Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adverse Events Related to Transcranial Electric Stimulation for Motor-evoked Potential Monitoring in High-risk Spinal Surgery.

STUDY DESIGN Prospective multicenter study. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to study the incidence of nonneurologic adverse events related to transcranial electric stimulation (TES) for intraoperative spinal cord monitoring (IOM) with motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) (Tc(E)- MEPs) and determine the need for safety precautions. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Tc(E)-MEPs monitoring requires high-voltage multipulse TES that causes widespread muscle contraction and movement. Improved awareness of TES-induced movement-related adverse events is needed. METHODS We analyzed data from 2643 patients who underwent high-risk spinal surgery with intraoperative Tc(E)-MEPs at 11 spinal centers from 2010 to 2016. Information about neurologic and non-neurologic postoperative complications was collected, including type of surgical procedure, operative time, estimated blood loss, and treatment for postoperative adverse events. RESULTS A 70% drop in Tc(E)-MEPs amplitude, which was the alarm criterion to interrupt surgery, predicted postoperative motor deficits with 93.5% sensitivity, 91.0% specificity, a false-positive rate of 8.2%, and a false-negative rate of 0.3%. Non-neurologic adverse events developed in 17 (0.64%) patients and were most commonly because of bite injuries (0.57%), including 11 cases of tongue laceration, two cases of lip laceration, and two cases of tooth breakage. Four (0.15%) tongue lacerations required surgical repair with sutures and two tooth breakages required dental treatment. One patient had hair loss corresponding to the TES site. One patient, who underwent additional IOM with transpharyngeal stimulation, had severe nasal hemorrhage following electrode placement by nasal route, which resolved spontaneously. Non-neurologic adverse events did not significantly affect the accuracy of IOM assessment. Neither operative times nor blood loss significantly influenced the occurrence of adverse events. CONCLUSION During TES-IOM, both the surgeon and monitoring team must consider the possibility-although rare-of non-neurologic adverse events, particularly bite injuries. Such complications can be minimized by using a soft bite-block and frequently evaluating the intraoral integrity of the anesthetized patient. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE 4.
[Prevalences of Depression Among Adults: Comparative Analysis of a Nationwide Survey and Routine Data].

AIM There are differences in the prevalence estimates of depressive disorders based on primary and secondary data. The reasons for this are, for instance, the use of divergent indicators and varying observation periods. This study examines the prevalence of depressive disorders using survey and routine data for a comparable survey period and age range. Effects of differences between data sources and indicators are estimated. METHODS For 2010, 3 indicators are compared: in a population survey collected a) self-reported medical diagnosis of depression, b) diagnosis of depressive disorders identified by clinical interviews and c) administrative depression diagnoses collected from routine data of a statutory health insurance. In sensitivity analyses, privately insured participants of the population survey were excluded, and insured persons with care needs were excluded from routine data. The definition of administrative depression diagnosis was varied depending on the frequency of coded diagnoses and the specificity of the diagnoses. RESULTS The highest prevalence (9.8%) was found for depression diagnoses from administrative data, the lowest prevalence (5.9%) in self-reported medical diagnoses of depression in the population survey. The prevalence of depression identified by clinical interviews was 8.4%. Differing age and gender-related courses of illness were found. The administrative prevalence dropped significantly if unspecific diagnoses (F3x.8, F3x.9) were excluded. DISCUSSION Depending on the definition of depression diagnoses used in administrative data, there was a reduction in differences of prevalence compared to the self-reported medical diagnoses. Differences in prevalence based on a diagnosis of a depressive disorder identified in a clinical interview remained stable, which indicates different groups of persons.
Antidepressant activity of Ciprofloxacin and Levofloxacin by forced swim test in Swiss albino mice on chronic administration

Introduction: Depression is a neuropsychological disorder with its own course of illness which affects day to day life. Fluroquinolones has been shown some antidepressant like effect in our previous acute study. Objectives: Antidepressant activity of Ciprofloxacin and Levofloxacin in Swiss albino mice on chronic administration. Materials and Methods: Swiss albino mice were randomly divided in to six groups of which each weighing 20-25 gm and the groups are as follows, Group I: 1% Gum acacia, 10ml/kg served as control, Group II: Imipramine, 10mg/kg served as reference standarsd, Group III and IV, Ciprofloxacin 25 & 50 mg/kg respectively, Group V & VI, Levofloxacin, 25 & 50 mg respectively. Each mouse was administered with respective vehicle / drug one every day for 09 days, and one hour prior to experiment on 10th day. Each mouse was allowed to swim in a jar containing water making sure that its legs does not touch the bottom of the jar and it can swim by keeping its head just above the water surface. First two minute reading was not recorded but last four minutes activity was noted for mobility and immobility. Increase in the duration of mobility time and lesser the immobility time was considered that test drug is having antidepressant effect. Results and Discussion: Mean duration of immobility in Forced swim test in control group was 195.83 ± 2.31 sec, Imipramine (standard) is 147.5 ± 1.87 sec, for group III & IV pretreated with Ciprofloxacin 25mg/kg is 146 ± 3.57 sec and 50mg/kg is 175.5 ± 3.39 sec respectively, while group V & VI pretreated with Levofloxacin 25mg/kg & 50 mg/kg is 167 ± 2.60 and 185.16 ± 3.06 sec respectively. The p value for the both the test drugs in all the doses was
A survey of inspection strategy and sensor distribution studies in discrete-part manufacturing processes

