Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 6-DOF Gait Rehabilitation Robot With Upper and Lower Limb Connections That Allows Walking Velocity Updates on Various Terrains

This paper presents a 6-DOF gait rehabilitation robot that allows patients to update their walking velocity on various terrain types and navigate in virtual environments (VEs) through upper and lower limb connections. This robot is composed of an upper limb device, a sliding device, two footpad devices, and a body support system. The footpad device on the sliding device generates 3-DOF spatial motions on the sagittal plane for each foot. This allows the generation of various terrain types for diverse walking training. The upper limb device allows users to swing their arms naturally through the use of a simple pendulum link with a passive prismatic joint. Synchronized gait patterns for this robot are designed to represent a normal gait with upper and lower limb connections. To permit patients to walk at will, this robot allows walking velocity updates for various terrain types by estimating the interaction torques between the human and the upper limb device, and synchronizing the lower limb device with the upper limb device. In addition, the patient is able to navigate in VEs by generating turning commands with switches located in the handles of the upper limb device. Experimental results using a healthy subject show that the user can update the walking velocity on level ground, slopes, and stairs through upper and lower limb connections. In addition, the user could navigate in the VEs with walking velocity updates and turning input command allowing various rehabilitation training modes. During a pilot clinical test, a hemiplegic patient could use the suggested gait rehabilitation robot with a slow walking speed. The rehabilitation plan was also suggested for the patient and the possible therapeutic effects of the suggested rehabilitation robot system are discussed.
Redox-mapping MRI in rodent brain with nitroxide contrast agents

INTRODUCTION Overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and decreased antioxidant defense system may contribute to numerous brain disorders such as stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Non-invasive evaluation and visualization of oxidative stress is important to elucidate the role of ROS in brain diseases. In order to visualize the effect of ROS in vivo, nitroxide compounds have been used as redox-sensitive contrast agents in EPR imaging, and recently these compounds have also been started to be used as a redox-sensitive T1 contrast agents in MRI [1,2]. Paramagnetic nitroxide works as an MRI contrast agent, but not when reduced to its hydroxylamine derivatives. Therefore the ratio of paramagnetic nitroxide / diamagnetic hydroxylamine has been shown to be dependent on the redox state of the tissues. With this, MRI can show the mapping image of the redox status of the animal disease models being examined. The purpose of this study was to examine the possibility and ability of nitroxide compounds with different lipophilicities as a redox-mapping tool in MRI of brain disease animal models such as epilepsy and transient cerebral ischemia. The results were discussed with reference to the data obtained by EPR spectrometry.
The role of practice development nurses in Malta.

AIM To develop an understanding of the role of practice development nurses in Malta and to identify any barriers or opportunities associated with this role. METHOD An exploratory single case study methodology was used. Ten of the total population of 11 practice development nurses agreed to participate in the study. Participants were twice interviewed in person about their understanding of the role. Data were analysed thematically. FINDINGS The main themes identified were: professional growth through lifelong learning, leadership in a changing practice environment and fostering research-based clinical practice. Participants reported that ambiguities associated with their role, role conflict and unclear hospital infrastructure were barriers to executing their role effectively. CONCLUSION Healthcare organisations should create an appropriate working environment that supports practice development nurses and clearly distinguishes their responsibilities and authority. Practice development nurses should become more socio-economically and politically focused to enable them to function strategically and effectively in their clinical working environment.
Vision for Prehension in the Medial Parietal Cortex

