Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of Riding for Children with Cerebral Palsy Gross Motor Functions

Aim. To evaluate the effects of riding for beginners (short-term) and advanced (long-term) riders with cerebral palsy on their whole mobility. The study involved 15 subjects (two girls and eleven boys). The subjects were aged from 3 to 19 years (8.73 years ± 5.85). All of the subjects had been diagnosed with a spastic form of cerebral palsy. The duration of the participation differed as follows: the advanced subjects had been riding for 1-4 years (2.66 years ± 1.16), while the beginners have been riding for two weeks (10 sessions). Group I (advanced riders) consisted of eight subjects (7 boys and 1 girl) who had therapy sessions regularly once a week and differed only in terms of the duration of their participation in the experiment. Group II (beginners) consisted of seven children (1 girl and 6 boys) who participated in only 10 riding sessions. All of the subjects were assessed according to the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM) and Gross Motor Function Classification System for CP (GMFCS) both before the investigation and after it. Conclusions. Ten riding lessons did not have an influence on the beginner riders with cerebral palsy gross motor functions and their gross motor function level did not change. However, in half of the advanced riders with cerebral palsy, the gross motor functions significantly improved. Meanwhile, the level of the performance of the gross motor skills in the four advanced riders increased, but this difference was not statistically significant.
Randomised controlled trial of GM-CSF in critically ill patients with impaired neutrophil phagocytosis

Background Critically ill patients with impaired neutrophil phagocytosis have significantly increased risk of nosocomial infection. Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) improves phagocytosis by neutrophils ex vivo. This study tested the hypothesis that GM-CSF improves neutrophil phagocytosis in critically ill patients in whom phagocytosis is known to be impaired. Methods This was a multicentre, phase IIa randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Using a personalised medicine approach, only critically ill patients with impaired neutrophil phagocytosis were included. Patients were randomised 1:1 to subcutaneous GM-CSF (3 μg/kg/day) or placebo, once daily for 4 days. The primary outcome measure was neutrophil phagocytosis 2 days after initiation of GM-CSF. Secondary outcomes included neutrophil phagocytosis over time, neutrophil functions other than phagocytosis, monocyte HLA-DR expression and safety. Results Thirty-eight patients were recruited from five intensive care units (17 randomised to GM-CSF). Mean neutrophil phagocytosis at day 2 was 57.2% (SD 13.2%) in the GM-CSF group and 49.8% (13.4%) in the placebo group, p=0.73. The proportion of patients with neutrophil phagocytosis≥50% at day 2, and monocyte HLA-DR, appeared significantly higher in the GM-CSF group. Neutrophil functions other than phagocytosis did not appear significantly different between the groups. The most common adverse event associated with GM-CSF was fever. Conclusions GM-CSF did not improve mean neutrophil phagocytosis at day 2, but was safe and appeared to increase the proportion of patients with adequate phagocytosis. The study suggests proof of principle for a pharmacological effect on neutrophil function in a subset of critically ill patients.
Evaluation and modelling of osmotic pre-treatment of peach using alternative agents in a multiple-component solution.

BACKGROUND Peach is a perishable fruit of great importance for the Greek food export market which is prone to rapid deterioration after harvesting. Its short shelf life can be substantially prolonged by applying an appropriate osmotic dehydration (OD) pre-treatment, which is a mild, non-thermal procedure. The aim of this study was to describe mass transfer and quality retention induced by the OD process. RESULTS Peach pieces were immersed in tertiary solutions of glycerol, erythritol, steviol glucosides and mineral salts at pre-selected OD conditions (25-45 °C for 3-240 min, wfruit /wsolution = 1:5). Water loss (WL), solid gain (SG), water activity (aw ) as well as representative quality indices (colour, texture) were measured during OD, showing that osmotically dehydrated peach presented significant aw reduction (from 0.97 to 0.88) combined with quality retention. CONCLUSION This research showed that OD can be an effective pre-processing step in the production of intermediate moisture novel products. A second-degree polynomial model was developed describing adequately the effect of OD time and temperature and glycerol concentration on WL, SG, aw , colour and texture of osmotically dehydrated peach, and analysis of variance was applied to identify those factors that significantly affect the aforementioned parameters. It was concluded that OD using alternative osmotic agents is an efficient method with respect to product colour and texture retention, allowing for the production of novel products with extended shelf life. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.
Increase in the Tibial Slope in Unicondylar Knee Replacement: Analysis of the Effect on the Kinematics and Ligaments in a Weight-Bearing Finite Element Model

