Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy of access flap procedures compared to subgingival debridement in the treatment of periodontitis. A systematic review and meta-analysis.

AIM This systematic review aimed to answer the following focused questions: 1) "In patients with periodontitis, how effective are access flaps (AFs) as compared to subgingival debridement in attaining probing depth (PD) reduction? "; 2) "In patients with periodontitis, does the type of AF impact PD reduction? ". MATERIAL AND METHODS Randomized clinical trials were searched in three databases. Besides PD, information concerning clinical attachment level (CAL) and other relevant outcomes was also collected. Meta-analyses were performed whenever possible and results were categorized based on the initial PD. RESULTS Thirty-six publications were included. AFs resulted in a significantly greater PD reduction in deep pockets (>6 mm or ≥ 6 mm), as compared to subgingival debridement, in short- [n = 4; weighted mean difference (WMD)=0.67 mm; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.37,0.97; p < . 001] and long-term studies (n = 4; WMD = 0.39 mm; 95% CI 0.09,0.70; p = .012), while in moderately deep pockets (4-6 mm, 5-6 mm or 4-5 mm) only in short-term studies (n = 4; WMD = 0.34; 95% CI 0.21,0.46; p < .001). In shallow pockets (1-3 mm or 1-4 mm), AFs led to greater CAL (n = 7; WMD=-0.43 mm; 95% CI -0.56,-0.28; p < .001). There was not enough evidence to answer question PICO 2. CONCLUSIONS AFs resulted in greater PD reduction in the treatment of deep and moderate pockets.
Nonlinear optical susceptibilities of layered composite materials

We present a theoretical description of composite nonlinear optical materials having the form of a layered structure of two or more components that differ both in their linear and nonlinear optical properties. We assume that the thickness of each layer is much smaller than an optical wavelength. We present explicit predictions for the second-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities describing second-harmonic generation and the Pockels effect and for the third-order susceptibility describing the nonlinear index of refraction. We find that under experimentally realizable conditions the nonlinear susceptibility of such a composite can exceed those of its constituent materials.
Breeding and nest site characteristics of the Black-casqued Hornbill Ceratogymna atrata and White-thighed Hornbill Ceratogymna cylindricus in south-central Cameroon

The reproductive biology of two species of African hornbill, the Black-casqued Hornbill, Ceratogymna atrata, and the Whitethighed Hornbill, Ceratogymna cylindricus, was investigated over a four-year period (1994–1997) on a 25km 2 site in lowland rainforest in south-central Cameroon. Nesting attempts varied considerably among years, with the percentage of successful nests highest in 1995, with 64% and 54% of Black-casqued and White-thighed Hornbill fledging offspring, respectively. There were no nesting attempts in 1994, despite the fact that hornbills were present in the study area. Large differences in fruit availability were also noted across years, suggesting that reproductive activity and success are related to fruit availability. Data collected from 38 nests, over four breeding seasons (1994–1997), showed a preference for nest cavities in larger trees within areas of the forest containing larger trees. Hornbills did not show preferences for particular tree species, with the possible exception of Petersianthus macrocarpus, in which nine of the active nest cavities were found. Comparisons showed few significant differences in cavity characteristics between the two species . While cavities may have been a limiting factor in nesting in 1995, the year with the highest fruit availability, cavities were not limiting during other years when fruit availability was lower. Hornbill diets, as determined from seed traps at cavities, showed significant year-to-year variation. Although courtship and exploratory behaviour of cavities by pairs took place in most years, females did not wall themselves into cavities unless fruit was plentiful. Hornbills appear to time reproduction to coincide with peak food supply and successfully reproduce only when food is plentiful, and may curtail or forego nesting in years when fruit availability is low.
Clinical Application of Circulating MicroRNAs in Parkinson's Disease: The Challenges and Opportunities as Diagnostic Biomarker