Methodologies, modeling approaches, and the interactions between various system elements involved in inspection-allocation and sensor-distribution problems, that influence operational quality decisions, are discussed. The surveyed papers fall into two broad categories: inspection-oriented quality-assurance strategies and diagnosis-oriented sensor-distribution strategies. Within each subarea, individual papers are further classified according to the system characteristics of the physical processes being investigated and the modeling characteristics of the approaches being used. As evident from nearly 100 journal articles published in the past four decades, these two problems have received considerable attention from researchers in quality engineering, management science, operations research as well as robotic vision arenas. We find that the inspection-allocation problem has been studied rather comprehensively whereas the relatively new sensor-distribution problem has plenty of opportunities for researchers. Discussions are also presented to summarize our observations based on the classifications along with some thoughts on future research.
Drug Utilization Pattern by Using WHO Core Prescribing Indicators in Orthopedics and Obstetrics / Gynecology Departments of a Tertiary Care Hospital

Introduction: Drug utilization research is an important tool to facilitate rational use of drugs. In low income countries irrational use of drugs is a common problem like overuse of drugs and inappropriate use of antibiotics, leading to poor treatment outcome and increased burden of treatment. This study was conducted to provide understanding of drug utilization pattern by using WHO Core Prescribing Indicator. Methods: This study was conducted in Orthopedics and Obstetrics / Gynecology departments. Patients visiting these Out Patient Departments with at least one drug on prescription form were included in the study. Further, information related to WHO Core Prescribing Indicators were collected in pre-designed proforma. Results: Average number of drugs prescribed per prescription was 2.6. Means of number of drugs prescribed in Orthopedics and Obstetrics / Gynecology departments were 2.9 and 2.3 respectively (p < 0.001). Drugs prescribed in generic name and from essential drug list was 41.4% and 34.3% respectively. Prescription forms with generic name in Orthopedics department were significantly more compared to Obstetrics / Gynecology department (p = 0.00002). However, there was an increased tendency to prescribe drugs from essential drug list in Obstetrics / Gynecology department compared to Orthopedics department (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Drugs were prescribed by generic name and from essential drug list, but this was not sufficient to meet the ideal values of WHO Core Prescribing Indicator. Therefore, prioritization on prescribing drugs by generic name and from essential drug list by respective departments to achieve the standards of WHO needs to be encouraged.
Fractal and multifractal analysis of sea SAR clutter data

The goal of this work is to investigate on the fractality of the sea clutter collected by SAR systems like the existing ERS1-2 SAR. The analysis of data generated by simulation is performed by using two kind of techniques: 1) Multiscale fractal analysis; 2) Multifractal analysis. The results show that sea clutter retains a few fractal features of the sea. This study is very interesting for applications in the field of sea remote sensing like classification and target recognition.
Online Human Activity Recognition on Smart Phones

This paper analyzes the performance of different classification methods for online activity recognition on smart phones using the built-in accelerometers. First, we evaluate the performance of activity recognition using the Naive Bayes classifier and next we utilize an improvement of Minimum Distance and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) classification algorithms, called Clustered KNN. For the purpose of online recognition, clustered KNN eliminates the computational complexity of KNN by creating clusters, i.e., smaller training sets for each activity and classification is performed based on these compact, reduced sets. We evaluate the performance of these classifiers on five test subjects for activities of walking, running, sitting and standing, and find that Naive Bayes provides not satisfactory results whereas Clustered KNN gives promising results compared to the previous studies and even with the ones which consider offline classification.
New Therapeutic Agents to Treat Obesity and Its Related Disorders: Prebiotic, Probiotic and Synbiotic Supplementation

New evidences have shown that the gut microbiota is associated with intermediary metabolism, body weight, and inflammation. So, it could be involved in the pathogenesis of obesity and other metabolic disorders. Microbiota have influences on these disorders through different mechanisms related to host genes, environment, nutrition, appetite, lifestyle and systemic or adipocytes inflammation. Several factors including unhealthy dietary patterns, chronic intake of antibiotics, chronic stress, aging and different infections can disturb the balance between the number of helpful and pathogenic bacteria in the colon. So, consumption of prebiotic, probiotic or synbiotic may be in favor of the host health through alteration of the bacterial imbalance. In this review, we summarized the recent evidences that support the association between pre/pro/symbiotic consumption and prevention or treatment of obesity and the other metabolic disorders.
GPS receiver architectures and measurements

