both with increased foraging activity. We compared foraging activity, the rate at which foragers passed a line on a trail, before and after the addition of mimics. The combination of both odors, those of food and of foragers, is required to stimulate foraging. The addition of blank mimics, mimics coated with food odor alone, or mimics coated with forager odor alone did not increase foraging activity. We compared the rates at which foragers inside the nest interacted with other ants, blank mimics, and mimics coated with a combination of food and forager odor. Foragers inside the nest interacted more with mimics coated with combined forager/seed odors than with blank mimics, and these interactions had the same effect as those with other foragers. Outgoing foragers inside the nest entrance are stimulated to leave the nest in search of food by interacting with foragers returning with seeds. By using the combined odors of forager cuticular hydrocarbons and of seeds, the colony captures precise information, on the timescale of seconds, about the current availability of food.
Proteomic Analysis of Various Rat Ocular Tissues after Ischemia–Reperfusion Injury and Possible Relevance to Acute Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that can cause vision loss and optical nerve damage. To investigate the protein expression alterations in various intraocular tissues (i.e., the cornea, conjunctiva, uvea, retina, and sclera) during ischemia–reperfusion (IR) injury, this study performed a proteomic analysis to qualitatively investigate such alterations resulting from acute glaucoma. The IR injury model combined with the proteomic analysis approach of two-dimensional difference gel electrophoresis (2D-DIGE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) was used to monitor the protein expression alterations in two groups of specimens (an IR injury group and a control group). The analysis results revealed 221 unique differentially expressed proteins of a total of 1481 proteins in the cornea between the two groups. In addition, 97 of 1206 conjunctival proteins, 90 of 1354 uveal proteins, 61 of 1180 scleral proteins, and 37 of 1204 retinal proteins were differentially expressed. These findings imply that different ocular tissues have different tolerances against IR injury. To sum up, this study utilized the acute glaucoma model combined with 2D-DIGE and MALDI-TOF MS to investigate the IR injury affected protein expression on various ocular tissues, and based on the ratio of protein expression alterations, the alterations in the ocular tissues were in the following order: the cornea, conjunctiva, uvea, sclera, and retina.
Pattern fusion in feature recognition neural networks for handwritten character Recognition

B. Hussain and M.R. Kabuka (1994) proposed a feature recognition neural network to reduce the network size of neocognitron. However, a distinct subnet is created for every training pattern. Therefore, a big network is obtained when the number of training patterns is large. Furthermore, recognition rate can be hurt due to the failure of combining features from similar training patterns. We propose an improvement by incorporating the idea of fuzzy ARTMAP in the feature recognition neural network. Training patterns are allowed to be merged, based on the measure of similarity among features, resulting in a subnet being shared by similar patterns. Because of the fusion of training patterns, network size is reduced and recognition rate is increased.
Bone Morphogenetic Protein Signaling Is Required for Maintenance of Differentiated Phenotype, Control of Proliferation, and Hypertrophy in Chondrocytes

To examine the role of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling in chondrocytes during endochondral ossification, the dominant negative (DN) forms of BMP receptors were introduced into immature and mature chondrocytes isolated from lower and upper portions of chick embryo sternum, respectively. We found that control sternal chondrocyte populations expressed type IA, IB, and II BMP receptors as well as BMP-4 and -7. Expression of a DN-type II BMP receptor (termed DN-BMPR-II) in immature lower sternal (LS) chondrocytes led to a loss of differentiated functions; compared with control cells, the DN-BMPR- II–expressing LS chondrocytes proliferated more rapidly, acquired a fibroblastic morphology, showed little expression of type II collagen and aggrecan genes, and upregulated type I collagen gene expression. Expression of DN-BMPR-II in mature hypertrophic upper sternal (US) chondrocytes caused similar effects. In addition, the DN-BMPR-II–expressing US cells exhibited little alkaline phosphatase activity and type X collagen gene expression, while the control US cells produced both alkaline phosphatase and type X collagen. Both DN-BMPR-II–expressing US and LS chondrocytes failed to respond to treatment with BMP-2 . When we examined the effects of DN forms of types IA and IB BMP receptors, we found that DN-BMPR-IA had little effect, while DN-BMPR-IB had similar but weaker effects compared with those of DN-BMPR-II. We conclude that BMP signaling, particularly that mediated by the type II BMP receptor, is required for maintenance of the differentiated phenotype, control of cell proliferation, and expression of hypertrophic phenotype.
Analysis of Human-Machine Cooperation When Driving with Different Degrees of Haptic Shared Control

