Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Postoperative PTH measurement as a predictor of hypocalcaemia after thyroidectomy.

BACKGROUND Hypocalcaemia after thyroidectomy is the most common postoperative complication, with a reported incidence from 0.5% to even 50% of the operated patients. Hypoparathyroidism could be a result of careless or inadequate preparation during the surgical procedure. There is a variety of proposed options for the prediction of the incidence of hypocalcaemia. The most effective of them are the peri-operative and intra-operative measurements of the parathyroid hormone (PTH) level. METHODS A prospective study was performed on 100 patients who underwent total thyroidectomy from January 2007 to June 2008. The total calcium level and intact human PTH (iPTH) levels were measured 24 hours before as well as 1 hour and 24 hours after the surgery. THE AIM The goal of the study was to assess the potential correlation between the iPTH levels after the operation and the development of hypocalcaemia. The possible prediction value of postoperative iPTH levels was to be assessed. RESULTS We have presented a significant correlation between early iPTH measurement and the risk of hypocalcaemia. Moreover, a significant correlation between the iPTH level one hour after operation with the calcium level 24 hours after the operation was demonstrated. CONCLUSION Early postoperative assessment of iPTH levels can be used to identify the group of patients at risk of hypocalcaemia after thyroidectomy. Pre-emptive calcium supplementation can lead to the avoidance of complications causing prolonged hospital stay and most importantly to prevent severe hypocalcaemia.
Phase II study of pemetrexed in breast cancer patients pretreated with anthracyclines.

BACKGROUND To assess antitumor activity and toxicity of pemetrexed in metastatic breast cancer (MBC) patients previously treated with anthracyclines. PATIENTS AND METHODS Seventy-seven MBC patients from 12 European institutions were entered into the study. Seventy-two patients were considered evaluable for response and toxicity. Forty-two patients were classified as anthracycline-failure (relapse >30 days after completion of a prior anthracycline regimen) and 30 as anthracycline-refractory (progression within 30 days after anthracycline therapy). Pemetrexed 600 mg/m(2) was administered intravenously every 3 weeks until progressive disease or unacceptable toxicity. RESULTS There were three complete and 12 partial responders [response rate 21% (95% confidence interval 12%)]. Response rates in the anthracycline-failure and anthracycline-refractory groups were 24% and 17%, respectively. A subset of 31 patients pretreated with anthracyclines and taxanes had a response rate of 26%. Median duration of response and median survival were 5.5 and 10.7 months, respectively (13 months in the failure group and 5.7 months for refractory). Grade 3/4 toxicities included neutropenia and thrombocytopenia in 56% and 19% of patients, respectively. Nine patients (12%) experienced neutropenic fever. Grade 3/4 non-hematological toxicities included skin rash (10%), nausea (12%), fatigue (10%) and stomatitis (5%). CONCLUSION Our trial demonstrates pemetrexed to be active in breast cancer, with manageable toxicity. Activity of pemetrexed did not appear to be adversely affected by prior taxane, 5-fluorouracil or endocrine treatments.
Haptic Identification by ELM-Controlled Uncertain Manipulator

This paper presents an extreme learning machine (ELM)-based control scheme for uncertain robot manipulators to perform haptic identification. ELM is used to compensate for the unknown nonlinearity in the manipulator dynamics. The ELM enhanced controller ensures that the closed-loop controlled manipulator follows a specified reference model, in which the reference point as well as the feedforward force is adjusted after each trial for haptic identification of geometry and stiffness of an unknown object. A neural learning law is designed to ensure finite-time convergence of the neural weight learning, such that exact matching with the reference model can be achieved after the initial iteration. The usefulness of the proposed method is tested and demonstrated by extensive simulation studies.
Informed Consent and Placebo Effects: A Content Analysis of Information Leaflets to Identify What Clinical Trial Participants Are Told about Placebos

