Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
STUDY ON THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE SEVERITY OF CHRONIC PERIODONTITIS AND CAROTID ATHEROSCLEROSIS

Introduction and aim of the study: The aim of this study was to evaluate whether there is a correlation between the severity of chronic periodontitis and atherosclerosis, quantified by intima-media thickness (IMT). Materials and method: Fifty adult patients who received consecutive duplex carotid scans in the lab were included. The study included patients diagnosed with atherosclerosis and healthy patients. The following periodontal clinical variables were evaluated: plaque index; bleeding on probing; probing depth (PD); gingival recession; the level of clinical attachment (CAL). Results: Regarding the magnitude of PD, most sites were found in the test group: 33.9% for IMT> 1 mm without plaque and 47.1% for the atheroma group; differences were statistically significant between groups (p <0.05). The atheroma plaque group revealed 11.8% of subjects with mild periodontitis, 17.6% moderate periodontitis and 70.6% severe periodontitis. In patients with a history of stroke, more severe forms of periodontitis were associated with an increase in IMT and atheroma plaques (p<0.001). Discussions: Approximately 70% of patients with atheroma plaque experienced severe periodontitis, suggesting at least one association between the two pathologies. This group had the highest percentage of severe periodontitis, which means that the more severe periodontitis levels were linked to more advanced forms of atherosclerosis. Conclusions: This research has shown an association between the most severe forms of periodontitis and an increase in the intima-medium thickness. In addition, the increased severity of periodontal disease was associated with the presence of atheroma plaques in a significant number of patients, suggesting at least an association between the two pathologies.
The Relative Efficacy of Video and Text Tutorials in Online Computing Education

This study tests the effects of tutorial format (i.e. video vs. text) on student attitudes and performance in online computing education. A one-factor within-subjects experiment was conducted in an undergraduate Computer Information Systems course. Subjects were randomly assigned to complete two Excel exercises online: one with a video tutorial and one with a text tutorial. The instructions in the video tutorial and the text tutorial for the same exercise were identical – differing only in their presentation format. Following each tutorial, subjects completed a short test and a survey. Results suggest that tutorial format does not cause significant differences in student performance, time spent on tutorial, time spent on test, perceived time spent, perceived difficulty, perceived helpfulness, enjoyment, motivation, or likelihood to recommend the tutorial. Given this finding, educators and instructional designers are best advised to minimize the effort and cost involved in creating and implementing tutorials.
Protecting Competition in the American Economy: Merger Control, Tech Titans, Labor Markets

Accumulating evidence points to the need for more vigorous antitrust enforcement in the United States in three areas. First, stricter merger control is warranted in an economy where large, highly efficient and profitable “superstar” firms account for an increasing share of economic activity. Evidence from merger retrospectives further supports the conclusion that stricter merger control is needed. Second, greater vigilance is needed to prevent dominant firms, including the tech titans, from engaging in exclusionary conduct. The systematic shrinking of the scope of the Sherman Act by the Supreme Court over the past 40 years may make this difficult. Third, greater antitrust scrutiny should be given to the monopsony power of employers in labor markets.
R&D Leap and Operational Efficiency: The Moderating Roles of Environmental Dynamism and Environmental Munificence

Based on the theory of ambidextrous innovation and dynamic capability, our study investigates into the relationship between R&D leap and operational efficiency. Thus, using panel data of 257 gem listed firms from 2011 to 2016, we show that R&D leap is negative to operational efficiency. In addition, environmental dynamism positively moderates the relationship between R&D leap and operational efficiency, and environmental munificence negatively moderates the relationship between R&D leap and operational efficiency. Our research is inspirational for managers to carry out proactive R&D management and to improve firm’s operational efficiency.
Clinico-Demographic Profiles Of Seizures In Children-An Observational Study From A Tertiary Care Center .

Background: Seizure is one of the common causes of childhood hospitalization with significant mortality and morbidity. There is limited data regarding acute seizures episodes form the developing countries. Current study aims to find the prevalence and seizure semiology and short term outcome in children presenting to a tertiary center in Mahabubnagar, Telangana. Methods: This prospective observational study was done at department of Pediatrics, S.V. S. Medical College and Hospital, Mahabubnagar, Telangana from October 2017 to September 2018. Results: A total of 300 patients were admitted for seizures with 185 (61.6%) males and 115 (38.3%) females with a male female ratio of 1.6:1. Majority of children (152, 50.6%) were between 13 months to 5 years. Among these patients, 159 (53.5%) had fever with seizure. Generalized tonic-clonic seizures were the most common seizure type (52.3%). Common causes of seizure were febrile seizures (123, 41%), followed by seizure disorder (53, 17.6%), meningitis (44, 14.6%), encephalitis (21, 7%), neurocysticercosis (20, 6.6%), tubercular meningitis (13, 4.3%). Majority of the patients had complete recovery (262, 87.3%). Mortality (15, 5%) was mostly attributable to central nervous system infection. Conclusion: Prevalence of seizures in our study is 8.6%. Febrile convulsions were common causes of seizure in children followed by symptomatic seizures including CNS infections.
Comparison of Two Research Tools Measuring Attitudes Towards Mathematics