Abstract In the last 2 decades, the medial posterior parietal area V6A has been extensively studied in awake macaque monkeys for visual and somatosensory properties and for its involvement in encoding of spatial parameters for reaching, including arm movement direction and amplitude. This area also contains populations of neurons sensitive to grasping movements, such as wrist orientation and grip formation. Recent work has shown that V6A neurons also encode the shape of graspable objects and their affordance. In other words, V6A seems to encode object visual properties specifically for the purpose of action, in a dynamic sequence of visuomotor transformations that evolve in the course of reach‐to‐grasp action. We propose a model of cortical circuitry controlling reach‐to‐grasp actions, in which V6A acts as a comparator that monitors differences between current and desired hand positions and configurations. This error signal could be used to continuously update the motor output, and to correct reach direction, hand orientation, and/or grip aperture as required during the act of prehension. In contrast to the generally accepted view that the dorsomedial component of the dorsal visual stream encodes reaching, but not grasping, the functional properties of V6A neurons strongly suggest the view that this area is involved in encoding all phases of prehension, including grasping.
Endodontic Treatment of Primary Molars with Antibiotic Paste: A Report of 38 Cases.

OBJECTIVE This study presents 38 cases of primary molars with necrotic pulps treated with antibiotics-based paste. CASE REPORT The technique consisted of necrotic tissue removal of the pulp chamber, using spoons excavators and low speed drills. Pulp cavity was washed with saline solution and dried with sterile cotton balls. Then an antibiotic paste composed of chloramphenicol, tetracycline, zinc oxide and eugenol - CTZ paste - was inserted at the entrance of root canals. Patients were evaluated clinically and radiographically at different times. The criteria that defined clinical success were the lack of periapical abscess and mobility compatible with chronological age. Radiographic assessments consisted in absence of radiolucency in the region of root bifurcation and pathological bone resorption. CONCLUSION There were 100% and 93% of clinical and radiographic success, respectively. The results suggest that the CTZ paste is an optional therapy for pulp of primary molars.
Minimally invasive local ablative therapies in combination with radioiodine therapy in benign thyroid disease: preparation, feasibility and efficiency – preliminary results

Abstract Purpose: Initial studies of combinations of radioiodine therapy (RIT) and local ablative procedures for the treatment of thyroid nodules have shown promising results. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of RIT combined with radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in patients with goitres and to determine which ablative procedure is the most suitable for a combined therapy. Methods: Thirty patients with goitres were divided into two subgroups. A test group of 15 patients received combined therapy (RIT + RFA) and a control group of 15 patients received RIT mono therapy. All patients underwent assessments including ultrasound, laboratory evaluation (T3, T4, TSH, TG, TPOAb, TgAbTRAb) and scintigraphic imaging with Tc-99m-Pertechnetate. The 3-month volume reduction was used to evaluate therapy effectiveness. Results: Combined therapy (subgroup 1) resulted in a significant (p < 0.05) thyroid volume reduction (22.3 ± 54 ml/32.2 ± 58.2%) with better performance (p > 0.05) than the control group (20.2 ± 32.2 ml/29.6 ± 42.1%). All patients became euthyroid after treatment. No major discomfort or complications occurred. A review of the literature investigating combinations of other local ablative procedures with RIT was performed to determine the most promising combination. Conclusions: The present study confirms the positive experiences with the combined therapy of RIT and local ablative procedures shown in the current literature and approves this approach for the treatment of goitres with RFA + RIT. These findings, when confirmed by further studies, should expand the indication of combined therapy as a minimally invasive alternative to surgery.
The Entrepreneur and the Business Plan

Conventional wisdom suggests that the development of an extensive business plan is necessary for success in start-up ventures. Recent research findings, however, raise questions as to the necessity for developing such elaborate plans. In fact, an emerging argument is that completing an extensive business plan before launching a venture is inconsistent with the entrepreneurial spirit of ‘‘just doing it. ’’ The purpose of this article is to highlight the evidence that supports the 2 opposing viewpoints about the need to develop a business plan for start-up ventures. This article offers the clinical nurse specialist (CNS) entrepreneur suggestions for incorporating and maximizing both viewpoints.
Anticoccidial Activity of Allium Sativum and Aloe Vera in Broilers

