Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prediction of Difficult Laryngoscopy Using Ultrasound: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

OBJECTIVES: Evaluate associations between ultrasound measures and difficult laryngoscopy. DATA SOURCES: MEDLINE, Embase, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library were searched using MeSH terms and keywords. STUDY SELECTION: Studies published in English describing the use of airway ultrasound for identifying difficult laryngoscopy, with sufficient data to calculate sensitivity and specificity using 2 × 2 tables. DATA EXTRACTION: We assigned the described indices of airway dimension to one of three domains based on methodology characteristics: anterior tissue thickness domain, anatomical position domain, and oral space domain. We then performed a bivariate random-effects meta-analysis, deriving pooled sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio, positive likelihood ratio, and negative likelihood ratio estimates. We assessed risks of bias using Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 analysis. DATA SYNTHESIS: Thirty-three studies evaluating 27 unique indices were included in the meta-analysis. The ultrasound protocols of the included studies were heterogeneous. Anterior tissue thickness demonstrated a pooled sensitivity of 76% (95% CI, 71–81%), specificity of 77% (95% CI, 72–81%), and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.83 (95% CI, 0.80–0.86). Anatomical position demonstrated a pooled sensitivity of 74% (95% CI, 61–84%), specificity of 86% (95% CI, 78–91%), and an AUROC of 0.87 (95% CI, 0.84–0.90). Oral space demonstrated a pooled sensitivity of 53% (95% CI, 0.36–0.69), specificity of 77% (95% CI, 0.67–0.85), and an AUROC of 0.73 (95% CI, 0.69–0.77). CONCLUSIONS: Airway ultrasound metrics associate with difficult laryngoscopy in three domains: anterior tissue thickness, anatomic position, and oral space. An assessment instrument combining clinical and ultrasound assessments may be an accurate screening tool for difficult laryngoscopy.
Symptom Perception in Pathological Illness Anxiety: Tactile Sensitivity and Bias

ABSTRACT Objective Symptom perception in pathological illness anxiety (PIA) might be biased so that somatic signals are overreported. In the somatic signal detection task (SSDT), performance in detecting weak tactile stimuli gives information on overreporting or underreporting of stimuli. This task has not yet been applied in PIA. Methods Participants with PIA (n = 44) and healthy controls (n = 40) underwent two versions of the SSDT in randomized order. In the original version, tactile and auxiliary light-emitting diode (LED) stimuli were each presented in half of the trials. In the adapted version, illness or neutral words were presented alongside tactile stimuli. Participants also conducted a heartbeat mental tracking task. Results We found significantly higher sensitivity and a more liberal response bias in LED versus no-LED trials, but no significant differences between word types. An interaction effect showed a more pronounced increase of sensitivity from no LED to LED trials in participants with PIA when compared with the adapted SSDT and control group (F(1,76) = 5.34, p = . 024, η2 = 0.066). Heartbeat perception scores did not differ between groups (BF01 of 3.63). Conclusions The increase in sensitivity from no LED to LED trials in participants with PIA suggests stronger multisensory integration. Low sensitivity in the adapted SSDT indicates that attentional resources were exhausted by processing word stimuli. Word effects on response bias might have carried over to the original SSDT when the word version was presented first, compromising group effects regarding bias. Trial Registration The study was preregistered on OSF (https://osf.io/sna5v/).
Phase II Trial of Concurrent Atezolizumab With Chemoradiation for Unresectable NSCLC

Introduction: Consolidation durvalumab after chemoradiation (CRT) is the current standard of care for locally advanced NSCLC. We hypothesized that adding immunotherapy concurrently with CRT (cCRT) would increase ef- ﬁ cacy without additive toxicity. Methods: This phase II study was conducted in two parts. Part 1 (n ¼ 10) involved administration of conventionally fractionated CRT followed by consolidation chemotherapy (atezolizumab [two cycles] and maintenance atezolizumab up to 1 y). Part 2 (n ¼ 30) involved administration of cCRT
Know what it does not know