Our paper is comparing selected results from two research tools measuring attitudes towards mathematics. Both tools are questionnaires created to measure various areas of the complex system of pupils’ attitudes. In our paper we compare the results on pupils’ liking of mathematics found out by the first questionnaire with the results in the same area obtained by the second questionnaire. This comparison we realize on the sample of 154 pupils in the lower secondary education (10–15 years old). The statistical analysis of the data showed that both questionnaires give coherent outputs.
Image Recognition and Three-dimensional Location of Mature Oranges from Nature Scene

A new method is presented according to the self-adjusting threshold of 2R-G-B, the algorithm can recognize single or multi-fruits easily and accurately, especially a portion of the fruits overlapped or sheltered; the Circular Hough transform arithmetic can simulate the object image centroid coordinates and radius realistically; The new match technique of the binocular stereo vision can locate the objects accurately. The result shows that the recognition correctness rate is high up to 95%, and when the work distance is less than 1.0m, almost all the errors are less than 0.8cm, the algorithm is effective、robust and universal.
Automated Identification of Media Bias by Word Choice and Labeling in News Articles

Media bias can strongly impact the individual and public perception of news events. One difficult-to-detect, yet powerful form of slanted news coverage is bias by word choice and labeling (WCL). Bias by WCL can occur when journalists refer to the same concept, yet use different terms, which results in different sentiments being sparked in the readers, such as the terms "economic migrants" vs. "refugees. " We present an automated approach to identify bias by WCL that employs models and manual analysis approaches from the social sciences, a research domain in which media bias has been studied for decades. This paper makes three contributions. First, we present NewsWCL50, the first open evaluation dataset for the identification of bias by WCL consisting of 8,656 manual annotations in 50 news articles. Second, we propose a method capable of extracting instances of bias by WCL while outperforming state-of-the-art methods, such as coreference resolution, which currently cannot resolve very broadly defined or abstract coreferences used by journalists. We evaluate our method on the NewsWCL50 dataset, achieving an F1=45.7% compared to F1=29.8% achieved by the best performing state-of-the-art technique. Lastly, we present a prototype demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach in finding frames caused by bias by WCL.
CDKN 2 A / p 16 Inactivation Mechanisms and Their Relationship to Smoke Exposure and Molecular Features in Non – Small-Cell Lung Cancer

Journal of Thoracic Oncology ® • Volume 8, Number 11, November 2013 Introduction: CDKN2A (p16) inactivation is common in lung cancer and occurs via homozygous deletions, methylation of promoter region, or point mutations. Although p16 promoter methylation has been linked to KRAS mutation and smoking, the associations between p16 inactivation mechanisms and other common genetic mutations and smoking status are still controversial or unknown. Methods: We determined all three p16 inactivation mechanisms with the use of multiple methodologies for genomic status, methylation, RNA, and protein expression, and correlated them with EGFR, KRAS, STK11 mutations and smoking status in 40 cell lines and 45 tumor samples of primary non–small-cell lung carcinoma. We also performed meta-analyses to investigate the impact of smoke exposure on p16 inactivation. Results: p16 inactivation was the major mechanism of RB pathway perturbation in non–small-cell lung carcinoma, with homozygous deletion being the most frequent method, followed by methylation and the rarer point mutations. Inactivating mechanisms were tightly correlated with loss of mRNA and protein expression. p16 inactivation occurred at comparable frequencies regardless of mutational status of EGFR, KRAS, and STK11, however, the major inactivation mechanism of p16 varied. p16 methylation was linked to KRAS mutation but was mutually exclusive with EGFR mutation. Cell lines and tumor samples demonstrated similar results. Our meta-analyses confirmed a modest positive association between p16 promoter methylation and smoking. Conclusion: Our results confirm that all the inactivation mechanisms are truly associated with loss of gene product and identify specific associations between p16 inactivation mechanisms and other genetic changes and smoking status.
Primary Transobturator Bypass Grafting in Aortoileofemoral Arterial Occlusive Disease

