Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epidural Sufentanil for Postoperative Patient-Controlled Analgesia (PCA) With or Without Background Infusion: A Double-Blind Comparison

To evaluate the usefulness of a concurrent infusion in patient-controlled epidural analgesia (PCEA), 40 patients scheduled for elective cesarean section under a combined spinal-epidural technique were assigned randomly in a double-blind fashion to receive sufentanil by PCEA with a concomitant infusion of either sufentanil or saline. The sufentanil 24-h consumption was significantly (P < 0.001) higher in those patients receiving the opioid-containing infusion (212.7 +/- 9.5 vs 128.4 +/- 10.8 micro gram, SEM). The number of additional demands and the quality of sleep did not differ between the two groups. The degree of sedation was significantly less pronounced in patients treated with incremental sufentanil doses only. The visual analog scale (VAS) pain scores at rest were identical in both groups except at 6 h (2.5 +/- 0.4 vs 3.7 +/- 0.3, in favor of the patients treated with the sufentanil background infusion). We conclude that, except for a lower pain score during the initial hours, a background infusion in PCEA with sufentanil does not offer major advantages in terms of sleep quality or sufentanil consumption. Side effects may be more pronounced owing to increased drug administration. (Anesth Analg 1995;80:76-80)
A New Task Allocation Protocol for Extending Stability and Operational Periods in Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is a groundbreaking technology which recently enjoyed a large increase in interest as it connects both digital and physical worlds together and allowing different devices with various capabilities to share their resources to perform a demanded task. Most of IoT objects are heterogeneous by their nature and are supplied with limited battery life. Therefore, distributing tasks among these objects is a big challenge. One of the primary objectives of task allocation algorithms is minimizing the energy consumption while maximizing the task allocation reliability. In this paper, we address the problem of task allocation in IoT as an optimization problem. We develop a nature-inspired meta-heuristic algorithm with heterogeneity aware heuristics to tackle the formulated problem. The proposed algorithm aims to ensure reliable task allocation while boosting the energy efficiency and the stability period of the network. Extensive experimental analysis of the proposed algorithm is realized using MATLAB and OMNET++ simulation scenarios. The results are compared with the most relevant algorithm in the literature and the superiority of the proposed algorithm in terms of energy efficiency has been proved.
Classification of Congenital Middle Ear Anomalies Report on 144 Ears

The surgical findings in 144 successive ears operated on for congenital conductive hearing loss were analyzed, and the results were evaluated in terms of hearing gain. All the patients underwent middle ear surgery at the University Hospital Nijmegen between 1964 and 1990. A classification system was developed to analyze the findings. Class 1 comprises ears with congenital isolated stapes ankylosis. Class 2 comprises ears with congenital stapes ankylosis in combination with a congenital anomaly of the ossicular chain. Class 3 comprises ears with congenital anomalies of the ossicular chain and at least a mobile stapes footplate. Class 4 comprises ears with aplasia or severe dysplasia of the oval window or round window.
highlighted topics Physiology of Aging Invited Review : Aging and energy balance

Wilson, Margaret-Mary G. , and John E. Morley. Invited Review: Aging and energy balance. J Appl Physiol 95: 1728–1736, 2003; 10.1152/ japplphysiol.00313. 2003. —Humans over 70 yr of age often lose weight. This appears to be due to a physiological anorexia of aging as well as a loss of lean mass (sarcopenia) and, to a lesser extent, fat mass. The causes of the physiological anorexia of aging include changes in taste and smell and a decrease in adaptive relaxation of the fundus of the stomach, which leads to more rapid antral filling and early satiation. In addition, basal and stimulated levels of the satiating hormone, cholecystokinin, are increased. In men, the decline in testosterone leads to an increase in leptin and a loss of lean mass. Although resting metabolic rate declines with aging, this is mainly due to the decline in lean body mass. Energy metabolism is also decreased due to a decline in Na -K -ATPase activity, decreased muscle protein turnover, and possibly changes in mitochondrial membrane protein permeability. Physical energy expenditure declines with aging. Meal-induced thermogenesis shows a delay to peak, possibly due to a delay in gastric emptying. Inadequate data are available on the effect of aging in humans on other energy-producing mechanisms such as adaptive thermogenesis. These physiological changes place older men and women at major risk of developing pathological weight loss when they develop disease states, especially those associated with cytokine elaboration.
Larval habitat segregation between the molecular forms of the mosquito Anopheles gambiae in a rice field area of Burkina Faso, West Africa