Offline reinforcement learning, or learning from a fixed data set, is an attractive alternative to online reinforcement learning. Offline reinforcement learning promises to address the cost and safety implications of taking numerous random or bad actions online, which is a crucial aspect of traditional reinforcement learning that makes it difficult to apply in real-world problems. However, when offline reinforcement learning is naïvely applied to a fixed data set, the resulting policy may exhibit poor performance in the real environment. This happens due to over-estimations of the expected return for state-action pairs not sufficiently covered in the data set. Therefore, offline reinforcement learning agents must know what they do not know, allowing them to avoid these over-estimated state-action pairs and their potentially erroneous outcomes. A promising way to instill offline reinforcement learning agents with this ability is the pessimism principle, which states that agents should select actions that maximize an uncertainty-based lower bound of the expected return. This pessimism principle has drastically improved the performance of offline reinforcement learning methods in the tabular and linear function approximation domain. However, in deep reinforcement learning, uncertainty estimation is highly non-trivial, and the development of effective uncertainty-based pessimistic algorithms remains an open question. That is why in this thesis, we explore various existing deep learning-based uncertainty estimation techniques with the aim to combine them with existing deep reinforcement learning methods to create an uncertainty-aware offline deep reinforcement learning algorithm. This research has resulted in two novel offline deep reinforcement learning methods built on Double Deep Q-Learning and Soft Actor-Critic. We applied these methods to various benchmarks and experiments to demonstrate their interesting and unique properties. In some situations, they even beat the current state-of-the-art results of these benchmarks.
Yeast cell wall supplementation modulates pre-weaning stress in male Nili Ravi buffalo calves

The effects of yeast cell wall (YCW) supplementation on growth performance, cell-mediated immune response, blood metabolites, and health scores in early-weaned male buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) calves were evaluated. Forty Nili Ravi buffalo calves were randomly divided into four groups and supplemented with four dietary treatments, namely control (animals without prebiotics), YCW-2 (yeast cell wall fed at 2 g/calf/day), YCW-4 (yeast cell wall fed at 4 g/calf/day), and cMOS-4 (commercial mannan-oligosaccharide fed at 4 g/calf/day). Milk intake, dry matter intake (DMI), and health scores were recorded daily, whereas body weight (body weight) and structural developments (hip height, wither height, heart girth, and body length) were recorded weekly. Feed efficiency and average daily gain (ADG) were calculated at the end of the experiment. Blood samples were collected fortnightly to determine glucose, non-esterified fatty acids, beta-hydroxybutyric acid (βHBA), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), catalase, malondialdehyde, creatinine, hepatic enzymes, cholesterol, triglycerides, and total serum protein profile. The cell-mediated immune response was determined by the application of dinitrochlorobenzene directly to the skin. The results of the study revealed that supplementation of YCW and cMOS increased DMI, body weight, feed efficiency, ADG, and structural growth in buffalo calves, whereas faecal scores were significantly improved in supplemented groups compared to the control. Glucose, BUN, and βHBA improved in supplemented animals more than in the control group, indicating bioactivity that contributed to the improvement of gut health. Supplementation with YCW improved the growth performance, physiological responses, and gut health of early-weaned male buffalo calves.
The Thermoelectric Properties of Spongy PEDOT Films and 3D-Nanonetworks by Electropolymerization

Recently, polymers have been attracted great attention because of their thermoelectric materials’ excellent mechanical properties, specifically their cost-effectiveness and scalability at the industrial level. In this study, the electropolymerization conditions (applied potential and deposition time) of PEDOT films were investigated to improve their thermoelectric properties. The morphology and Raman spectroscopy of the PEDOT films were analyzed according to their applied potential and deposition time. The best thermoelectric properties were found in films grown at 1.3 V for 10 min, with an electrical conductivity of 158 ± 8 S/cm, a Seebeck coefficient of 33 ± 1 µV/K, and a power factor of 17 ± 2 µW/K·m2. This power factor value is three times higher than the value reported in the literature for electropolymerized PEDOT films in acetonitrile using lithium perchlorate as a counter-ion. The thermal conductivity was found to be (1.3 ± 0.3) × 10−1 W/m·K. The highest figure of merit obtained at room temperature was (3.9 ± 1.0) × 10−2 using lithium perchlorate as a counter-ion. In addition, three-dimensional (3D) PEDOT nanonetworks were electropolymerized inside 3D anodic aluminum oxide (3D AAO), obtaining lower values in their thermoelectric properties.
The Influence of Seasons on the Composition of Microbial Communities and the Content of Lactic Acid during the Fermentation of Fen-Flavor Baijiu

