Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurement of Retrobulbar Blood Flow and Vascular Reactivity—Relevance for Ocular and Cardiovascular Diseases

Abnormal retrobulbar hemodynamics have been linked to the development of various ocular diseases, including glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy. Additionally, altered retrobulbar blood flow has been observed in patients with severe cardiovascular diseases, including carotid artery occlusion, stroke, heart failure, and acute coronary syndrome. Due to the complex and intricate anatomy of retrobulbar blood vessels and their location behind the eyeball, measurement of retrobulbar blood flow and vascular reactivity, as well as the interpretation of the findings, are challenging. Various methods, such as color Doppler imaging, computed tomography angiography or magnetic resonance imaging, have been employed to assess retrobulbar blood flow velocities in vivo. Color Doppler imaging represents a fast and non-invasive method to measure retrobulbar blood flow velocities in vivo. While no information about vessel diameter can be gained performing this method, computed tomography angiography and magnetic resonance imaging provide information about vessel diameter and detailed information on the anatomical course. Additionally, ex vivo studies, such as myography, utilizing genetically modified animal models may provide high optical resolution for functional vascular investigations in these small vessels. To our best knowledge, this is the first review, presenting a detailed overview of methods aiming to evaluate retrobulbar blood flow and vascular reactivity in both humans and laboratory animals. Furthermore, we will summarize the disturbances observed in retrobulbar blood flow in retinal, optic nerve, and cardiovascular diseases.
Multimodal Analysis of Unbalanced Dermatological Data for Skin Cancer Recognition

To date, skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in humans and is one of the leading causes of death in cancer patients. AI technologies can match and exceed visual analysis methods in accuracy, but they carry the risk of a false negative response when a malignant pigmented lesion can be recognized as benign. Possible ways to improve accuracy and reduce the risk of false negatives are to analyze heterogeneous data, combine different preprocessing methods, and use modified loss functions to eliminate the negative impact of unbalanced dermatological data. The article proposes a multimodal neural network system with a modified cross-entropy loss function that is sensitive to unbalanced heterogeneous dermatological data. The novelty of the proposed system lies in the emerging synergy when using methods to improve the quality of intelligent systems, due to which there is a significant reduction in the number of false negative predictions and an increase in the accuracy of skin cancer recognition. Preliminary cleaning of hair structures on visual data, as well as parallel analysis of heterogeneous dermatological data using a multimodal neural network system sensitive to unbalanced data, were used as methods to improve accuracy. The recognition accuracy for 10 diagnostic categories for the proposed intelligent system was 85.20%. The introduction of weighting factors made it possible to reduce the number of false negative forecasts, as well as increase the accuracy by 1.99-4.28 percentage points compared to the original multimodal systems.
Soil ecology and pedogenesis on ophiolitic materials in the western Alps (Mont Avic Natural Park, North-western Italy): soil properties and their relationships with substrate, vegetation and biological activity.

A part of this thesis was originally published in: D'Amico, M; Julitta, F; Previtali, F; Cantelli, D. (2008) Podzolization over ophiolitic materials in the western Alps (Natural Park of Mont Avic, Aosta Valley, Italy). Geoderma 146 (1-2) 129–137 http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.geoderma. 2008.05. 025 ©2008 Elsevier
ANALYSIS OF SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL EVOLUTION OF THE NDVI ON VEGETATED AND DEGRADED AREAS IN THE CENTRAL SPANISH PYRENEES

The temporal evolution of vegetation activity on va rious land cover classes in the Spanish Pyrenees wa s analyzed. Two time series of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were used, corresponding to March (early spring) and August (the end of summer). The series were generated from Landsat TM and Landsat ETM+ images for the period 1984-2007. An increase in the NDVI in March was found for vegetated areas, and the opposite trend was found in both March and August for degraded areas (badlands and erosion risk areas). The rise in mini mum temperature during the study period appears to be the most important factor explaining the increased NDVI in the vegetated area s. In degraded areas, no climatic or topographic va riable was associated with the negative trend in the NDVI, which may be related to erosion processes taking place in these regions.
Impact of Saharan air layer on hurricane peak intensity