Although originally developed for the military, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has proven invaluable for a multitude of civilian applications. Each application demands specific performance from the GPS receiver and the associated requirements often vary widely. This paper describes the architectures and functions of civilian GPS receivers and then focuses on performance considerations. The fundamental receiver measurements are described and the quality of these measurements are related to the aforementioned receiver architectures.
The effects of interventions preventing self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents: an overview of systematic reviews

Background: Self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents are of serious consequence and increase during the adolescent years. Consequently, there is need for interventions that prevent such behaviour. The objective of this paper: to evaluate the effects of interventions preventing self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents in an overview of systematic reviews. Methods: We conducted an overview of systematic reviews (OoO). We included reviews evaluating any preventive or therapeutic intervention. The methodological quality of the included reviews was assessed independently, and data was extracted by two reviewers. We report the review findings descriptively. The certainty of evidence was assessed using Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE). Results: Moderate certainty evidence suggests that school-based interventions prevent suicidal ideation and attempts short term, and possibly suicide attempts long term. The effects of community-based interventions following suicide clusters and local suicide plans are unknown, as are the benefits and harms of screening young people for suicide risk. The effects of most interventions targeting children and adolescents with known self-harm are unknown. However, low certainty evidence suggests that dialectical behavioural therapy and developmental group therapy are equally as effective on repetition of self-harm as enhanced treatment as usual. Conclusions: Research on several recommended practices, such as local suicide plans, prevention of suicide clusters and approaches to risk assessment, is lacking. When such interventions are implemented, the effects should be closely evaluated. There is also need for more research on treatment of repeated self-harm. Further research should include long term follow-up, and investigate possible adverse effects. In prevention of self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents, policy makers and health providers should consider evidence from population-based studies with mixed-age samples, adult samples, and studies on conditions associated with self-harm and/or suicidality, such as depression and psychosis. PROSPERO registration: CRD42019117942 08/02/19
The Effect of Station Breakdowns and Random Processing Times on the Capacity of Flow Lines with In-Process Storage

Abstract In-process inventory banks are considered for a flow-line producing a single product. Models are developed which enable the increase in production capacity to be calculated if both sources of station production rate variability are present. An exact Markov model of a two station system gives complicated results. However, a simple method of combining the results of the previous work on random processing times and on breakdowns in a fixed-cycle system gives very good approximations to the results of the exact model. The approximate approach can be extended to three or more stations.
Intramedullary spinal cord metastasis in malignancies: an institutional analysis and review

Background: Intramedullary spinal cord metastases (ISCM) in malignancies is a devastating issue with limited research. This study aims to identify the clinical features, management, prognostic factors, and outcomes of this special entity. Methods: A retrospective review of 61 patients of ISCM diagnosed and treated in our institute from June 2010 to March 2018 was conducted (lost to follow-up: 3). Data were retrieved according to the items including age, gender, primary tumor, interval to the ISCM occurrence, ISCM segments, and other synchronous metastases. The interventions, response, prognostic factors, and outcomes of ISCM were systematically analyzed. Results: Lung cancer (67.21%) was the commonest ISCM source, followed by breast cancer (14.75%). In total, 9.84% of patients presented with ISCM initially. The mean span from the primaries to ISCM was 18.77 months (range=0–10 years). The thoracic segment was most commonly involved (77.05%), followed by cervical (39.34%), lumbar level (34.43%), and conus medullaris (6.56%). The management of ISCM was challenging, since 55.74% of individuals had a poor physical condition (PS=3–4) and 72.41% had widespread dissemination synchronously (≥2 organs). Radiotherapy (RT) attained an objective response rate (ORR) of 61.90% or 62.50% and a local control rate (LCR) of 90.48% or 87.50% for symptoms used alone or with other strategies, respectively. ISCM bears a dismal prognosis, with a median overall survival (OS) of 4 months. Patients with only one segment involved had an apparently better prognosis than those with 2–4 involved segments (median OS=7.0 vs 3.0 months) (P<0.01). The OS of patients treated was remarkably superior to those without any intervention (median OS=5.0 vs 2.0 months) (P<0.01). Conclusion: ISCM is a distinct entity needing more attention for high cancer incidence, prolonged survival, and lack of research. RT is the mainstay with satisfactory effect. Multiple spinal cord segments involvement and no treatment are poor prognostic factors of OS.
Characteristics and Treatment Outcomes of “Transfer Out” TB Patients after Crosschecking Registers at Four Hospitals of Tigray Regional State, Ethiopia: 2011-2015