During the fermentation of Fen-flavor Baijiu, the number of lactic acid bacteria is high in summer, resulting in excessive lactic acid and an unpleasant astringent taste. Thus, it is necessary to identify the critical influence factors for the formation of lactic acid and the composition of the microbial community in the fermented grains during the brewing process of Fen-flavor Baijiu in cold and hot seasons using HPLC and high-throughput sequencing technology. The results suggest that Lactobacillus acetotolerans is the key microorganism causing different contents of lactic acid in fermented grains and that Lactobacillus plantarum is a favorable factor for acid production in the fermentation process during hot seasons. Twelve lactic-acid-producing strains were isolated from the fermented grains at the latter stage of fermentation, and the analysis of these strains showed that the Lactobacillus plantarum LP strain has the strongest capacity for lactic acid production and the Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus LR strain has the strongest capacity for acid production, respectively. In addition, the Lentilactobacillus hilgardii LH strain has the characteristics of both acid and alcohol resistance. The results obtained from this study provide a reference for reducing the content of lactic acid in summer and have potential value for further improving the quality of Fen-flavor Baijiu.
Recent Investigations in Air Chemistry

1. New results of chemical analyses of natural aerosol particles in Florida and in the Boston area are presented. 2. These data are compared with the results obtained earlier at various other locations. The continental and maritime components of NH 4 , Na, Cl, SO 4 , and NO 3 can be separated for two different size ranges, viz. large particles (radius 0.08 μ to 0.8 μ) and giant particles (radius 0.8 μ to 8 μ). It is found that the continental influence on aerosols extends far into the ocean. 3. The nitrate content of the particles presents an especially interesting problem, since it appears that the major part of NO 3 stems neither from a continental nor from a maritime source, but from a certain area along the coast. 4. A comparison is made of the total amounts of material found in the large and the giant particles of the various locations. Information gained from this comparison provides the basis for conclusions regarding the size distribution of aerosols. A pronounced difference between maritime and continental distributions becomes evident in this case. 5. The concentration of the corresponding gas traces of NH 3 , SO 2 , nitrogen oxides and chlorine components were measured in Florida and at other locations simultaneously with the chemical analysis of the aerosols. For most components the concentration of these gas traces is considerably higher than that for the corresponding substances in the aerosols. The importance of these findings for air chemistry is discussed. DOI: 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1956. tb01205.x
Mathematical theory of freezing for flow in porous media

It is shown that the problem of determining the equilibrium shape of bodies formed by freezing of flow in porous medium can be reduced to the Riemann problem with displacement. A solitary body and linear array of bodies are used as examples. Algorithms for determining its boundary is constructed and realized. All results are presented in the graphic form and they correspond to wide diapason of physical parameters.
X-ray attenuation measurements in a cavitating mixing layer for instantaneous two-dimensional void ratio determination

