Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Severe muscle depletion predicts postoperative length of stay but is not associated with survival after liver transplantation

Muscle depletion or sarcopenia is associated with increased mortality in patients with cirrhosis; how it affects mortality after liver transplantation requires further study. In this study, we aimed to establish whether sarcopenia predicts increased morbidity or mortality after liver transplantation. We analyzed 248 patients with cirrhosis who had a computed tomography (CT) scan including the third lumbar vertebra before liver transplantation. Data were recovered from medical charts, the skeletal muscle cross‐sectional area was measured with CT, and sarcopenia was defined with previously published sex‐ and body mass index–specific cutoffs. One hundred sixty‐nine patients (68%) were male, and the mean age at transplantation was 55 ± 1 years. The etiologies of cirrhosis were hepatitis C virus (51%), alcohol (19%), autoimmune liver diseases (15%), hepatitis B virus (8%), and other etiologies (7%). Sarcopenia was present in 112 patients (45%), and it was more frequent in males (P = 0.002), patients with ascites (P = 0.02), and patients with higher bilirubin levels (P = 0.05), creatinine levels (P = 0.02), international normalized ratios (P = 0.04), Child‐Pugh scores (P = 0.002), and Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease scores (P = 0.002). The median survival period after liver transplantation was 117 ± 17 months for sarcopenic patients and 146 ± 20 months for nonsarcopenic patients (P = 0.4). Sarcopenic patients had longer hospital stays (40 ± 4 versus 25 ± 3 days; P = 0.005) and a higher frequency of bacterial infections within the first 90 days after liver transplantation (26% versus 15%, P = 0.04) in comparison with nonsarcopenic patients. In conclusion, sarcopenia is one of the most common complications in patients with cirrhosis and is predictive of longer hospital stays and a higher risk of perioperative bacterial infections after liver transplantation, but it is not associated with increased mortality. Liver Transpl 20:640–648, 2014. © 2014 AASLD.
Efficient Theoretical Screening of Solid Sorbents for CO2 Capture Applications

By combining thermodynamic database mining with first principles density functional theory and phonon lattice dynamics calculations, a theoretical screening methodology to identify the most promising CO2 sorbent candidates from the vast array of possible solid materials has been proposed and validated. The ab initio thermodynamic technique has the advantage of allowing identification of thermodynamic properties of CO2 capture reactions without any experimental input beyond crystallographic structural information of the solid phases involved. For a given solid, the first step is to attempt to extract thermodynamic properties from thermodynamic databases and the available literatures. If the thermodynamic properties of the compound of interest are unknown, an ab initio thermodynamic approach is used to calculate them. These properties expressed conveniently as chemical potentials and heat of reactions, which obtained either from databases or from calculations, are further used for computing the thermodynamic reaction equilibrium properties of the CO2 absorption/desorption cycles. Only those solid materials for which lower capture energy costs are predicted at the desired process conditions are selected as CO2 sorbent candidates and are further considered for ex- perimental validations. Solid sorbents containing alkali and alkaline earth metals have been reported in several previous studies to be good candidates for CO2 sorbent applications due to their high CO2 absorption capacity at moderate work- ing temperatures. In addition to introducing our computational screening procedure, in this presentation we will sum- marize our results for solid systems composed by alkali and alkaline earth metal oxides, hydroxides, and carbonates/bicarbonates to validate our methodology. Additionally, applications of our computational method to mixed solid systems of Li2O with SiO2/ZrO2 with different mixing ratios, our preliminary results showed that increasing the Li2O/SiO2 ratio in lithium silicates increases their corresponding turnover temperatures for CO2 capture reactions. Overall these theoretical predictions are found to be in good agreement with available experimental findings.
Reading acuity in children: evaluation and reliability using MNREAD charts.