In West Africa, lineage splitting between the M and S molecular forms of the major Afro‐tropical malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae), is thought to be driven by ecological divergence, occurring mainly at the larval stage. Here, we present evidence for habitat segregation between the two molecular forms in and around irrigated rice fields located within the humid savannahs of western Burkina Faso. Longitudinal sampling of adult mosquitoes emerging from a range of breeding sites distributed along a transect extending from the heart of the rice field area into the surrounding savannah was conducted from June to November 2009. Analysis revealed that the two molecular forms and their sibling species Anopheles arabiensis are not randomly distributed in the area. A major ecological gradient was extracted in relation to the perimeter of the rice fields. The M form was associated with larger breeding sites mostly consisting of rice paddies, whereas the S form and An. arabiensis were found to depend upon temporary, rain‐filled breeding sites. These results support hypotheses about larval habitat segregation and confirm the suggestion that the forms have different larval habitat requirements. Segregation appears to be clearly linked to anthropogenic permanent habitats and the community structure they support.
Evaluation of mint efficacy regarding dysmenorrhea in comparison with mefenamic acid: A double blinded randomized crossover study

Background: Menthol is the most important active material in mint and different mechanisms have been suggested for the way mint functions, most of which emphasize its analgesic effect owing to the presence of a group of temporary protein receptors. This study investigates the efficacy of peppermint capsule in the treatment of primary dysmenorrhea, in comparison with Mefenamic Acid and placebo. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective, double-blinded, crossover study and was conducted on 127 girl students studying in Hamadan University of Medical Sciences who had experienced primary dysmenorrhea. Each participant was asked to take one of the drugs including Mefenamic Acid and Mint, starting from the first menstruation for 3 days. At the end of each period, a questionnaire was used to gather information; through the volunteer herself, pain intensity was recorded according to visual analog scale (VAS), duration of pain according to COX questionnaire, and bleeding amount according to pictorial blood loss assessment chart (PBAC) chart (Hygham). Results: Average pain intensity and duration of pain were significantly lower after intake of Mefenamic Acid and Mint (P < 0.05). Average bleeding was significantly lower in those taking Mefenamic Acid capsule than in those taking peppermint extract (P < 0.05). Nausea and diarrhea were lower in the mint group than in Mefenamic Acid group. But analgesic usage was lower in Mefenamic Acid group than in peppermint group (P < 0.05). Conclusions: While the bleeding amount did not significantly change, pain and its severity and all the clinical signs and symptoms decreased after taking peppermint extract. Because the side effect of herbal drugs is lower than other medicinal drugs, using mint is advised for treating dysmenorrhea symptoms.
Asymptotic performance analysis of amplify-and-forward cooperative networks in a nakagami-m fading environment

This letter analyzes the performance of repetition-based cooperative wireless networks using amplify-and forward relaying. The network consists of a source, R parallel relays, and a destination, and the channel coefficients are distributed as independent, non-identical, Nakagami-m. The approximated average symbol error rate (SER) is investigated. For sufficiently large SNR, this letter derives a close-form average SER when m is an integer. The simplicity of the asymptotic results provides valuable insights into the performance of cooperative networks and suggests means of optimizing them. We also use simulation to verify the analytical results. Results show that the derived error rates are tight approximations particularly at medium and high SNR.
Mycoheterotrophy evolved from mixotrophic ancestors: evidence in Cymbidium (Orchidaceae).