The Saharan air layer (SAL), which is associated with African dust outbreaks, forms as air moves across the Sahara Desert, containing substantial amounts of mineral dust. While the relationships of Sahel rainfall with African dust outbreaks and Atlantic hurricane activity have been documented in previous studies, analyses of various independent datasets show that the Sahel rainfall, SAL activity and hurricane peak intensity in the Atlantic basin are highly correlated. The long‐term trend in hurricane peak intensity generally follows the Sahel rainfall and SAL activity. The decreasing trend in hurricane intensity by the mid‐1980s was associated with the enhancing SAL activity (drying relative humidity and enhancing vertical shear) and the severe drought in the Sahel, while the recent moderate increasing trend in hurricane intensity is consistent with the weakening SAL activity (wetting relative humidity, weakening vertical shear and decreasing dust load) and the ameliorating Sahel drought. This study suggests that the SAL may act as a link between the summer African monsoon and Atlantic hurricane activity.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Alleviates Memory and Motor Impairments Following Traumatic Brain Injury via the Modulation of Mitochondrial-Dysfunction-Induced Neuronal Apoptosis in Rats

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in young adults, characterized by primary and secondary injury. Primary injury is the immediate mechanical damage, while secondary injury results from delayed neuronal death, often linked to mitochondrial damage accumulation. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) has been proposed as a potential treatment for modulating secondary post-traumatic neuronal death. However, the specific molecular mechanism by which HBOT modulates secondary brain damage through mitochondrial protection remains unclear. Spatial learning, reference memory, and motor performance were measured in rats before and after Controlled Cortical Impact (CCI) injury. The HBOT (2.5 ATA) was performed 4 h following the CCI and twice daily (12 h intervals) for four consecutive days. Mitochondrial functions were assessed via high-resolution respirometry on day 5 following CCI. Moreover, IHC was performed at the end of the experiment to evaluate cortical apoptosis, neuronal survival, and glial activation. The current result indicates that HBOT exhibits a multi-level neuroprotective effect. Thus, we found that HBOT prevents cortical neuronal loss, reduces the apoptosis marker (cleaved-Caspase3), and modulates glial cell proliferation. Furthermore, HBO treatment prevents the reduction in mitochondrial respiration, including non-phosphorylation state, oxidative phosphorylation, and electron transfer capacity. Additionally, a superior motor and spatial learning performance level was observed in the CCI group treated with HBO compared to the CCI group. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that HBOT during the critical period following the TBI improves cognitive and motor damage via regulating glial proliferation apoptosis and protecting mitochondrial function, consequently preventing cortex neuronal loss.
Types of Urban Vulnerabilities Affecting Households in Informal Settlements of Kisumu County

Households residing in informal settlements are often hampered by urban-induced vulnerabilities. Despite more than fifty per cent of urban residents in Kisumu County residing in informal settlements, it is unclear to what extent urban-induced vulnerabilities affect their livelihoods. To address this problem, the study examined the types of urban vulnerabilities in Kisumu County Informal Settlements. The data was collected from a sample of 396 households using structured questionnaires, key informant interviews and document reviews. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square, while the qualitative data was subjected to verbatim and thematic analysis. The data revealed that there were various types of urban-induced vulnerabilities which affected access to education including social economic and environmental vulnerabilities. The study recommended that adequate resources should be allocated to reduce environmental vulnerabilities in schools; measures to increase households’ adaptive capacities to urban-induced vulnerabilities among the residents in the informal settlements in Kisumu County should be prioritized.
Regionally heterogeneous uppermost inner core observed with Hi‐net array

