Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Burch-Schneider Cage: 9-Year Survival in Paprosky Type 3 Acetabular Defects. Clinical and Radiological Follow-Up

Revision hip arthroplasty in cases with severe acetabular deficiency represents a technical challenge. The aim of this study was to determine: 1. The 9-year survival of the Burch Schneider anti-protrusio cage (BS-APC) in severe acetabular defects. 2. The migration of the cage and correlation of this with functional outcome. 3. The anticipated functional outcome users can expect in a district general hospital setting in the management of severe acetabular defects. A single-surgeon consecutive series of 30 complex acetabular reconstructions using the BS-APC was retrospectively reviewed. Clinical and radiological follow up at 5–9 years was obtained. Survival was established with revisions and further surgery as different end-points. A radiological analysis using ein bilt roentgen analyse (EBRA) was performed. At a mean follow-up of 85 months (range: 64–118) 26 patients (87%) were alive. Nine-year survival was 95% for revision of BS-APC as an end-point and 92% with any cause of further surgery as an endpoint. The mean Oxford Hip Score was 34.5 and UCLA activity score was 4.4. All cases demonstrated evidence of significant migration, but no screws were found to be broken. There was no correlation between cup migration and Oxford hip score (p=0.07). Our non-specialist centre experience suggests the BS-APC should not be dismissed as a reconstruction option in the most severe acetabular defects.
Agent-Based Engineering, the Web, and Intelligence

Web based agents show great potential for design and engineering applications. To integrate engineering agents into the Web, researchers must resolve the conflict between HTTP's client server protocol and the peer to peer protocol required by agents. The author surveys the types and definitions of agents, eventually focusing on those useful for engineering, and on how they can be integrated with the World Wide Web. Because it is simply silly to discuss software agents without distinguishing them from other types of software, the author ventures to offer a definition. It will be iconoclastic and perhaps applicable only to a certain type of engineering agent. But it will be useful in identifying some technical implementation issues.
Comprehensive analysis of clinico-pathological data reveals heterogeneous relations between atherosclerosis and cancer

Aims Atherosclerosis and cancer share common risk factors and involve similar molecular pathomechanisms. Most clinical and epidemiological studies show a positive correlation between atherosclerosis and smoking-related cancers and heterogeneous results for non-smoking-related cancers. However, up-to-date large-scale autopsy studies including a detailed analysis of cancer types are lacking. Therefore, we sought to investigate the relation between major cancer types and the grade of atherosclerosis in a recent well-powered autopsy cohort. Methods In 2101 patients, both autopsy data and clinical data including demographics, disease groups, tumour type, cause of death and grade of atherosclerosis were reviewed and statistically analysed. Results We found cancer in general is associated with less atherosclerosis (OR 0.60, p<0.0001). In particular, haematological neoplasm and sarcomas were associated with much less atherosclerosis (OR=0.45, p<0.0001 and OR=0.43, p=0.087), while carcinomas were associated with moderately less atherosclerosis (OR=0.72, p=0.002). Furthermore, non-smoking-related cancers were associated with much less atherosclerosis (OR=0.41, p<0.0001), while possibly smoking-related cancer and smoking-related cancer showed no significant association. In a comprehensive analysis of 21 cancer types, biliary tract cancer, lymphomas/lymphoid leukaemias and kidney cancer were associated with much less atherosclerosis (OR=0.19, p<0.0001; OR=0.41, p<0.0001; and OR=0.48, p=0.029). In an exploratory analysis of treatment strategies, we found that tumours with a recommendation of oxazaphosphorines and pyrimidine antagonist treatment were significantly associated with less atherosclerosis (OR=0.33, p=0.0068 and OR=0.58, p=0.012). Conclusions In conclusion, the study showed an inverse association between cancer and atherosclerosis postmortem that depends on the cancer type and suggests a possible impact of chemotherapy regimens.
Approximating the distance to monotonicity in high dimensions

