Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prolotherapy and Low Level Laser Therapy: A Synergistic Approach to Pain Management in Chronic Osteoarthritis

Regenerative injection therapy and low level laser therapy are alternative remedies known for their success in the treatment and symptomatic management of chronic musculoskeletal conditions. In response to the growing demand for alternative therapies in the face of the opioid epidemic, the authors conduct a literature review to investigate the potential for prolotherapy and LLLT to be used adjunctively to manage chronic osteoarthritis (OA). OA is a degenerative chronic musculoskeletal condition on the rise in North America, and is frequently treated with opioid medications. The regenerative action of prolotherapy and pain-modulating effects of LLLT may make these two therapies well-suited to synergistically provide improved outcomes for osteoarthritis patients without the side effects associated with opioid use. A narrative descriptive review through multiple medical databases (Google Scholar, PubMed, and MedLine) is conducted, restricted by the use of medical subject headings. 71 articles were selected for reading in full, and 40 articles were selected for use in the study after reading in full. A review of the literature revealed good clinical results in the use of prolotherapy and LLLT separately to manage chronic musculoskeletal pain due to osteoarthritis and other chronic conditions. It is also recognized in the literature that prolotherapy works most effectively when used adjunctively with other treatments. Downsides to the use of prolotherapy include mild side effects of pain, stiffness and bruising and potential adverse events as a result of injection. This study is limited by the lack of clinical trials available involving both LLLT and prolotherapy injections used adjunctively, and by the low number of high impact literature concerning the treatment of (specifically) osteoarthritis by alternative methods. The authors suggest that practicing health care providers consider utilizing LLLT and prolotherapy together as a supplementary method in the management of chronic pain due to osteoarthritis, to minimize the long-term prescription of opioids and emphasize a less invasive treatment for this debilitating condition.
iROW: An Efficient Live Snapshot System for Virtual Machine Disk

The high-availiablity of mission-critical data and services hosted in a virtual machine (VM) is one of the top concerns in a cloud computing environment. The live disk snapshot is an emerging technology to save the whole state and the data of a VM at a specific point of time, and be used for quick disaster recovery. However, the existing VM disk snapshot systems suffer from long operation time and I/O performance degradation problems during snapshots creating and managing, and thereby affecting the performance of the VM and its services. To address such issues, we designed an efficient VM disk snapshot system, named iROW (improved Redirect-on-Write). In iROW, a bitmap based light-weight index scheme is adopted to replace the existing multi-level index tree structure to reduce query cost. Additionally, through a combination of Redirect-on-Write (ROW) and Copy-on-Demand (COD) schema to avoid extra copy operation on the first write after snapshot with Copy-on-Write (COW) schema, and the file fragmentation problem caused by ROW snapshot after long-term using. Finally, iROW gives a unified disk space allocation function by the host machine's file system. We have implemented iROW in qemu-kvm 0.12. 5 and conducted some experiments. The implementation of iROW completely obey the interfaces of the block device driver in QEMU, so it is transparent to the upper system or applications and original disk image formats can be also supported. The experimental results show that iROW has obvious performance advantages in snapshot creating and management operations. Compared with the existing qcow2 disk image in KVM, when the VM disk size is 50GB, and the cluster size is 64KB (the default cluster size of qcow2), the snapshot creation and rollback time is only about 6% and 3% of original qcow2's. With the increasing of the VM disk size, iROW has more performance advantages on snapshot creation and rollback operations. In addition, the I/O performance of iROW is better than qcow2. When the cluster size is 64 KB, typically the iROW's performance loss is 10% less than qcow2's, and its first write performance after snapshot creation is about 250% of qcow2's.
Four new species of Pyropia (Bangiales, Rhodophyta) from the west coast of North America: the Pyropia lanceolata species complex updated

Abstract Recent molecular studies indicate that the Pyropia lanceolata species complex on the west coast of North America is more speciose than previously thought. Based on extensive rbcL gene sequencing of representative specimens we recognize seven species in the complex, three of which are newly described: Pyropia montereyensis sp. nov., Pyropia columbiensis sp. nov., and Pyropia protolanceolata sp. nov. The new species are all lanceolate, at least when young, and occur in the upper mid to high intertidal zone primarily in winter and early spring. Pyropia montereyensis and Pyropia columbiensis are sister taxa that are distributed south and north of Cape Mendocino, respectively, and both occur slightly lower on the shore than Pyropia lanceolata or Pyropia pseudolanceolata. Pyropia protolanceolata is known thus far only from Morro Rock and the Monterey Peninsula, California; it occurs basally to the other species in the complex in the molecular phylogeny. A fourth newly described species, Pyropia bajacaliforniensis sp. nov., is more closely related to Pyropia nereocystis than to species in this complex proper. It is a thin species with undulate margins known only from Moss Landing, Monterey Bay, California, and northern Baja California; it also occurs in the high intertidal in spring. Porphyra mumfordii, a high intertidal winter species that has frequently been confused with species in the Pyropia lanceolata complex, has now been confirmed to occur from Calvert Island, British Columbia, to Pescadero State Park, California.
The Benefits of State Aggregation with Extreme-Point Weighting for Assemble-to-Order Systems

