Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Computation of steered nonlinear fields using offset KZK axes

Introduction/Background: Commercial medical scanners utilise electronic beam steering and the second harmonic signals generated by tissue nonlinear processes to form images at the second harmonic frequency. Furthermore, characteristics of nonlinearly generated harmonics within the beam itself contribute to improvements in lateral resolution and quality of the reconstructed image. Fully understanding these harmonic features offers new possibilities for redesigning or optimising array transducers to attain better imaging performances, as well as in other areas such as contrast agent responses and microbubble destruction strategies for drug delivery. However, such an understanding is hindered at present by the computational difficulty in accurately predicting all the nonlinear characteristics of steered beams. This paper addresses this issue, presenting a KZK based method for analysing beams steered at arbitrary angles. Method: The parabolic KZK equation is often used to study nonlinear characteristics of medical ultrasound beams. This equation is traditionally applied in a propagation direction perpendicular to the surface of the transducer, and has been shown to model the pulse propagation well along the central axis of the transducer [1]. However, its accurate angle of application is restricted to within approximately only 16 degrees away from the central transducer axis due to the underlying approximations employed in the derivation of the KZK equation. This restriction causes a problem for studying steered beams, since typical steering ranges up to the order of 45 degrees away from the transducer centreline. To overcome this problem whilst at the same time exploiting the traditional KZK benefits, we develop an iterative method for displacing the KZK axes away from the central transducer axis to investigate arbitrary beam or field angles of interest. Results/Conclusions: The implemented algorithm is based on a time domain solution of the KZK equation, on a standard 3GHz PC with 2GB RAM producing runtimes in the order of a few hours per investigation angle. The transducer used is a 64 element linear phased array operating at 1.7MHz (height 10.5 mm, width 0.27mm, kerf 0.065mm) with beam steering at 0 and 45 degrees. Validation of the basic KZK algorithm without steering has been given previously at linear pressures (54kPa) against both experimental measurements and Field II and at nonlinear pressures (700kPa) against measurements described previously in [1]. The KZK axes are swept over a range of angles covering the full spectrum 499 of -90 to +90 degrees relative to transducer centreline, in order to investigate the entire emitted field for both steered and unsteered beams. Element pitch is then increased to investigate grating lobes. All results are decomposed into first and second harmonic fields to compare relative frequency domain properties. The overall contribution is a better characterisation of linear and nonlinear field characteristics at high angles than is possible with the traditional KZK approach.
Increasing the access and participation of minority and low SES students in an advanced placement program: a case study of one urban school.

The purpose of this case study was to identify the effects of the organizational changes in one urban high school leading to a transformation in the school’s Advanced Placement program, ultimately increasing the access and success for minority and low socioeconomic status students (SES). The Burke-Litwin Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change guided the design of this study and provided a lens to analyze both the complex transformational and transactional dimensions of organizational change that took place in one urban public high school, relative to Advanced Placement program access and outcomes for minority and low SES students. Three research questions guided the case study. (1) How did a large Connecticut public high school dramatically increase minority and low socioeconomic status students’ access and participation in Advanced Placement courses? (2) How did leadership at both the district and school level contribute to the success of the change? (3) How were strategies implemented and resources used to support minority and low socioeconomic status students in the program? A single site case study approach was used to produce descriptive information which highlighted the dynamics of organizational change that occurred at the district, school, and teacher level. The findings reveal that despite political challenges, both district and school leaders adopted and communicated a new mission and vision of equity and access, and pursued outside resources to help spark a new era for all students at the school. Moreover, district and school leaders dismantled decades old structures & systems that rooted students in failure, particularly those from low SES and minority backgrounds. Further, school leaders, teachers and teacher leaders used encouragement and engaged students in incentivized support sessions outside of the normal school day. Although these resources were highly valued, they no longer exist, leaving students who lack foundational skills with few supports and mechanisms to be successful beyond
LEAN HEALTHCARE: AN APPLICATION OF TPM WITHIN NEPHROLOGY COMPANIES IN BRAZIL

