Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative study for better adjuvant with ropivacaine in epidural anesthesia

Background: Better adjuvants for epidural analgesia are still evolving. Dexmedetomidine that is alpha-2 agonist can be used as an adjuvant in epidural analgesia and anesthesia. Aims: The aim of this study was to compare the effect of dexmedetomidine versus clonidine in combination with ropivacaine in epidural anesthesia on intraoperative and postoperative analgesia, to find out the better adjuvant for regional anesthesia. Settings and Design: Randomized control trial. Materials and Methods: Sixty adult patients (18–60 years) with American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) 1/ASA 2 grade and undergoing lower abdominal and lower limbs surgeries were included and randomized into three groups of 20 patients each. Group 1 - received ropivacaine with normal saline. Group 2 - received ropivacaine with dexmedetomidine. Group 3 - received ropivacaine with clonidine. Statistical Analysis: Mean and Standard deviation were calculated. All the data were analyzed using analysis of variance and Chi-square test. The value of P< 0.05 was considered significant. Results: All the three groups were comparable with respect to age, sex, and ASA grade. There was statistically significant mean time to reach T10 sensory block level (15.8, 5.7, 9.6 min in Groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively). The maximum duration of analgesia was statistically higher in Group 2 patients (383.7 vs. 365.3 and 280.5 min in Group 3 and Group 1, respectively). The mean time to reach motor block was significantly shorter in Group 2. Side effects were comparable in all groups with statistically insignificant fall in mean arterial pressure and hypotension was noted with Group 2. Conclusion: We concluded that the patients receiving the addition of dexmedetomidine to ropivacaine in epidural anesthesia had a faster onset and longer duration of sensory and motor blockade. Dexmedetomidine in comparison to clonidine had acceptable sedation and hemodynamic stability and minimal dose requirement make very effective adjuvant in epidural anesthesia with comparable side effects.
Applications of hydrothermal time to quantifying and modeling seed germination and dormancy

Abstract Knowledge and prediction of seasonal weed seedling emergence patterns is useful in weed management programs. Seed dormancy is a major factor influencing the timing of seedling emergence, and once dormancy is broken, environmental conditions determine the rate of germination and seedling emergence. Seed dormancy is a population-based phenomenon, because individual seeds are independently sensing their environment and responding physiologically to the signals they perceive. Mathematical models based on characterizing the variation that occurs in germination times among individual seeds in a population can describe and quantify environmental and after-ripening effects on seed dormancy. In particular, the hydrothermal time model can describe and quantify the effects of temperature and water potential on seed germination. This model states that the time to germination of a given seed fraction is inversely proportional to the amount by which a given germination factor (e.g., temperature or water potential) exceeds a threshold level for that factor. The hydrothermal time model provides a robust method for understanding how environmental factors interact to result in the germination phenotype (i.e., germination pattern over time) of a seed population. In addition, other factors that influence seed dormancy and germination act by causing the water potential thresholds of the seed population to shift to higher or lower values. This relatively simple model can describe and quantify the germination behavior of seeds across a wide array of environmental conditions and dormancy states, and can be used as an input to more general models of seed germination and seedling emergence in the field.
Sorbitan Monolaurate 20 as a Potential Skin Permeation Enhancer in Transdermal Patches

The objective of our present work was to prepare transdermal matrix patches containing the drug,diclofenac diethy- lamine with various polymeric combina- tions of polyvinylpyrrolidone and ethylcellulose and to study the mecha- nism of release of the drug from the patches and its skin permeation. Sorbitan monolaurate 20 (Span 20),a non-ionic surfactant was added to the concentrations (0.1% wt/vol),as a skin permeation enhancer to the drug,
DNA integrity as a potential marker for stool-based detection of colorectal cancer.

BACKGROUND Molecular genetic analysis of DNA in patient stools has been proposed for screening of colorectal cancer (CRC). Because nonapoptotic cells shed from tumors may contain DNA that is less degraded than DNA fragments from healthy colonic mucosa, our aim was to show that DNA fragments isolated from stools of patients with CRC had higher integrity than DNA isolated from stools of patients with healthy colonic mucosa. METHODS We purified DNA from the stools of a colonoscopy-negative control group and patients with CRC and examined the relationship between long DNA fragments and clinical status by determining stool DNA integrity, using oligonucleotide-based hybrid captures with specific target sequences in increasingly long PCR reactions (200 bp, 400 bp, 800 bp, 1.3 kb, 1.8 kb, 24 kb). DNA fragments obtained from CRC patients were compared with fragments obtained from colonoscopy-negative individuals for length and/or integrity. RESULTS DNA fragments isolated from CRC patients were of higher molecular weight (>18 bands detected of a total of 24 possible bands) than fragments isolated from fecal DNA of the colonoscopy-negative control group. CONCLUSIONS The presence of long DNA fragments in stool is associated with CRC and may be related to disease-associated differences in the regulation of proliferation and apoptosis. An assay of fecal DNA integrity may be a useful biomarker for the detection of CRC.
Statistical Physics for Complex Cosmic Structures

