Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prize Sophie Fitzsimmons Word count : 2420 1 Transcranial direct current stimulation : A spark of hope for neurorehabilitation ?

Introduction Neurological diseases and accidents are some of the most traumatic and disabling found in modern medicine. Everyday activities may suddenly become impossible, and some patients are left impaired for the rest of their lives. Stroke, for example, is a major cause of neurological disability – in the UK, there are 111,000 new cases per year, and 62% of patients report persisting mobility problems even a year after their stroke (British Heart Foundation, 2009). A vital part of the management of these diseases is neurorehabilitation, which aims to help patients regain skills and abilities lost to their disease and to minimise or compensate for any functional disturbances. It is a complex, multidisciplinary process that must be tailored to the needs and abilities of the individual if it is to succeed in its aim. Neurorehabilitation takes many forms – just a few approaches that may be used include physiotherapy and occupational therapy for motor impairments; speech and language therapy; and cognitive rehabilitation to improve complex skills such as memory, attention and coordination. However, the efficacy of these approaches is limited. Fregni & Pascual-Leone (2007) point out that the success of physical and behavioural therapies depends heavily on the expertise of the therapist and the patient’s cooperation – and indeed, one review found that only 44% of patients showed complete motor recovery after standard rehabilitation (Hendriks et al, 2002).
Life-Change Measurement as a Predictor of Illness

the secretion of parathyroid hormone can be quite abnormal over long periods without giving rise to mental or physical symptoms which are recognized by the patient. This is probably due to the adjustments in the secretion of other hormonal glands and to alterations in cellular responses. No symptoms were experienced by the few patients who have had the familial type of this disorder, which was detected by surveying the family and making the diagnosis by biochemical investigations, usually plasma calcium concentrations and a 24-hour urinary calcium. The absence of symptoms makes it difficult to persuade the patient, who is usually young, that he requires investigation or a major operation for removal of a benign parathyroid adenoma. We have studied 30 patients with hyperparathyroidism. Twenty-four had symptoms at the time of investigation not including a previous history of renal colic several years previously. Twenty had had headaches fairly regularly and lacked energy and drive. No psychometric tests were done on our patients but an attempt was made to assess their personality and determine the presence of psychological abnormalities. Twenty of our patients had a normal personality when first seen and 7 of these gave a definite history of depression and loss of energy. However, two weeks post-operatively 23 patients were quite certain they felt better and were not so depressed and lacking in energy as before. All said that it was difficult to recognize and describe how they felt pre-operatively because their symptoms were so chronic. How much of this improvement was related to the intensive investigation and care was impossible to assess. Three of our patients were frankly psychotic before operation with gross thought disorder, being paranoid and disorientated at times. It was hoped that the removal of the primary parathyroid adenoma would bring about a dramatic improvement but it failed to do so. All these patients required further periods of treatment at mental institutions after recovery from the operation. The symptoms of these patients were largely due to their predominant psychiatric disorders and primary hyperparathyroidism was discovered in the course of medical investigations. The onset of acute anxiety going on to acute confusional state some ten to fourteen days after operation could herald severe tetany. We have found the onset of the confusional state important and adequate intravenous therapy is indicated promptly. It may be necessary to continue this for several weeks in addition to intensive vitamin D and parathyroid therapy. In contrast to the mental changes in hypercalcemia which seem on the whole to be rare unless the situation is grave, post-operative tetany does give rise to acute mental symptoms. Meeting March 191968
Promoting research into healthcare accreditation/external evaluation: advancing an ISQua initiative.