PURPOSE To study reading acuity in children and assess the reliability of its measurement using the Italian version of the MNREAD reading chart. METHODS One hundred sixteen children from grades 3 to 8 with normal near vision were tested at a pediatric eye care institution in northeastern Italy. Visual acuity was evaluated with Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) charts and reading acuity with MNREAD charts. Examination with charts 1 and 2 by the same examiner in the same visit were used as test-retest measurements. RESULTS Mean improvement of performance from grades 3 to 8 was approximately 1 line for ETDRS acuity and 1.5 sentences for reading acuity and critical print size. Mean maximum reading speed increased from 96 to 167 words/minute. Regression analysis showed that a stable reading speed was obtained throughout sentences of decreasing size up to the critical print size. Measurement error, expressed as 95% limits of agreement, was +/- 0.136 logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution (logMAR) and +/- 0.142 logMAR for ETDRS acuity and reading acuity, respectively. Critical print size had the lowest reliability (+/- 0.193 logMAR). Maximum reading speed limits of agreement were +/- 0.077 logarithm of words per minute (logWPM), or a 19% change in words per minute. There were no detectable effects of grade and refractive error on measurement errors. CONCLUSIONS In children, MNREAD charts provide measurements of reading acuity as reliable as ETDRS chart measurements of distance acuity on a logMAR scale. They also provide highly reliable measurements of the maximum reading speed across all grades, independent of its noticeable increase.
WHOLE‐BODY VIBRATION INDUCED ADAPTATION IN KNEE EXTENSORS; CONSEQUENCES OF INITIAL STRENGTH, VIBRATION FREQUENCY, AND JOINT ANGLE

It was hypothesized that both vibration frequency and muscle length modulate the strengthening of muscles that is assumed to result from whole-body vibration (WBV). Length of knee extensor muscles during vibration is affected by the knee joint angle; the lengths of the knee extensors increase with more flexed knee joint angles. In an intervention study 28 volunteers were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 groups. Each group received 4 weeks of WBV at 1 of 3 different frequencies (20, 27, or 34 Hz) or 1 of 2 different lengths of knee extensors. Voluntary, isometric knee extension moment-angle relationship was determined. Initially, stronger subjects reacted differently to WBV than weaker participants. In stronger subjects knee extension moment did not improve; in the weaker subjects considerable improvements were observed ranging from 10 to 50%. Neither vibration frequency nor muscle length during the intervention affected the improvements. In addition to strength, the knee joint angle at which the maximal joint moment was generated (optimal joint angle) was affected. When trained at short muscle lengths, optimal angle shifted to more extend joint position. WBV training at long muscle lengths tended to induce an opposite shift. The amount of this shift tended to be influenced by vibration frequency; the lower the vibration frequency the larger the shift. Shifts of optimal lengths occurred in both weaker and stronger subjects. This study shows that muscle length during training affects the angle of knee joint at which the maximal extension moment was generated. Moreover, in weaker subjects WBV resulted in higher maximal knee joint extension moments. Vibration frequency and muscle length during vibration did not affect this joint moment gain.
Fertilization of the Northwest Pacific Ocean by East Asia Air Pollutants

Haze particles as a key air pollutant contain high level of toxins, which were hypothesized to inhibit phytoplankton growth when deposited to the ocean, and thus indirectly affect the climate. However, field observations have yet to provide conclusive evidence to confirm this hypothesis. Onboard microcosm experiments in the Northwest Pacific Ocean (NWPO) show that haze particles collected at the East Asia continent had an inhibition impact on phytoplankton growth only when at very high particle loading (2 mg/L). In contrast, haze particles at low and medium loadings (0.03–0.6 mg/L) stimulated phytoplankton growth and shifted phytoplankton size structure toward larger cells, primarily due to the supply of inorganic nitrogen nutrients from the particles. Model simulations showed that haze particle loading in NWPO surface seawater was usually more than an order of magnitude lower than 2 mg/L. This indicates that haze particles are unlikely to cause harm but to stimulate phytoplankton growth in the nitrogen‐limited NWPO. Ocean biogeochemical modeling further shows that deposited nitrogen significantly enhanced surface ocean chlorophyll a concentration in the winter and spring of 2014. Overall, these results demonstrate that haze particles stimulate rather than inhibit primary production in the NWPO.
Closed-loop trajectory generation for robust time-optimal path tracking