Studies of velocity structure in the Earth's inner core and its volumetric variations illuminate our understanding of inner core dynamics and composition. Here we use an extensive number of seismograms recorded by the Hi‐net array to construct complete empirical curves of PKPBC‐PKPDF differential traveltimes. The nature of these curves implies that significant variations in traveltimes are accumulated during the passage of PKPDF waves through the uppermost inner core and rules out outer core structure effects. Uniform cylindrical anisotropy of a plausible strength in the uppermost inner core can also be ruled out as a cause of the observed traveltime variations because the range of sampled ray angles is too narrow. The configuration and strength of inhomogeneities from a recent tomographic model of the lowermost mantle cannot account for the observed traveltime variations. Therefore, we infer that either variations of P wave isotropic velocity on the scale of about hundred km and less are present in the uppermost inner core or the material may be organized in distinctive anisotropic domains, and both of these features may be superimposed on long‐wavelength hemispherical structure. If the former holds true, the absolute magnitude of required P wave velocity perturbations from referent values is 0.60 ± 0.10% in the quasi‐eastern and 1.55 ± 0.15% in the quasi‐western hemisphere (0.85 ± 0.05% and 1.10 ± 0.10%, respectively, with the lowermost mantle correction). The existence of these variations is a plausible physical outcome given that vigorous compositional convection in the outer core and variations in heat exchange across the inner core boundary may control the process of solidification.
The effect of coal composition upon gas sorption and transmissibility of bituminous coal

The effect of bituminous coal composition, particularly the organic fraction, upon gas sorption and transmissibility is investigated. Micropore capacities of bituminous coals, determined from low pressure carbon dioxide adsorption, show a general increase with total and structured vitrinite content. Conversely, micropore capacities generally decrease with an increase in inertinite and mineral matter content. High pressure methane monolayer capacities show a similar trend. Micropore size distributions indicate an increase in the total number ofmicropores and a slight decrease in mean pore diameter with vitrinite content. Mesopore volumes and surface areas, determined through nitrogen sorption, show a general decrease with vitrinite content and increase with inertinite content ofbituminous coal. Vitrinite therefore contains more microporosity and less mesoporosity than inertinite. Hysteresis loops of sorption isotherms indicate that mesopores of the coals studied are slit-shaped. Permeabilities of bituminous coals obtained through the use of a permeameter capable of measuring permeabilities on a bed-by-bed scale show that brighter coal lithotypes are more permeable than dull lithotypes. The order of decreasing permeability with lithotype is: bright> banded> fibrous > banded dull> dull. The increase in permeability with increased brightness of coals is due to the presence of abundant macrofracturing (cleating) in bright coal. For one sample, permeabilties were found to increase with vitrinite content.
Oceanic mixed layer variations during the movement of cyclone along symmetric tracks in the Indian Ocean

The understanding of significant changes in the oceanic mixed layer is important for dynamical prediction of tropical cyclone. Present study aims at examining the variations in the upper ocean parameters during the movement of tropical cyclone in northern and southern Indian Ocean, by applying 1Y2layer wind driven reduced gravity ocean model. Different idealized tracks in the Bay of Bengal and their mirror images in southern hemisphere are considered, The model produced mixed layer depth, temperature and currents are compared for northern and southern hemispheric cyclone cases. Also the effect of latitude for westward moving cyclones in both the hemisphere is investigated. For this, tracks in the Arabian Sea and their counter parts in the southern hemisphere are considered. The maximum cooling found in the wake of cyclone is of the order of 3 - 4°C, which is comparable with earlier studies and observations. This significant cooling can cause _ weakening of the storm. This can be useful for prediction especially in the event of a cyclonic storm heading towards land and likely to make land fall. Moreover it is also seen that the mixed layer is cooled more on the right (left) of the storm track in northern (southern) hemisphere. This cooling 'decreases for the storms translating along higher latitudes implying the sensitivity of the latitudinal location of the storm.
Peripapillary and macular vascular densities in healthy, ocular hypertensive, and different stages of glaucomatous eyes.

