Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Research on Influence Rules of Metal Sheet on Magnetic Resonance Coupling Wireless Power Transmission System

W370 the magnetic resonance coupling wireless power transmission system works between metal sheets, its transmission performance may be affected due to intercoupling between the metal sheet and the alternating field. In view of this, a dual-coil circuit model of magnetic resonance coupling wireless power transmission system that considers the influence of metal sheet is established to derive the transmission power and efficiency expressions of the system. An electromagnetic simulation model of dual-coil transmission system under the influence of metal sheet is established by using the Maxwell and Simplorer joint simulation method. The rules of influence of metal sheet on transmission performance of the system are revealed through experimental test, the result of which shows that, compared with non-ferromagnetic metal media, the ferromagnetic metal media has stronger influence on transmission performance of the system and causes greater attenuation of transmission performance parameters. When the gap between the metal sheet and the coil is less than 15 mm, the influence of the metal sheet on transmission efficiency of the system is especially evident (the efficiency reduces to less than half of that in air or even lower). When the gap is greater than 15 mm, the influence weakens and becomes stable gradually. The test result is consistent with the simulation conclusion.
Aberrant functional connectivity of inhibitory control networks in children with autism spectrum disorder

Development of inhibitory control is a core component of executive function processes and a key aspect of healthy development. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in performance on inhibitory control tasks. Nevertheless, the research on the neural correlates of these impairments is inconclusive. Here, we explore the integrity of inhibitory control networks in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children using resting state functional Magnetic Resonance Imagaing (MRI). In a large multisite sample, we find evidence for significantly greater functional connectivity (FC) of the right inferior frontal junction (rIFJ) with the posterior cingulate gyrus, and left and right frontal poles in children with ASD compared with TD children. Additionally, TD children show greater FC of rIFJ with the superior parietal lobule (SPL) compared with children with ASD. Furthermore, although higher rIFJ‐SPL and rIFJ‐IPL FC was related to better inhibitory control behaviors in both ASD and TD children, rIFJ‐dACC FC was only associated with inhibitory control behaviors in TD children. These results provide preliminary evidence of differences in intrinsic functional networks supporting inhibitory control in children with ASD, and provide a basis for further exploration of the development of inhibitory control in children with the disorder. Autism Research 2018, 11: 1468–1478. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Viewpoint: Developing drugs for levodopa‐induced dyskinesia in PD: Lessons learnt, what does the future hold?

The drive to develop drugs to treat PD starts and ends with the patient. Herein, we discuss how the experience with drug development for LID has led the field in translational studies in PD with advancing ground‐breaking science via rigorous clinical trial design, to deliver clinical proof‐of‐concepts across multiple therapeutic targets. However, issues remain in advancing drugs efficacious preclinically to the clinic, and future studies need to learn from past successes and failures. Such lessons include implementing better early indicators of tolerability, for instance evaluating non‐motor symptoms in preclinical models; improving patient‐related outcome measures in clinical trials, as well as considering the unique nature of dyskinesia in an individual patient. The field of translational studies needs to become more patient focused to improve successful outcomes.
Letter-sound integration in native Chinese speakers learning English: Brain fails in automatic responses but succeeds with more attention

ABSTRACT Both native language background and second-language proficiency may shape brain responses to a second language. Using cross-modal mismatch negativity (MMN) (pre-attentive processing) and audiovisual P300 (attentive processing) paradigms, this study examined how native Chinese speakers with various second-language proficiency responded to English letter-sound integration and what role visual attention may play in this process. The results indicated that native Chinese speakers failed to integrate letters and sounds in pre-attentive stage of reading, regardless of their English proficiency level, in contrast to the successful letter-sound integration shown by native English speakers. With more explicit visual attention resources, native Chinese speakers integrated English letters and sounds just as successfully as native English speakers did. These findings suggest that native language background may exert profound constraints on automatic brain responses to a second language, and attention may help the brain overcome these constraints and respond as required by the second language.
Insights From fMRI Studies Into Ingroup Bias