Discovery of evolutionarily conserved, nonprotein-coding, endogenous microRNAs has induced a paradigm shift in the overall understanding of gene regulation. Now, microRNAs are considered and classified as master regulators of gene expression as they regulate a wide range of processes – gene regulation, splicing, translation and posttranscriptional modifications. Besides, dysregulated microRNAs have been related to many diseases, including Parkinson's and related disorders. Several studies proposed that differentially expressed microRNAs as a potential biomarker. So far, there is no accepted clinical diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease based on biochemical analysis of biological fluids. However, circulating microRNAs possess many vital features typical of reliable biomarkers and discriminates Parkinson's patients from healthy control with much higher sensitivity and specificity. Though they show tremendous promise as a putative biomarker, translating these research findings to clinical application is often met with many obstacles. Most of the candidate microRNAs reported as a diagnostic biomarker is not organ-specific, and their overlap is low between studies. Therefore this review aimed to highlight the challenges in the application of microRNA in guiding disease discrimination decisions and its future prospects as a diagnostic biomarker in Parkinson's Disease.
Models of care across the continuum of exacerbations for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are associated with significant morbidity and mortality, and treatments require a multidisciplinary approach to address patient needs. This review considers different models of care across the continuum of exacerbations (1) chronic care and self-management interventions with the action plan, (2) domiciliary care for severe exacerbation and the impact on readmission prevention and (3) the discharge care bundle for management beyond the acute exacerbation episode. Self-management strategies include written action plans and coaching with patient and family support. Self-management interventions facilitate the delivery of good care, can reduce exacerbations associated with admission, be cost-effective and improve quality of life. Hospitalization as a complication of exacerbation is not always unavoidable. Domiciliary care has been proposed as a solution to replace part, and perhaps even all, of the patient’s in-hospital stay, and to reduce hospital bed days, readmission rates and costs; low-risk patients can be identified using risk stratification tools. A COPD discharge bundle is another potentially important approach that can be considered to improve the management of COPD exacerbations complicated by hospital admission; it comprised treatments that have demonstrated efficacy, such as smoking cessation, personalized pharmacotherapy and non-pharmacotherapy such as pulmonary rehabilitation. COPD bundles may also improve the transition of care from the hospital to the community following exacerbation and may reduce readmission rates. Future models of care should be personalized – providing patient education aiming at behaviour changes, identifying and treating co-morbidities, and including outcomes that measure quality of care rather than focusing only on readmission quantity within 30 days.
Design strategy of two-dimensional material field-effect transistors: Engineering the number of layers in phosphorene FETs

Thickness or the number of layers in 2D semiconductors is a key parameter to determine the material's electronic properties and the overall device performance of 2D material electronics. Here, we discuss the engineering practice of optimizing material and device parameters of phosphorene field-effect transistors (FETs) by means of self-consistent atomistic quantum transport simulations, where the impacts of different numbers of phosphorene layers on various device characteristics are explored in particular, considering two specific target applications of high-performance and low-power devices. Our results suggest that, for high-performance applications, monolayer phosphorene should be utilized in a conventional FET structure since it can provide the equally large on current as other multilayer phosphorenes (Ion > 1 mA/μm) without showing a penalty of relatively lower density of states, along with favorableness for steep switching and large immunity to gate-induced drain leakage. On the other hand, more co.
Maternal Selenium Deficiency in Mice Alters Offspring Glucose Metabolism and Thyroid Status in a Sexually Dimorphic Manner

Selenium is an essential micronutrient commonly deficient in human populations. Selenium deficiency increases the risks of pregnancy complications; however, the long-term impact of selenium deficiency on offspring disease remains unclear. This study investigates the effects of selenium deficiency during pregnancy on offspring metabolic function. Female C57BL/6 mice were allocated to control (>190 μg selenium/kg, n = 8) or low selenium (<50 μg selenium/kg, n = 8) diets prior to mating and throughout gestation. At postnatal day (PN) 170, mice underwent an intraperitoneal glucose tolerance test and were culled at PN180 for biochemical analysis. Mice exposed to selenium deficiency in utero had reduced fasting blood glucose but increased postprandial blood glucose concentrations. Male offspring from selenium-deficient litters had increased plasma insulin levels in conjunction with reduced plasma thyroxine (tetraiodothyronine or T4) concentrations. Conversely, females exposed to selenium deficiency in utero exhibited increased plasma thyroxine levels with no change in plasma insulin. This study demonstrates the importance of adequate selenium intake around pregnancy for offspring metabolic health. Given the increasing prevalence of metabolic disease, this study highlights the need for appropriate micronutrient intake during pregnancy to ensure a healthy start to life.
Research Method Decisions in a Supply Chain.

Profitability is a prime concern in all organizations. Operations management uses various tools and strategies to try and improve if not maximize profitability. Operations management, which encompasses supply chain management and logistics, deals with how well some function is performed. This research analyzes the specific strategy of production mix efficiency and what mediating effect it has on the relationship between operations management and financial profitability. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the relationship between the three constructs. This research found that operations management alone does not have a positive impact on profitability. However, the strategy of production mix efficiency has a positive mediating effect on profit, which provides a potential answer to firms trying to increase profits through operations.
Low phase noise L‐band oscillators based on novel general Chebyshev bandpass filters

