Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Rare occurrence of type 2 diabetes mellitus in patients with sickle cell anaemia: assessing the contribution of inflammation, insulin resistance and glucose buffering capacity of abnormal haemoglobin

This review was designed to discuss the rare occurrence of diabetes mellitus (DM) in patients with sickle cell anaemia (SCA) with a particular focus on factors, such as life expectancy, body weight, chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, glucose buffering property of haemoglobin, and microRNAs (miRNAs), aiming to stimulate research which will fill the existing knowledge gaps regarding the interplay between SCA and DM. Additionally, possible pharmacotherapeutic approaches to DM were also highlighted in the review. Google Scholar and PubMed search engines were used to search for the relevant keywords, such as sickle cell trait, sickle cell disease, sickle cell anaemia, insulin resistance, and diabetes mellitus. SCA patients appear to have β-cell dysfunction with a reduced insulin secretion, but present a similar insulin sensitivity status as other patients without haemoglobinopathy. Glucose buffering property of haemoglobin and the possible DM-protective roles of miRNAs in the sickled erythrocytes constitute some of the potential factors protecting SCA patients from developing DM. Sickle cell anaemia is associated with several complications and endocrinopathies, nevertheless, its coexistence with DM continues to be a rare observation. Proper elucidation of the mechanisms which seemingly confer ‘protection’ against DM in patients with SCA may provide some therapeutic insights regarding DM.
Dietary supplements use among children from south-eastern Poland

Aim of the study: All over the world people are increasingly turning to dietary supplements, the market for which is growing every year. Unfortunately, still little is known about the use of dietary supplements in paedia­ tric population. The aim of the study was to assess the frequency of use of dietary supplements among children in Lesser Poland Voivodeship and to verify the source of parents’ knowledge about dietary supplements. Material and methods: A multiple­purpose survey was conducted anonymously among 229 parents of pa­ tients hospitalized in the Department of Paediatrics, University Children’s Hospital in Krakow. Each parent answered 41 questions regarding dietary supplements use in his/her hospitalized child throughout the whole child’s life. The data was statistically analyzed. Results: 71.4% of parents supply dietary supplements to their children, 57% admitted that they serve it daily. Parents most often give their children a single vitamin or mineral preparation (39.2%). Mostly the choice of a particular preparation was conditioned on the opinion of a physician (68%) or a pharmacist (37%). Families with a high socioeconomic status more often take advice from health professionals regarding their knowledge about supplements. Nearly half of the respondents admit that they do not have sufficient knowledge on the dietary supplements they give to their children. Conclusions: Most parents give or gave dietary supplements to their children. Although a well­balanced diet provides all vitamins and micronutrients that young organisms need, many parents find it necessary to use dietary supplements. It is alarming how many people use alternative sources of information. It is necessary to educate and build awareness among parents that they take an active role and are responsible for their child’s health and that they should have reliable knowledge about the preparations they decide to give their child.
Ultrasound-Assisted Wound (UAW) Debridement in the Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

A systematic review and meta-analysis were carried out to investigate the effect of ultrasound-assisted wound (UAW) debridement in patients with diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs). All selected studies were evaluated using the Cochrane risk of bias tool to assess the risk of bias for randomized controlled trials. PubMed and Web of Science were searched in October 2021 to find randomized clinical trials (RCT) assessing the effect of UAW debridement on DFUs. RevMan v5.4. was used to analyze the data with the Mantel–Haenszel method for dichotomous outcomes. A total of 8 RCT met our inclusion criteria, with 263 participants. Concerning the healing rate comparing UAW versus the control group, a meta-analysis estimated the pooled OR at 2.22 (95% CI 0.96–5.11, p = 0.06), favoring UAW debridement, with low heterogeneity (x2 = 7.47, df = 5, p = 0.19, I2 = 33%). Time to healing was similar in both groups: UAW group (14.25 ± 10.10 weeks) versus the control group (13.38 ± 1.99 weeks, p = 0.87). Wound area reduction was greater in the UAW debridement group (74.58% ± 19.21%) than in the control group (56.86% ± 25.09%), although no significant differences were observed between them (p = 0.24). UAW debridement showed higher healing rates, a greater percentage of wound area reduction, and similar healing times when compared with placebo (sham device) and standard of care in patients with DFUs, although no statistically significant differences were observed between groups.
Task-Related Hemodynamic Changes Induced by High-Definition Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation in Chronic Stroke Patients: An Uncontrolled Pilot fNIRS Study