In previous work the authors (1996) developed a method for planning robust time-optimal reference trajectories for robots under computed-torque control. That scheme was based on the idea of holding enough torque on reserve during trajectory planning to ensure that actuators would not saturate due to disturbances. This, together with the correct controller gain settings, ensured that tracking was accurate to a specified tolerance. This work extends that approach to a less conservative "closed-loop" architecture for "online trajectory generation" which is similar to Dahl and Neilsen's scheme (1990) for "online trajectory time-scaling". We propose a feedback control law for setting the reference path acceleration such that path tracking is nearly time-optimal, robustly controllable, and accurate to a prescribed tolerance. We show how this law can be determined offline using shooting methods and implemented with little online memory. Experimental results demonstrate that the tracking times are reduced compared to our previous approach, while tracking accuracy and robustness remain approximately the same.
*Competing Payment Schemes

This paper presents a model of competing payment schemes. Unlike previous work on generic twosided markets, the model allows for the fact that in a payment system users on one side of the market (merchants) compete to attract users on the other side (consumers who may use cards for purchases). It analyzes how competition between card associations and between merchants affects the choice of interchange fees, and thus the structure of fees charged to cardholders and merchants. Implications for other two-sided markets are discussed.
Extension of the Polar Coronal Hole Boundary into Interplanetary space

White-light measurements made by the SOHO LASCO C2 and C3 coronagraphs and the Mk III Mauna Loa K-coronameter, ranging from 1.15 to 30 R☉, have been combined with Kitt Peak daily He I 1083 nm coronal hole maps, and full Sun Yohkoh soft X-ray images, to show that the boundaries of polar coronal holes, as determined by measurements of path-integrated density, extend approximately radially into interplanetary space. These results are in contrast to the long-standing view that the boundaries of polar coronal holes diverge significantly beyond radial, evolving around the edges of streamers. The combined observations also show that the corona is dominated by raylike structures as small as a few degrees in angular size with respect to Sun center, originating from both coronal holes and the quiet Sun. This analysis provides further support for results originally derived from radio occultation measurements, namely, that the coronal density projects itself almost radially from the Sun into the outer corona, implying that open field lines abound in the quiet Sun from which the fast wind can alsooriginate.
A shearlet-based fast thresholded Landweber algorithm for deconvolution

Image deconvolution is an important problem, which has seen plenty of progress in the last decades. Due to its ill-posedness, a common approach is to formulate the reconstruction as an optimization problem, regularized by an additional sparsity-enforcing term. This term is often modeled as an l1 norm measured in the domain of a suitable signal transform. The resulting optimization problem can be solved by an iterative approach via Landweber iterations with soft thresholding of the transform coefficients. Previous approaches focused on thresholding in the wavelet-domain. In particular, recent work [C. Vonesch and M. Unser, A fast thresholded Landweber algorithm for wavelet-regularized multidimensional deconvolution, IEEE Trans. Image Process. 17(4) (2008) 539–549. ] has shown that the use of Shannon wavelets results in particularly efficient reconstruction algorithms. The present paper extends this approach to Shannon shearlets, which we also introduce in this work. We show that for anisotropic blurring filters, such as the motion blur, the novel shearlet-based approach allows for further a improvement in efficiency. In particular, we observe that for such kernels using shearlets instead of wavelets improves the quality of image restoration and SERG, when compared after the same number of iterations.
Transitional Justice: Prioritizing Truth Commissions or International Tribunals to Ensure Healing and Reconciliation

