Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of the Jugular Foramen in Pediatric Patients With Craniosynostosis

Introduction:Intracranial hypertension due to craniosynostosis is a dreaded potential complication that affects the developing brain. We hypothesized that craniosynostotic patients have significantly reduced jugular foramen (JF) when compared with age-matched controls. This may partially account for the observed increase in intracranial pressure (ICP) seen in some of these patients. We also estimated the potential effects on ICP using the Hagen-Poiseuille equation. Materials and Methods:Two institutional review board-approved groups were included in this study. Group 1 consists of 14 randomly selected craniosynostotic patients (7 boys and 7 girls; mean age, 9.33 mo; range, 0.6-21 mo). Group 2, the control group, consists of 27 children without craniosynostosis (13 boys and 14 girls; mean age, 8.71 mo; range, 0.23-45 mo). The same neuroradiologist used axial computed tomographic scans to measure the greatest anterior-posterior (AP) and lateral diameters of the jugular bulb. Results:The right JF AP diameter is 23.02% smaller in group 1 than in group 2 (P = 0.0066, 2-tailed t-test). The left JF AP diameter was also smaller for group 1 but was not statistically significant (P = 0.257, 2-tailed t-test). Group 1 also had a nonsignificant increase in both lateral diameters (P > 0.05). Discussion:The study showed a significant decrease (23.02%) in the right JF AP dimension in children with craniosynostosis. On the basis of the Hagen-Poiseuille equation, a 23.02% AP diameter reduction in 1 JF may theoretically increase the ICP 63.5% or 6.35 mm Hg, keeping all other variables, such as blood flow, constant. Although not supported by aspect ratio analysis, the slight increase in the lateral diameters of the patients' JFs may lessen this effect.
The Brain's Body: Neuroscience and Corporeal Politics

In The Brain's Body Victoria Pitts-Taylor brings feminist and critical theory to bear on new development in neuroscience to demonstrate how power and inequality are materially and symbolically entangled with neurobiological bodies. Pitts-Taylor is interested in how the brain interacts with and is impacted by social structures, especially in regard to race, class, gender, sexuality, and disability, as well as how those social structures shape neuroscientific knowledge. Pointing out that some brain scientists have not fully abandoned reductionist or determinist explanations of neurobiology, Pitts-Taylor moves beyond debates over nature and nurture to address the politics of plastic, biosocial brains. She highlights the potential of research into poverty's effects on the brain to reinforce certain notions of poor subjects and to justify particular forms of governance, while her queer critique of kinship research demonstrates the limitations of hypotheses based on heteronormative assumptions. In her exploration of the embodied mind and the "embrained" body, Pitts-Taylor highlights the inextricability of nature and culture and shows why using feminist and queer thought is essential to understanding the biosociality of the brain.
The Promise of Cell Therapy: Is History Repeating Itself

Copyright: © 2013 Phinney DG. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The iPS “revolution” has dominated most aspects of stem cell biology over the past five years culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Dr. John B. Gurdon of the University of Cambridge and Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University for their seminal contributions to this field. Dr. Gurdon was the first to successfully generate living tadpoles via somatic cell nuclear transfer [1,2] and Dr. Yamanaka demonstrated that somatic cell reprogramming to an embryonic state could be achieved by ectopic expression of four genes [3]. Indeed, Yamanaka’s achievement validated the work of many scientists who painstakingly delineated the roadmap of gene regulatory networks activated during embryogenesis and responsible for establishing a pluripotent state [4-8].
Toward evaluating lighting design interface paradigms for novice users