In this article we study the problem of approximating the distance of a function <i>f</i>: [<i>n</i>]<sup><i>d</i></sup> → <i>R</i> to monotonicity where [<i>n</i>] = {1,&ldots;,<i>n</i>} and <i>R</i> is some fully ordered range. Namely, we are interested in randomized sublinear algorithms that approximate the Hamming distance between a given function and the closest monotone function. We allow both an additive error, parameterized by Δ, and a multiplicative error. Previous work on distance approximation to monotonicity focused on the one-dimensional case and the only explicit extension to higher dimensions was with a multiplicative approximation factor exponential in the dimension <i>d</i>. Building on Goldreich et al. [2000] and Dodis et al. [1999], in which there are better implicit results for the case <i>n</i>=2, we describe a reduction from the case of functions over the <i>d</i>-dimensional hypercube [<i>n</i>]<sup><i>d</i></sup> to the case of functions over the <i>k</i>-dimensional hypercube [<i>n</i>]<sup><i>k</i></sup>, where 1≤ <i>k</i>≤ <i>d</i>. The quality of estimation that this reduction provides is linear in ⌈ <i>d</i>/<i>k</i> ⌉ and logarithmic in the size of the range | <i>R</i> | (if the range is infinite or just very large, then log | <i>R</i> | can be replaced by <i>d</i> log <i>n</i>). Using this reduction and a known distance approximation algorithm for the one-dimensional case, we obtain a distance approximation algorithm for functions over the <i>d</i>-dimensional hypercube, with any range <i>R</i>, which has a multiplicative approximation factor of <i>O</i>(<i>d</i>log | <i>R</i> |). For the case of a binary range, we present algorithms for distance approximation to monotonicity of functions over one dimension, two dimensions, and the <i>k</i>-dimensional hypercube (for any <i>k</i>≥ 1). Applying these algorithms and the reduction described before, we obtain a variety of distance approximation algorithms for Boolean functions over the <i>d</i>-dimensional hypercube which suggest a trade-off between quality of estimation and efficiency of computation. In particular, the multiplicative error ranges between <i>O</i>(<i>d</i>) and <i>O</i>(1).
Dynamic program slicing

Program slices are useful in debugging, testing, maintenance, and understanding of programs. The conventional notion of a program slice, the static slice, is the set of all statements that might affect the value of a given variable occurrence. In this paper, we investigate the concept of the dynamic slice consisting of all statements that actually affect the value of a variable occurrence for a given program input. The sensitivity of dynamic slicing to particular program inputs makes it more useful in program debugging and testing than static slicing. Several approaches for computing dynamic slices are examined. The notion of a Dynamic Dependence Graph and its use in computing dynamic slices is discussed. The Dynamic Dependence Graph may be unbounded in length; therefore, we introduce the economical concept of a Reduced Dynamic Dependence Graph, which is proportional in size to the number of dynamic slices arising during the program execution.
On the relations between modeling approaches for speech recognition

Some relations among approaches that have been applied to estimating models for acoustic signals in speech recognition systems are examined. In particular, the modeling approaches based on maximum likelihood (ML), maximum mutual information (MMI), and minimum discrimination information (MDI) are studied. It is shown that all three approaches can be formulated uniformly as MDI modeling approaches for simultaneous estimation of the acoustic models for all words in the vocabulary and that none of the approaches requires any model correctness assumption. The three approaches differ in the effective source being modeled and in the probability distribution attributed to this source. >
Resolution requirements for simulating gravitational fragmentation using SPH

Jeans showed analytically that, in an infinite uniform-density isothermal gas, plane-wave perturbations collapse to dense sheets if their wavelength, λ, satisfies A > λ JEANS = (πa 2 /Gρ 0 ) 1/2 (where a is the isothermal sound speed and ρ 0 is the unperturbed density); in contrast, perturbations with smaller A oscillate about the uniform density state. Here we show that Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics reproduces these results well, even when the diameters of the SPH particles are twice the wavelength of the perturbation. Our simulations are performed in 3-D with initially settled (i.e. non-crystalline) distributions of particles. Therefore there exists the seed noise for artificial fragmentation, but it does not occur. We conclude that, although there may be - as with any numerical scheme - "skeletons in the SPH cupboard", a propensity to fragment artificially is evidently not one of them.
Reinforcement learning chaos control using value sensitive vector-quantization