AIM To investigate vascular changes in different stages of glaucoma and to evaluate the role of optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) in the early diagnosis of glaucoma. METHODS Glaucoma patients and healthy controls (n=29 eyes) were investigated in this cross-sectional comparative study. Glaucoma patients were grouped as ocular hypertension (n=44 eyes), preperimetric glaucoma (PPG; n=32 eyes), early glaucoma (EG; n=35 eyes), moderate stage glaucoma (MG; n=36 eyes), and advanced glaucoma (AG; n=35 eyes). Peripapillary and macular vascular densities (VDs) of all participants were compared and correlations of VDs and retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (RNFLT), ganglion cell analysis (GCA), and visual field (VF) tests were evaluated. Area under the receiver operation characteristic curves (AUC) of the peripapillary and macular VD parameters were obtained. RESULTS VD values decreased with the progression of glaucoma. Most peripapillary and macular VD parameters of PPG and EG groups were lower than healthy controls (P<0.001). There was no significant difference in RNFLT between the PPG and EG groups, but most peripapillary and macular VDs were found to be lower in EG group than in PPG group (P<0.05). In most disease group, VDs were significantly correlated with OCT parameters (P<0.001) and VF index (P<0.05). There were no significant correlations between VF and RNFLT indices in the AG group, but significant correlations were found between VF and VD values (P<0.05). AUC for discriminating between healthy and glaucomatous eyes were highest in whole image peripapillary VD (AUC: 0.865, 0.929, and 0.986, respectively in EG, MG, and AG groups). CONCLUSION OCTA can be used in the early diagnosis of glaucoma and can be useful in follow-up of the advanced disease. In cases where limitations or suspicions in structural and functional tests are present, OCTA can be used as a supportive diagnostic test, both in EG and AG.
Permeability of Unconsolidated and Consolidated marine Sediments, Gulf of Mexico: ABSTRACT

Permeability of a large number of natural marine sediment samples from the Gulf of Mexico was determined through the use of laboratory consolidation tests. The samples were divided into groups as follows. Group 1, sediment consisting of more than 80 percent clay (material 2µ or less in size); Group 2, sediment containing from 60 to 80 percent clay-size material; Group 3, silty clays with less than 60 percent clay; Group 4, silts and clays that have a significant sand-size fraction present (more than 5 percent sand). The permeabilities of the groups ranged from 10-5 to 10-10 cm/sec with 35 ppm normal seawater being used as the saturating fluid. A statistical analysis of the natural log of permeability versus porosity was used to develop the permeability prediction equation for each of the groups listed. The equation for Group 1 is k = eP(15.05) - 27.37, for Group 2 k = eP(14.18) - 26.50, for Group 3 K = eP(15.59) - 26.65, for Group 4 k = eP(17.51) - 26.93), and for all data k = eP(14.30) - 26.30, where P is the porosity (in decimal) and k is the coefficient of permeability. These equations are useful for predicting changes in permeability with depth in fine grained sediments of the Gulf of Mexico. The ability to predict permeability in a continuous sequence, where the deposition history is known, may explain the large variations that we see in the physical properties in sediments similar in grain size and mineralogy. End_of_Article - Last_Page 2207------------
Early Tertiary Paleogeography and Paleotectonics of the San Juan Basin Area, New Mexico and Colorado