In 2005, the Research Working Group of the ISQua Accreditation Council began discussing how to stimulate, promote and share accreditation/external evaluation research and information. What research in this area currently exists? What are the research gaps? What mechanisms might be developed to facilitate the sharing of this research? Healthcare accreditation started in 1918. However, since the 1980s there has been a marked increase in expansion globally, with accreditation organizations now existing in over 70 countries and using a great amount of resources and effort. Questions are being raised about the value of accreditation and whether it makes a verifiable improvement in healthcare delivery and healthcare outcomes [1, 2]. Those directly involved in the accreditation projects strongly believe in its contribution to improving health service and care quality. Others have differing opinions based on their perceptions [3]. Research in the area of accreditation/external evaluation is, for that reason, essential to address those issues. Accreditation/external evaluation must be relevant and measurably …
A dual scale volume-of-fluid approach for modeling turbulent phase interface dynamics

In this report, a dual-scale modeling approach is presented to describe turbulent twophase interface dynamics in a Large Eddy Simulation spatial filtering context. To close the unclosed terms related to the phase interface arising from filtering the Navier-Stokes equation, a resolved realization of the phase interface is explicitly filtered. This resolved realization is maintained on a high resolution over-set mesh using a Refined Local Surface Grid approach employing an un-split, geometric, bounded, and conservative Volume of Fluid method. While the required model for the resolved realization of the interface advection velocity includes the effects of sub-filter surface tension, sub-filter shear, and turbulent eddies, the focus in this report will be on advection by sub-filter turbulent eddies. Examples of a two-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor instability and the motion of an interface in homogeneous isotropic turbulence are presented.
Quantitative Antibiogram as a Typing Method for the Prospective Epidemiological Surveillance and Control of MRSA Comparison with Molecular Typing

Abstract Objective: Evaluation of the quantitative antibiogram as an epidemiological tool for the prospective typing of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and comparison with ribotyping. Methods: The method is based on the multivariate analysis of inhibition zone diameters of antibiotics in disk diffusion tests. Five antibiotics were used (erythromycin, clindamycin, cotrimoxazole, gentamicin, and ciprofloxacin). Ribotyping was performed using seven restriction enzymes (EcoRV, HindIII, KpnI, PstI, EcoRI, SfuI, and BamHI). Setting: 1,000-bed tertiary university medical center. Results: During a 1-year period, 31 patients were found to be infected or colonized with MRSA. Cluster analysis of antibiogram data showed nine distinct antibiotypes. Four antibiotypes were isolated from multiple patients (2, 4, 7, and 13, respectively). Five additional antibiotypes were isolated from the remaining five patients. When analyzed with respect to the epidemiological data, the method was found to be equivalent to ribotyping. Among 206 staff members who were screened, six were carriers of MRSA. Both typing methods identified concordant of MRSA types in staff members and in the patients under their care. Conclusions: The quantitative antibiogram was found to be equivalent to ribotyping as an epidemiological tool for typing of MRSA in our setting. Thus, this simple, rapid, and readily available method appears to be suitable for the prospective surveillance and control of MRSA for hospitals that do not have molecular typing facilities and in which MRSA isolates are not uniformly resistant or susceptible to the antibiotics tested.
Antibody-Based Correlates of Protection against Cholera: Analysis of a Challenge Study of a Cholera-Naive Population