Intergroup biases can manifest themselves between a wide variety of different groups such as people from different races, nations, ethnicities, political or religious beliefs, opposing sport teams or even arbitrary groups. In this review we provide a neuroscientific overview of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies that have revealed how group dynamics impact on various cognitive and emotional systems at different levels of information processing. We first describe how people can perceive the faces, words and actions of ingroup and outgroup members in a biased way. Second, we focus on how activity in brain areas involved in empathizing with the pain of others, such as the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI), are influenced by group membership. Third, we describe how group membership influences activity in brain areas involved in mentalizing such as the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and temporoparietal junction (TPJ). Fourth, we discuss the involvement of the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) in increased moral sensitivity for outgroup threats. Finally, we discuss how brain areas involved in the reward system such as the striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC), are more active when experiencing schadenfreude for outgroup harm and when rewarding ingroup (versus outgroup) members. The value of these neuroscientific insights to better understand ingroup bias are discussed, as well as limitations and future research directions.
Management of Malignant Pleural Effusions. An Official ATS/STS/STR Clinical Practice Guideline

Background: This Guideline, a collaborative effort from the American Thoracic Society, Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and Society of Thoracic Radiology, aims to provide evidence‐based recommendations to guide contemporary management of patients with a malignant pleural effusion (MPE). Methods: A multidisciplinary panel developed seven questions using the PICO (Population, Intervention, Comparator, and Outcomes) format. The GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach and the Evidence to Decision framework was applied to each question. Recommendations were formulated, discussed, and approved by the entire panel. Results: The panel made weak recommendations in favor of: 1) using ultrasound to guide pleural interventions; 2) not performing pleural interventions in asymptomatic patients with MPE; 3) using either an indwelling pleural catheter (IPC) or chemical pleurodesis in symptomatic patients with MPE and suspected expandable lung; 4) performing large‐volume thoracentesis to assess symptomatic response and lung expansion; 5) using either talc poudrage or talc slurry for chemical pleurodesis; 6) using IPC instead of chemical pleurodesis in patients with nonexpandable lung or failed pleurodesis; and 7) treating IPC‐associated infections with antibiotics and not removing the catheter. Conclusions: These recommendations, based on the best available evidence, can guide management of patients with MPE and improve patient outcomes.
Limb Ischemic Conditioning Improved Cognitive Deficits via eNOS-Dependent Augmentation of Angiogenesis after Chronic Cerebral Hypoperfusion in Rats

Intracranial and extracranial arterial stenosis, the primary cause of chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH), is a critical reason for the pathogenesis of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease characterized by cognitive impairments. Our previous study demonstrated that limb remote ischemic conditioning (LRIC) improved cerebral perfusion in intracranial arterial stenosis patients. The current study aimed to test whether LRIC promotes angiogenesis and increases phosphorylated endothelial nitric oxide synthase (p-eNOS) activity in CCH rat model. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to three different groups: sham group, bilateral carotid artery occlusion (2VO) group and 2VO+LRIC group. Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) was measured with laser speckle contrast imager at 4 weeks. Cognitive testing was performed at four and six weeks after 2VO surgery. We demonstrated that LRIC treatment increased cerebral perfusion and improved the CCH induced spatial learning and memory impairment. Immunohistochemistry confirmed that LRIC prevented cell death in the CA1 region, and increased the number of vessels and angiogenesis in the hippocampus after 2VO. Western blot analysis shows that LRIC therapy significantly increased p-eNOS expression in the hippocampus when compared with 2VO rats. Moreover, eNOS inhibitor reduced the effect of LRIC on angiogenesis in the hippocampus and spatial learning and memory function. Our data suggested that LRIC promoted angiogenesis, which is mediated, in part, by eNOS/NO.
Excessive daytime sleepiness in temporomandibular disorder patients

ABSTRACT Objective: To investigate the relationship between excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and associated factors in temporomandibular disorder (TMD) patients. Methods: Medical records of 350 TMD patients were collected. The EDS status was measured by Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS). TMD patients were classified according to ESS scores into TMD patients with EDS (ESS ≥10) and without EDS (ESS <10). The relationship between EDS status and associated factors, such as demographic, TMD symptom severity, and psychological status was analyzed using chi-square and t-test. The level of statistical significance was set at 0.05. Results: Approximately 28.57% of TMD patients presented with EDS. These patients possessed a significantly higher level of TMD symptom severity, stress, anxiety, and depression, compared to TMD patients without EDS. Discussion: TMD patients with EDS distinctively suffer both physically and psychologically. This warrants further investigation for the causes and effects as well as underlying mechanisms of EDS in TMD.
How do general practitioners and pharmacists experience antibiotic use in out-of-hours primary care? An exploratory qualitative interview study to inform a participatory action research project