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Nutritional changes associated with the evolution of achlorophyllous, mycoheterotrophic plants have not previously been inferred with robust phylogenetic hypotheses. Variations in heterotrophy in accordance with the evolution of leaflessness were examined using a chlorophyllous-achlorophyllous species pair in Cymbidium (Orchidaceae), within a well studied phylogenetic background. METHODS To estimate the level of mycoheterotrophy in chlorophyllous and achlorophyllous Cymbidium, natural (13)C and (15)N contents (a proxy for the level of heterotrophy) were measured in four Cymbidium species and co-existing autotrophic and mycoheterotrophic plants and ectomycorrhizal fungi from two Japanese sites. KEY RESULTS δ(13)C and δ(15)N values of the achlorophyllous C. macrorhizon and C. aberrans indicated that they are full mycoheterotrophs. δ(13)C and δ(15)N values of the chlorophyllous C. lancifolium and C. goeringii were intermediate between those of reference autotrophic and mycoheterotrophic plants; thus, they probably gain 30-50 % of their carbon resources from fungi. These data suggest that some chlorophyllous Cymbidium exhibit partial mycoheterotrophy (= mixotrophy). CONCLUSIONS It is demonstrated for the first time that mycoheterotrophy evolved after the establishment of mixotrophy rather than through direct shifts from autotrophy to mycoheterotrophy. This may be one of the principal patterns in the evolution of mycoheterotrophy. The results also suggest that the establishment of symbiosis with ectomycorrhizal fungi in the lineage leading to mixotrophic Cymbidium served as pre-adaptation to the evolution of the mycoheterotrophic species. Similar processes of nutritional innovations probably occurred in several independent orchid groups, allowing niche expansion and radiation in Orchidaceae, probably the largest plant family.
Strategies for pollen harvest and storage for increasing pollination and yield in hybrid rice seed production of Mestiso 19 cultivar

Attainment of high seed yield in hybrid rice seed production is a function of the amount of pollen that the male parent can shed during pollination. Low pollen load of the male parent (TG101M) of hybrid rice, Mestiso 19 leads to low seed yield which limits the number of hybrid rice seed growers engaged in its hybrid seed production. Artificial pollination, through collection and storage of sufficient amount of pollen may provide a solution to the problem. Additional pollen artificially loaded onto stigmas of female parent of Mestiso 19 (PRUPTG101) may increase seed yield. The study was conducted during wet and dry season of year 2016 and 2017 at Phil Rice Central Experiment Station to develop technique in pollen collection and storage of TG101M. Pollens were collected at anthesis, 30 minutes and 1 hour after anthesis, then stored in amber glass, paper and ziplock plastics and stored for 24, 48 and 72 hours in 280C, 50C, -50C. Pollens were grown in three different media for pollen viability and germination and viewed under the microscope for pollen tube growth. Pollen viability and germination was high at anthesis and decreased thereafter. Pollen grains grown in media 2 maintained pollen viability even after 1 hour after anthesis. Pollen germination decreased over time regardless of media used. Pollen tube length was consistently high at anthesis when pollen grains were grown in media 2 and 3 only. The length of pollen tube growth from medium 2 differed between 30 min and 1 hour. Less than 50% viable pollen was achieved after 24 hours of storage. Pollen viability and germination decreased beyond 24 hours. To increase the viability of collected pollen from TG101M for possible artificial pollination, grains must be collected at anthesis and stored immediately in amber glass under cold storage at negative 5°C.
Automatic translation of non-repetitive OpenMP to MPI