We provide a new method for solving a very general model of an assemble-to-order system: multiple products, multiple components which may be demanded in different quantities by different products, batch production, random lead times, and lost sales, modeled as a Markov decision process under the discounted cost criterion. A control policy specifies when a batch of components should be produced and whether an arriving demand for each product should be satisfied. As optimal solutions for our model are computationally intractable for even moderate sized systems, we approximate the optimal cost function by reformulating it on an aggregate state space and restricting each aggregate state to be represented by its extreme original states. Our aggregation drastically reduces the value iteration computational burden. For systems in which there is a product that has fulfillment priority over all other products at optimality, we derive error bound for our aggregate solution. This guarantees that the value iteration algorithm for the original problem initialized with the aggregate solution converges to the optimal solution. We also establish the optimality of a lattice-dependent base-stock and rationing policy in the aggregate problem when certain product and component characteristics are incorporated into the aggregation/disaggregation schemes. This enables us to further alleviate the value iteration computational burden in the aggregate problem by eliminating suboptimal actions. Leveraging all of our results, we are able to solve the aggregate problem for systems of up to 22 components, with an average distance of 11.09% from the optimal cost in systems of up to 4 components (for which we could solve the original problem to optimality).
Utilizing large hall offset voltage for conversion free 4H-SiC strain sensor

This work presents a conversion free p-type 4H silicon carbide (4H-SiC) four-terminal strain sensor utilizing a large Hall offset voltage in a symmetric four-terminal configuration. Upon the application of mechanical strain, a high sensitivity of 209 mV/A/ppm was obtained. The strain sensor also exhibited good repeatability and linearity with a significantly large offset voltage in the induced strain ranging from 0 to 334ppm. Coupled these performances with the excellent mechanical strength, electrical conductivity, thermal stability, and chemical inertness of the SiC material, the proposed 4H-SiC strain sensor is promising for stress/strain monitoring for harsh operating environments with high signal-to-noise ratio.
Title : Short term phosphorus release from composts in a soil-plant system : the effect of 1 elemental sulphur ( S 0 ) addition 2 3 4

Title: Short term phosphorus release from composts in a soil-plant system: the effect of 1 elemental sulphur (S 0 ) addition 2 3 4 Authors: 5 Marco Grigatti 1 : Department of Agricultural Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 6 Bologna, 40127, Italy; 7 Claudio Ciavatta: Department of Agricultural Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 8 Bologna, 40127, Italy. 9 10
Information Equals Amortized Communication

We show how to efficiently simulate the sending of a message to a receiver who has partial information about the message, so that the expected number of bits communicated in the simulation is close to the amount of additional information that the message reveals to the receiver who has some information about the message. This is a generalization and strengthening of the Slepian Wolf theorem, which shows how to carry out such a simulation with low amortized communication in the case that the message is a deterministic function of an input. A caveat is that our simulation is interactive. As a consequence, we prove that the internal information cost(namely the information revealed to the parties) involved in computing any relation or function using a two party interactive protocol is exactly equal to the amortized communication complexity of computing independent copies of the same relation or function. We also show that the only way to prove a strong direct sum theorem for randomized communication complexity is by solving a particular variant of the pointer jumping problem that we define. Our work implies that a strong direct sum theorem for communication complexity holds if and only if efficient compression of communication protocols is possible.
Specular Effects on the GPU: State of the Art

This survey reviews algorithms that can render specular, i.e. mirror reflections, refractions, and caustics on the GPU. We establish a taxonomy of methods based on the three main different ways of representing the scene and computing ray intersections with the aid of the GPU, including ray tracing in the original geometry, ray tracing in the sampled geometry, and geometry transformation. Having discussed the possibilities of implementing ray tracing, we consider the generation of single reflections/refractions, interobject multiple reflections/refractions, and the general case which also includes self‐reflections or refractions. Moving the focus from the eye to the light sources, caustic effect generation approaches are also examined.
Repeated trans-watershed hybridization among haplochromine cichlids (Cichlidae) was triggered by Neogene landscape evolution