The purpose of this paper is to present findings of how Lean Manufacturing was applied in Nephrology companies and its results. This research has an exploratory and descriptive character, a case study grounded by a literature review. The implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Brazilian Nephrology companies was conducted by content analysis of annual reports over two times periods, giving a detailed analysis of Lean’s status in Brazilian healthcare. The study applies different Lean tools implementation in nephrology companies, at the operational level. These approaches were implemented considering the patient as the final customer. The findings suggest that isolated implementations can be very useful to a company that is not acquainted with continuous improvement philosophy. The data analysis demonstrates how much an isolated lean manufacturing tool could be considerable. Data were collected using a SAP system, which contents all service requests by each company, according to the defect found in the hemodialysis system. This research is the first to demonstrate how Lean Manufacturing tools were implemented, and what were the results generated by these applications, also is the first Brazilian implementation in Nephrology companies.
Hyperuricemia does not seem to be an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease

Federica Braga and coworkers [1] stated recently that hyperuricemia shows to be an independent predictor of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk (RR CHD = 1.206 [1.066–1.364]; RR CHD death = 1.209 [1.003–1.457]), mainly for the results found in women. That message seems to be of great importance: if it is true, the treatment of hyperuricemia should be included in the landscape of the therapeutic strategies to reduce the coronary risk. To ascertain the methodologic validity and robustness of that work, we considered it as a critical appraisal of some methodological aspects. In our approach, (a) we evaluated the overall quality of that systematic review through the AMSTAR checklist [2]; (b) we recovered the nine studies selected by Braga and colleagues [1] in order to repeat the meta-analysis and quantified the heterogeneity through I2 statistic [3]; (c) we launched new subgroup and sensitivity and metaregression analyses in order to better explore the heterogeneity, considering the following as potential effect modifiers: gender, number of CHD covariates used in the adjustment models (i.e. age, BMI, total cholesterol or LDL-cholesterol or presence of dyslipidemia, blood pressure values or presence of hypertension, smoke, glucose values or presence of diabetes) and lack of nutritional information; (d) we estimated the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in single-trial samples using an Italian epidemiological research as reference sample [4]; (e) we investigated the quality of included trials and their risk of bias through the ACROBAT Cochrane checklist [5]; and (f) we used a generalized least-squares regression model to inspect some dose-response effect [6] both at trial level and with a doseresponse meta-analysis; the goodness of fit was explored with a χ2-test [7]. We restricted all our described analyses to the end point ‘CHD incidence’; their methodological details are available in the online Supplementary material.
Programming the Internet from the Server-Side with Tcl and Audience1

Although innovations on the World Wide Web are currently dominated by exciting client-side products (ie. Java, VRML, Netscape Plug-Ins, etc.), we believe that there is an equally rich server-side programming opportunity. In this paper, we argue that server-side programming will remain an important part of client-server Web applications. We then argue that server language(s) and client-side languages have very different requirements, and don't have to be the same language. As a running example, we present Audience1TM, an end-to-end publishing tool for the World Wide Web, which uses Tcl and MTtcl, a multi-threaded Tcl extension library. Currently, Audience1 is providing web service and mass customization features for the HotBot search engine (a joint venture between Inktomi and HotWired). HotBot can be found at http://www.hotbot. com.
Economic Efficiency Analysis of Rice Farming That Returns Straw Compared to Those That Do Not Return Straw to Rice Fields in Subang Regency, West Java, Indonesia

The potential of harvested rice straw in Subang Regency which is very large should not be burned, but used as compost to meet half of the needs of chemical fertilizers. Thus the efficiency of farmer farming can be increased due to the transition and reduction in the cost of purchasing inorganic fertilizers. The difference in attitude is caused by differences in farmers' perception of the technology of straw restoration. This study aims to describe find out whether there are differences in the level of technical, allocative and economic efficiency between farmer that returns straw to paddy fields and which does not return. Research was conducted on 228 sample farmers in the Binong Subdistrict, Pusakanegara, and Patokbeusi SubDistrict, West Java. The research design uses quantitative by using sample withdrawals multi stage cluster sampling. Data collection with interview techniques with questionnaire instruments. Data were analyzed using production functions stochastic frontier cobb douglas. The results of the analysis concluded the level of technical efficiency of farmers who return hay to rice fields by 93% and those who do not return 95%, the allocative efficiency level of farmers who return hay to paddy fields by 73% and those who do not return 59%, and the level of economic efficiency of farmers who return straw to rice fields by 67% and those that do not return by 56%. The level of allocative and economic efficiency of farmers who return straw to paddy fields is higher than those who do not.
Survivin, a cancer target with an emerging role in normal adult tissues