Background Placebo groups are used in randomised clinical trials (RCTs) to control for placebo effects, which can be large. Participants in trials can misunderstand written information particularly regarding technical aspects of trial design such as randomisation; the adequacy of written information about placebos has not been explored. We aimed to identify what participants in major RCTs in the UK are told about placebos and their effects. Methods and Findings We conducted a content analysis of 45 Participant Information Leaflets (PILs) using quantitative and qualitative methodologies. PILs were obtained from trials on a major registry of current UK clinical trials (the UKCRN database). Eligible leaflets were received from 44 non-commercial trials but only 1 commercial trial. The main limitation is the low response rate (13.5%), but characteristics of included trials were broadly representative of all non-commercial trials on the database. 84% of PILs were for trials with 50∶50 randomisation ratios yet in almost every comparison the target treatments were prioritized over the placebos. Placebos were referred to significantly less frequently than target treatments (7 vs. 27 mentions, p<001) and were significantly less likely than target treatments to be described as triggering either beneficial effects (1 vs. 45, p<001) or adverse effects (4 vs. 39, p<001). 8 PILs (18%) explicitly stated that the placebo treatment was either undesirable or ineffective. Conclusions PILs from recent high quality clinical trials emphasise the benefits and adverse effects of the target treatment, while largely ignoring the possible effects of the placebo. Thus they provide incomplete and at times inaccurate information about placebos. Trial participants should be more fully informed about the health changes that they might experience from a placebo. To do otherwise jeopardises informed consent and is inconsistent with not only the science of placebos but also the fundamental rationale underpinning placebo controlled trials.
Chapter 3 Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) employs light activation of tissue‐localized photosensitizer in an oxygen‐dependent process which initiates oxidative stress, inflammation, and cell death. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) involves the activation of a previously administered photosensitizing agent by visible light to induce tumor necrosis. Photosensitizers are topically applied in the treatment of skin tumors to avoid systemic side effects. The main dermatology indications for topical PDT are superficial nonmelanoma skin cancer and dysplasia, notably superficial basal carcinoma (BCC), Bowen's disease (BD), and actinic keratosis (AK). In this chapter, we evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of aminolevulinic acid (ALA) as a photosensitizer (ALA‐PDT) in combination with CO 2 laser in the treat‐ ment of dermatological disease from basics to clinic research.
Palliative care in hospital, hospice, at home: results from a systematic review.

Palliative and hospice care has rapidly expanded, so that by January 2000 there were over 6560 service teams in 87 countries, with 933 teams in the UK, over 3600 in North America and over 350 in Australasia [1]. Care provision is in many settings; it has been estimated that in the UK about 11% of patients die in hospices, whereas over half of all those with a terminal phase to their illness die in hospital beds. In some areas, concerted efforts by home care services have seen a rise in deaths at home where this is the patient and the family’s wish, but the trend is far from universal. All the palliative care teams aim to alleviate distress through symptom control and attention to psychosocial concerns. They also seek to coordinate care and improve communication between professionals and with the individual patient and family. The constitution of the team varies from setting to setting. Some are nurse-only teams working with the primary care team in the community, although the trend is increasingly for inter-professional teams in all settings. Evidence to support the development of inter-professional teams rather than uni-disciplinary teams has been developing. A systematic review of the literature was undertaken to assess whether there was an effect of palliative care teams. The effects of sub groups of teams operating in hospital, home or inpatient hospice, or with different groups of patients were considered. Home death rate was considered separately as it does not fit easily within one of these two groups. A total of 43 studies were identified which provided data on the place of care. The data extracted from the selected papers representing these 43 studies is considered in independent, but complementary, analyses. The qualitative and quantitative analyses need to be considered together, so as to draw a complete picture.
Effects of Different Organic Manures on the Biochemical and Microbial Characteristics of Albic Paddy Soil in a Short-Term Experiment