The megadiverse haplochromine cichlid radiations of the East African lakes, famous examples of explosive speciation and adaptive radiation, are according to recent studies, introgressed by different riverine lineages. This study is based on the first comprehensive mitochondrial and nuclear DNA dataset from extensive sampling of riverine haplochromine cichlids. It includes species from the lower River Congo and Angolan (River Kwanza) drainages. Reconstruction of phylogenetic hypotheses revealed the paradox of clearly discordant phylogenetic signals. Closely related mtDNA haplotypes are distributed thousands of kilometres apart and across major African watersheds, whereas some neighbouring species carry drastically divergent mtDNA haplotypes. At shallow and deep phylogenetic layers, strong signals of hybridization are attributed to the complex Late Miocene/Early Pliocene palaeohistory of African rivers. Hybridization of multiple lineages across changing watersheds shaped each of the major haplochromine radiations in lakes Tanganyika, Victoria, Malawi and the Kalahari Palaeolakes, as well as a miniature species flock in the Congo basin (River Fwa). On the basis of our results, introgression occurred not only on a spatially restricted scale, but massively over almost the whole range of the haplochromine distribution. This provides an alternative view on the origin and exceptional high diversity of this enigmatic vertebrate group.
Reconstruction of gene regulatory networks from steady state data

Genes are connected in regulatory networks, often modelled by ordinary differential equations. Changes in expression of a gene propagate to other genes along paths in the network. At a stable state, the system's Jacobian matrix confers information about network connectivity. To disclose the functional properties of genes, knowledge of network connections is essential. We present a new method to reconstruct the Jacobian matrix of models for gene regulatory systems from equilibrium protein concentrations. In a recent paper we defined propagation and feedback functions describing how genetic variation at one gene propagates to the other genes in the network and possibly also back to itself. Here we show how propagation and feedback functions provide relations between equilibrium protein levels which are in principle observable, and Jacobi elements which are not directly observable. We establish exact formulae expressing the Jacobian in terms of derivatives of propagation and feedback functions. Approximating these derivatives from perturbed and unperturbed protein levels, we derive formulae for estimating the Jacobian. We apply the method to models of the Drosophila segment polarity network and randomly generated gene networks. Genes could be perturbed in two ways: by modifying mRNA degradation rates, or by allele knockout in diploid models. Comparison with the true Jacobians shows that for noiseless data we obtain hit rates close to 100% in the former case and in the range 80-90% in the latter. Our method adds to the network interference toolbox and provides a sign estimate of the Jacobian from steady state data, and a value estimate of the Jacobian if protein degradation rates are known. Also the approach identifies some predicted connections as much more reliable than others, and could point to further experiments for resolving uncertainties in the less dependable Jacobian elements.
Ecotoxicological Impact of the Bioherbicide Leptospermone on the Microbial Community of Two Arable Soils

The ecotoxicological impact of leptospermone, a β-triketone bioherbicide, on the bacterial community of two arable soils was investigated. Soil microcosms were exposed to 0 × (control), 1 × or 10 × recommended dose of leptospermone. The β-triketone was moderately adsorbed to both soils (i.e.,: Kfa ~ 1.2 and Koc ~ 140 mL g−1). Its dissipation was lower in sterilized than in unsterilized soils suggesting that it was mainly influenced by biotic factors. Within 45 days, leptospermone disappeared almost entirely from one of the two soils (i.e., DT50 < 10 days), while 25% remained in the other. The composition of the microbial community assessed by qPCR targeting 11 microbial groups was found to be significantly modified in soil microcosms exposed to leptospermone. Pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons showed a shift in the bacterial community structure and a significant impact of leptospermone on the diversity of the soil bacterial community. Changes in the composition, and in the α- and β-diversity of microbial community were transient in the soil able to fully dissipate the leptospermone, but were persistent in the soil where β-triketone remained. To conclude the bacterial community of the two soils was sensitive to leptospermone and its resilience was observed only when leptospermone was fully dissipated.
Recognition of risk situations based on endoscopic instrument tracking and knowledge based situation modeling

Minimally invasive surgery has gained significantly in importance over the last decade due to the numerous advantages on patient-side. The surgeon has to adapt special operation-techniques and deal with difficulties like the complex hand-eye coordination, limited field of view and restricted mobility. To alleviate these constraints we propose to enhance the surgeon's capabilities by providing a context-aware assistance using augmented reality (AR) techniques. In order to generate a context-aware assistance it is necessary to recognize the current state of the intervention using intraoperatively gained sensor data and a model of the surgical intervention. In this paper we present the recognition of risk situations, the system warns the surgeon if an instrument gets too close to a risk structure. The context-aware assistance system starts with an image-based analysis to retrieve information from the endoscopic images. This information is classified and a semantic description is generated. The description is used to recognize the current state and launch an appropriate AR visualization. In detail we present an automatic vision-based instrument tracking to obtain the positions of the instruments. Situation recognition is performed using a knowledge representation based on a description logic system. Two augmented reality visualization programs are realized to warn the surgeon if a risk situation occurs.
Eletromyography of abdominal muscles in different physical exercises