High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) has recently been proposed as a tDCS approach that can be used on a specific cortical region without causing undesirable stimulation effects. In this uncontrolled pilot study, the cortical hemodynamic changes caused by HD-tDCS applied over the ipsilesional motor cortical area were investigated in 26 stroke patients. HD-tDCS using one anodal and four cathodal electrodes at 1 mA was administered for 20 min to C3 or C4 in four daily sessions. Cortical activation was measured as changes in oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) concentration, as found using a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) system during the finger tapping task (FTT) with the affected hand before and after HD-tDCS. Motor-evoked potential and upper extremity functions were also measured before (T0) and after the intervention (T1). A group statistical parametric mapping analysis showed that the oxyHb concentration increased during the FTT in both the affected and unaffected hemispheres before HD-tDCS. After HD-tDCS, the oxyHb concentration increased only in the affected hemisphere. In a time series analysis, the mean and integral oxyHb concentration during the FTT showed a noticeable decrease in the channel closest to the hand motor hotspot (hMHS) in the affected hemisphere after HD-tDCS compared with before HD-tDCS, in accordance with an improvement in the function of the affected upper extremity. These results suggest that HD-tDCS might be helpful to rebalance interhemispheric cortical activity and to reduce the hemodynamic burden on the affected hemisphere during hand motor tasks. Noticeable changes in the area adjacent to the affected hMHS may imply that personalized HD-tDCS electrode placement is needed to match each patient’s individual hMHS location.
As-Applied Estimation of Volumetric Flow Rate from a Single Sprayer Nozzle Series Using Water-Sensitive Spray Cards

The objective of this study was to test the feasibility of using coverage measurements from water-sensitive spray cards to estimate the volumetric flow rate at an individual sprayer nozzle. TeeJet VisiFlow Even Flat Spray Tips were selected due to their uniform distribution of coverage. Spray distribution for each nozzle was validated using a spray patternator table with 2.5 cm sampling widths. A rotary test fixture translated water-sensitive spray cards through the spray dispersion (water at ambient conditions) at a constant angular velocity and a radius of 1.2 m. The test fixture measured volumetric flow and pressure at the nozzle and recorded data at a rate of 10 Hz. A helical gear pump and a piston-type pressure regulating valve were used to provide constant pressure. The first experiment fixed the test fixture speed at 3.14 rad s-1 and used varying pressures from 70 to 552 kPa (10 to 80 psi) in 70 kPa (10 psi) increments. First-order and second-order regression models were developed for the nozzle series, and validation data were collected at intermediate pressures to test the ability of the model to predict volumetric flow rates. The second experiment fixed the system pressure at 310 kPa (45 psi) and varied the speed of the test fixture at seven increments between 2.0 and 3.8 rad s-1. Spray cards were digitized using a scanner and processed for coverage using the MATLAB image processing toolbox. Results showed that the accuracy of the spray card method was within 1% full-scale of a commercial impeller flowmeter for a single series of nozzles moving at constant speed. Varying speed could be accounted for but required knowledge of the individual nozzle model.
Anxiety Status and Associated Factors of Health Personnel Working in a Tertiary Hospital in Turkey in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Aim: This research was conducted to evaluate the anxiety status and related factors of tertiary hospital personnel working in a densely populated area of ​​Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A total of 555 participants were included in this cross-sectional, prospective study. A socio-demographic data form was created and the Beck Anxiety Scale was applied to participants for evaluating anxiety status. Results: The rate of men 64.86% (n=360) and women 35.14% (n=195). The distribution of anxiety scores was in the range of 8.39±9.16. 58.2% of them (n=323) had low, 41.8% (n=232) had high anxiety scores. Factors like age, gender, marital status, working status in areas where treatment/care is provided to suspected/positive patients with COVID-19, and fear of carrying infection from work to home are found to be statistically significantly related to anxiety. Conclusion: High anxiety scores were measured in almost half of the participants. Taking measures to improve risk factors can reduce the damaging effects of the challenging working conditions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on hospital personnel. Keywords: anxiety, COVID-19, health, health personnel, pandemics
Gain improvement for a new built-in antenna system on a handset including the proximity effect of the hand and head

We propose a new built-in antenna system on a handset for PCS and PHS (Japanese digital cordless phone) at 1.9 GHz. The new antenna system consists of a PIFA (planar inverted F antenna), two conducting bodies divided from a body, and a short plate connecting the two bodies. The new antenna system improves the horizontal plane peak gain and average gain about 2 dB in free space, even at the very proximity to the hand and head. The experiments and the calculations confirmed it.
A dynamic structural equation approach to estimate the short‐term effects of air pollution on human health