ABSTRACT Immunologic correlates of protection can be used to infer vaccine efficacy for populations in which challenge trials or field studies are infeasible. In a recent cholera challenge trial (W. H. Chen et al., Clin Infect Dis 62:1329–1335, 2016, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciw145 ), 134 North American cholera-naive volunteers were randomized to receive either the live, attenuated single-dose cholera vaccine CVD (Center for Vaccine Development) 103-HgR or placebo, and the titers of vibriocidal antibodies against the classical Inaba strain were assessed at 10 days after treatment. Subsequent to the immunologic evaluation, each subject ingested a fixed quantity of virulent Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor Inaba. Data from this trial suggest that the vaccine-induced increase in the vibriocidal antibody titer prior to challenge is tightly linked with protection: 51/51 vaccinees with postvaccination vibriocidal antibody titers of ≥2,560 were protected against moderate/severe diarrhea, and 60/62 vaccinees who seroconverted or experienced a 4-fold or greater increase in vibriocidal antibody titer relative to prevaccination levels were similarly protected. Atypically high vibriocidal antibody titers were observed in some placebo subjects; protection was limited in these individuals and differed substantially from the level of protection experienced by vaccinees with the same postvaccination titers. Since only 1 of 66 placebo recipients experienced seroconversion, seroconversion was found to be uniquely associated with vaccination and insensitive to the effects of factors that can cause titers to be elevated but are weakly associated with protection. Thus, vibriocidal antibody seroconversion was found to be better than the vibriocidal antibody titer for inferring vaccine efficacy in cholera-naive populations for which studies based upon exposure to V. cholerae are impractical. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration no. NCT01895855.)
Effect of sertraline on the recovery rate of cardiac autonomic function in depressed patients after acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Brain serotonin is known to possess sympathoinhibitory properties. The aim of this clinical physiologic study was to determine whether sertraline, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, facilitates the rate of recovery of cardiac autonomic function after an acute myocardial infarction (MI) in patients with depression. METHODS AND RESULTS Thirty-eight post-MI depressed patients were randomized to receive either sertraline 50 mg per day or placebo for 6 months. Depression was defined as a score >15 on the standardized Inventory to Diagnose Depression questionnaire taken at prehospital discharge and again within 2 weeks of the acute infarct. Eleven stable post-MI nondepressed patients served as a nonrandomized reference group during follow-up. Twenty-seven patients completed the randomization. All 3 groups were followed up closely in a multidisciplinary post-MI clinic where they underwent serial testing for both time and frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV) indices at baseline (1-2 weeks after MI) and at 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22 weeks. The rate of recovery of HRV was determined by use of a growth curve model based on repeated-measures analysis of variance. There was a linear rate of increase in the SD of 24-hour N-N intervals (SDNN) in the sertraline-treated group that paralleled that of the nondepressed reference group. This contrasted with a modest but significant decline in SDNN in the placebo group from 2 to 22 weeks (t = 2.10, P <.05). However, the short-term power spectral indices, while trending toward a more rapid rate of recovery in the treated group, did not reach statistical significance compared with the placebo group. CONCLUSION In depressed patients who have survived the acute phase of an MI sertraline facilitates the rate of recovery of SDNN, a recognized predictor of clinical outcome.
Impact of prolonged cardiac unloading on left ventricular mass and longitudinal myocardial performance: an experimental bed rest study in humans

Objective This study evaluated the impact of prolonged circulatory unloading and subsequent left ventricular (LV) mass decrease on LV myocardial performance. Five-week head-down tilt (−6°) bed rest (HDTBR) was used as a model of prolonged circulatory unloading. Methods Ten young healthy male volunteers (age 23 ± 2 years) were studied a day before and within the first 24 h after the end of HDTBR by two-dimensional Doppler echocardiography and carotid applanation tonometry. LV preload and afterload, cardiac workload, LV mass and wall stress, LV chamber function and diastolic filling were assessed. Longitudinal, radial and circumferential myocardial strain rate were evaluated by tissue tracking algorithm. Results After HDTBR, stroke volume (P < 0.01), stroke work (P = 0.01) and LV mass (P < 0.001) decreased, whereas relative wall thickness, peak and end-systolic wall stress and ejection fraction remained unchanged. HDTBR was also followed by a decrease in longitudinal systolic strain rate (−1.11 ± 0.05 vs. −1.00 ± 0.05 s−1, P = 0.02) and a prolongation of isovolumic relaxation time (IVRT) (74 ± 2 vs. 82 ± 3 ms, P < 0.01). Bed rest-induced changes in LV mass index were directly related to changes in stroke work index (r = 0.65, P < 0.05), and changes in longitudinal systolic strain rate and IVRT correlated with changes in stroke volume index, directly and inversely, respectively (r = 0.69 and −0.64, P < 0.05 for both). Conclusion A decrease in LV mass following HDTBR parallels the reduction in cardiac workload and is associated with an attenuation of longitudinal systolic myocardial deformation rate and prolongation of IVRT that seem to reflect a functional adaptation of cardiac muscle to lower LV volume load.
Minimizing the Earliness and Tardiness Cost of a Sequence of Tasks on a Single Machine