Lighting design is a complex but fundamental task in computer cinematography, involving the adjustment of light parameters to define final scene appearance. Many user interfaces have been proposed to simplify lighting design. They can be generally categorized in three paradigms: direct light parameter manipulation, indirect light feature manipulation (e.g., shadow dragging), and goal-based optimization of lighting through painting. To this date, no formal evaluation of the relative effectiveness of these paradigms has been performed. In this paper, we present a first step toward evaluating the benefits of these three paradigms in the form of a user study with a focus on novice users. 20 subjects participated in the experiment by performing various trials on simple scenes with up to 8 point lights, designed to test two lighting tasks: precise adjustment of lighting and the artistic exploration of lighting configurations. We collected objective and subjective data and found that subjects can light well with direct and indirect interfaces, preferring the latter. Paint-based goal specification was found to be significantly worse than the other paradigms, especially since users tend to sketch rather than accurately paint goal images, an input that painting algorithms were not designed for. We also found that given enough time, novices can perform relatively complex lighting tasks, unhindered by geometry or lighting complexity. Finally, we believe that our study will impact the design of future lighting interfaces and it will serve as the basis for designing additional experiments to reach a comprehensive evaluation of lighting interfaces.
Surgicric 2: A comparative bench study with two established emergency cricothyroidotomy techniques in a porcine model.

BACKGROUND 'Can't Intubate, Can't Oxygenate' is a rare but life threatening event. Anaesthetists must be trained and have appropriate equipment available for this. The ideal equipment is a topic of ongoing debate. To date cricothyroidotomy training for anaesthetists has concentrated on cannula techniques. However cases reported to the NAP4 audit illustrated that they were associated with a high failure rate. A recent editorial by Kristensen and colleagues suggested all anaesthetists must master a surgical technique. The surgical technique for cricothyroidotomy has been endorsed as the primary technique by the recent Difficult Airway Society 2015 guidelines. METHODS We conducted a bench study comparing the updated Surgicric 2 device with a scalpel-bougie-tube surgical technique, and the Melker seldinger technique, using a porcine model. Twenty six senior anaesthetists (ST5+) participated. The primary outcome was insertion time. Secondary outcomes included success rate, ease of use, device preference and tracheal trauma. RESULTS There was a significant difference (P<0.001) in the overall comparisons of the insertion times. The surgical technique had the fastest median time of 62 s. The surgical and Surgicric techniques were significantly faster to perform than the Melker (both P<0.001). The surgical technique had a success rate of 85% at first attempt, and 100% within two attempts, whereas the others had failed attempts. The surgical technique was ranked first by 50% participants and had the lowest grade of posterior tracheal wall trauma, significantly less than the Surgicric 2 (P=0.002). CONCLUSIONS This study supports training in and the use of surgical cricothyroidotomy by anaesthetists.
Development of non‐phosphorylated neurofilament protein expression in neurones of the New World monkey dorsolateral frontal cortex

We studied developmental changes in the expression of non‐phosphorylated neurofilament protein (NNF) (a marker of the structural maturation of pyramidal neurones) in the dorsolateral frontal cortex of marmoset monkeys, between embryonic day 130 and adulthood. Our focus was on cortical fields that send strong projections to extrastriate cortex, including the dorsal and ventral subdivisions of area 8A, area 46 and area 6d. For comparison, we also investigated the maturation of prefrontal area 9, which has few or no connections with visual areas. The timing of expression of NNF immunostaining in early life can be described as the result of the interaction of two developmental gradients. First, there is an anteroposterior gradient of maturation in the frontal lobe, whereby neurones in caudal areas express NNF earlier than those in rostral areas. Second, there is a laminar gradient, whereby the first NNF‐immunoreactive neurones emerge in layer V, followed by those in progressively more superficial parts of layer III. Following a peak in density of NNF‐immunopositive cell numbers in layer V at 2–3 months of age, there is a gradual decline towards adulthood. In contrast, the density of immunopositive cells in layer III continues to increase throughout the first postnatal year in area 6d and until late adolescence (> 1.5 years of age) in prefrontal areas. The present results support the view that the maturation of visual cognitive functions involves relatively late processes linked to structural changes in frontal cortical areas.
Stochastic Coalescence