Fahed, Jubair A. Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2014. Automatic Translation of Non-Repetitive OpenMP To MPI. Major Professor: Rudolf Eigenmann . Cluster platforms with distributed-memory architectures are becoming increasingly available low-cost solutions for high performance computing. Delivering a productive programming environment that hides the complexity of clusters and allows writing e cient programs is urgently needed. Despite multiple e↵orts to provide shared memory abstraction, message-passing (MPI) is still the state-of-the-art programming model for distributed-memory architectures. Writing e cient MPI programs is challenging. In contrast, OpenMP is a sharedmemory programming model that is known for its programming productivity. Researchers introduced automatic source-to-source translation schemes from OpenMP to MPI so that programmers can use OpenMP while targeting clusters. Those schemes limited their focus on OpenMP programs with repetitive communication patterns (where the analysis of communication can be simplified). This dissertation reduces this limitation and presents a novel OpenMP-to-MPI translation scheme that covers OpenMP programs with both repetitive and non-repetitive communication patterns. We target laboratory-size clusters of ten to hundred nodes (commonly found in research laboratories and small enterprises). The presented translation scheme consists of a compiler and a runtime system. The compiler analyzes the OpenMP program and converts it into message-passing form. In the translated code, the compiler provides information about produced and consumed shared array elements by each thread, information that is collected by an array data flow analysis. The runtime system uses this information to schedule communication.
Viscoelastic parameter identi fi cation of human brain tissue

Understanding the constitutive behavior of the human brain is critical to interpret the physical environment during neurodevelopment, neurosurgery, and neurodegeneration. A wide variety of constitutive models has been proposed to characterize the brain at different temporal and spatial scales. Yet, their model parameters are typically calibrated with a single loading mode and fail to predict the behavior under arbitrary loading conditions. Here we used a finite viscoelastic Ogden model with six material parameters–an elastic stiffness, two viscoelastic stiffnesses, a nonlinearity parameter, and two viscous time constants–to model the characteristic nonlinearity, conditioning, hysteresis and tension-compression asymmetry of the human brain. We calibrated the model under shear, shear relaxation, compression, compression relaxation, and tension for four different regions of the human brain, the cortex, basal ganglia, corona radiata, and corpus callosum. Strikingly, unconditioned gray matter with 0.36 kPa and white matter with 0.35 kPa were equally stiff, whereas conditioned gray matter with 0.52 kPa was three times stiffer than white matter with 0.18 kPa. While both unconditioned viscous time constants were larger in gray than in white matter, both conditioned constants were smaller. These rheological differences suggest a different porosity between both tissues and explain–at least in part–the ongoing controversy between reported stiffness differences in gray and white matter. Our unconditioned and conditioned parameter sets are readily available for finite element simulations with commercial software packages that feature Ogden type models at finite deformations. As such, our results have direct implications on improving the accuracy of human brain simulations in health and disease.
Intelligibility of Reverberant Speech with Amplification: Limitation of Speech Intelligibility Metrics, and a Preliminary Examination of an Alternative Approach

This study examines the effect of speech level on intelligibility in different reverberation conditions, and explores the potential of loudness-based reverberation parameters proposed by Lee et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. , 131(2), 1194-1205 (2012)] to explain the effect of speech level on intelligibility in various reverberation conditions. Listening experiments were performed with three speech levels (LAeq of 55 dB, 65 dB and 75 dB) and three reverberation conditions (T20 of 1.0 s, 1.9 s and 4.0 s), and subjects listened to speech stimuli through headphones. Collected subjective data were compared with two conventional speech intelligibility parameters (Speech Intelligibility Index and Speech Transmission Index) and two loudness-based reverberation parameters (EDTN and TN). Results reveal that the effect of speech level on intelligibility changes with a room’s reverberation conditions, and that increased level results in reduced intelligibility in highly reverberant conditions. EDTN and TN explain this finding better than do STI and SII, because they consider many psychoacoustic phenomena important for the modeling of the effect of speech level varying with reverberation.
Competencias para el ejercicio de la dirección de institutciones educativas: Reflexiones y experiencias en Iberoamérica

El presente texto es el resultado de las aportaciones al encuentro realizado por los miembros de la Red de Apoyo a la Gestion Educativa Hablamos de competencias y sobre competencias y con ello nos referimos a las caracteristicas de la persona relacionadas con una actuacion de exito en su lugar de trabajo. Se identifican asi con la activacion y aplicacion de manera coordinada de elementos de diferente naturaleza (cognoscitivos, afectivos y procedimentales) para resolver situaciones profesionales concretas.
Prospective determination of the specificity of a commercial snake venom detection kit in urine samples from dogs and cats.