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of chemical fertilizer (NPK), NPK with livestock manure (NPK+M), NPK with straw (NPK+S), and NPK with green manure (NPK+G) on soil enzyme activities and microbial characteristics of albic paddy soil, which is a typical soil with low productivity in China. The responses of extracellular enzyme activities and the microbial community diversity (determined by phospholipid fatty acid analysis [PLFA] and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis [DGGE]) were measured. The results showed that NPK+M and NPK+S significantly increased rice yield, with NPK+M being approximately 24% greater than NPK. The NPK+M significantly increased soil organic carbon (SOC) and available phosphate (P) and enhanced phosphatase, β-cellobiosidase, L-leucine aminopeptidase and urease activities. The NPK+S significantly increased SOC and available potassium (K) and significantly enhanced N-acetyl-glucosamidase, β-xylosidase, urease, and phenol oxidase activities. The NPK+G significantly improved total nitrogen (N), ammonium N, available P, and N-acetyl-glucosamidase activity. The PLFA biomass was highest under NPK+S, followed by NPK+M and NPK+G treatments. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the PLFA indicated that soils with NPK+M and NPK+S contained higher proportions of unsaturated and cyclopropane fatty acids (biomarkers of fungi and gram-negative bacteria) and soil under NPK+G contained more straight chain saturated fatty acids (representing gram-positive bacteria). PCA of the DGGE patterns showed that organic amendments had a greater influence on fungal community. Cluster analysis of fungal DGGE patterns revealed that NPK+G was clearly separated. Meanwhile, the bacterial community of NPK+M treatment was the most distinct. RDA analysis revealed changes of microbial community composition mostly depended on β-xylosidase, β-cellobiosidase activities, total N and available K contents. The abundances of gram-negative bacterial and fungal PLFAs probably effective in improving fertility of low-yield albic paddy soil because of their significant influence on DGGE profile.
The effect of optical zone decentration on lower- and higher-order aberrations after photorefractive keratectomy in a cat model.

PURPOSE To simulate the effects of decentration on lower- and higher-order aberrations (LOAs and HOAs) and optical quality, by using measured wavefront error (WFE) data from a cat photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) model. METHODS WFE differences were obtained from five cats' eyes 19 +/-7 weeks after spherical myopic PRK for -6 D (three eyes) and -10 D (two eyes). Ablation-centered WFEs were computed for a 9.0 mm pupil. A computer model was used to simulate decentration of a 6-mm subaperture in 100-microm steps over a circular area of 3000 microm diameter, relative to the measured WFE difference. Changes in LOA, HOA, and image quality (visual Strehl ratio based on the optical transfer function; VSOTF) were computed for simulated decentrations over 3.5 and 6.0 mm. RESULTS Decentration resulted in undercorrection of sphere and induction of astigmatism; among the HOAs, decentration mainly induced coma. Decentration effects were distributed asymmetrically. Decentrations >1000 microm led to an undercorrection of sphere and cylinder of >0.5 D. Computational simulation of LOA/HOA interaction did not alter threshold values. For image quality (decrease of best-corrected VSOTF by >0.2 log units), the corresponding thresholds were lower. The amount of spherical aberration induced by the centered treatment significantly influenced the decentration tolerance of LOAs and log best corrected VSOTF. CONCLUSIONS Modeling decentration with real WFE changes showed irregularities of decentration effects for rotationally symmetric treatments. The main aberrations induced by decentration were defocus, astigmatism, and coma. Treatments that induced more spherical aberration were less tolerant of decentration.
Which format for odor images?