Background: The abdominal muscles are extremely important because they are directly involved in the functions of support, containment of viscera, and help in the process of expiration, defecation, urination, vomiting, and also at the time of childbirth. Many exercises and equipment are used to strengthen the abdominal muscles, and the workouts are proposed for a variety of purposes, such as preventing and rehabilitating low back pain, improving sports performance, achieving aesthetic standards, among others. Exercises that potentiate the electromyographic activity promote a greater recruitment of muscle fibers and are more effective to improve or maintain of the force. The electromyographic activity analysis allows us to reflect on the quality of the exercises proposed, consequently, to choose and order the exercises properly in a training session. Methods: Our systematic review protocol will developed following the reporting items for the systematic review. To identify relevant studies, we sought articles on the following bases: MEDLINE, PubMed, Europubmed, SciELO, Physiotherapy Evidences Data Base (PEDro), Cochrane, and Google Scholar. The methodological quality of the studies included in the review will evaluated using a checklist and quality assessment. For intervention studies, risk of bias will estimated using the Cochrane Collaboration tool. Results: The results of this study will show the electromyographic activation of the abdomen in the different types of exercises. Conclusion: Ethics approval was not required for this study because it was based on published studies. The results and findings of this study will be submitted and published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42018086172.
Deformation estimation and analysis for adaptive radiation therapy

To accommodate the inter- and intra-fractional motion of internal organs in prostate cancer treatment, a large margin (5mm-25mm) has often to be considered during radiation therapy planning. Normally, the inter-fractional motion is more substantial than the intra-fractional counterpart. Therefore, the study of inter-fractional motion pattern is of special interest for adaptive radiation therapy. Existing methods on organ motion analysis mainly focus on the deviation of an organ's shape from its mean shape. The deviation information is helpful in choosing a statistically proper margin, but is of limited use for plan adaptation. In this paper, we propose a new deformation analysis method that can be directly used for plan adaptation. First, deformation estimation is accomplished by a fast deformable registration method, which utilizes a contour based multi-grid strategy to register treatment cone-beam CT (CBCT) images with planning CT images. Second, dominant deformation modes are extracted by a novel deformation analysis approach. To be specific, a cooperative principal component analysis (PCA) method is developed to analyze the deformation field in a coarse-to-fine strategy. The deformation modes are initialized by applying PCA on the organs as a whole and refined by analyzing the individual organs subsequently. The experimental results show that the organ motion can be well characterized by a few dominant deformation modes. Based on the dominant modes, a corresponding set of dominant modal plans could be generated for further optimization. Ultimately, an adaptive plan for each treatment can be obtained on-line while the margin can be effectively reduced to minimize the unnecessary radiation dosage.
Exactly learning automata with small cover time

We present algorithms for exactly learning unknown environments that can be described by deterministic finite automata. The learner performs a walk on the target automaton, where at each step it observes the output of the state it is at, and chooses a labeled edge to traverse to the next state. The learner has no means of a reset, and does not have access to a teacher that answers equivalence queries and gives the learner counterexamples to its hypotheses. We present two algorithms: The first is for the case in which the outputs observed by the learner are always correct, and the second is for the case in which the outputs might be corrupted by random noise. The running times of both algorithms are polynomial in the cover time of the underlying graph of the target automaton.
Water diversion reduces abundance and survival of two Mediterranean cyprinids

Water flow is a fundamental characteristic required for the ecological integrity of stream ecosystems. However, populations of many freshwater fishes in the Mediterranean region are threatened by man-induced drought due to water diversion. Mark-recapture methodology is an effective tool for estimating fish abundance and survival probability, but it has been seldom used with Mediterranean freshwater fish. We tagged over 2,400 individuals of two threatened cyprinids (Mediterranean barbel Barbus meridionalis and Catalan chub Squalius laietanus) inhabiting an Iberian stream affected by water diversion, and used mark-recapture methods to evaluate the effects of flow, temperature and depth on their apparent survival and abundance at hydrologically altered and perennial reaches. Based on estimates over the summer drying season, survival of Mediterranean barbel was more than six times higher in an upstream reach with permanent flow than a middle reach impacted by water diversion. Water depth was the most important habitat feature accounting for differences in survival, with both barbel and chub exhibiting higher survival and abundance at permanent sites farther downstream where flow had been restored and in an unaltered tributary. Our results show clear negative impacts of water diversion on fish populations. Both species, but particularly barbel, have life-cycle characteristics that may allow populations to recover quickly if natural streamflow was restored by conserving water and reducing water diversion.