The purpose of this experimental study was to analyze a two-dimensional cavitating shear layer. The global aim of this work was to obtain a better understanding and modeling of cavitation phenomenon in a 2D turbulent sheared flow which can be considered as quite representative of cavitating rocket engine turbopomp inducers. This 2D mixing layer flow provided us a well documented test case which can be used for the characterization of the cavitation effects in sheared flows. The development of a velocity gradient was observed inside a liquid water flow: Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities developed at the interface. Vaporizations and implosions of cavitating structures inside the vortices were observed. X-ray attenuation measurements were performed to estimate the amount of vapor present inside the mixing area. Instantaneous two-dimensional void ratio fields were acquired. The real spatial resolutions are 0.5 mm with 2000 fps and 1.5 mm with 20 000 fps. The effective time resolution is equal to the camera frame rate up to a 19% void ratio variation between two consecutive images. This seems to be sufficient in the context of the present flow configuration. The two-phase structures present inside the mixing area were analyzed at three different cavitation levels and their behaviors were compared to non-cavitating flow dynamic. Convection velocities and vortices shedding frequencies were estimated. Results show that vapor was transported by the turbulent velocity field. Statistical analysis of the void ratio signal was carried out up to the fourth order moment. This study provided a global understanding of the cavitating structure evolution and of the cavitation effects on turbulent sheared flows.
A unified 3D‐based technique for plate bending analysis using scaled boundary finite element method

This paper presents a unified technique for solving the plate bending problems by extending the scaled boundary finite element method. The formulation is based on the three‐dimensional governing equation without enforcing the kinematics of plate theory. Only the in‐plane dimensions are discretised into finite elements. Any two‐dimensional displacement‐based elements can be employed. The solution along the thickness is expressed analytically by using a matrix function. The proposed technique is consistent with the three‐dimensional theory and applicable to both thick and thin plates without exhibiting the numerical locking phenomenon. Moreover, the use of higher order spectral elements allows the proposed technique to better represent curved boundaries and to achieve high accuracy and fast convergence. Numerical examples of various plate structures with different thickness‐to‐length ratios demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of the proposed technique. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Three-dimensional Plasmoid Evolution in the Solar Atmosphere

We present clear evidence of the formation of three-dimensional (3D) plasmoids in the current sheet between two magnetic flux systems in a 3D numerical experiment of flux emergence into the solar atmosphere and study their properties and time evolution. Plasmoids are most likely the result of resistive tearing mode instabilities. They adopt the shape of a solenoid contained within the current sheet: the solenoid is tightly wound when the field in the two flux systems is close to antiparallel. The plasmoids are expelled to the sides of the sheet as a result of a reconnection imbalance between the two x-lines on their sides. We show the complex, 3D field line geometry in various plasmoids: individual plasmoid field lines have external linkages to the flux system on either side of the current sheet; we also find field lines that go through a few plasmoids in succession, probably indicating that the field line has resulted from multiple reconnection events.
Hail Swaths Observed from Satellite Data and Their Relation to Radar and Surface-Based Observations: A Case Study from Iowa in 2009

AbstractSeveral storms produced extensive hail damage over Iowa on 9 August 2009. The hail associated with these supercells was observed with radar data, reported by surface observers, and the resulting hail swaths were identified within satellite data. This study includes an initial assessment of cross validation of several radar-derived products and surface observations with satellite data for this storm event. Satellite-derived vegetation index data appear to be a useful product for cross validation of surface-based reports and radar-derived products associated with severe hail damage events. Satellite imagery acquired after the storm event indicated that decreased vegetation index values corresponded to locations of surface reported damage. The areal extent of decreased vegetation index values also corresponded to the spatial extent of the storms as characterized by analysis of radar data. While additional analyses are required and encouraged, these initial results suggest that satellite data of veget.
The inverse problem of emission tomography

The image reconstruction process in emission computed tomography (ECT) is an inverse problem for the photon transport equation. For monochromatic emission sources it is closely related to the inversion of the attenuated Radon transform, a nonlinear ill posed inverse problem. Due to its practical importance for medical diagnostics, this problem has been addressed various times. Here we present the theoretical setting of ECT and discuss some new numerical strategies based on regularization techniques. We include experiments to compare some of the numerical approaches.
The Condensation of Ammonia-Water Mixtures in a Horizontal Shell and Tube Condenser