Detailed knowledge on the effects of air pollutants on human health is a prerequisite for the development of effective policies to reduce the adverse impact of ambient air pollution. However, measuring the effect of exposure on health outcomes is an extremely difficult task as the health impact of air pollution is known to vary over space and over different exposure periods. In general, standard approaches aggregate the information over space or time to simplify the study but this strategy fails to recognize important regional differences and runs into the well‐known risk of confounding the effects. However, modelling directly with the original, disaggregated data requires a highly dimensional model with the curse of dimensionality making inferences unstable; in these cases, the models tend to retain many irrelevant components and most relevant effects tend to be attenuated. The situation clearly calls for an intermediate solution that does not blindly aggregate data while preserving important regional features. We propose a dimension‐reduction approach based on latent factors driven by the data. These factors naturally absorb the relevant features provided by the data and establish the link between pollutants and health outcomes, instead of forcing a necessarily high‐dimensional link at the observational level. The dynamic structural equation approach is particularly suited for this task. The latent factor approach also provides a simple solution to the spatial misalignment caused by using variables with different spatial resolutions and the state‐space representation of the model favours the application of impulse response analysis. Our approach is discussed through the analysis of the short‐term effects of air pollution on hospitalization data from Lombardia and Piemonte regions (Italy).
Significance and recovery of blocks structures in binary and real -valued matrices with noise

XING SUN: Significance and Recovery of Blocks Structures in Binary and Real-Valued Matrices with Noise (Under the direction of Professor Andrew Nobel) Biclustering algorithms have been of recent interest in the field of Data Mining, particularly in the analysis of high dimensional data. Most biclustering problems can be stated in the following form: given a rectangular data matrix with real or categorical entries, find every submatrix satisfying a given criterion. In this dissertation, we study the statistical properties of several commonly used biclustering algorithms under appropriate random matrix models. For binary data, we establish a three-point concentration result, and several related probability bounds, for the size of the largest square submatrix of 1s in a square Bernoulli matrix, and extend these results to non-square matrices and submatrices with fixed aspect ratios. We then consider the noise sensitivity of frequent itemset mining under a simple binary additive noise model, and show that, even at small noise levels, large blocks of 1s leave behind fragments of only logarithmic size. As a result, standard FIM algorithms that search only for submatrices of 1s cannot directly recover such blocks when noise is present. On the positive side, we show that an error-tolerant frequent itemset criterion can recover a submatrix of 1s against a background of 0s plus noise, even when the size of the submatrix of 1s is very small. For data matrices with real-valued entries, we establish a concentration result for the size of the largest square submatrix with high average in a square Gaussian matrix. Probability upper bounds on the size of the largest non-square high average submatrix with a fixed row/column aspect ratio in a non-square real-valued matrix with fixed row/column aspect
Uniport vats versus biport vats in treatment of spontaneous pneumothorax

Background: To enhance postoperative outcomes in patients having videoassisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for spontaneous pneumothorax, it is necessary to determine the difference between the uses of each VATS treatment in such patients. Previous studies have revealed a discussion over the preference of one technique over the other. Materials and Methods: A comparative study was conducted on spontaneous pneumothorax patients (primary or secondary) undergoing VATS in Assiut University Heart Hospital from January 2017 till April 2019. Patients included in our study were prominent bullous forms in PSP pneumothorax lines, recurrent pneumothorax, bilateral pneumothorax, previous history of contralateral pneumothorax, and spontaneous hemothorax, air leakage more than five days with drainage catheter for first-episode patients. Patients were divided into two groups as group A patients who underwent uniport VATS procedure, and group B patients who underwent biport VATS procedure. Results: The study included 32 patients, 22 were primary spontaneous pneumothorax (PSP), while 10 were secondary spontaneous pneumothorax (SSP). The male to female ratio (M\F ratio) was 3.2:1. The mean ± SD for age was 30.04 ± 10.245 in PSP and was 50.43 ± 9.071 in SSP. Eighteen patients underwent uniport VATS, and 14 underwent biport VATS. The mean time for operation was 81.5 ± 33.74 in uniport VATS versus 109.79 ± 25.37 in biport VATS (p = 0.014). No significant statistical difference was found between uniport and biport VATS regarding pain, air leak, complications, hospital stay, recurrence, and mortality. Despite no statistical difference regarding mortality (p = 0.492), there were two mortalities in the uniport VATS group known as interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. Conclusions: We concluded that there are no differences between both techniques except for operative time.
Impact of corporate image on customer loyalty of Islamic banks: the role of religiosity, collectivism, sight cues and CSR

Purpose The prime objective of this study is to examine the impact of sight cues and corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of the Islamic banks on loyalty by improving the corporate image (CI) of the Islamic banks. This study also examines the mediating effect of a CI along with moderating impact of religion and collectivism on loyalty. Design/methodology/approach The data were obtained through the purposive sampling method by distributing questionnaires among the customers of Islamic banks. A total of 550 questionnaires were surveyed from six full-fledged commercial Islamic banks and eight Islamic windows of the commercial bank in Pakistan using variance-based structural equation modelling (partial least squares) to test the hypothesis. Findings The results of the study reflected that sight cues and CSR activities have a significant impact on CI and keeping the customer’s loyalty. Additionally, religion and collectivism also moderate the relationship between CI and loyalty. Research limitations/implications From a managerial perspective, the study finding exhibits the significant effect, both directly and indirectly, of religiosity on the loyalty intention of the customers of Islamic banks. Hence, persuading the client that the bank is in complete compliance with (Shariah) will forestall their clients switching to another bank. Originality/value This study is unique in its nature because it revealed the factors that lead to customer loyalty towards Islamic banks. The study found sight cues and CSR are the new indicators used to build CIs of Islamic banks.
A methodology for non-invasive diagnosis of diesel engines through characteristics of starter system performance