Consider N particles, which merge into clusters according to the rule: a cluster of size x and a cluster of size y merge at (stochastic) rate K(x; y)=N, where K is a speciied rate kernel. This Marcus-Lushnikov model of coalescence, and the underlying deterministic approximation provided by the Smoluchowski coag-ulation equations, have an extensive scientiic literature. A recent reformulation is the general stochastic coalescent, whose state space is the innnite-dimensional simplex (the state x = (x i ; i 1) represents unit mass split into clusters of masses x i), and which evolves by clusters of masses x i and x j coalescing at rate K(x i ; x j). Existing mathematical literature (Kingman's coalescent, component sizes in random graphs, fragmentation of random trees) implicitly studies certain special cases. Recent work has uncovered deeper constructions of special cases of the stochastic coalescent in terms of Brownian-type processes. Rigorous study of general kernels has only just begun, and many challenging open problems remain.
SINR Analysis of Opportunistic MIMO-SDMA Downlink Systems with Linear Combining

Opportunistic scheduling (OS) schemes have been proposed previously by the authors for multiuser MIMO-SDMA downlink systems with linear combining. In particular, it has been demonstrated that significant performance improvement can be achieved by incorporating low-complexity linear combining techniques into the design of OS schemes for MIMO-SDMA. However, this previous analysis was performed based on the effective signal-to-interference ratio (SIR), assuming an interference- limited scenario, which is typically a valid assumption in SDMA-based systems. It was shown that the limiting distribution of the effective SIR is of the Frechet type. Surprisingly, the corresponding scaling laws were found to follow isin log K with 0 < isin < 1, rather than the conventional log log K form. Inspired by this difference between the scaling law forms, in this paper a systematic approach is developed to derive asymptotic throughput and scaling laws based on signal-to- interference-noise ratio (SINR) by utilizing extreme value theory. The convergence of the limiting distribution of the effective SINR to the Gumbel type is established. The resulting scaling law is found to be governed by the conventional log log K form. These novel results are validated by simulation results. The comparison of SIR and SINR-based analysis suggests that the SIR-based analysis is more computationally efficient for SDMA-based systems and it captures the asymptotic system performance with higher fidelity.
Relation between central and peripheral hemodynamics during exercise in patients with chronic heart failure. Muscle blood flow is reduced with maintenance of arterial perfusion pressure.

We studied the central hemodynamic, leg blood flow, and metabolic responses to maximal upright bicycle exercise in 30 patients with chronic heart failure attributable to severe left ventricular dysfunction (ejection fraction, 24 +/- 8%) and in 12 normal subjects. At peak exercise, patients demonstrated reduced oxygen consumption (15.1 +/- 4.8 vs. 32.1 +/- 9.9 ml/kg/min, p less than 0.001), cardiac output (8.7 +/- 3.2 vs. 18.6 +/- 4.4 l/min, p less than 0.001), and mean systemic arterial blood pressure (116 +/- 15 vs. 135 +/- 13 mm Hg, p less than 0.01) compared with normal subjects. Leg blood flow was decreased in patients versus normal subjects at rest and matched submaximal work rates and maximal exercise (2.1 +/- 1.9 vs. 6.4 +/- 1.4 l/min, all p less than 0.01). Mean systemic arterial blood pressure was no different in the two groups at rest or at matched submaximal work rates, whereas leg vascular resistance was higher in patients compared with normal subjects at rest, submaximal, and maximal exercise (all p less than 0.01). Although nonleg blood flow was decreased at rest in patients, it did not decrease significantly during exercise in either group. Peak exercise leg blood flow was related to peak exercise cardiac output in patients (r = 0.66, p less than 0.01) and normal subjects (r = 0.67, p less than 0.01). In patients, leg vascular resistance was not related to mean arterial blood pressure, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure, arterial catecholamines, arterial lactate, or femoral venous pH at rest or during exercise. Compared with normal subjects during submaximal exercise, patients demonstrated increased leg oxygen extraction and lactate production accompanied by decreased leg oxygen consumption. Thus, in patients with chronic heart failure compared with normal subjects, skeletal muscle perfusion is decreased at rest and during submaximal and maximal exercise, and local vascular resistance is increased. Our data indicate that nonleg blood flow and arterial blood pressure were preferentially maintained during exercise at the expense of leg hypoperfusion in our patients. This was associated with decreased leg oxygen utilization and increased leg oxygen extraction when compared to normal subjects, providing further evidence that reduced perfusion of skeletal muscle is important in causing early anaerobic skeletal muscle metabolism during exercise in subjects with this disorder. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
A Normal FEV1/VC Ratio Does Not Exclude Airway Obstruction