Avian coccidiosis is the most costly and wide-spread parasitic disease in the poultry industry, and has been mainly controlled by the use of different chemotherapeutic agents. Due to the emergence of drug-resistant strains, alternative control strategies are needed. In this study, the protective effects of Allium sativum or Aloe vera aqueous extracts were investigated in broiler chickens following experimental infection with mixed Eimeria species. The obtained results showed that, fecal oocyst shedding decreased significantly in all of the treated groups that were supplemented with either aqueous extract of Allium sativum or Aloe Vera alone or in combination as compared to the infected non-treated control group. Furthermore, the medicated groups showed significantly lower intestinal lesions compared with those infected non-treated ones. No significant differences were found in body weight gain or loss between the Allium sativum or Aloe vera-supplemented birds either alone or in combination and noninfected control group. In addition, Feed conversion rate (FCR) was improved in birds supplemented with either Allium sativum or Aloe Vera compared with non-infected control group. The findings of this study suggest that aqueous extract of Allium sativum and Aloe vera could be used as alternative treatment for controlling avian coccidiosis.
Modulation of cytokines and chemokines expression by NAC in cadmium chloride treated human lung cells

Cadmium (Cd), is one of the most hazardous metals found in the environment. Cd exposure through inhalation has been linked to various diseases in lungs. It was shown that Cd induces proinflammatory cytokines through oxidative stress mechanism. In this report, we studied the immunomodulatory effect of a well known antioxidant, N‐acetylcysteine (NAC) on cadmium chloride (CdCl2) treated human lung A549 cells through human cytokine array 6. The lung cells were treated with 0 or 75 µM CdCl2 alone, 2.5 mM NAC alone, or co‐treated with 2.5 mM NAC and 75 µM CdCl2 for 24 h. The viability of cells was measured by crystal violet dye. The array results were validated by human IL‐1alpha enzyme‐ linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. The viability of the 75 µM CdCl2 alone treated cells was decreased to 44.5%, while the viability of the co‐treated cells with 2.5 mM NAC was increased to 84.1% in comparison with untreated cells. In the cell lysate of CdCl2 alone treated cells, 19 and 8 cytokines were up and down‐regulated, while in the medium 15 and 3 cytokines were up and downregulated in comparison with the untreated cells. In the co‐treated cells, all these cytokines expression was modulated by the NAC treatment. The IL‐1α ELISA result showed the same pattern of cytokine expression as the cytokine array. This study clearly showed the modulatory effect of NAC on cytokines and chemokines expression in CdCl2‐treated cells and suggests the use of NAC as protective agent against cadmium toxicity. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 31: 1612–1619, 2016.
Long memory of rivers from spatial aggregation

Long memory is a hydrological property that can lead to prolonged droughts or the temporal clustering of extreme floods in a river. Analyses of 28 long (up to 145 years), continuous instrumental runoff series from six European, American, and African rivers reveal that this effect increases downstream. Simulations reproduce the increase qualitatively and show that a river network aggregates short‐memory precipitation and converts it into long‐memory runoff. In view of projected changes in climate and the hydrological cycle, these findings show that decadal‐scale variations in drought or flood risk can be predicted for individual rivers, with higher predictability downstream. Spatial aggregation may also explain the emergence of long memory in other networks, such as the brain or those formed by computers.
Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis Peritonitis due to Enterococcus cecorum

ABSTRACT Enterococcus cecorum was isolated as the etiologic agent of a continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis peritonitis episode in an alcoholic patient. To date, this is only the third infection due to this bacterium, found in the intestinal tract of many domestic animals, that has been reported in humans.
Sound Processing Hierarchy within Human Auditory Cortex

Both attention and masking sounds can alter auditory neural processes and affect auditory signal perception. In the present study, we investigated the complex effects of auditory-focused attention and the signal-to-noise ratio of sound stimuli on three different auditory evoked field components (auditory steady-state response, N1m, and sustained field) by means of magnetoencephalography. The results indicate that the auditory steady-state response originating in primary auditory cortex reflects the signal-to-noise ratio of physical sound inputs (bottom–up process) rather than the listener's attentional state (top–down process), whereas the sustained field, originating in nonprimary auditory cortex, reflects the attentional state rather than the signal-to-noise ratio. The N1m was substantially influenced by both bottom–up and top–down neural processes. The differential sensitivity of the components to bottom–up and top–down neural processes, contingent on their level in the processing pathway, suggests a stream from bottom–up driven sensory neural processing to top–down driven auditory perception within human auditory cortex.
An isotopic analysis of ionising radiation as a source of sulphuric acid