OBJECTIVE To determine the specificity of a snake venom detection kit in urine samples from dogs and cats presenting to a referral centre for diseases unrelated to snake envenomation. DESIGN Urine was collected from 50 dog and 25 cats presented for investigation and treatment of diseases unrelated to snake envenomation. Urine was collected as a voided sample, by cystocentesis or by catheterisation, and routine urinanalysis was performed. Snake venom testing was performed within 2 h of collection using a commercially available snake venom detection kit, which was observed continuously during the 10-min colour reaction phase for evidence of a visible colour indicating a positive test. RESULTS No false-positive reactions occurred in any sample analysed. CONCLUSION The snake venom detection kit appears to have 100% specificity for using urine as a test sample.
Authentication of Angelica anomala Avé-Lall cultivars through DNA barcodes

Angelica anomala Avé-Lall (Chuanbaizhi in Chinese) is an important medicinal plant which can be used in traditional Chinese medicines; however, there are no authentic and universal methods to differentiate this Sichuan famous-region drug of A. anomala from a large number of non-famous-region and false drugs. It has been demonstrated that DNA barcoding is a molecular diagnostic method for species identification, which uses a single standardized DNA fragment. In this study, we tested five DNA barcoding candidates (matK, ITS, ITS2, rbcL, and psbA-trnH), and we found that ITS was the best candidate to authenticate the famous-region drug of A. anomala. Moreover, through comparative analysis of these five DNA barcodes between A. anomala and Angelica dahurica, we found that ITS had the most and ITS2 had more variable regions, but the psbA-trnH, rbcL, and matK regions were identical. Hence, we suggest ITS as the DNA barcoding to identify A. anomala and A. dahurica. Moreover, we are determined to adopt the A. anomala as the accurate Latin name of Chuanbaizhi.
Exact description of black holes on branes

To test recent ideas about lower dimensional gravity bound to a brane, we construct exact solutions describing black holes on two-branes in four dimensions. We find that 2+1 gravity is indeed recovered at large distances along the brane, although there are significant deviations at smaller scales. Large black holes appear as flattened ``pancakes, with a relatively small extent off the brane. Black hole thermodynamics is discussed from both the standpoint of the brane and the bulk. We comment on the analogous black holes bound to higher dimensional branes.
Modified Basement Membrane Composition During Bronchopulmonary Tumor Progression

SUMMARY During tumor progression, the extracellular matrix (ECM) and particularly the basement membrane (BM) appear to be dynamic structures that are not only degraded but also deposited around tumor clusters. In this study we examined by immunohistochemistry the localization of three chains of Type IV collagen (α1, α3 and α5), Type VII collagen, and laminin 5 at different stages of bronchopulmonary cancers. In normal tissues, α1(IV) chain was detected in all BMs (bronchial, vascular, alveolar, and glandular), α5(IV) chain was present only in vascular BM, and laminin 5 and Type VII collagen were co-localized in bronchial and glandular BMs, whereas α3(IV) immunolabeling was totally absent from normal bronchi. In well-differentiated carcinomas, α3(IV) chain staining was found in some neosynthetized BMs interfacing the tumor cell and the stromal compartment, contrasting with the total absence of labeling in normal tissues. α1(IV) chain showed strong reactivity in all BM. Laminin 5 and Type VII collagen were also detected in neosynthetized BM. In poorly differentiated invasive cancers, α3(IV) chain and Type VII collagen were not found, whereas laminin 5 and α1(IV) chain persisted. The most important modifications in BM composition during tumor progression therefore appear to be the appearance of the α3 (IV) chain in well-differentiated carcinomas and its subsequent disappearance in poorly differentiated carcinomas, together with the loss of type VII collagen. α5(IV) chain distribution was restricted in vascular BM of well- and poorly differentiated carcinomas. These results show that the composition of BM is modified during the progression of bronchopulmonary tumor, emphasizing that the BM represents a dynamic element in tumor progression and has an important role in tumor cell invasiveness.