Rationale Antibiotics (ABs) are one of the most prescribed medications in out-of-hours (OOH) care in Belgium. Developing a better understanding of why ABs are prescribed in this setting is essential to improve prescribing habits. Objectives To assess AB prescribing and dispensing challenges for general practitioners (GPs) and pharmacists in OOH primary care, and to identify context-specific elements that can help the implementation of behaviour change interventions to improve AB prescribing in this setting. Design This is an exploratory qualitative study using semistructured interviews. This study is part of a participatory action research project. Setting and participants Participants include 17 GPs and 1 manager, who work in a Belgian OOH general practitioners cooperative (GPC), and 5 pharmacists of the area covered by the GPC. The GPC serves a population of more than 187 000 people. Results GPs feel the threshold to prescribe AB in OOH care is lower in comparion to office hours. GPs and pharmacists talk about the difference in their professional identity in OOH (they define their task differently, they feel more isolated, insecure, have the need to please and so on), type of patients (unknown patients, vulnerable patients, other ethnicities, demanding patients and so on), workload (they feel time-pressured) and lack of diagnostic tools or follow-up. They are aware of the problem of AB overprescribing, but they do not feel ownership of the problem. Conclusion The implementation of behaviour change interventions to improve AB prescribing in OOH primary care has to take these context specifics into account and could involve interprofessional collaboration between GPs and pharmacists. Trial registration number NCT03082521; Pre-results.
Serum and Ectopic Endometrium from Women with Endometriosis Modulate Macrophage M1/M2 Polarization via the Smad2/Smad3 Pathway

Objective This study investigated the alterations in macrophage polarization in patients with endometriosis as well as the underlying molecular mechanisms. Methods Peritoneal washings, serum samples, and endometrial tissues were collected from endometriosis patients and control subjects. Endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) were isolated from endometrial tissue, and conditioned medium was prepared by treating ESCs with or without various concentrations of interleukin- (IL-) 6, estrogen, or progestin. The frequencies of CD86+ and CD163+ cells and expression levels of these markers as well as the cytokines IL-12 and IL-10 were measured in THP-1- (human monocytic leukemia cell) derived macrophages. Results There was a decrease in the percentage of CD86+ macrophages in the peritoneal wash solution of patients with endometriosis. Ectopic endometrial homogenates could promote M1 to M2 macrophage polarization in response to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), as evidenced by the increased percentage of CD163+ macrophages and increased IL-10 expression as well as a decreased percentage of CD86+ cells and lower IL-12 expression. In contrast, addition of serum from women with endometriosis to THP-1 cells resulted in the polarization of macrophages towards both M1 and M2 phenotypes. Upregulation of Smad2/Smad3 in macrophages upon exposure to eutopic and ectopic endometrial homogenates as well as serum of women with endometriosis was observed, and blockage of Smad2/Smad3 with their inhibitor SB431542 could reverse the macrophage polarization from M1 to M2. Conditioned medium induced by IL-6, but neither estrogen nor progestin, could facilitate M2 polarization. Neutralization of IL-6 diminished macrophage M2 polarization in endometriosis. Conclusion This study provides detailed evidence supporting alterations in M1 to M2 macrophage polarization that may contribute to the initiation as well as progression of endometriosis.
Use of hazard pictorials symbols in the minerals industry

This report documents a three-phase research effort on the evaluation of the effectiveness of safety symbols and hazard pictorials for use In mining and milling operations. In the first phase, applicable codes and standards were reviewed, along with documentation of typical mining hazards, to determine relevant safety messages. This phase included site visits to eight mine sites to document existing sign practice and common mining hazards. In the second phase, the effectiveness of two sets of symbols for 40 different safety messages was evaluated with 267 miners from 10 sites at disparate geographical locations. This evaluation also included an assessment of the effectiveness of six different symbol surround shapes and colors. Symbols which were the most effective, according to the suggested criteria, were those which depicted both the person and the hazard or protective gear, and which were more representational, rather than highly abstract. Based upon this research, a set of 40 symbols was suggested for further graphic refinement, additional evaluation, and eventual use. In the third phase, these symbols were assessed in an inmlne evaluation at 2 sites. This evaluation indicated that the symbol signs were generally well understood and conspicuous, with no problems of durability, or poor contrast arising during the three-month evaluation. A Handbook for using symbol signs in mines concludes the report.
On the loss landscape of a class of deep neural networks with no bad local valleys