Introduction Unicompartmental arthroplasty (UKA) of the knee in patients with isolated medial osteoarthritis yields adequate results; however, the survival rate is inferior to that of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). A key factor in the longevity of the implant is the positioning; however, the optimal tibial slope in UKA has not been determined. The aim of this study was to establish a finite element (FE) model and investigate the effect of the tibial slope on the strain of the ligaments, kinematics, inlay movement, and load in the nonreplaced patellofemoral compartment in a medial mobile bearing UKA. Materials and Methods An FE model of a leg was established with a virtual UKA implantation with three different tibial slopes (0°, 5°, and 10°). Subsequently, the knee was flexed from 14–73°. In addition, the ground reaction force and the muscles were simulated. Results With a higher tibial slope, there was more external rotation of the tibia. An increased tibial slope provided a lateral shift of the patella in the trochlear groove and a more anterior position of the inlay. The ligament strains were also changed, specifically, the anterior portion of the medial collateral ligament and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). Discussion This study established the first model of a quasidynamic mobile bearing UKA in a leg under weight-bearing conditions. With an increasing tibial slope, there was a higher external rotation of the tibia that created different femorotibial and retropatellar kinematics and different strains in the ligaments. This knowledge adds important information for the optimal tibial slope that has to be determined individually depending on the patient's preoperative kinematics, desired postoperative kinematics, ligament status, and location of the retropatellar chondral damage.
Anatomical Variations of the Temporomesial Structures in Normal Adult Brain - A Cadaveric Study

ABSTRACT Background: Despite significant evolutional, functional, and clinical interest, the anatomical variations of the temporomesial structures in cadaveric samples have received little attention. This study was undertaken to document the anatomical variations observed in the temporal lobe of human brain with emphasis on the structures present in temporomesial region. Materials and Methods: Using 26 postmortem cadaveric cerebral hemispheres (13 right and 13 left hemispheres), several neurosurgically significant mesial structures were studied by blunt dissection under the operating microscope. The observed surface-based qualitative variations and right-left asymmetries were tabulated under well-defined, moderately defined, and ill-defined classification. Results: Among the areas, uncus (100%), limen insulae (88.4%), rhinal sulcus and hippocampus (81%), intralimbic gyrus (77%), Heschl's gyrus (73%), gyrus ambiens, semilunar gyrus, sulcus semiannularis, and calcar avis (69.2%) were well defined, and band of Giacomini (38.4%) was found to be distinctly ill-defined areas in the list. Further, our analysis confirmed the presence of consistent left-greater-than-right asymmetry in all the areas of interest in temporal region under well-defined category. Rightward asymmetry was noticed in moderately defined and ill-defined classification. However, no asymmetry was detected in the uncal region. P value for all the obtained results was >0.05. Conclusion: Our study offers a preliminary anatomic foundation toward the better understanding of temporal lobe structures. These variations may prove valuable to neurosurgeons when designing the appropriate and least traumatic surgical approaches in operating the temporomesial lesions.
Evaluation of Long-term Outcomes Following Plantar Fasciotomy

Background: Plantar fasciitis is a common condition prevalent in both athletic and nonathletic populations. Approximately 10% of patients do not respond to conservative treatment and suffer chronic recalcitrant plantar fasciitis. Outcomes following plantar fasciotomy vary but short-term studies have reported excellent early pain relief and return to activity, and significant improvements in symptoms. Previous study limitations include small patient cohorts, short-term duration of follow-up or lack of validated outcome measures. We therefore aimed to investigate the long-term outcomes following complete plantar fasciotomy. Methods: Patients who underwent complete plantar fasciotomy surgery from a single surgeon within the past 10 years (minimum 7 months) were invited to participate in this retrospective survey study. To evaluate patient-reported function, participants were asked to complete the Foot and Ankle Outcome Score (FAOS). To assess subjective outcome, the participants were provided a satisfaction survey. The satisfaction survey was designed to include the 3 key factors for assessing postoperative patient satisfaction, which are preoperative expectations, symptom relief, and hospital experience. A total of 74 questionnaires were returned. Results: The median global satisfaction score was 85.4 (IQR=37.5) points out of 100. Significant correlations between the global patient satisfaction score and all FAOS subscale scores were identified. Only 3 participants (4%) reported a complication following surgery; however, 32 participants (44.4%) indicated that they still experienced swelling and/or tenderness in their foot at the time of the survey (mean follow-up time 4.8 ± 2.8 years) but for the majority of patients this was improved from before surgery. Conclusion: Long-term patient satisfaction was experienced by the majority of patients following plantar fasciotomy. Although 44% of patients continue to have postoperative complaints, 73% indicated that they were satisfied with their symptoms postoperatively, and 74% would undergo a similar procedure again. Level of Evidence: Level IV, case series.
Versatile and efficient mixed-criticality scheduling for multi-core processors. (Une approche efficace et polyvalente pour l'ordonnancement de systèmes à criticité mixte sur processeur multi-coeurs)