A novel algorithm for the control of complex dynamical systems is introduced that extends our previously introduced approach (1999) to chaos control by combining reinforcement learning with a modified version of the growing neural-gas vector-quantization method to approximate optimal control policies. The algorithm places codebook vectors in regions of extreme reinforcement learning values and produces a codebook suitable for efficient solution of the desired control problem.
Experimental Investigation on CO2 Methanation Process for Solar Energy Storage Compared to CO2-Based Methanol Synthesis

The utilization of the captured CO2 as a carbon source for the production of energy storage media offers a technological solution for overcoming crucial issues in current energy systems. Solar energy production generally does not match with energy demand because of its intermittent and non-programmable nature, entailing the adoption of storage technologies. Hydrogen constitutes a chemical storage for renewable electricity if it is produced by water electrolysis and is also the key reactant for CO2 methanation (Sabatier reaction). The utilization of CO2 as a feedstock for producing methane contributes to alleviate global climate changes and sequestration related problems. The produced methane is a carbon neutral gas that fits into existing infrastructure and allows issues related to the aforementioned intermittency and non-programmability of solar energy to be overcome. In this paper, an experimental apparatus, composed of an electrolyzer and a tubular fixed bed reactor, is built and used to produce methane via Sabatier reaction. The objective of the experimental campaign is the evaluation of the process performance and a comparison with other CO2 valorization paths such as methanol production. The investigated pressure range was 2–20 bar, obtaining a methane volume fraction in outlet gaseous mixture of 64.75% at 8 bar and 97.24% at 20 bar, with conversion efficiencies of, respectively, 84.64% and 99.06%. The methanol and methane processes were compared on the basis of an energy parameter defined as the spent energy/stored energy. It is higher for the methanol process (0.45), with respect to the methane production process (0.41–0.43), which has a higher energy storage capability.
Cardiac expression of the Na 1 / Ca 2 1 exchanger NCX 1 is GATA factor dependent

Nicholas, Susanne B. , and Kenneth D. Philipson. Cardiac expression of the Na1/Ca21 exchanger NCX1 is GATA factor dependent. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Heart Circ. Physiol. 46): H324–H330, 1999. —The cardiac sarcolemmal Na1/Ca21 exchanger plays a primary role in Ca21 efflux and is important in regulating intracellular Ca21 and beat-to-beat contractility. Of the three Na1/Ca21 exchanger genes cloned (NCX1, NCX2, and NCX3), only NCX1 is expressed in cardiac myocytes. NCX1 has alternative promoters for heart, kidney, and brain tissue-specific transcripts. Analysis of the cardiac NCX1 promoter (at 2336 bp) identified a cardiac-specific minimum promoter (at 2137) and two GATA sites (at 275 and 2145). In this study, gel shift and supershift analyses identified GATA-4 in primary neonatal cardiac myocytes. Site-directed mutagenesis of the GATA-4 site at 275 abolishes binding and reduces activity of the minimum and full-length promoters by . 90 and ,60%, respectively. Mutation of the GATA site at 2145 reduces activity of the full-length promoter by ,30%. Mutation of an E-box at 2175 does not alter promoter activity.
PARETO BAYESIAN OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM FOR THE MULTIOBJECTIVE 0/1 KNAPSACK PROBLEM

: This paper deals with the utilizing of the Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) for the Pareto bi-criteria optimization of the 0/1 knapsack problem. The main attention is focused on the incorporation of the Pareto optimality concept into classical structure of the BOA algorithm. We have modified the standard algorithm BOA for one criterion optimization utilizing the known niching techniques to find the Pareto optimal set. The experiments are focused mainly on the bi-criteria optimization because of the visualization simplicity but it can be extended to multiobjective optimization, too.
Screening and identification of a specific peptide binding to hepatocellular carcinoma cells from a phage display peptide library