Background: A decreased forced expiratory volume in 1 s/vital capacity (FEV1/VC) ratio is the hallmark of the definition of airway obstruction. We recently suggested that a lung function pattern, we called small airways syndrome (SAOS), has a normal FEV1/VC and total lung capacity (TLC) and reflects obstruction of small airways. Objectives: To substantiate our hypothesis we measured and compared lung function tests including maximal expiratory flow rates (MEFR), sensitive indicators of airway obstruction, in SAOS subjects and in matched controls. Methods: We selected 12 subjects with the pattern of SAOS, but without chronic lung or heart disease (average age: 40.7 ± 7.8 years) and 36 age-matched subjects with normal lung function (42.8 ± 6.3 years). We measured static and dynamic lung volumes, MEFR and lung diffusing capacity (DLCO). Results: SAOS subjects were heavier smokers (p < 0.05) and body mass index was less than in control subjects (p < 0.01). Both FEV1/VC ratio and TLC were comparable in the two groups. However, FEV1, VC, DLCO, and MEFR were lower and residual volume (RV) and RV/TLC ratio were higher (p < 0.05) in the SAOS group than in the control one. Furthermore, the MEFR curve of the SAOS group was displaced to the left without any change in slope, suggesting premature airway closure. Conclusion: Our results suggest that a normal FEV1/VC ratio does not exclude airway obstruction. A decrease of FEV1, provided TLC is normal, reflects small airway obstruction.
Effects of phosphorylation, Mg2+, and conformation of the chemotaxis protein CheY on its binding to the flagellar switch protein FliM.

CheY is the response regulator of bacterial chemotaxis. Previously, we showed that CheY binds to the flagellar switch protein FliM and that this binding is increased upon phosphorylation of CheY [Welch, M. , Oosawa, K. , Aizawa, S. -I. , & Eisenbach, M. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 90, 8787-8791]. Here, we demonstrate that it is the phosphorylated conformation of CheY, rather than the phosphate group itself, that is recognized and bound by FliM. We found that subsequent to the phosphorylation of CheY, Mg2+ was not required for the binding of CheY to FliM. However, phosphorylation of CheY did cause a change in the coordination properties of Mg2+ in the acid pocket of the protein. This change in the coordination of Mg2+ required the presence of the absolutely conserved residue Lys109. When Lys109 was substituted by arginine, the resulting CheY protein was unable to adopt an active conformation upon phosphorylation, and the protein was not bound by FliM. Surprisingly, the CheY13DK mutant protein, which is active in vivo but cannot be phosphorylated in vitro, exhibited only a low level of FliM binding activity, suggesting that its ability to cause clockwise rotation in the cell is not due to a constitutively high level of FliM binding. On the basis of these findings, we propose a mechanism for CheY activation by phosphorylation.
Maltodextrin Encapsulation of Garcinia atroviridis Griff by Spray Drying Technique

The purposes of this study were to produce Garcinia powder and to evaluate the physicochemical changes of the spray dried powder using maltodextrin as encapsulating agent. Three different concentrations of maltodextrin (3%, 5% and 8%) were added to Garcinia juice with the concentration 50% w/v at three different inlet temperatures (165 o C, 175 o C, 185 o C) respectively. Results demonstrated that as inlet temperature increased, the moisture content and water activities decreased and the L*, a*, b*, hue and chroma values changed as the inlet temperatures were increased. The results also showed that there was no significant differences in hydroxycitric acid content of the spray dried powders for all the inlet temperatures investigated.
Enteroviruses and type 1 diabetes