This thesis focuses on the scheduling of mixed-criticality scheduling algorithms for multi-processors. The correctness of the execution of the real-time applications is ensured by a scheduler and is checked during the design phase. The execution platform sizing aims at minimising the number of processors required to ensure this correct scheduling. This sizing is impacted by the safety requirements. Indeed, these requirements tend to overestimate the execution times of the applications to ensure their correct executions. Consequently, the resulting sizing is costly. The mixed-criticality scheduling theory aims at proposing compromises on the guarantees of the execution of the applications to reduce this over-sizing. Several models of mixed-criticality systems offering different compromises have been proposed but all are based on the use of execution modes. Modes are ordered and tasks have non decreasing execution times in each mode. Yet, to reduce the sizing of the execution platform, only the execution of the most critical tasks is ensured. This model is called the discarding model. For simplicity reasons, most of the mixed-criticality scheduling algorithms are limited to this model. Besides, the most efficient scheduling policies for multi-processors entail too many preemptions and migrations to be actually used. Finally, they are rarely generalised to handle different models of mixed-criticality systems. However, the handling of more than two execution modes or of tasks with elastic periods would make such solutions more attractive for the industry. The approach proposed in this thesis is based on the separation of concerns between handling the execution modes and the scheduling of the tasks on the multi-processors. With this approach, we achieve to design an efficient scheduling policy that schedules different models of mixed-criticality systems. It consists in performing the transformation of a mixed-criticality task set into a non mixed-criticality one. We then schedule this task set by using an optimal hard real-time scheduling algorithm that entails few preemptions and migrations: RUN. We first apply our approach on the discarding model with two execution modes. The results show the efficiency of our approach for such model. Then, we demonstrate the versatility of our approach by scheduling systems of the discarding model with more than two execution modes. Finally, by using a method based on the decomposition of task execution, our approach can schedule systems based on elastic tasks.
Evaluation of point‐of‐care analysers for blood gas and clinical chemistry in Hermann’s tortoises (Testudo hermanni)

OBJECTIVE To assess the agreement between point-of-care and laboratory analysers in measuring biochemical and blood gas analytes in venous samples from tortoises and to define preliminary reference intervals for venous blood gas analysis in Hermann's tortoises (Testudo hermanni). MATERIALS AND METHODS Jugular venous blood samples from 47 Hermann's tortoises underwent paired analysis with a portable gas analyser (i-STAT 1, Abaxis), a portable chemical analyser (VetScan VS2, Abaxis), and with the respective reference analysers. Agarose gel electrophoresis was used to determine albumin concentrations on 12 specimens. Agreement was evaluated with Bland-Altman plots and regression analysis using the Passing-Bablok method. RESULTS Point-of-care analysers had variable agreement with the reference analysers, presenting constant or proportional bias depending on the analyte. Relevant analytes in reptiles, such as ionised and total calcium, had acceptable agreement. The method for determining albumin concentration currently available in both point-of-care and laboratory analysers significantly overestimated albumin concentrations as compared to protein electrophoresis. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE While the use of POC analysers is extremely advantageous in small animal primary care facilities, agreement between point-of-care and laboratory analysers varies depending on the analyte. For certain analytes, interchangeability of results is limited and specific reference intervals for point-of-care analysers are required. Veterinarians should be aware of the size and the direction of the bias of each analyte.
Reflectance confocal microscopy as a tool for screening surgical margins of basal cell carcinoma*

Surgical excision of basal cell carcinoma with minimum margins requires serial assessment of layers by frozen histopathology in the case of Mohs micrographic surgery. Evaluation of presurgical tumor margins by in vivo reflectance confocal microscopy is a potential alternative. We selected 12 basal cell carcinoma lesions that were analyzed by confocal microscopy to define margins. The lesions were excised by Mohs surgery. Six tumors showed negative margins in the first phase of Mohs micrographic surgery. We concluded that reflectance confocal microscopy can be useful in the preoperative definition of basal cell carcinoma margins.
Doubly Attentive Transformer Machine Translation

In this paper a doubly attentive transformer machine translation model (DATNMT) is presented in which a doubly-attentive transformer decoder normally joins spatial visual features obtained via pretrained convolutional neural networks, conquering any gap between image captioning and translation. In this framework, the transformer decoder figures out how to take care of source-language words and parts of an image freely by methods for two separate attention components in an Enhanced Multi-Head Attention Layer of doubly attentive transformer, as it generates words in the target language. We find that the proposed model can effectively exploit not just the scarce multimodal machine translation data, but also large general-domain text-only machine translation corpora, or image-text image captioning corpora. The experimental results show that the proposed doubly-attentive transformer-decoder performs better than a single-decoder transformer model, and gives the state-of-the-art results in the English-German multimodal machine translation task.
Topical Sphenopalatine Ganglion Block Compared With Epidural Blood Patch for Postdural Puncture Headache Management in Postpartum Patients: A Retrospective Review