Oscillators act as signal sources for wireless communication systems, radars, wireless charging, and other industrial applications, whose phase noises directly determine system performance. In this paper, two low‐phase noise microwave oscillators based on novel microstrip second‐order band‐pass filters are presented. These filters are characterized by good frequency selectivity owing to two transmission zeros near to the passbands. As a result, relatively high group delay can be achieved at center frequencies, which is vital to the phase noise performance of the oscillators to be designed. Simultaneously, the bandwidths can be made narrow enough so that actual oscillating frequency is very close to the designed one. In addition, the introduction of stepped impedance makes these filters capable of harmonic suppression, which efficiently suppresses the harmonics in the output such as the second harmonic. These filters are compact and also of easy design. Finally, two microwave oscillators at 2.0 GHz are designed on these microstrip filters. As the measured results show, their output frequencies are 2.002 GHz. The phase noises are −127.21 and −127.03 dBc/Hz@100 kHz, respectively. The second harmonic suppressions are as great as 30.45 and 39.21 dBc, respectively.
Dietary ginger improve growth performance, blood parameters, antioxidant capacity and gene expression in Cyprinus carpio

The present study evaluates the effect of dietary ginger (Zingiber officinale) on growth performance, haematological parameters, antioxidant status of Common carp (Cyprinus carpio). Fish with initial weight of 14±1.95 g were allocated into twelve tanks at density of 18 fish per tank.Fish were fed four experimental diets containing 0 (as control diet), 0.5, 2 and 5% ginger powder for 56 days. After 56 days of culture, fish fed 2 and 5% ginger diets showed significantly increase final weight, weight gain, specific growth rate (SGR) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) (p<0.05) compared to the control diet. Significantly higher the number of leucocytes (WBC), erythrocytes (RBC), Haematocrit, lymphocyte, monocyte and neutroplil levels were found in the fish fed 2 and 5% ginger diets compared to the control diet. Superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and Glutathione peroxidase (GPX) enzyme activities and Malondialdehyde (MDA) level were significantly higher in the groups fed 2 and 5% ginger diets (p<0.05). SOD, CAT and GPX mRNA expression levels of fish fed 2 and 5% ginger diets were significantly down-regulated compared to the control diet (p<0.05). The results suggested that dietary ginger can be improve growth performance, health status and antioxidant capacity of Common carp
An Affordable Fast Early Warning System for Edge Computing in Assembly Line

Maintaining product quality is essential for smart factories, hence detecting abnormal events in assembly line is important for timely decision-making. This study proposes an affordable fast early warning system based on edge computing to detect abnormal events during assembly line. The proposed model obtains environmental data from various sensors including gyroscopes, accelerometers, temperature, humidity, ambient light, and air quality. The fault model is installed close to the facilities, so abnormal events can be timely detected. Several performance evaluations are conducted to obtain the optimal scenario for utilizing edge devices to improve data processing and analysis speed, and the final proposed model provides the highest accuracy in terms of detecting abnormal events compared to other classification models. The proposed model was tested over four months of operation in a Korean automobile parts factory, and provided significant benefits from monitoring assembly line, as well as classifying abnormal events. The model helped improve decision-making by reducing or preventing unexpected losses due to abnormal events.
Income Tax and the Motivation to Work

Does income tax influence the motivation to work? We propose that the degree of effort exertion in the presence of income tax depends on people's attitudes toward two key components of taxation: redistribution and government intervention. For people favorable toward both, working while taxed is aligned with personal identity and may actually enhance motivation. All others, however, may find taxes demotivating. In two incentive-compatible labor experiments, framing wages as subject to an income tax significantly increased productivity among people chronically favorable toward both redistribution and government intervention. For everyone else, taxes did not reliably influence productivity. An objectively equivalent intervention that did not redistribute a portion of participants' wages (framed as a wage “match” rather than a “tax”) did not motivate anyone to work harder. Our findings suggest that the net effect of income tax on productivity partly depends on the distribution of attitudes toward redistribution and government intervention.
Spatial Distributive Differences in Residents’ Perceptions of Tourism Impacts in Support for Sustainable Tourism Development—Lu-Kang Destination Case

Few empirical studies on the effect of tourism impacts on residents’ support for tourism development have linked an environmental justice perspective with sustainable tourism. This study aims to explore spatial distributive differences in residents’ perceptions of tourism impacts to understand their support for sustainable tourism development. A total of 1057 residents of the Lu-Kang destination in Taiwan were surveyed using an on-site questionnaire. Employing the kernel density method and the local K function for spatial point analysis, the results indicated that spatial clustering of residents’ perceptions of both positive and negative tourism impacts occurred in the specific locations. Further, high household income, high education, and more personal benefits from tourism promoted the formation of localized spatial clusters where residents had positive perceptions of tourism impacts which, in turn, led to a high level of support for tourism development. Conversely, low income, low education, and less personal benefits from tourism cultivated the development of spatial clusters with negative perceptions of tourism impacts which, in turn, caused a low level of support for tourism development. The implications for sustainable tourism planning and strategies are discussed.
18.S997: High Dimensional Statistics