Cosmic structures at large scales represent the earliest and most extended form of matter condensation. In this lecture we review the application of the methods and concepts of modern statistical physics to these structures. This leads to a new perspective in the field which can be tested by the many new data which are appearing in the near future. In particular, galaxy structures show fractal correlation up to the present observational limits. The cosmic microwave background radiation, which should trace the initial conditions from which these structures have emerged through gravitational dynamics, is instead extremely smooth. Understanding the relation between the complex galaxy structures and the smooth microwave background radiation represents an extremely challenging problem in the field of structure formation.
The role of single spiking spherical neurons in a fast sensory pathway

SUMMARY One difficulty in understanding the brain is that of linking the structure of the neurons with their computational roles in neural circuits. In this paper we address this subject in a relative simple system, the fast electrosensory pathway of an electric fish, where sensory images are coded by the relative latency of a volley of single spikes. The main input to this path is a stream of discrete electric images resulting from the modulation of a self-generated carrier by the environment. At the second order cell level, a window of low responsiveness, reducing potential interference from other stimuli, follows activation of the path. In the present study, we further characterize the input–output relationship at the second order neurons by recording field potentials, and ascertain its cellular basis using in vitro whole cell patch recordings. The field potentials from freely behaving, socially interacting fish were obtained from chronically implanted fish restrained in a mesh pen. In addition, at the end of some experiments the fish was curarized and the fast electrosensory path responses to artificial stimuli were further explored. These in vivo approaches showed that larger stimuli cause larger and longer windows of low responsiveness. The simple spherical geometry of the second order cells allowed us to unveil the membrane mechanisms underlying this phenomenon in vitro. These spherical cells respond with a single spike at the onset of current steps of any amplitude and duration, showing inward and outward rectification, and a long refractory period. We postulate that a low-threshold K+ conductance generates the outward rectification. The most parsimonious interpretation of our data indicates that slow deactivation of this conductance causes the long refractory period. These non-linear properties of the membrane explain the single spiking profile of spherical cells and the low-responsiveness window observed in vivo. Since the electric organ discharges are emitted at intervals slightly longer than the duration of the low-responsiveness window, we propose that the described cellular mechanisms allow fish streaming self-generated images.
Correlations between silicic volcanic rocks of the St Mary's Islands (southwestern India) and eastern Madagascar: implications for Late Cretaceous India–Madagascar reconstructions

Abstract: The St Mary's Islands (southwestern India) expose silicic volcanic and sub-volcanic rocks (rhyolites and granophyric dacites) emplaced contemporaneously with the Cretaceous igneous province of Madagascar, roughly 88–90 Ma ago. The St Mary's Islands rocks have phenocrysts of plagioclase, clinopyroxene, orthopyroxene and opaque oxide, moderate enrichment in the incompatible elements (e.g. Zr = 580–720 ppm, Nb = 43–53 ppm, La/Ybn = 6.9–7.2), relatively low initial 87Sr/86Sr (0.7052–0.7055) and near-chondritic initial 143Nd/144Nd (0.51248–0.51249). They have mineral chemical, whole-rock chemical and isotopic compositions very close to those of rhyolites exposed between Vatomandry–Ilaka and Mananjary in eastern Madagascar, and are distinctly different from rhyolites from other sectors of the Madagascan province. We therefore postulate that the St Mary's and the Vatomandry–Ilaka–Mananjary silicic rock outcrops were adjacent before the Late Cretaceous rifting that split Madagascar from India. If so, they provide a valuable tool to check and aid traditional Cretaceous India–Madagascar reconstructions based on palaeomagnetism, matching Precambrian geological features, and geometric fitting of continental shelves. Supplementary material: Mineral analyses, mass-balance calculations and locality information are available at http://www.geolsoc. org.uk/SUP18332.
The glenoid notch and its relation to the shape of the glenoid cavity of the scapula

The prevalence of a notch in the anterior margin of the glenoid cavity of 236 scapulae (118 female, 118 male) was investigated. The notch was found in 129 scapulae (55%) and gave rise to a pear‐shaped cavity. In 107 scapulae (45%) the notch was absent, the shape of the cavity being oval. No sex difference was found in the prevalence of the notch. If a distinct notch exists, the glenoid labrum is not attached to bone at the notch and is therefore liable to be sheared off (Bankart lesion).
Cost Effectiveness of Fibrosis Assessment Prior to Treatment for Chronic Hepatitis C Patients