This study investigated human-machine cooperation when driving with different degrees of a shared control system. By means of a direct intervention on the steering wheel, shared control systems partially correct the vehicle's trajectory and, at the same time, provide continuous haptic guidance to the driver. A crucial point is to determine the optimal level of steering assistance for effective cooperation between the two agents. Five system settings were compared with a condition in which no assistance was present. In addition, road visibility was manipulated by means of additional fog or self-controlled visual occlusions. Several performance indicators and subjective assessments were analyzed. The results show that the best repartition of control in terms of cooperation between human and machine can be identified through an analysis of the steering wheel reversal rate, the steering effort and the mean lateral position of the vehicle. The best cooperation was achieved with systems of relatively low-level haptic authority, although more intervention may be preferable in poor visibility conditions. Increasing haptic authority did not yield higher benefits in terms of steering behavior, visual demand or subjective feeling.
Cervical Spondylotic Myelopathy Secondary to Dropped Head Syndrome: Report of a Case and Review of the Literature

The dropped head syndrome (DHS) is a disabling condition caused by severe weakness of the neck extensor muscles causing progressive reducible kyphosis of the cervical spine and the inability to hold the head up. Weakness can occur in isolation or in association with a generalized neuromuscular disorder. Isolated cases are owed to the late onset of noninflammatory myopathy designated as INEM, where persistent chin to chest deformity may gradually cause or aggravate preexisting degenerative changes of the cervical spine and ultimately result in myelopathy. In review of the literature, we could find only 5 cases, with no unique guidelines to address the management of these two concomitant pathologies. Herein, a 69-year-old man who had developed cervical myelopathy 2 years after being affected by isolated dropped head syndrome is presented. Chin to chest deformity and cervical myelopathy were managed through three-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) combined with decompressive cervical laminectomy and stabilization with C2 to C7 pedicle screw-rod construct. At 4-month follow-up, despite recovery in patient's neurological status, flexion deformity reappeared with recurrence of dropped head due to C7 pedicle screws pull-out. However, this was successfully managed with extension of the construct to the upper thoracic levels.
Survey of local and global biological network alignment: the need to reconcile the two sides of the same coin

Analogous to genomic sequence alignment that allows for across-species transfer of biological knowledge between conserved sequence regions, biological network alignment can be used to guide the knowledge transfer between conserved regions of molecular networks of different species. Hence, biological network alignment can be used to redefine the traditional notion of a sequence-based homology to a new notion of network-based homology. Analogous to genomic sequence alignment, there exist local and global biological network alignments. Here, we survey prominent and recent computational approaches of each network alignment type and discuss their (dis)advantages. Then, as it was recently shown that the two approach types are complementary, in the sense that they capture different slices of cellular functioning, we discuss the need to reconcile the two network alignment types and present a recent first step in this direction. We conclude with some open research problems on this topic and comment on the usefulness of network alignment in other domains besides computational biology.
The placebo response in functional dyspepsia – reanalysis of trial data

Abstract Clinical trial data rarely identify factors contributing to the placebo response. We reanalysed the data from the placebo arm (n = 157) of a functional dyspepsia (FD) trial to determine predictors of placebo response including total GIS score, change in GIS score during run‐in, type of FD symptoms, duration of illness, age, gender, body mass index (BMI), family occurrence of FD‐like symptoms, smoking and alcohol consumption. The same response criteria were applied to the drug arm (n = 158) of the study. Based on the initial 40% response criterion of the study, 35 (22.2%) were classified as placebo responders (PR), whilst 122 (78.8%) were placebo non‐responders (PnR). Response rates for the drug arm were 41.1 and 56.9% respectively. PR had significantly lower GIS scores compared to PnR at visit 1 (10.6 ± 0.6 and 12.3 ± 0.4, respectively, P = 0.035), but not at visit 2 with study medication dispensing (10.9 ± 0.5 and 11.3 ± 0.4). Hence, PR symptoms increased during run‐in by 4.2% whilst PnR symptoms decreased by 6.3% (P < 0.005). Gender, age and duration and type of FD symptoms were not different between PR and PnR. Smoking was less prevalent in PR (3%) compared to PnR (21%) (P < 0.025). Increasing the criteria for the placebo response resulted in higher BMI for PR than for PnR (P = 0.035). None of the predictors for placebo response were able to distinguish responders from non‐responders to the drug. Variables predicting the PR point towards behavioural and biological mechanism of the PR, operating simultaneously and independently.