Olfactory mental images are defined as short-term memory representations of olfactory events that give rise to the experience of "smelling with the mind's nose. " The present paper reviewed converging evidences that support the view that as visual mental images, odor mental images preserve some aspects of olfactory percepts. The role of olfactomotor mechanisms in recalling olfactory mental images from long-term memory to short-term memory is also discussed.
One-Pass Design of Reversible Circuits: Combining Embedding and Synthesis for Reversible Logic

Reversible computation is a heavily investigated emerging technology due to its promising characteristics in low-power design, its application in quantum computations, and several further application areas. The currently established functional synthesis flow for reversible circuits is composed of two distinct steps. First, an embedding process is conducted which makes nonunique output patterns distinguishable by adding further variables. Then, this function is passed to a synthesis method which eventually yields a reversible circuit. However, the separate consideration of the embedding and synthesis tasks leads to significant drawbacks. In fact, embedding is not necessarily conducted in a fashion which is suited for the following synthesis process. In addition, embedding adds further variables to the function to be synthesized which exponentially increases its corresponding representation in the worst case. In this paper, we propose one-pass design of reversible circuits, which combines embedding and synthesis. This allows for conducting synthesis with a high degree of freedom, since the embedding that suits best is inherently chosen during synthesis. We propose two solutions (an exact an a heuristic one) following this scheme that improve the currently established synthesis flow by magnitudes in terms of runtime—allowing to synthesize a reversible circuit with a minimum number of lines for some of the frequently considered benchmark functions for the first time. Furthermore, a significant reduction of the costs of the resulting circuits (up to several orders of magnitude) is achieved with this new design flow.
The infrared–radio correlation of spheroid- and disc-dominated star-forming galaxies to z ∼ 1.5 in the COSMOS field

Using infrared data from the Herschel Space Observatory and Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array 3 GHz observations in the COSMOS field, we investigate the redshift evolution of the infrared-radio correlation (IRRC) for star-forming galaxies (SFGs) we classify as either spheroid- or disc-dominated based on their morphology. The sample predominantly consists of disc galaxies with stellar mass ≳ 1010 M⊙, and residing on the star-forming main sequence (MS). After the removal of AGN using standard approaches, we observe a significant difference between the redshift evolution of the median IR/radio ratio \overline{q}_{TIR} of (i) a sample of ellipticals, plus discs with a substantial bulge component (`spheroid-dominated' SFGs) and, (ii) virtually pure discs and irregular systems (`disc-dominated' SFGs). The spheroid-dominated population follows a declining \overline{q}_{TIR} versus z trend similar to that measured in recent evolutionary studies of the IRRC. However, for disc-dominated galaxies, where radio and IR emission should be linked to star formation in the most straightforward way, we measure very little change in \overline{q}_{TIR}. This suggests that low-redshift calibrations of radio emission as a star formation rate (SFR) tracer may remain valid out to at least z ≃ 1-1.5 for pure star-forming systems. We find that the different redshift evolution of qTIR for the spheroid- and disc-dominated sample is mainly due to an increasing radio excess for spheroid-dominated galaxies at z ≳ 0.8, hinting at some residual AGN activity in these systems. This finding demonstrates that in the absence of AGN, the IRRC is independent of redshift, and that radio observations can therefore be used to estimate SFRs at all redshifts for genuinely star-forming galaxies.
The cochlea as a graded bank of independent, simultaneously excited resonators: calculated properties of an apparent 'travelling wave'

There have been two main theories of how the cochlea works: resonance and travelling wave. The first says the cochlea comprises a bank of tiny resonating elements, like piano strings, which respond directly to sound pressure (the excitation is in parallel to the elements). The second considers that differential pressure across the basilar membrane causes a hydrodynamically coupled wave to propagate, like a ripple on a pond, from base to apex (i.e., the excitation is in series). Yet a bank of graded, independent resonating elements, if simultaneously excited, will give rise to an apparent travelling wave, as each element builds up and decays, governed by its Q. Here we model a bank of resonators ranging from 1 to 10 kHz and possessing Q values from 12 to 25, in line with reported values and in accord with a recent surface acoustic wave (SAW) model of the cochlea. When simultaneously excited, the bank shows an apparent travelling wave moving from base to apex with a speed of several metres per second, a value similar to experiment. We conclude that the ‘travelling wave’ can be interpreted as arising from resonant activity.
Atomic force and shear force based tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and imaging