Globally, transferring TB patients to another health unit for treatment continuation is common trend while posing challenges for proper treatment outcomes monitoring. National guidelines indicated the importance of incorporating the treatment outcomes of those cases by the transferring unit when performing annual cohort analysis. However, in most instances, this is not taken into account. This study was conducted to determine the characteristics and treatment outcomes of ‘transfer out' TB cases during the time period between 2011 and 2015 at four Hospitals of Tigray: Ethiopia. Initial data was extracted from TB treatment logbooks of transferring units using standardize checklist that were followed by a visit to each of the receiving units. The generated data were entered and analyzed using SPSS v. 22.0. Descriptive statistics were computed. P-value less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant. A total of 143 TB patients were transferred out during the specified time period whereas 73.4% (105/143) patients were traced and classified as “arrivals”. From these, more than three-quarters, 87.6% (92/105), of patients had a successful treatment outcome (5.7% cured and 81.9% completed treatment) while 13/105 (12.3%) had an unsuccessful outcome (2.8% defaulted, 5.7% died, 1.9% failed, and 1.9% transferred out). However, none of the transferring unit received and traced status of the cases. Therefore, regular monitoring is needed to improve the existing communication gap.
On Applying Controlled Natural Languages for Ontology Authoring and Semantic Annotation

Creating formal data is a high initial barrier for small organisations and individuals wishing to create ontologies and thus benefit from semantic technologies. Part of the solution comes from ontology authoring, but this often requires specialist skills in ontology engineering. Defining a Controlled Natural Language (CNL) for formal data description can enable naive users to develop ontologies using a subset of natural language. However despite the benefits of CNLs, users are still required to learn the correct syntactic structures in order to use the Controlled Language properly. This can be time consuming, annoying and in certain cases may prevent uptake of the tool. The reversal of the CNL authoring process involves generation of the controlled language from an existing ontology using Natural Language Generation (NLG) techniques, which results in a round trip ontology authoring environment: one can start with an existing imported ontology (re)produce the CNL using NLG, modify or edit the text as required and subsequently parse the text back into the ontology using the CNL authoring environment. By introducing language generation into the authoring process, the learning curve associated with the CNL can be reduced. While the creation of ontologies is critical for the Semantic Web, without a critical mass of richly interlinked metadata, this vision cannot become a reality. Manual semantic annotation is a labor-intensive task requiring training in formal ontological descriptions for the otherwise non-expert user. Although automatic annotation tools attempt to ease this knowledge acquisition barrier, their development often requires access to specialists in Natural Language Processing (NLP). This challenges researchers to develop user-friendly annotation environments. While CNLs have been applied to ontology authoring, little research has focused on their application to semantic annotation. In summary, this research applies CNL techniques to both ontology authoring and semantic annotation, and provides solid empirical evidence that for certain scenarios applying CNLs to both tasks can be more user friendly than standard ontology authoring and manual semantic annotation tools respectively. iv
Exploring the spatial heterogeneity of trachomatous trichiasis

Prolonged conjunctival infection with Chlamydia trachomatis leads to an inflammatory response, trachomatous inflammation follicular (TF). Over time, repeat infection can progress to scarring of the conjunctiva causing the eyelid to turn inward, resulting in lashes rubbing against the cornea. This painful stage of the disease is called trachomatous trichiasis (TT). TT can damage the cornea, leading to vision impairment or blindness. Trachoma is targeted for elimination as a public health problem by the year 2020, which for TT is defined as less than 1 TT-positive person, who is not already known to the health system, per 1,000 population. For trachoma to meet the elimination targets, massive resources are required for both mapping and intervention. A particularly large knowledge gap exists around identifying areas where TT is likely to be found. To better align resources and plan for elimination, the trachoma community needs to understand how much TT currently exists and requires management, how to accurately measure TT prevalence, and where TT cases are mostly likely to be located. Understanding these elements will help position trachoma control programs to meet the TT elimination targets. In my thesis I first calculate an updated global estimate of TT cases and describe the methods involved. Second, I provide a survey design for measuring TT with adequate precision for control activities, along with validation exercise results and a brief time-cost analysis. I then examine the spatial structure of TF and TT and identify areas of spatial autocorrelation. Finally, I identify environmental factors associated with higher than expected TT prevalence to identify TT hot spots. The outcomes of these activities provide an updated global estimate of existing TT cases, a validated tool for measuring TT prevalence at the implementation unit (district) level, and insight on where to begin case finding activities in the context of the “end game”. These outputs are critical to the continued effort of trachoma elimination as a public health problem, specifically providing targeted direction for TT resources.