To screen and identify the novel probe markers binding hepatocellular carcinoma specifically and sensitively, a phage‐displayed 12‐mer peptide library was used to make biopanning with the modified protocols on HepG2 cells. After four rounds of panning, the consensus sequences were obtained, and the PC28, a phage clone with most specific and sensitive binding to HepG2 cells, was identified as the best positive clone. The peptide probe HCSP4 (sequence SLDSTHTHAPWP) was synthesized based on the sequencing result of PC28. The specificity and sensitivity of HCSP4 were primarily analyzed using immunofluorescence, flow cytometry, and other methods. The results show that HCSP4 can bind to hepatocellular carcinoma cells with satisfactory specificity and sensitivity. It may be a promising lead candidate for molecular imaging and targeted drug delivery in the diagnosis and therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma. Copyright © 2014 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Composites made of bioceramic and chitosan physical hydrogel as potential bone substitutes

Les substituts osseux synthetiques servent au remplacement temporaire des tissus osseux, favorisent la formation, la croissance et la survie de l’os et sont bioresorbables. Aucun materiau monophase ne remplissant completement ces exigences, un materiau composite bioinspire est une alternative possible. L’objectif de cette these etait par consequent d’etudier la synthese et les proprietes de deux composites bioceramiques/biopolymeres : des hydrogels physiques de chitosane mineralises avec de l’apatite, et une hardystonite architecturee impregnee par des hydrogels physiques de chitosane. Afin d’obtenir le premier materiau, deux approches ont ete developpees. La premiere a consiste a fabriquer des hydrogels physiques de chitosane puis a les mineraliser avec de l’apatite ; la formation de microcapillaires se produit avec des conditions de synthese specifiques, et les precipites d’apatite ont ete trouves uniquement a la surface des hydrogels. La seconde approche consiste a convertir des suspensions homogenes contenant le phosphate de calcium et le chitosane en hydrogels de chitosane mineralises par l’apatite. Les suspensions ont ete preparees soit avec un melange simultane, soit avec des melanges successifs de suspensions phosphates de calcium avec les solutions de chitosane. Des agregats mineraux plus petits avec une distribution plus uniforme ont ete formes avec la methode des melanges successifs. Cela est attribue a une meilleure homogeneite, une viscosite plus faible et l’absence de chitosane. De maniere generale, trois parametres influencent les proprietes mecaniques d’hydrogels de chitosane mineralises : la base utilisee pour la gelification (determinant la vitesse de gelification : une grande vitesse conserve l’enchevetrement des chaines, resultant en une meilleure elasticite) ; la densite de la reticulation physique (cela induit un module de conservation plus important) et la force ionique (qui mene au desenchevetrement des chaines de chitosane, donc, a un faible module de conservation). Cette comprehension a permis l’utilisation de ces suspensions de phosphate de calcium-chitosane en tant qu’encre pour l’impression 3D. Les hydrogels de chitosane et les hydrogels mineralises ne sont pas cytotoxiques. Pour fabriquer le second materiau, une encre pre-ceramique a ete imprimee en 3D puis frittee pour former une ceramique d’hardystonite cristalline. Les scaffolds d’hardystonite ont ete impregnes par la solution de chitosane, converties ensuite en hydrogels physiques de chitosane. A plus forte concentration de chitosane, la viscosite de la solution etait plus grande et l’impregnation de la matrice plus lente. Avec une vitesse de gelification plus importante, qui depend de la base utilisee pour la gelification, la perte de poids est plus faible pendant la gelification. L’hydrogel de chitosane a partiellement rempli les pores participant au support de charges externes et a la dissipation d’energie par rupture.
Identification of an Oleanane-Type Triterpene Hedragonic Acid as a Novel Farnesoid X Receptor Ligand with Liver Protective Effects and Anti-inflammatory Activity

Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) and G-protein-coupled bile acid receptor 1 (GPBAR1) are two important bile acid (BA) receptors. As non-BAs drug template for GPBAR1, none of the natural oleanane-type triterpenes have been reported as FXR ligands, despite FXR and GPBAR1 having similar binding pockets for BAs. Here, we report the natural triterpene hedragonic acid that has been isolated from the stem and root of Celastrus orbiculatus Thunb. (COT) as an effective agonist for FXR. Both biochemical amplified luminescent proximity homogeneous assay and cell-based reporter assays showed that hedragonic acid regulated the transcriptional activity of FXR. Circular dichroism spectroscopy further suggested the conformational changes of FXR upon the binding of hedragonic acid. Interestingly, the crystal structure of hedragonic acid–bound FXR revealed a unique binding mode with hedragonic acid occupying a novel binding pocket different from the classic binding position. The structural comparison between hedragonic acid–bound FXR and oleanolic acid–bound GPBAR1 explained the molecular basis for the selectivity of oleanane-type triterpenes for FXR. Moreover, hedragonic acid treatment protected mice from liver injury induced by acetaminophen overdose and decreased hepatic inflammatory responses in an FXR-dependent manner, suggesting that hedragonic acid might be one of the major components of COT for its multifunctional pharmaceutical uses. In conclusion, our results provide novel structure templates for drug design based on natural triterpenes by targeting FXR and/or GPBAR1 with pharmaceutical values.
Chronic cutaneous Herpes simplex.