Original Research Article Vascular groin infection is a potentially serious complication after prosthetic bypass grafting in aortoileofemoral arterial occlusive disease. Groin graft infection after bypass grafting in patients with critical limb ischemia, may lead to sepsis, hemorrhage, even amputation of the limb. Therefore, both the affected limb and the patient's life are threatened. Moreover, unsuccessful primary procedure may further the already existed psychological burden. Groin infections are potentially lethal in patients with co-morbid conditions. Revascularization with an obturator bypass has been used as an extra anatomic bypass route as a potential alternative for restoration of circulation to local revision and arterial ligation alone in graft infections. This technique uses alternative route avoiding risk of vascular graft infection. Transobturator extra anatomic bypass technique can be a viable option for primary bypass grafting in aortoileofemoral arterial occlusive disease in high risk cases. This technique can be performed at ease without prolonging intraoperative time appreciably. Key-words: peripheral arterial occlusive disease, groin infection, transobturator bypass grafting, ileofemoral crossover grafting. Copyright @ 2019: 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 for non-commercial use (NonCommercial, or CC-BY-NC) provided the original author and source are credited.
Enhancement of mechanical and biological properties of calcium phosphate bone cement by incorporating bacterial cellulose

ABSTRACT Low mechanical strength of calcium phosphate cement (CPC) limits its clinical application as a bone replacement. Herein, for the first time, we selected bacterial cellulose (BC) fibres to reinforce CPC. The BC-reinforced CPC (BC/CPC) composites with varying BC content were prepared and compared in terms of microstructure, compressive strength and cellular responses. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images revealed the uniform dispersion of BC in CPC matrix. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) results confirmed the interfacial coordination interaction between BC and CPC. It was found that the introduction of BC enhanced the compressive strength of CPC, and the optimal BC content was 2 wt. %. Moreover, cell studies showed that BC/CPC composites exhibited better cell performance than bare CPC. The results have demonstrated that a new CPC composite with enhanced mechanical performance and cellular responses may be developed by using BC as reinforcement.
Disentangling interfaces and bulk in spin transport calculations

Because future logic, storage, sensing and energy harvesting devices will approach the nanoscale where electrons behave as waves, electron transport in such devices must be described in terms of wave propagation and scattering. At present functionalities are based upon the charge of electrons. Manipulating these charges leads to a large amount of energy dissipation that is growing as electronics pervades more aspects of our lives. Another defining property of electrons, their spin, has only recently been shown to have huge promise for reducing the energy consumption of electronic devices. Harnessing the spin of electrons (“spintronics”) requires an improved understanding of how spins behave in diverse materials in order to design efficient spintronic devices. The passage of electron spins through layered magnetic structures comprising ferromagnetic and nonmagnetic layers has led to new phenomena like the giant magnetoresistance effect and spin transfer torque with huge application potential and consequently led to interest in producing and detecting spin currents using spin pumping, the spin Hall effect (SHE) and its inverse, the ISHE. Spin-orbit coupling, spin-relaxation, magnetization damping, spin accumulation and different types of disorder play important roles in these phenomena that need to be identified to understand device behaviour in order to design improved structures. They are described in phenomenological theories in terms of material and structure dependent parameters. Almost everything that we know about transport parameters at interfaces between materials is from low temperature measurements using superconducting leads whereas the vast majority of experimental studies in spintronics are carried out at room temperature. First-principles material-specific quantum transport calculations that can describe these processes are an attractive alternative to experiment to determine the material dependence of these parameters. In this thesis, I undertook a systematic computational study of the spatial behavior of spin currents as they pass through interfaces and bulk-like materials in multilayers. Because applications require operation at room temperature, I focussed on determining the relevant parameters for the most important materials at finite temperatures using first-principles scattering calculations. This made it possible to establish theoretical benchmarks for bulk properties of various materials at finite temperatures. It also paved the way to disentangle interface and bulk contributions for multilayers and extract interface transport parameters such as the spin-memory loss (SML), interface resistance, interface SHA and interface spin polarization for various nonmagnetic and ferromagnetic|nonmagnetic interfaces.
Force-, Heat- and Electron-Induced Switching of Single Molecules on MetalSurfaces: Tautomerization of Porphycene Investigated with Scanning Probe Microscopy