Sulphuric acid is an important factor in aerosol nu- cleation and growth. It has been shown that ions enhance the formation of sulphuric acid aerosols, but the exact mecha- nism has remained undetermined. Furthermore some studies have found a deficiency in the sulphuric acid budget, suggest- ing a missing source. In this study the production of sulphuric acid from SO2 through a number of different pathways is in- vestigated. The production methods are standard gas phase oxidation by OH radicals produced by ozone photolysis with UV light, liquid phase oxidation by ozone, and gas phase oxidation initiated by gamma rays. The distributions of sta- ble sulphur isotopes in the products and substrate were mea- sured using isotope ratio mass spectrometry. All methods produced sulphate enriched in 34 S and we find an enrich- ment factor ( 34 S) of 8.7± 0.4 ‰ (1 standard deviation) for the UV-initiated OH reaction. Only UV light (Hg emission at 253.65 nm) produced a clear non-mass-dependent excess of 33 S. The pattern of isotopic enrichment produced by gamma rays is similar, but not equal, to that produced by aqueous oxidation of SO2 by ozone. This, combined with the relative yields of the experiments, suggests a mechanism in which ionising radiation may lead to hydrated ion clusters that serve as nanoreactors for S(IV) to S(VI) conversion.
High prevalence of primary lamivudine and nelfinavir resistance in HIV-1-infected pregnant women in the United States, 1998–2004

Using a highly sensitive allele-specific polymerase chain reaction assay we detected the M184V mutation for lamivudine resistance in plasma from 9.4% of HIV-1-infected pregnant women enrolled in the Women and Infant Transmission Study between 1998 and 2004. The prevalence of nelfinavir resistance (D30N) was 6.3%. These results suggest a high prevalence of primary lamivudine and nelfinavir resistance among HIV-1-infected pregnant women in the United States, and support routine genotypic resistance testing before initiating mother-to-child-transmission prophylaxis.
Bridge the Gap Between Group Sparse Coding and Rank Minimization via Adaptive Dictionary Learning

Both sparse coding and rank minimization have led to great successes in various image processing tasks. Though the underlying principles of these two approaches are similar, no theory is available to demonstrate the correspondence. In this paper, starting by designing an adaptive dictionary for each group of image patches, we analyze the sparsity of image patches in each group using the rank minimization approach. Based on this, we prove that the group-based sparse coding is equivalent to the rank minimization problem under our proposed adaptive dictionary. Therefore, the sparsity of the coefficients for each group can be measured by estimating the singular values of this group. Inspired by our theoretical analysis, four nuclear norm like minimization methods including the standard nuclear norm minimization (NNM), weighted nuclear norm minimization (WNNM), Schatten $p$-norm minimization (SNM), and weighted Schatten $p$-norm minimization (WSNM), are employed to analyze the sparsity of the coefficients and WSNM is found to be the closest solution to the singular values of each group. Based on this, WSNM is then translated to a non-convex weighted $\ell_p$-norm minimization problem in group-based sparse coding, and in order to solve this problem, a new algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) framework is developed. Experimental results on two low-level vision tasks: image inpainting and image compressive sensing recovery, demonstrate that the proposed scheme is feasible and outperforms state-of-the-art methods.
Licensing in the Presence of Competing Technologies

In technology-based industries, many incumbent fIrms license their technology to other fIrms that will potentially compete with them. Such a strategy is diffIcult to explain within traditional models of licensing. This paper extends the literature on licensing by relaxing the widespread assumption of a "unique" technology holder. We develop a model with many technological trajectories for the production of a differentiated good. We fmd that competition in the market for technology induces licensing of innovations, and that the number of licenses can be ineffIciently large. A strong testable implication of our theory is that the number of licenses per patent holder decreases with the degree of product differentiation.
Dimensionality of alcohol dependence in young adulthood: current versus lifetime symptomatology.