Assume that n tasks must be processed by one machine in a fixed sequence. The processing time, the preferred starting time and the earliness and tardiness costs per time unit are known for each task. The problem is to allocate each task a starting time such that the total cost incurred by the early and tardy tasks is minimum. Garey et al. have proposed a nice $O(n \log n)$ algorithm for the special case of symmetric and task-independent costs. In this paper we first extend that algorithm to the case of asymmetric and task-independent cost without increasing its worst-case complexity. For the general case of asymmetric and task-dependent costs, we propose an $O(n^3 \log n)$ algorithm based on a strong dominance property that yields to model the scheduling problem as a minimum cost path in a valued directed acyclic graph.
ConvNets experiments on SpiNNaker

The SpiNNaker Hardware platform allows emulating generic neural network topologies, where each neuron-to-neuron connection is defined by an independent synaptic weight. Consequently, weight storage requires an important amount of memory in the case of generic neural network topologies. This is solved in SpiNNaker by encapsulating with each SpiNNaker chip (which includes 18 ARM cores) a 128MB DRAM chip within the same package. However, ConvNets (Convolutional Neural Network) posses "weight sharing" property, so that many neuron-to-neuron connections share the same weight value. Therefore, a very reduced amount of memory is required to define all synaptic weights, which can be stored on local SRAM DTCM (data-tightly-coupled-memory) at each ARM core. This way, DRAM can be used extensively to store traffic data for off-line analyses. We show an implementation of a 5-layer ConvNet for symbol recognition. Symbols are obtained with a DVS camera. Neurons in the ConvNet operate in an event-driven fashion, and synapses operate instantly. With this approach it was possible to allocate up to 2048 neurons per ARM core, or equivalently 32k neurons per SpiNNaker chip.
Cryptic Species and Historical Biogeography of Eel Gobies (Gobioidei: Odontamblyopus) Along the Northwestern Pacific Coast

Cryptic species are common in gobioid fishes, as revealed by recent molecular studies. This study collected molecular and morphological data to delimit species boundaries and to reveal the historical biogeography of Odontamblyopus lacepedii sensu lato by sampling 87 specimens from 16 locations in the northwestern Pacific. Phylogenetic trees based on mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase subunit 5 sequences identified three major clades. Clear morphological separations among these clades were detected by examining morphological characters used in taxonomic diagnosis. Therefore, these clades were delineated as three separate species: O. lacepedii sensu stricto (in the East China Sea, Yellow Sea, Gulf of Bohai, and Ariake Bay); O. sp. (in the southern East China Sea and southern Yellow Sea); and O. rebecca (in the Gulf of Tonkin, northern South China Sea, and southern East China Sea). Estimated divergence times were 0.61 ± 0.15 Ma between O. lacepedii and O. sp. , and 2.31±0.36 Ma between O. rebecca and O. lacepedii+O. sp. These findings indicate that isolation of marginal seas and habitat fragmentation during major falls in sea level in the late Pliocene and Pleistocene may have been responsible for genetic breaks among Odontamblyopus species in the northwestern Pacific.
Central corneal thickness, anterior chamber depth, and pupil diameter measurements using Visante OCT, Orbscan, and Pentacam.

PURPOSE To evaluate the agreement among three different optical methods in measuring anterior chamber depth (ACD), central corneal thickness (CCT), and pupil diameter. METHODS One hundred eyes of 50 healthy patients (25 men, 25 women) were enrolled in the study. Mean patient age was 25 years (range: 21 to 32 years). Exclusion criteria were history of any intraocular or corneal surgery, contact lens wear, corneal anomalies, and spherical refraction >5.00 diopters (D) or cylindrical refraction >2.00 D. All measurements were done by the same operator under mesopic light conditions and repeated using three different optical methods: Visante optical coherence tomography (OCT) (Carl Zeiss Meditec), Orbscan (Bausch & Lomb), and Pentacam (Oculus Optikgeräte GmbH). RESULTS Mean CCT as measured by Visante OCT, Orbscan, and Pentacam was 529+/-30.5 microm, 554+/-32.7 microm, and 552+/-29.3 microm, respectively. Mean ACD values were 2.94+/-0.34 mm, 2.84+/-0.33 mm, and 2.98+/-0.33 mm, respectively. Mean pupil diameter measurements were 4.87+/-1.09 mm, 4.0+/-0.67 mm, and 3.05+/-0.59 mm, respectively. The Visante OCT measured CCT thinner and Orbscan measured ACD shallower than the other two methods. All three methods measured pupil diameters significantly different. CONCLUSIONS This study found some statistically significant but clinically insignificant differences among the optical methods assessed. The differences are small and do not influence decisions for refractive surgery in clinical practice.
7V tristate-capable output buffer implemented in standard 2.5 V CMOS process