In this thesis, single-molecule tautomerization on metal surfaces are studied. Tautomerization is a structural conversion between two or more isomeric forms of a molecule. Tautomerization is related to many important chemical and biological processes and combined studies of spectroscopic experiments with quantum chemical calculations have provided detailed insights into the correlation between a molecular structure and tautomerization dynamics for an isolated molecule, but the study on single-molecule tautomerization in condensed phase where the local environment could have a crucial impact has been scarce so far. In this research low-temperature scanning probe microscopy is used to investigate the tautomerization of single porphycene molecules on copper surfaces. Porphycene is a structural isomer of porphyrin with similar chemical properties but relatively strong hydrogen bonds in the inner cavity, which makes this molecule an intriguing model for studying hydrogen bond dynamics. Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) the thermally-, electron-, and force-induced tautomerization of porphycene on copper surfaces were investigated and the mechanisms of the tautomerization processes were elucidated at the single-molecule level. On the Cu(111) surface the hot carrier-induced trans to cis tautomerization and the thermally induced backward reaction were investigated with an STM. The hot carrier-induced process was observed not only in molecules underneath the STM tip, but also in molecules in a distance of up to 100nm away from the tip. This nonlocal reaction is rationalized by traveling hot carriers along the surface and a more efficient transportation occurs for hot electrons traveling through the surface state than for hot holes. Additionally, a coupling between the surface state and the molecular adsorption was found to lead to a characteristic coverage dependence of the nonlocal tautomerization efficiency. On the Cu(110) surface the force-induced cis to cis tautomerization was investigated with AFM. The reaction was induced merely by bringing the tip closer to a molecule, suggesting that the interaction between the tip apex and the molecule triggers the process. Force spectroscopy revealed the force needed to induce the tautomerization and quantified a fraction of nano-Newton. Density functional theory simulations revealed that the tip proximity distorts the potential landscape along the tautomerization coordinate and significantly reduces the activation barrier. It was found that the tautomerization could not be induced by a Xe terminated tip, demonstrating the importance of the chemical nature of the tip to trigger the reaction via the distortion of the potential landscape.
Optical Properties of Nanocomposite Films: Size-tuned vs. Shape-tuned Silver Nanoparticles

Color change is a desirable response when designing user-friendly chemical sensors. However, when preparing colored nanocomposites sensors, it can be challenging to transfer the color from solution into films. This work demonstrates that films of various colors can be prepared by blending premade nanoparticles with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA); however, the color in solution differed from the color in film. While, this color discrepancy and the appearance of the films depended on how the optical properties of nanoparticles were tuned, UV-visible spectroscopy and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) showed that changes in nanoparticle’s morphology was not the cause of the color discrepancy. Reflecting the polydispersity of nanoparticles in solution, more homogeneous colored films were obtained by controlling the size of nanoparticles rather than their shape. This work shows how to readily prepare silver-PVA nanocomposite films of various colors, which may facilitate the design of nanocomposites intended for chemical sensing based on the optical properties of silver nanoparticles.
Abnormal returns in the renewable energy and cleantech sector ?

The purpose of this thesis is to further examine the market dynamics of M&As in the cleantech and renewable energy industry. This study analyzes the abnormal returns of 273 announced and 54 completed buyout acquisitions that took place between 1997 and 2014. The event study method is used to test if cleantech deals experience higher returns than traditional energy and mining deals, if deal completions display similar effects as deal announcements (which is the unique contribution of this thesis) and if homogenous deals experience higher abnormal returns than heterogeneous deals. The outcomes are that the traditional energy and mining sector outperforms the cleantech sectors in homogenous deals. That deal completions effect follows the announcements effect for 11 out of 15 groups and that homogenous deals outperform heterogeneous deals.
Comparison of Rigid Gas Permeable and Toric Soft Lens for Correcting Astigmatism

Background: To compare visual acuity correction of astigmatism and comfort between toric softcontact lens and rigid gas permeable. Thus, ophthalmologists will less reluctantly propose contactlenses for the patients with astigmatism, and maximize the potential advantages of contact lenses forthe wearer.Methods: Literature review of all prospective and retrospective studies which reported managementof astigmatism with rigid gas permeable of toric soft contact lenses. The articles were divided intocharacteristics and outcomes. Outcomes reviewd were visual acuity, lens fit characteristics, cornealstaining, and subjective problems.Results: Lens corrected visual acuity by toric soft lens showed variation, which 3 studies reported afew amount of visual loss from spectacles corrected. Meanwhile other studies reported better toric softlens corrected visual acuity than spectacles. In RGP group, four studies reported better or the samevisual acuity with spectacles, and only one study showed a few amount of visual loss. Visual clarityand poor comfort were the most frequent subjective problems in toric soft lens group. Meanwhile,dryness and poor comfort were the most frequent subjective problems in RGP group.Conclusion: RGP is superior than toric soft lens in correcting astigmatism. Meanwhile, toric soft lensprovides quick adaptation and comfort. Â Keywords: astigmatism, rigid gas permeable, toric soft lens
A role for Arabidopsis phospholipase C3 (PLC3) in seed germination, lateral root formation and stomatal closure

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.