There is a recent increased examination of the effects of international funding for truth commissions and criminal tribunals in post-conflict societies as they transition to peace. The discourse on whether to prioritize truth commissions or international criminal tribunals and which form of transitional justice more effectively fosters healing and reconciliation continues to be highly polemical. This paper explores whether, in terms of post-conflict healing and reconciliation, international funding would be better spent on truth commissions than on international criminal tribunals or vice versa. It examines the complexities and heterogeneity of transitional societies and suggests that international funding for transitional justice should be less rigid and prescriptive. A victim-centric approach that takes into account practical realities on the ground should be the driving force behind the decision to fund particular forms of transitional justice. In the paper, first, theories of healing and reconciliation are conceptualized. Second, three case studies involving truth commissions are presented and analyzed. Third, through the lens of competing arguments on the role of prosecution in terms of healing, reconciliation, and deterrence, additional country cases involving recent hot-spots are dissected. Based on the examination of the unique characteristics of these examples of post-conflict societies, the paper argues that international funding should be based on wide-ranging factors that are country specific. Journal of International and Global Studies 2 “A wrong is something that ought not to exist and calls to be obliterated. If anyone is able to remove it, he is obligated to do so or the wrong will also be partly his. ”
Studies on salmonellosis in the house mouse, Mus musculus

Salmonellae were isolated from the faeces from 17 of 170 (10%) wild house mice. Salmonella typhimurium was isolated from 10, S. typhimurium, var. Copenhagen from 2, S. thompson from 1, and S. muenchen from 4. It was concluded that house mice could be a reservoir of infection and play an important role in human and animal salmonellosis.
Growth and habitat of spotted halibut Verasper variegatus in the shallow coastal nursery area, Shimabara Peninsula in Ariake Bay, Japan

To determine the growth performances and habitat characteristics of spotted halibut Verasper variegatus, successive samplings were conducted in the south-eastern coastal area of Shimabara Peninsula in Ariake Bay. The push-net samplings were performed at Kamaga beach from May 2003 to April 2004 to determine the horizontal distribution of larvae and juveniles, while the gill net samplings were done in the coastal waters of Tatsuishi beach from July 2003 to July 2004 to collect the larger juveniles and adults. A total of 478 individuals from metamorphosing larvae to 2-year-old fish (15.2–447.0 mm total length [TL]) were sampled. In particular, the 2003-year class fish were successively collected from May 2003 to June 2004 (15.2–350.0 mm TL; n=418) and the mean total length in March, June, September, December 2003 and May 2004 was 22.4, 82.5, 172.5, 203.9 and 296.4 mm, respectively. The present study found that metamophosing larvae migrated into the estuarine tidal flats during March 2003; newly settled juveniles inhabited the shallow intertidal areas; and juveniles had a remarkably high growth in shallow coastal areas. It is suggested that young fish around 300 mm TL migrated from the nursery grounds in Ariake Bay to deeper waters around Tachibana Bay during May–June 2004.
Migration and homing of lymphocytes to lymphoid and synovial tissues in proteoglycan-induced murine arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To describe the migration and homing of labeled donor lymphocytes to the lymphoid organs and synovial tissues of host animals, during the development of cartilage proteoglycan (PG)-induced arthritis adoptively transferred to syngeneic BALB/c mice. METHODS Lymphocytes from either nonarthritic or arthritic donor animals were labeled with either fluorescent or radioactive cell linkers (PKH-GL) and injected into syngeneic, immunosuppressed mice. The homing patterns of donor lymphocytes following the injection of labeled cells were studied by fluorescence microscopy and by measurement of radioactivity in tissue samples. RESULTS Lymphocytes from arthritic donors retained their ability to transfer the disease after labeling. In the lymphoid organs, arthritic and nonarthritic donor lymphocytes exhibited similar homing patterns, although remarkable differences were found in the number of homing cells derived from nonarthritic and arthritic donors. However, labeled cells only from arthritic animals migrated to the synovial tissue of the recipient mice, and their appearance was associated with the onset of arthritis. CONCLUSION Lymphocytes from mice with PG-induced arthritis, in contrast to lymphocytes from non-arthritic donors, exhibit preferential homing to the synovial tissue of the host. Adoptive transfer of arthritis is linked to the appearance of these cells in the synovium.
Effects of remifentanil on measures of anesthetic immobility and analgesia in cats.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate effects of various doses of remifentanil on measures of analgesia in anesthetized cats. ANIMALS 6 healthy adult cats. PROCEDURES Minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) for isoflurane and thermal threshold responses were evaluated in anesthetized cats. Remifentanil infusions of 0 (baseline), 0.0625, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16 microg/kg/min were administered; after a 45-minute equilibration period, isoflurane MAC and responses were determined. Isoflurane MAC was determined in anesthetized cats once for each remifentanil infusion rate by use of a standard tail clamp technique. Thermal threshold was measured in awake cats by use of a commercially available analgesiometric probe placed on the lateral portion of the thorax; remifentanil infusions were administered in randomized order to anesthetized cats, and thermal threshold determinations were made by an investigator who was unaware of the infusion rate. RESULTS Mean +/- SEM median effective concentration (EC(50)) for remifentanil and its active metabolite, GR90291, for the thermal threshold test was 1.00 +/- 0.35 ng/mL and 307 +/- 28 ng/mL of blood, respectively. Dysphoria was detected in all awake cats at the 2 highest remifentanil infusion rates. However, isoflurane MAC during remifentanil infusions was unchanged from baseline values, even at blood opioid concentrations approximately 75 times the analgesic EC(50). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Immobility and analgesia as reflected by thermal threshold testing were independent anesthetic end points in the cats. Results of MAC-sparing evaluations should not be used to infer analgesic potency without prior validation of an MAC-analgesia relationship for specific drugs and species.
Integrated On-Chip Solenoid Inductors With Nanogranular Magnetic Cores