The development of type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) has been linked to exposure to environmental triggers, with Enteroviruses (EV) historically considered the prime suspects. Early serological studies suggested a link between EV infections and the development of T1DM and, though controversial, have been bolstered by more recent studies using more sensitive techniques such as direct detection of the EV genome by RT‐PCR in peripheral blood. In this review, we consider the weight of evidence that EV can be considered a candidate trigger of T1DM, using three major criteria: (1) is EV infection associated with clinical T1DM, (2) can EV trigger the development of autoimmunity and (3) what would explain the putative association? Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Reference groups and self-appraisals of academic ability and performance

We argue that reference groups have three types of influence on self-appraisals: (1) individuals acquire similar self-appraisals as others in their group because of normative processes; (2) individuals who are members of more successful groups develop less favorable self-appraisals because of comparison processes; (3) individuals who are members of more successful groups develop more favorable self-appraisals because group performance reflects on individuals associated with the group. These processes are disentangled to some extent in a contextual analysis of survey data from a national sample of high school males. The key finding is a positive effect of self-appraisals of schoolmates on students' self-appraisals of academic ability and performance. The results suggest that there is a normative factor in how favorably individuals evaluate themselves.
‘Indian drum in the house’

This article investigates the production and consumption of Canadian Prime Minister Harper’s 2008 apology to the victims of residential schools. The apology used contextual elements and linguistic devices to construct a particular reality of both the government’s role in residential schools and the nature of Canadian diversity. By comparing themes from Harper’s speech to responses on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s website, the article seeks to understand whether Canadians reaffirm or contest the prime minister’s message. The analysis reveals that although the majority felt the apology was appropriate and important, many contested the discourse that suggested that the attitudes that led to the schools have ‘no place’ in modern-day Canada. Instead the intercultural audience offered competing discourses of genocide and colonialism suggesting that Canada’s identity as it relates to its Aboriginal peoples is still a site of struggle.
Face localization using skin colour and maximal entropy based particle swarm optimization for facial recognition

One amongst the vital pre-processing operation in every Face Recognition System is Face localization. There is a growing need for algorithms that quickly yield the correct region of interest around the face. Here an algorithm is proposed which performs skin detection using Particle Swarm Optimization for face localization. Where minimization of fitness function is used to resolve optimization problems. Here bounding boxes are modelled as particles, or randomly distributed test vectors to ascertain for the region of interest in an image where it is likely that the face exists, with the fitness value returned by the fitness function that tests the interior of a box for maximum entropy and maximum skin like features, which in combination indicates how likely the interior represents a face. Consequently, the particle (bounding box) with the best fitness value is chosen as face region of the image, and the output is fed to a Binary Particle Swarm Optimization based Face Recognition System therefore yielding higher recognition rates than conventional systems.
Short- and long-term attributable costs of Clostridium difficile-associated disease in nonsurgical inpatients.

BACKGROUND The incidence of Clostridium difficile-associated disease (CDAD) is increasing. There are few data on the short-term and long-term attributable costs of CDAD. The objective of this study was to determine the acute and 180-day attributable inpatient costs of CDAD. METHODS We performed a retrospective cohort study of all patients without operating room costs who were admitted for > or =48 h to Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a tertiary care hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, 1 January 2003-31 December 2003 (n = 24,691). Attributable costs of CDAD were determined by multivariable linear regression and propensity-score matched-pairs analyses (n = 684) for the hospitalization in which CDAD occurred and per patient over a 180-day period, including the initial hospitalization. RESULTS CDAD was associated with $2454 (95% confidence interval, $2380-$2950; increase in cost, 41%) attributable costs per CDAD episode by linear regression and with $3240 attributable costs (P < .001; increase in cost, 33%) by propensity-score matched-pairs analysis. CDAD was associated with $5042 (95% confidence interval, $3797-$6481; increase in cost, 53%) attributable inpatient costs over 180 days by linear regression and with $7179 attributable costs for inpatient care (P < .001; 48% increase in costs) by propensity-score matched-pairs analysis. CONCLUSIONS CDAD was associated with a significant increase in costs for inpatient care and increased costs at 180 days after the initial hospitalization when the CDAD episode occurred.