The heat transfer rates that develop when ammonia water mixtures condense within a small, un-vented, horizontal, shell and tube condenser are examined. The vapor flow within the condenser was constrained by baffles and the condensate created formed a pool that flowed along the base of the condenser. During the test program the inlet ammonia vapor concentration to the condenser varied from 0 to 10 wt % and the maximum local vapor concentration measured was 26 wt %
A Coupled Model Study on the Formation and Dissipation of Sea Fogs

Abstract This study examined the impact of air–sea coupling using a coupled atmosphere–ocean modeling system consisting of the Coupled Ocean–Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System as the atmospheric component and the Regional Ocean Modeling System as the oceanic component. Numerical experiments for advection and steam fog events were carried out to clarify the modulation of the formation and dissipation of sea fogs by the air–sea temperature difference (air temperature minus sea surface temperature) and the atmospheric stability. The coupled simulation showed that advection fog is obviously controlled by low-level atmospheric stability and downward latent heat flux with oceanic cooling through air–sea coupling. In particular, air–sea coupling stabilizes the low-level atmosphere at the dissipation stage, and then suppresses vertical mixing, which retards the dissipation of advection fog. In the case of a steam fog event, the upward turbulent heat fluxes are increased significantly from the formation time t.
Holt–Winters Forecasting: An Alternative Formulation Applied to UK Air Passenger Data

Abstract This paper provides a formulation for the additive Holt–Winters forecasting procedure that simplifies both obtaining maximum likelihood estimates of all unknowns, smoothing parameters and initial conditions, and the computation of point forecasts and reliable predictive intervals. The stochastic component of the model is introduced by means of additive, uncorrelated, homoscedastic and Normal errors, and then the joint distribution of the data vector, a multivariate Normal distribution, is obtained. In the case where a data transformation was used to improve the fit of the model, cumulative forecasts are obtained here using a Monte-Carlo approximation. This paper describes the method by applying it to the series of monthly total UK air passengers collected by the Civil Aviation Authority, a long time series from 1949 to the present day, and compares the resulting forecasts with those obtained in previous studies.
Magnetospheric Plasma Drifts During a Sudden Impulse

An interplanetary shock front (monitored by the ISEE 1/2 satellite pair) hit the earth's magnetosphere on October 17, 1978, around 0430 UT. The changes in magnetospheric plasma drift and magnetic field associated with this sudden impulse (SI) were measured by GEOS 2 in the equatorial plane near the dawn meridian. After the SI the plasma drift first increased (in an inward direction), followed by an exponential decay. The magnetic field changes were purely compressional with an amplitude increase which also exponentially decayed. These features can be explained by adiabatic (quasi-static) compression of the magnetopause due to the increased solar wind pressure behind the shock front. In addition, both data sets exhibit also the excitation of a highly damped compressional hydromagnetic oscillation by the SI, thus hinting of a second, wavelike component in the compression of the magnetosphere.
Effects of propagation on the return stroke radiation fields

It is shown that a simple mathematical model could be used to predict the propagation effects on the radiation fields to a high accuracy under most of the cases of interest. Propagation effects on a large collection of radiation fields from first return strokes measured over seawater are studied by using this mathematical model. The theoretical results are compared with the available experimental data and a good agreement is found between them. One important conclusion of the study is that the localization of the lightning return strokes by the time of arrival method could be greatly improved, under low conducting ground conditions, by selecting one of the following as reference points in the time measurement: (1) a point in the initial rising part of the radiation field whose amplitude is less than about 50% of the initial peak or (2) the peak of the first or the second derivative of the radiation field.
Structure of chemically derived mono- and few-atomic-layer boron nitride sheets

We prepared mono- and few-layer hexagonal boron nitride sheets by a chemical-solution-derived method starting from single-crystalline hexagonal boron nitride. Using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron-energy-loss spectrometry, we characterized the microstructure, composition, and near-edge fine structure of the boron nitride sheets. We conclude that the fringe contrast in the edge and the moire patterns are feasible criteria for determining the number of layers and their stacking orientation in the sheets. These criteria are also useful for other mono- and few-layer materials, such as graphene sheets.