On-chip integrated solenoid inductors with nanogranular FeCoTiO magnetic cores have been fabricated. Both single-layered and multilayered magnetic cores with different geometries were studied. An inductance of 14.2 nH was achieved when using a multilayered core structure and keeping the device area of 0.14 mm2. The inductance of the magnetic core inductor is ~14 times that of the air core inductor, and the quality factor is 7.5. The permeability trends calculated from inductance were compared with the permeability spectra of the patterned FeCoTiO films measured by an improved shorted microstrip transmission line perturbation method. Consistent results have been obtained after considering the demagnetization effect of the magnetic core with high permeability.
Reversal of Stroop Test: Interference in Word Reading

It appears that a component of verbal reaction time, response-choice latency, exists for encoded words as well as colors. Therefore, it was hypothesized that color stimuli could exert a disruptive influence on the processes of this latency to encoded word stimuli in contrast to the reverse effect which has often been found in the standard Stroop test. Stroop-like interference in word reading was produced by preexposure of color names printed in colored ink, followed by the presentation of a second stimulus which reinforced the color information of the first stimulus. The experimental results do not appear to be an artifact of mere distraction of attention.
Efficiency Analysis of Developing Country Agriculture: A Review of the Frontier Function Literature

This article reviews and critiques the frontier literature dealing with farm level efficiency in developing countries. A total of 30 studies from 14 different countries are examined. The country that has received most attention is India, while rice has been the most studied agricultural product. The average technical efficiency (TE) index from all the studies reviewed is 72%. The few studies reporting allocative and economic efficiency show an average of 68% and 43%, respectively. These results suggest that there is considerable room to increase agricultural output without additional inputs and given existing technology. Several of the studies reviewed have sought to explain farm level variation in TE. The variables most frequently used for this purpose have been farmer education and experience, contacts with extension, access to credit, and farm size. With the exception of farm size, the results reveal that these variables tend to have a positive and statistically significant impact on TE. This paper shows that considerable effort has been devoted to measuring efficiency in developing country agriculture using a wide range of frontier models. Despite all this work, the extent to which efficiency measures are sensitive to the choice of methodology remains uncertain.