Background and Aims Chronic hepatitis C (HCV) is a liver disease affecting over 3 million Americans. Liver biopsy is the gold standard for assessing liver fibrosis and is used as a benchmark for initiating treatment, though it is expensive and carries risks of complications. FibroTest is a non-invasive biomarker assay for fibrosis, proposed as a screening alternative to biopsy. Methods We assessed the cost-effectiveness of FibroTest and liver biopsy used alone or sequentially for six strategies followed by treatment of eligible U.S. patients: FibroTest only; FibroTest with liver biopsy for ambiguous results; FibroTest followed by biopsy to rule in; or to rule out significant fibrosis; biopsy only (recommended practice); and treatment without screening. We developed a Markov model of chronic HCV that tracks fibrosis progression. Outcomes were expressed as expected lifetime costs (2009 USD), quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs), and incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICER). Results Treatment of chronic HCV without fibrosis screening is preferred for both men and women. For genotype 1 patients treated with pegylated interferon and ribavirin, the ICERs are $5,400/QALY (men) and $6,300/QALY (women) compared to FibroTest only; the ICERs increase to $27,200/QALY (men) and $30,000/QALY (women) with the addition of telaprevir. For genotypes 2 and 3, treatment is more effective and less costly than all alternatives. In clinical settings where testing is required prior to treatment, FibroTest only is more effective and less costly than liver biopsy. These results are robust to multi-way and probabilistic sensitivity analyses. Conclusions Early treatment of chronic HCV is superior to the other fibrosis screening strategies. In clinical settings where testing is required, FibroTest screening is a cost-effective alternative to liver biopsy.
Evaluation of Endotracheal Intubation with a Flexible Fiberoptic Bronchoscope in Lateral Patient Positioning: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: There is an unmet need for a reliable method of airway management for patients in the lateral position. This prospective randomized controlled two-center study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of intubation using a flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope in the lateral position during surgery. Methods: Seventy-two patients scheduled for elective nonobstetric surgery in the lateral decubitus position requiring tracheal intubation under general anesthesia at Lishui Central Hospital of Zhejiang Province and Jiaxing First Hospital of Zhejiang Province from April 1, 2015, to September 30, 2015, were enrolled in this study. Patients were randomly assigned to the supine position group (Group S, n = 38) and the lateral position group (Group L, n = 34). Experienced anesthetists performed tracheal intubation with a fiberoptic bronchoscope after general anesthesia. The time required for intubation, intubation success rates, and hemodynamic changes was recorded. Between-group differences were assessed using the Student's t-test, Mann–Whitney U-test, or Chi-square test. Results: The median total time to tracheal intubation was significantly longer in Group S (140.0 [135.8, 150.0] s) compared to Group L (33.0 [24.0, 38.8] s) (P < 0.01). The first-attempt intubation success rate was significantly higher in Group L (97%) compared to Group S (16%). Hemodynamic changes immediately after intubation were more exaggerated in Group S compared to Group L (P = 0.02). Conclusion: Endotracheal intubation with a flexible fiberoptic bronchoscope may be an effective and timesaving technique for patients in the lateral position. Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Register, ChiCTR-IIR-16007814; http://www.chictr. org.cn/showproj.aspx? proj=13183.
Study of Morphology and Physical-Mechanical Properties of HDPE/PA6 and HDPE-g-MAH/PA6 Nanocomposites with Two Types of 30B and 15A Nanoparticles Prepared via Melt Compounding

The nanocomposites of HDPE/PA6 and HDPE-g-MAH/PA6 in the presence of two types of 30B and 15A organoclays (Oclay) were prepared via melt compounding. The XRD and TEM results confirmed the nanoscale morphology obtained by the nanoparticles. HDPE-g-MAH/PA6 samples, due to the compatibility between the phases, indicated better morphology, higher viscosity and better barrier properties than HDPE/PA6 samples. In contrast, the presence of polyethylene led to the higher modulus, crystalinity and thermal stability of HDPE/PA6 samples. 15A nanoparticles caused better performance in the properties than other particles and specially a perceptible increase in the melt viscosity and barrier properties of HDPE-g-MAH/PA6 blend.
Pupil size and social vigilance in rhesus macaques

Complex natural environments favor the dynamic alignment of neural processing between goal-relevant stimuli and conflicting but biologically salient stimuli like social competitors or predators. The biological mechanisms that regulate dynamic changes in vigilance have not been fully elucidated. Arousal systems that ready the body to respond adaptively to threat may contribute to dynamic regulation of vigilance. Under conditions of constant luminance, pupil diameter provides a peripheral index of arousal state. Although pupil size varies with the processing of goal-relevant stimuli, it remains unclear whether pupil size also predicts attention to biologically salient objects and events like social competitors, whose presence interferes with current goals. Here we show that pupil size in rhesus macaques both reflects the biological salience of task-irrelevant social distractors and predicts vigilance for these stimuli. We measured pupil size in monkeys performing a visual orienting task in which distractors—monkey faces and phase-scrambled versions of the same images—could appear in a congruent, incongruent, or neutral position relative to a rewarded target. Baseline pupil size under constant illumination predicted distractor interference, consistent with the hypothesis that pupil-linked arousal mechanisms regulate task engagement and distractibility. Notably, pupil size also predicted enhanced vigilance for social distractors, suggesting that pupil-linked arousal may adjust the balance of processing resources between goal-relevant and biologically important stimuli. The magnitude of pupil constriction in response to distractors closely tracked distractor interference, saccade planning and the social relevance of distractors, endorsing the idea that the pupillary light response is modulated by attention. These findings indicate that pupil size indexes dynamic changes in attention evoked by both the social environment and arousal.
Double differential space-time block coding for time-selective fading channels