Underlying near-field optical effects on the nanoscale have stimulated the development of apertureless vibrational spectroscopy and imaging with ultrahigh spatial resolution. We demonstrate tip-enhanced Raman spectra of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), recorded with a scanning near-field optical spectrometer using both atomic force (AF) and shear force (SF) feedback lock-in regulation, and critically discuss the advantages and drawbacks of both operation modes. For accurate calculation of the enhancement factor obtained, we have analysed the tip shape and diameter by means of scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM). In our experiments we reproducibly attain diameter-corrected and area-corrected enhancement factors of up to ∼104 and ∼105, respectively, estimated as the linear ratio of near- and far-field intensities, and we are able to demonstrate near-field Raman imaging of SWCNTs with spatial resolution better than 50 nm.
Proceedings of 20 th International Congress on Acoustics , ICA 2010 23 – 27 August 2010 , Sydney , Australia Numerical Study of Friction-induced Pad-mode Instability in Disc Brake Squeal

Disc brake squeal as a major source of customer dissatisfaction is known to be friction-induced due to the highly non-linear contact of the surfaces between the disc and the pads. Brake squeal remains fugitive and difficult to predict also to some of its squeal frequencies have varying character and cannot always be associated with component modes. By means of structural finite element analysis, a simplified brake system in the form of a pin-on-disc is firstly approximated by a block sliding on a plate. By varying pressure and the friction coefficient, no mode coupling instability is observed and the mechanism extracted is purely of friction-induced nature. Especially in-plane pad motion in direction of and perpendicular to the sliding direction seem to feed-in most of the energy. These modes and their variability due to pressure variation, changes of lining material‘s elastic components and increased friction coefficient are studied in the following by means of the plate model. Then, it is shown, that these pad modes also exist for a pad-on-disc model with isotropic lining material. A second pad-on-plate model with more realistic lining material is developed which considers changes of elastic constants due to pressure variations. It is found, that changes in elastic properties of the lining material influence significantly the vibrations of the pad modes. The kinetic energy spectrum lifts up with changing pressure and stiffness and that combined effects of pressure synchronised with changing material properties are more severe than could be assumed by the complex eigenvalue method alone. By means of inverse Fourier transform of the response spectrum and non-linear time series analysis it is possible to detect the instability of the pad-on-plate model. The results show that friction-induced instabilities result from non-binding forces between pad and disc, with energy transfer from pad to disc causing dynamic instability, might trigger mode coupling or amplify underlying unstable modes predicted by the complex eigenvalue method. It is shown that these instabilities are most likely responsible for squeal frequencies occurring at frequencies far from the frequencies of the rotor modes, as often observed in brake squeal.
Magnetic Properties of AOT Functionalized Cobalt-Ferrite Nanoparticles in Search of Hard-Soft Marginal Magnet

An in-depth magnetic characterization of Dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT) functionalized cobalt-ferrite nanoparticles (CFNPs) with average sizes from 12 to 22 nm, synthesized by co-precipitation of metal precursors, are discussed here. The <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula>–<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H$ </tex-math></inline-formula> hysteresis loop at room temperature for different particle size reveals that the coercivity (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) value reaches the maximum (4.1 kOe) at a critical size of 17.4 nm. Furthermore, magnetic relaxation (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$ </tex-math></inline-formula> versus time) measurements indicate relatively high value of magnetic relaxation time constant (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\tau$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) for AOT-assisted CFNPs. Therefore, high <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, significant saturation magnetization coupled with high <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\tau $ </tex-math></inline-formula> ensure the permanent magnetic characteristic of the material which have the potential to replace the expensive rare-earth-transition metal-based permanent magnetic materials. On the other hand, materials with comparatively low value of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H_{c}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, remanent magnetization will be useful for biomedical applications.