Preface These lecture notes were written for the course 18.S997: High Dimensional Statistics at MIT. They build on a set of notes that was prepared at Princeton University in 2013-14. Over the past decade, statistics have undergone drastic changes with the development of high-dimensional statistical inference. Indeed, on each individual , more and more features are measured to a point that it usually far exceeds the number of observations. This is the case in biology and specifically genetics where millions of (or combinations of) genes are measured for a single individual. High resolution imaging, finance, online advertising, climate studies . the list of intensive data producing fields is too long to be established exhaustively. Clearly not all measured features are relevant for a given task and most of them are simply noise. But which ones? What can be done with so little data and so much noise? Surprisingly, the situation is not that bad and on some simple models we can assess to which extent meaningful statistical methods can be applied. Regression is one such simple model. Regression analysis can be traced back to 1632 when Galileo Galilei used a procedure to infer a linear relationship from noisy data. It was not until the early 19th century that Gauss and Legendre developed a systematic procedure: the least-squares method. Since then, regression has been studied in so many forms that much insight has been gained and recent advances on high-dimensional statistics would not have been possible without standing on the shoulders of giants. In these notes, we will explore one, obviously subjective giant whose shoulders high-dimensional statistics stand: nonparametric statistics. The works of Ibragimov and Has'minskii in the seventies followed by many researchers from the Russian school have contributed to developing a large toolkit to understand regression with an infinite number of parameters. Much insight from this work can be gained to understand high-dimensional or sparse regression and it comes as no surprise that Donoho and Johnstone have made the first contributions on this topic in the early nineties. Therefore, while not obviously connected to high dimensional statistics, we will talk about nonparametric estimation. I borrowed this disclaimer (and the template) from my colleague Ramon van Handel. It does apply here. I have no illusions about the state of these notes—they were written rather quickly, sometimes at the rate of a chapter a week. I have i Preface ii no …
INITIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF MAJOR HISTOCOMPATIBILITY COMPLEX ( MHC ) CLASS IIB EXON 2 IN AN ENDANGERED RATTLESNAKE , THE EASTERN MASSASAUGA ( SISTRURUS CATENATUS )

Genes of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) play an important role in the vertebrate immune system and exhibit remarkably high levels of polymorphism, maintained by strong balancing selection. While the conservation implications of MHC variation have been explored in a variety of vertebrates, non-avian reptiles (most notably snakes) have received less attention. To address this gap and take the first steps toward more extensive population-level analyses, we cloned and sequenced MHC IIB exon 2 in an endangered rattlesnake, the Eastern Massasauga (Sistrurus catenatus). Based on three individuals, we found evidence of at least four putatively functional loci. These sequences exhibited relatively high levels of variation and significantly higher rates of nonsynonymous to synonymous substitutions, especially within the antigen-binding sites, indicating strong positive selection. Phylogenetic analysis revealed a pattern of trans-species polymorphism, also suggesting positive selection. These results contribute to our understanding of MHC variation in non-avian reptiles and form a basis for more studies of MHC variation in snakes of conservation concern.
The non-coding side of cardiac differentiation and regeneration.

Large scale projects such as FANTOM and ENCODE, led to a revolution in our comprehension of the mammalian transcriptomes by revealing that ~53% of the produced RNAs do not encode for proteins. These transcripts, defined as noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), constitute a heterogeneous group of molecules which can be categorized in two main classes, namely small and long, according to their length. In animals, the first class includes Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs). Among them, the best characterized subgroup is represented by miRNAs, which are known to regulate gene expression largely at the post-transcriptional level. In contrast, long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) represent a more heterogeneous group of > 200 nucleotides long transcripts, that act through a variety of mechanisms at both transcriptional and post-transcriptional level. Here we discuss how miRNAs and lncRNAs are emerging as pivotal regulators of cardiac muscle development and how the alteration of ncRNA expression was seen to disturb the physiology of all the different cell types forming the cardiac tissue. Particular emphasis is given to those species that are expressed and are known to regulate the capacity of cardiac progenitor cells (CPCs), currently used in regenerative medicine protocols, to proliferate and differentiate. Understanding how the ncRNA-mediated circuitries regulate heart homeostasis is one of the research areas expected to have a high impact, improving the therapeutic efficacy of stem/progenitor-cells treatments for translation into clinical applications.
Pivmecillinam Treatment of Community-Acquired Uncomplicated Pyelonephritis Based on Sparse Data

Background: Pivmecillinam has good pharmacokinetic properties for treatment of infections in the urinary tract, and the mecillinam resistance rate in Enterobacteriaceae is very low. In a European guideline pivmecillinam is recommended as a first-line drug for treatment of lower urinary tract infections. In Danish and Norwegian guidelines pivmecillinam is also recommended for acute uncomplicated pyelonephritis, although with very sparse documentation of effect.