Most existing space-time coding schemes assume time-invariant fading channels and offer antenna diversity gains relying on accurate channel estimates at the receiver. Based on a diagonal unitary matrix group, a novel double differential space-time block coding approach is derived for time-selective fading channels. Without estimating the channels at the receiver, information symbols are recovered with antenna diversity gains regardless of the frequency offsets. The resulting transceiver has very low complexity and is applicable to an arbitrary number of transmit and receive antennas. Approximately optimal space-time codes are also designed to minimize the bit error rate. System performance is evaluated both analytically and with simulations.
Application management techniques for the Bifrost system

We describe the adaptive component migration facility in the Bifrost location-independent computing system. We present a facility that allows mobile clients to selectively invoke application component functionality locally or remotely in order to improve user response time. The Bifrost runtime system uses a decision-making process that takes into account a variety of issues affecting the migration decision, including client and server resources, component size, the size of the data associated with the component, and network characteristics. We present a detailed design of this system, while examining the options of function call re-direction and API wrappers as a means to extend the semantics of the underlying remote execution technology (DCOM). The adaptive functionality provided by Bifrost resulted in a minimum 29% reduction in response time experienced by the client over a default DCOM-based implementation for mobile client devices.
The Effectiveness of Clonidine-Bupivacaine Repeated Nerve Stimulator-guided Injection in Piriformis Syndrome

ObjectivesPiriformis syndrome (PS) is often refractory to conventional therapies. Guided injection techniques generally necessitate a computed tomography or fluoroscopic guidance that may not be available in most pain management centers in addition to its relative high cost. The aim of this clinical trial is to investigate whether clonidine-bupivacaine nerve-stimulator guided injections are effective in achieving long-lasting pain relief in PS compared with bupivacaine guided injection. MethodsA pilot study conducted on 18 patients (15 females, 3 males) diagnosed with PS showed the adequacy of nerve stimulator guided technique assessed via confirmatory visualized tomography scan demonstrating a worthy coverage of the piriformis muscle in about 84% of the cases. This randomized double-blind trial included 80 patients with PS who received a nerve stimulator-guided piriformis injection (group C received 9 mL bupivacaine 0.5% and 1 mL clonidine 150 mcg/mL; group B received 9 mL bupivacaine 0.5% and 1 mL saline). Pain characteristics and analgesics consumption were the primary end points assessed for 6 months. ResultsGroup C showed significantly lower pain scores and analgesics consumption than group B (P<0.0001). Pain at 6 months was significantly greater in group B (78%) than in group C (8%) (P<0.01). For every 18 months of PS pain, the outcomes demonstrated that a patient needed 1 additional injection to the initial injection. DiscussionRepeated clonidine-guided piriformis injection relieved PS symptoms and reduce analgesic consumption for a 6-month period. It is a cost-effective useful treatment for PS refractory to traditional therapeutic approaches.
Revenue maximization when bidders have budgets

We study the problem of maximizing revenue for auctions with multiple units of a good where bidders have hard budget constraints, first considered in [2]. The revenue obtained by an auction is compared with the optimal omniscient auction had the auctioneer known the private information of all the bidders, as in competitive analysis [7]. We show that the revenue of the optimal omniscient auction that sells items at many different prices is within a factor of 2 of the optimal omniscient auction that sells all the items at a single price, implying that our results will carry over to multiple price auctions. We give the first auction for this problem, to the best of our knowledge, that is known to obtain a constant fraction of the optimal revenue when the bidder dominance (the ratio between the maximum contribution of a single bidder in the optimal solution and the revenue of that optimal solution) is large (as high as 1/2). Our auction is also shown to remain truthful if canceled upon not meeting certain criteria. On the negative side, we show that no auction can achieve a guarantee of 1/2-ε the revenue of the optimal omniscient multi-price auction. Finally, if the bidder dominance is known in advance and is less than 1/5.828, we give an auction mechanism that raises a large constant fraction of the optimal revenue when the bidder dominance is large and is asymptotically close to the optimal omniscient auction as the bidder dominance decreases. We discuss the relevance of these results for related applications.