We identify a class of over-parameterized deep neural networks with standard activation functions and cross-entropy loss which provably have no bad local valley, in the sense that from any point in parameter space there exists a continuous path on which the cross-entropy loss is non-increasing and gets arbitrarily close to zero. This implies that these networks have no sub-optimal strict local minima.
Visual Reasoning by Progressive Module Networks

Humans learn to solve tasks of increasing complexity by building on top of previously acquired knowledge. Typically, there exists a natural progression in the tasks that we learn - most do not require completely independent solutions, but can be broken down into simpler subtasks. We propose to represent a solver for each task as a neural module that calls existing modules (solvers for simpler tasks) in a functional program-like manner. Lower modules are a black box to the calling module, and communicate only via a query and an output. Thus, a module for a new task learns to query existing modules and composes their outputs in order to produce its own output. Our model effectively combines previous skill-sets, does not suffer from forgetting, and is fully differentiable. We test our model in learning a set of visual reasoning tasks, and demonstrate improved performances in all tasks by learning progressively. By evaluating the reasoning process using human judges, we show that our model is more interpretable than an attention-based baseline.
Prediction of Acute Postoperative Pain from Assessment of Pain Associated With Venous Cannulation

It has previously been reported that venous cannulation‐induced pain (VCP) can be used to predict acute postoperative pain after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. Patients rating VCP at ≥2.0 VAS units had 3.4 times higher risk for moderate or severe pain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate if VCP scores of ≥2.0 VAS units are associated with higher risk for acute postoperative pain after various common surgical procedures.
Effects of Combined Physical and Cognitive Virtual Reality-Based Training on Cognitive Impairment and Oxidative Stress in MCI Patients: A Pilot Study

The growing elderly population and the increased incidence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) call for the improvement of the quality and the efficacy of the healthcare and social support services. Exercise and cognitive stimulation have been demonstrated to mitigate cognitive impairment and oxidative stress (OxS) has been recognized as a factor that contributes to the advancement of neurodegenerative diseases. Taking these aspects into account, the impact of a novel virtual reality (VR)-based program combining aerobic exercise and cognitive training has been evaluated in the pilot study proposed here. Ten patients (aged 73.3 ± 5.7 years) with MCI (Mini-Mental State Examination, MMSE: 23.0 ± 3.4) were randomly assigned to either 6 weeks physical and cognitive training (EXP) or control (CTR) group. Evaluations of cognitive profile, by a neuropsychological tests battery, and OxS, by collection of blood and urine samples, were performed before and at the end of the experimental period. The assessment of the patients’ opinions toward the intervention was investigated through questionnaires. EXP group showed a tendency towards improvements in the MMSE, in visual-constructive test and visuo-spatial tests of attention, while CTR worsened. EXP group showed a greater improvement than CTR in the executive test, memory functions and verbal fluency. No statistical significance was obtained when comparing within and between both the groups, probably due to small number of subjects examined, which amplifies the effect of the slight heterogeneity in scores recorded. Despite a greater worsening of Daily Living Activities tests, all participants reported a better performance in real life, thanks to the elicited self-perceived improvement. After training intervention OxS (i.e., reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, oxidative damage of lipids and DNA) decreased resulting in significantly (range p < 0.05–0.001) lower in EXP vs. CTR group. Although not conclusive, the recorded effects in the present study are promising and suggest that this proposal would be a useful tool in support of cognitive training reducing OxS too. However, further studies on larger scale samples of patients are needed.
Distributed Intelligent System for Self-Healing in Smart Grids

More and more consumers of electricity demand services with the highest quality standards. One of these standards that have been required is the continuity of services as well as the speedy recovery after a power outage. With the advent of smart grids, the problems of distribution systems are attacked and systemic reliability indexes are improved. It occurs as a result of the automation that has been taking place in these systems. This paper aims to present a contribution in the area of self-healing distribution networks in the event of a permanent short-circuit wherein a systemic reconfiguration is necessary. The proposed strategy, based on distributed intelligence, allows the signals to propagate between the recovery switches, without these switches requiring a large range of communication. It occurs because the sign of a switch broadcasts on the network through communication between adjacent switches to establish an optimized switching solution. This strategy has been tested in a real network and in a large distribution network for simple, sequential, and multiple short-circuits.
Role of Transcatheter patent ductus arteriosus closure in extremely low birth weight infants

Patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) is common in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants. The objectives of this study were to describe our early clinical experience of transcatheter PDA closure (TCPC) in ELBW infants, compare outcomes with surgical ligation of PDA (SLP), and identify risk factors for prolonged respiratory support.