Abstract The Tertiary sedimentary rocks of the San Juan Basin comprise the Paleocene Ojo Alamo Sandstone, Nacimiento Formation, and Animas Formation (excluding the Cretaceous McDermott Member) and the Eocene San Jose Formation. The oldest Tertiary rock unit in the basin is the Ojo Alamo Sandstone. The Ojo Alamo is late early Paleocene age in the southern part of the San Juan Basin where it rests on Campanian age rocks indicating a hiatus of as much as 11 million years. The hiatus diminishes in magnitude northwestward across the basin but appears to be significant there also where at least the upper part of the Mastrichtian is absent. The pre-Ojo Alamo Sandstone erosion episode resulted from basin-wide uplift. This uplift was the first major tectonic event of the Laramide Revolution in the San Juan Basin area following 25 to 30 million years of nearly uninterupted deposition of marine and continental rocks as the Late Cretaceous epicontinental sea repeatedly transgressed and regressed across the basin area. The Animas and Nacimiento Formations are apparently time-equivalent. The Animas is present only in the northern part of the basin and the Nacimiento is present in the remainder of the basin. The Animas contains an abundance of volcaniclastic material derived from the San Juan Mountains area. Downwarping of the northern part of the basin began as the Animas Formation was being deposited. The Nacimiento Formation represents deposition in the southern part of the basin of the finer-grained component of the clastic load carried by the same streams that deposited the Animas in the north. The San Jose Formation was deposited as the basin continued to downwarp in Eocene time and the eastern and western rims of the basin started to form. Younger Cenozoic rocks were probably deposited on top of the San Jose as the basin achieved its final structural configuration, but these younger rocks are no longer present because of erosion accompanying uplift of the Colorado Plateau in late Tertiary time.
Impact of loop diuretic dosage in a population of patients with acute heart failure: a retrospective analysis

Background Loop diuretics are essential for managing congestion in acute heart failure (AHF) patients, but concerns exist about their dosing and administration. This study aims to explore the relationship between aggressive diuretic treatment and clinical outcomes in AHF patients. Methods We randomly selected 370 AHF patients from admissions at Maastricht University Medical Center between January 2011 and March 2017. Patients were divided into four quartiles based on diuretic doses administrated during index hospitalization. The primary endpoint was a composite of cardiovascular (CV) rehospitalization or death at 1 year. Results 42.4% of patients experimented the primary outcome The composite endpoint rates were 35.4%, 41.6%, 38.5%, and 54.9%, respectively, from lowest to highest dose quartiles (p = 0.033). In univariate analysis, the outcome was significantly lower in the first three quartiles as compared to the fourth quartile. One-year CV mortality was 9.1%, 10.1%, 20.9% and 27.2%, respectively (p = 0.002). After adjusting for confounders, the association between loop diuretic dosage disappeared for both the primary outcome and one-year CV mortality. Most secondary outcomes and endpoints at 3 months, including worsening renal function, showed no significant differences between groups, while hypokaliemia occurrence, length of hospital stay and weight loss at index admission were higher in the fourth quartile compared to the first one. Conclusions High loop diuretic doses are associated with poor outcomes in AHF patients, reflecting disease severity rather than harm from aggressive diuretic use. Furthermore, high diuretic doses do not seem to negatively affect kidney function.
Dyslipidemia in pre- and post-menopausal women: a study of peri-urban Paundra Kshatriya women

Dyslipidemia is an important risk factor of cardiovascular disease, whereas menopause is a decrease in ovarian follicular activity at the end of reproductive age of the women, which is significantly influenced by hormonal changes brought on by menopause’s impact on serum lipids. This study was undertaken among pre- and post-menopausal Paundra Kshatriya women in Sonarpur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India in order to determine the prevalence of dyslipidemia. 142 adult Paundra Kshatriya women (n pre-menopausal women = 96; n post-menopausal women = 46) were selected from a peri-urban setting of Sonarpur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal. Anthropometry and arterial pressure data were recorded. Blood samples were collected from study participants who were on 12 hours fasting. 19.79% of pre-menopausal women and 17.39% of post-menopausal women had normal levels of lipids. Prevalence of dyslipidemia was slightly higher (82.7%) among the post-menopausal women compared to pre-menopausal women (80.2%). While high LDL cholesterol emerged as one of the prime causes for dyslipidemia among pre-menopausal women, hypercholesterolemia emerged as one of the prime causes for dyslipidemia among post-menopausal women. Regression analysis revealed a significant impact of 3 factors in pre-menopausal women and impact of 6 factors in post-menopausal women. Though Paundra Kshatriya women maintain a relatively less stressful and high physical activity lifestyle, they exhibited high levels of lipid abnormalities. The peri-urban population is undergoing lifestyle and dietary changes due to a close proximity to the urban centre, Kolkata. Funding Anthropological Survey of India, Ministry of Culture, Government of India