In this work, a methodology to diagnose ten diesel bus engines is carried out by means of some characteristics of the starting system performance. The signals of battery voltage, electric current supplied to the starter motor and crankshaft revolutions during cold and warm engine starting processes are analysed. Characteristics and patterns of the signals that are attributable to engine compression and combustion failures are pointed out, which are related to the kilometres travelled by each vehicle after the last engine repair and the shutdown time of the engine in warm condition. It is obtained that the rise of the current required by the starter motor during the second and third compression process, and the mean crankshaft angular acceleration after the second compression process are characteristics that are related to the engine condition.
Fidora: Robust WiFi-Based Indoor Localization via Unsupervised Domain Adaptation

Emerging Internet of Things (IoT) applications, such as cashier-less shopping, mobile ads targeting, and geo-based augmented reality (AR), are expected to bring us much more convenience and infotainment. To realize this amazing future, we need to feed these applications with user locations of (sub)meter-level resolution anytime and anywhere. Unfortunately, many widely used location sources are either unavailable indoor (e.g., global positioning system) or coarse grained (e.g., user check-ins). In order to provide ubiquitous localization services, the widespread WiFi signals are being leveraged to establish (sub)meter-level localization systems. Fine-grained WiFi propagation characteristics, which are sensitive to human body locations, have been employed to create location fingerprints. However, these WiFi characteristics are also sensitive to: 1) the body shapes of different users and 2) the objects in the background environment. Consequently, systems based on WiFi fingerprints are vulnerable in the presence of: 1) new users with different body shapes and 2) daily changes of the environment, e.g., opening/closing doors. To tackle this issue, this article proposes a WiFi-based localization system based on domain-adaptation with cluster assumption, named Fidora. Fidora is able to: 1) localize different users with labeled data from only one or two example users and 2) localize the same user in a changed environment without labeling any new data. To achieve these, Fidora integrates two major modules. It first adopts a data augmenter that introduces data diversity using a variational autoencoder (VAE). It then trains a domain-adaptive classifier that adjusts itself to newly collected unlabeled data using a joint classification-reconstruction structure. We conducted real-world experiments to evaluate Fidora against the state of the art. It is demonstrated that when tested on an unlabeled user, Fidora increases the average $F1$ score by 17.8% and improves the worst case accuracy by 20.2%. Moreover, when applied in a varied environment, Fidora outperforms the state of the art by 23.1%.
Dabigatran as Alternative Anticoagulant for Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump in a Patient with Suspected Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia

LEE ET AL.: Dabigatran as Alternative Anticoagulant for Intra-Aortic Balloon Pump in a Patient with Suspected Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia . Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is an uncommon condition but can result in devastating outcomes. Alternative anticoagulants are recommended for HIT patients with on-going needs of anticoagulation. We report a case of cardiogenic shock treated with intra-aortic balloon pump. The patient was complicated with isolated HIT after administration of low-molecular-weight heparin, and was successfully managed with dabigatran, an oral direct thrombin inhibitor, as an alternative anticoagulant. (J HK Coll Cardiol 2013;21: 15-20)
vsInk: An Extensible Framework for Adding Digital Ink to Visual Studio

This project adds digital ink annotations into the active code editor in Visual Studio 2010. Previous attempts had failed because of limitations in the older versions of Visual Studio and Eclipse. Visual Studio 2010 provides an extended API that allows direct modification of the active code editor window. This project uses the new API to add annotations and investigates several technical challenges with combining ink and text. These include:  Positioning strokes correctly when the document scrolled or changed  Handling changes to the underlying code  Handling collapsible regions  Grouping strokes into annotations vsInk partially solves all of these challenges. A user can add strokes to a code document. As strokes are added they are grouped together into annotations and anchored in the code. As code is changed (either by scrolling or editing) the annotations are repositioned. vsInk automatically hides annotations that are outside the editor view on in collapsed regions. The usability study shows vsInk solves the challenges but only partially. There are two main issues: strokes are incorrectly grouped into annotations and tall annotations disappear unexpectedly. Despite these issues the subjects found vsInk easy and enjoyable to use. vsInk opens options for future research into combining digital ink and code together and it provides a platform that can easily be extended.