Survivin, an inhibitor of apoptosis protein, is highly expressed in most cancers and associated with chemotherapy resistance, increased tumor recurrence, and shorter patient survival, making antisurvivin therapy an attractive cancer treatment strategy. However, growing evidence indicates that survivin is expressed in normal adult cells, particularly primitive hematopoietic cells, T lymphocytes, polymorphonuclear neutrophils, and vascular endothelial cells, and may regulate their proliferation or survival. In preclinical animal models, targeted antisurvivin therapies show efficacy without overt toxicity. However, consequences of prolonged survivin disruption in normal cells, particularly those associated with continuous renewal, have not been clearly determined. Understanding the role of survivin in normal versus malignant cells will be important in identifying strategies that maximally disrupt survivin in cancer cells with minimal effect on normal tissues. In this review, we summarize the prognostic relevance of survivin in cancer that justifies the pursuit of antisurvivin therapies and discuss differences in survivin expression between normal and cancer cells. We subsequently review expression of survivin in normal adult tissues and evaluate preclinical antisurvivin therapies reported to date in light of emerging roles for survivin in normal physiology, particularly hematopoiesis, angiogenesis, and immune function. [Mol Cancer Ther 2006;5(5):1087–98]
Touching PBSData — An exploratory study of visual analytics for public bicycle system supporting multi-touch device

Public bicycle sharing services are becoming popular over the past decade. The behavior of using public bicycle system (PBS) produces numerous hire records involving citizens' movement. This paper presents a visual analytics system-Touching PBSData, to help both traffic administrators and ordinary citizens visually explore and understand PBS data on multi-touch devices. Tasks and design principles are put forward firstly. Four views are designed to show different aspects of the dataset, including the geographical distribution, the spatio-temporal pattern and personal relevant information. In order to enhance the flexibility and usability of system, the organization mode of views and rich user interaction suitable for multi-touch device are further studied. By adopting real PBS dataset, the results of case studies certify that our method is able to help analyzers to find stations' main function and citizens' travel habits. Moreover, the feedback from the participants with various backgrounds is very affirmative through the user study.
Relationship between Trough Plasma and Epithelial Lining Fluid Concentrations of Voriconazole in Lung Transplant Recipients

ABSTRACT Trough (predose) voriconazole concentrations in plasma and pulmonary epithelial lining fluid (ELF) of lung transplant recipients receiving oral voriconazole preemptive treatment were determined. The mean (± standard deviation [SD]) ELF/plasma ratio was 12.5 ± 6.3. A strong positive linear relationship was noted between trough plasma and ELF voriconazole concentrations (r2 = 0.87), suggesting the feasibility of using trough plasma voriconazole concentration as a surrogate to estimate the corresponding concentration in ELF of lung transplant recipients.
Electron Microscopy: Methods and Protocols

Professor John Kuo is an expert in the field of biological microscopy working at the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis at the University of Western Australia. Preparing the revised and expanded second edition of the book entitled " Electron Microscopy: Methods and Protocols " he invited 48, specialists in different topics of electron micro-scopy from all over the world to contribute to this volume. Thanks to the work of this professional group the readers have in their hands an excellent handbook providing description of the newest technologies in electron transmission microscopy (TEM) and scanning electron microscopy(SEM) with mass spec-trometry (MS), as well as the precise preparative procedures. The book is divided into 28 chapters describing particularly subjects, each with own Notes and References, and is very well illustrated with numerous photographs, line drawings and tables. The first part of the book guides through the TEM techniques, from conventional to the most recent and complicated ones. The readers can learn the preparation methods, from isolation, fixation and ultramicrotomy sectioning to staining of culture cells, animal and plant tissues and bacteria. One can find descriptions of cryospecimen preparation and cryoultramicrotomy, negative-staining and immuno-gold labeling procedures. Freezing can be applied to single cells, tissues and even to the whole organisms. Temperature down to –90 o C is shown to better protect the biological material from distortions observed sometimes in samples fixed conventionally. Cryoultramicrotomy procedure allows sectioning of thus vitrified biological samples which preserve their real structure at the moment of freezing. The negative staining technique is shown to be applicable to almost all isolated biochemical and biological samples and to solutions of synthetic polymers , while immunogold labeling, based on application of antibodies conjugated with gold particles, permits to detect, localize and quantify defined anti-gens in the cells. Especially interesting are chapters describing TEM crystallography and cryo-TEM tomography techniques useful for examination of membrane proteins , macromolecules, organelles and cells. Electron crystallography allows examination of the structure of two-dimensional crystals of membrane proteins The results of such investigations are especially important for cellular biology and for the development of new drugs. The three-dimensional reconstruction of biological structures becomes possible thanks to im-muno-electron and cryo-TEM tomography. The first uses immunogold-labeled structures to locate immu-nogold particles in the depth direction. The second one is useful for studying the three-dimensional ul-trastructure of the cells and inside organelles. The second part of the book gives information about …
Dual Jets from Binary Black Holes