Background and Objectives Postdural puncture headache (PDPH) is a severe and debilitating complication of unintentional dural puncture. The criterion-standard treatment for PDPH has been epidural blood patch (EBP), but it is an invasive intervention with the potential for severe complications, such as meningitis and paralysis. We believe this is the first ever 17-year retrospective chart review in which we compare the effectiveness of sphenopalatine ganglion block (SPGB) to EBP for PDPH treatment in postpartum patients. Methods We conducted a chart review of the first authors’ obstetric patients who experienced PDPH from an unintentional dural puncture from a 17-gauge Tuohy needle for labor epidural from January 1997 to July 2014. Demographic characteristics, headache severity, and associated symptoms were collected prior to treatment. Forty-two patients who received SPGB and 39 patients who received EBP were identified. Residual headache, recovery from associated symptoms, and new treatment complications were compared between the 2 groups at 30 minutes, 1 hour, 24 hours, 48 hours, and 1 week posttreatment. Results A greater number of patients showed significant relief in their PDPH and associated symptoms at 30 and 60 minutes after treatment with SPGB than after treatment with EBP (P < 0.01). Only the EBP patients complained of posttreatment complications, which all resolved in 48 hours. Conclusions A greater number of patients experienced a quicker onset of headache relief, without any new complications, from treatment with SPGB versus EBP. We believe that SPGB is a safe, inexpensive, and well-tolerated treatment. We hope that clinical trials will be conducted in the future that will confirm our findings and allow us to recommend SPGB for PDPH treatment prior to offering patients EBP.
In vivo analyses of radial spoke transport, assembly, repair and maintenance

Radial spokes (RSs) are multiprotein complexes that regulate dynein activity. In the cell body, RS proteins (RSPs) are present in a 12S precursor, which enters the flagella and converts into the axoneme‐bound 20S spokes consisting of a head and stalk. To study RS dynamics in vivo, we expressed fluorescent protein (FP)‐tagged versions of the head protein RSP4 and the stalk protein RSP3 to rescue the corresponding Chlamydomonas mutants pf1, lacking spoke heads, and pf14, lacking RSs entirely. RSP3 and RSP4 mostly co‐migrated by intraflagellar transport (IFT). The transport was elevated during flagellar assembly and IFT of RSP4‐FP depended on RSP3. To study RS assembly independently of ciliogenesis, strains expressing FP‐tagged RSPs were mated to untagged cells with, without, or with partial RSs. Tagged RSPs were incorporated in a spotted fashion along wild‐type‐derived flagella indicating an exchange of RSs. During the repair of pf1‐derived axonemes, RSP4‐FP is added onto the preexisting spoke stalks with little exchange of RSP3. Thus, RSP3 and RSP4 are transported together but appear to separate inside flagella during the repair of RSs. The 12S RS precursor encompassing both proteins could represent a transport form to ensure stoichiometric delivery of RSPs into flagella by IFT.
Surgery for hemoptysis in patients with benign lung disease.

Background Hemoptysis can be a life-threatening condition that requires urgent treatment. Surgery still plays an important role in managing this critical situation, although previous reports have reported high postoperative morbidity and mortality rates. We report our experience with surgical resection for hemoptysis caused by benign lung diseases. Methods We reviewed the retrospectively collected data from 94 patients undergoing pulmonary resection for various benign lung diseases with hemoptysis at a single institution from 2010 to 2016. Baseline characteristics, surgical factors, and postoperative outcomes (morbidity and mortality rates) were analyzed. Results The ratio of male to female patients was 1:1, and the mean age was 58.2±11.1 (range, 29-79) years. The etiology of hemoptysis included aspergilloma in 58 patients (61.7%), bronchiectasis in 10, tuberculosis in 7, necrotizing bronchiolitis in 6, and other inflammatory disease in 13. A total of 21 patients (22.3%) underwent emergency operation, and 73 (77.7%) had an elective operation. Pulmonary resection was performed by thoracotomy (n=53, 56.4%) and video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) (n=41, 43.6%). Sublobar resection (n=50, 53.2%, segmentectomy in 19 and wedge resection in 31) was performed more often than lobectomy (n=35, 37.2%). Pneumonectomy was performed in 7 patients, and bilobectomy was performed in 2. Postoperative morbidity occurred in 23 patients (24.5%), with prolonged air leak being the most frequent complication (n=14, 14.9%). The in-hospital mortality rate was 3.2% (n=3). Complications were less frequent in patients undergoing an elective operation, VATS, and sublobar resection. Multivariate analysis showed that patients treated with VATS had a decreased risk of postoperative complications (odds ratio, 12.8; 95% confidence interval, 1.29-127.9; P=0.03). Conclusions Surgical resection for hemoptysis in patients with benign lung diseases is the mainstay of effective treatment with acceptable morbidity and mortality rates. If applicable, we recommend elective (planned) sublobar resection using VATS in order to improve postoperative outcomes.