CHRONIC cutaneous herpes simplex is a distinctive clinical presentation of the herpes simplex virus (HSV) in a compromised host. This infection can be defined as chronically active destructive skin lesions that potentially may progress into the disseminated (systemic) form.1While most HSV infections display episodes that show healing in one or two weeks, the lesions of chronic cutaneous herpes simplex have an indolent course that may last for several months. Report of a Case A 68-year-old woman had a four-month history of progressively increasing perirectal pain with slight bleeding. During this period, she lost 5 kg and experienced intermittent fevers up to 38.8 °C at irregular intervals. At the time of admission she appeared thin but was in no acute distress. Physical examination findings were remarkable only for a confluent perianal ulceration that extended from the anus to approximately 10 cm onto both buttocks (Fig 1). The ulcer exhibited
Continuous approximation of stochastic models for wireless sensor networks

Stochastic analysis of wireless sensor networks becomes exceedingly hard as the number of nodes in a network grows large. In this paper we intend to address this issue by proposing a method of modeling large networks by dynamical systems rather than explicit Markov models, called Mean-Field Approximation. We verify the suitability of Mean-Field Approximation by analyzing ALOHA, by both studying a discrete model and a system of differential equations and then by comparing these models. We then extend the modeling technique in order to express characteristics of a network running a CSMA/CA protocol.
Extended Spiral Hashing for Expansible Files

address space allocated to the file to be increased and reduced without reorganizing the whole file. In this paper, we propose a new scheme for dynamic hashing in which the growth of a file occurs at a rate of s per a full expansion, where s and t are given integers and s is smaller than two, as compared to a rate of two in linear hashing. (Note that s is used to denote the number of pages of a file before any split occurs in a full expansion, and t is used to denote the number of pages of the file after a full expansion is finished through a number of split operations.) Therefore, extended spiral hashing can maintain more stable performance through file expansions and has much better storage utilization than does linear hashing. Basically, the proposed scheme is based on a modified spiral storage approach, in which the load distribution is uniform after a full expansion. Therefore, extended spiral hashing can also provide better performance than can the original spiral storage approach. Moreover, we have used a modified separator strategy for overflow handling such that retrieval of any data record in extended spiral hashing is upper-bounded by two disk accesses. From our performance analysis and simulation, extended spiral hashing can achieve nearly 96% storage utilization as compared to 78% storage utilization using linear hashing and 88% storage utilization using the spiral storage approach.
Following the sun: a mathematical analysis of the tracks of clock-shifted homing pigeons

We analysed the tracks of clock-shifted pigeons from six releases to determine how they cope with the conflict between their sun compass and other navigational cues. Time-lag embedding was used to calculate the short-term correlation dimension, a parameter that reflects the complexity of the navigational system, and with it, the number of factors involved. Initially, while pigeons were still at the release site, the short-term correlation dimension was low; it increased as the birds left the site, indicating that the birds were now actively navigating. Clock-shifted pigeons showed more scatter than the control birds, and their short-term correlation dimension became significantly smaller than that of the controls, remaining lower until the experimental birds reached their loft. This difference was small, but consistent, and suggests a different rating and ranking of the navigational cues. Clock-shifted pigeons do not seem to simply ignore the information from their manipulated sun compass altogether, but appear to merely downgrade it in favour of other cues, like their magnetic compass. This is supported by the observation that the final part of the tracks still showed a small deviation in the expected direction, indicating an effect of clock-shifting until the end of the homing flight.