When Black Holes Collide When galaxies merge, their central black holes interact, initially coming together in a binary system and eventually coalescing into one single black hole. The dynamics of orbiting binary black holes in vacuum is well understood; however, when black holes merge, their accretion disks are expected to combine into a circumbinary disk anchoring a magnetic field. Numerical simulations from Palenzuela et al. (p. 927; see the Perspective by Yunes) now show that when this surrounding environment is taken into account, the black holes effectively stir the plasma that surrounds them, generating collimated beams of electromagnetic radiation that then transition to a single jet as the black holes merge due to the emission of gravitational waves. Simulations show that merging black holes may produce a detectable electromagnetic signature. The coalescence of supermassive black holes—a natural outcome when galaxies merge—should produce gravitational waves and would likely be associated with energetic electromagnetic events. We have studied the coalescence of such binary black holes within an external magnetic field produced by the expected circumbinary disk surrounding them. Solving the Einstein equations to describe black holes interacting with surrounding plasma, we present numerical evidence for possible jets driven by these systems. Extending the process described by Blandford and Znajek for a single, spinning black hole, the picture that emerges suggests that the electromagnetic field extracts energy from the orbiting black holes, which ultimately merge and settle into the standard Blandford-Znajek scenario. Emissions along these jets could potentially be observable at large distances.
Patient and Provider Characteristics Associated With Optimal Post-Fracture Osteoporosis Management

Despite an estimated 2 million osteoporosis (OP)-related fractures annually, quality of care for post-fracture OP management remains low. This study aimed to identify patient and provider characteristics associated with achieving or not achieving optimal post-fracture OP management, as defined by the current HEDIS quality measure. The study included women 67 to 85 years of age, with ≥1 fracture, and continuous enrollment in a Humana insurance plan. The study identified a higher percentage of black women in the not achieved group (6.2% vs 5.4%; P < .0001) and Hispanic women in the achieved group (3.0% vs 1.3%; P < .0001). The not achieved group largely included patients residing in the South and urban and suburban areas. The majority of providers were primary care or OP-related specialty, and 66% did not achieve the 4-star OP rating. The study findings can guide development of predictive models to identify at-risk women to improve post-fracture OP management.
Predicting math test scores using K-Nearest Neighbor

It is hard to predict student test scores in Mathematics. By being able to predict test scores students that will struggle may be identified. These students could be given more attention. This research uses the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) algorithm to predict the categorization of Mathematics test scores. The KNN algorithm initiates with a training data set and a value for parameter K. When evaluating a test record it compares the Euclidean distance between the test record and each of the training records. It examines the K training records closest to the test record. KNN's predicted category is the most common category of these K records. The data used in this research comes from a dataset of 395 records of Portuguese students. Each student record contained 30 data elements about the student including gender, age, travel time to school, if they were dating and the number of days they were absent. Portuguese students are given 3 Mathematics tests that have a score ranging from 0 to 20. To categorize students this research averaged the 3 test scores and created 4 categories. Students scoring 0 to 5, 5 to 10, 10 to 15 and 15 to 20 were categorized as low, slightly below average, slightly above average and high respectively. Half of the records in the dataset were used as training records. The other half was used as test records. Values of K equal to 1 through 20 were evaluated. KNN did very well; it predicted the category correctly 48.78% of the time. The best value was when K = 8. The worst value was K = 1. This research can be helpful in identifying students that might need assistance. It can also be used in identifying students for advance classes and students to be mentors. Results show that KNN can be a useful tool in predicting student test scores in Mathematics.