OBJECTIVE The factor structure of alcohol dependence was investigated using exploratory factor analysis, specifically contrasting models of alcohol dependence based on lifetime symptom endorsement to models based on current (i.e., past-year) symptom endorsement. METHOD Data from the 1989 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were analyzed. DSM-IV alcohol dependence was assessed in this large community sample of current drinkers and lifetime drinkers, representative of both men and women, and ranging in age from 24 to 32. Sixteen items assessing the seven criteria of DSM-IV alcohol dependence were employed. RESULTS A single-factor model accounted for most of the observed relationships. However, evidence of additional dimensions, characterized by tolerance and impaired control symptoms, was also identified. CONCLUSIONS Our findings do not support the historical tendency of distinguishing physiological (as indicated by tolerance or withdrawal symptoms) from nonphysiological dependence. Most importantly, factor solutions derived from items based on past-year symptom endorsement were consistent with those derived from items based on lifetime symptom endorsement in samples of both current drinkers and lifetime drinkers.
Molecular Genotyping of Human Papillomavirus L1 Gene in Low-Risk and High-Risk Populations in Bangkok

Background Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in Thailand are a public health concern, but information on HPV infection in sex workers and men who have sex with men (MSM) is limited. The aim of this study was to measure the prevalence and genotype distribution of HPV among low- and high-risk, HIV-negative populations. Methods A total of 300 participants were categorized as general women, female sex workers, MSM, and MSM sex workers. Human papillomavirus infections were identified by the Papanicolaou test and nested polymerase chain reaction. A phylogenetic analysis of partial HPV L1 genes was performed. Results Abnormal cytology was found in 5% of general women, 10% of female sex workers, 24% of MSM, and 28% of MSM sex workers. Human papillomavirus was detected in 9% of general women, 13% of female sex workers, and 30% in both MSM and the MSM sex workers. The prevalence of HPV high-risk genotypes was significantly higher in female sex workers and MSM, whereas low-risk genotypes and genital warts were significantly higher in MSM sex workers. Significantly more patients with genital warts and cervical intraepithelial neoplasia I/anal intraepithelial neoplasia I harbored low-risk genotypes, whereas those with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia II/anal intraepithelial neoplasia II harbored high-risk genotypes. Conclusions High- and low-risk HPV genotypes persist in high-risk groups in Bangkok. Some genotypes infecting at-risk populations are not vaccine preventable. These findings may help to elucidate the prevalence of HPV infections in Thailand and serve as the basis for additional investigations into risk factors for these populations.
Method of extraction and demucilagination of Treculia africana : effect on composition

Treculia africana (African breadfruit) seeds extracted from fresh fruit heads were treated with graded concentrations (1% - 5%) of trona (sodium sesquicarbonate) and wood ash for 5 – 25 min to evaluate their demucilaginating effectiveness. Seeds from naturally fermented and unfermented fruit heads served as controls. The effect of the demucilaginating aid on nutrient composition, colour and water absorption capacity were determined. Trona at 5% (w/w) concentration removed 27% of the total seed mucilage (30%) in 25 min while wood ash at the same concentration and treatment time removed 6% of the total mucilage. There were no significant (p > 0.05) variations among treatments in colour, water absorption and proximate composition. Seeds from the naturally fermented and unfermented fruit heads (controls) contained 13.8% and 15.2% crude protein respectively. The control sample (seeds from the unfermented fruit head) had 28% to 38% more calcium than seeds from the other treatments. Free fatty acid and peroxide values were very high (P Keywords : Extraction, composition demucilagation, Treculia africana : Nigerian Food Journal Vol. 25 (1) 2007: pp. 90-99