This paper describes high-voltage CMOS buffer architecture that uses low-voltage transistors. The voltage capability of the presented architecture is nearly three times larger than the voltage capability of the used MOSFET's. This buffer topology could be used to provide 3.3 V compatibility of 1.2 V and 1.5 V digital ICs implemented in standard CMOS technology. A 7 V circuit-prototype was fabricated in 0.25 /spl mu/m 2.5 V CMOS technology. Performed measurements demonstrate stress-free operation in both active and high-impedance mode.
A precise demand-driven definition-use chaining algorithm

This paper describes a new demand-driven technique that is able to identify both direct and indirect realizable data-dependencies between statements in the investigated code. Our method also involving control-dependencies and can thus be extended to perform precise forward and backward slicing of computer programs. The interprocedural algorithm presented considers realizable program paths when exploring individual definition-use chains by introducing backtrack information for traditional reaching definitions. Hence, our method is able to reveal deep and accurate information about very large programs on demand that makes it effectively applicable in either regression testing, debugging and program analysis.
First-principles calculations of spin-orbit splittings in solids using nonlocal separable pseudopotentials.

We have extended the considerable computational advantages of separable, nonlocal pseudopotentials to the calculation of spin-orbit splittings in solids. We write the total ionic pseudopotential as a sum of scalar relativistic and spin-orbit contributions, where each term can be represented by a fully nonlocal potential of the separable Kleinman-Bylander (KB) form. The scalar term, which reduces to the standard KB expression for the pseudopotential in the limit where one can neglect spin-orbit interactions, is used in the local-density approximation to calculate zeroth-order electronic properties in the usual way, and spin-orbit splittings are calculated to first order using perturbation theory
Formulation and evaluation of gemcitabine-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles

Abstract Gemcitabine-loaded solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) were produced by double emulsification technique using stearic acid as lipid, soy lecithin as surfactant and sodium taurocholate as cosurfactant. Prepared nanoparticles are characterized for particle size and surface morphology using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Particle yield, entrapment efficiency and zeta potential were also determined. In-vitro release studies were performed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) pH 7.4 using metabolic shaker. The formulation F6 with maximum entrapment efficiency 72.42% and satisfactory in-vitro release was selected. In-vivo tissue distribution to liver, spleen, lung, heart and kidneys of optimized formulation followed by stability study under specific conditions were also determined. This investigation has shown preferential drug targeting to liver followed by spleen, lungs, kidneys and heart. Stability studies showed no significant change in the particle size followed with very slight decrease in entrapment efficiency at 25 ± 2 °C/60 ± 5% RH over a period of three months.
The IKEA Catalogue: Design Fiction in Academic and Industrial Collaborations

This paper is an introduction to the "Future IKEA Catalogue", enclosed here as an example of a design fiction produced from a long standing industrial-academic collaboration. We introduce the catalogue here by discussing some of our experiences using design fiction` with companies and public sector bodies, giving some background to the catalogue and the collaboration which produced it. We have found design fiction to be a useful tool to support collaboration with industrial partners in research projects - it provides a way of thinking and talking about present day concepts, and present day constraints, without being overly concerned with contemporary challenges, or the requirements of academic validation. In particular, there are two main aspects of this we will discuss here, aspects that are visible in the enclosed catalogue itself. The first is the potential of design fiction as a sort of 'boundary object' in industry and academic collaboration, and second the role of critique. After this introduction to the paper we enclose the output of our collaboration in the form of the catalogue itself.