Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of a Large-Scale Power Outage on Hemodialysis Center Operations

Abstract Introduction On June 29, 2012, mid-Atlantic storms resulted in a large-scale power outage affecting up to three million people across multiple (US) states. Hemodialysis centers are dependent on electricity to provide dialysis care to end-stage renal disease patients. The objective of this study was to determine how the power outage impacted operations in a sample of hemodialysis centers in the impacted regions. Methods The sample consisted of all hemodialysis centers located in the District of Columbia and a total of five counties with the largest power losses in West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland. A semi-structured interview guide was developed, and the charge nurse or supervisor in each facility was interviewed. The survey questions addressed whether their centers lost power, if so, for how long, where their patients received dialysis, whether their centers had backup generators, and if so, whether they had any problems operating them, and whether their center received patients from other centers if they had power. Results Calls were placed to 90 dialysis centers in the sampled areas and a 90% response rate was achieved. Overall, hemodialysis operations at approximately 30% (n = 24) of the centers queried were impacted by the power outage. Of the 36 centers that lost power, 31% (n = 11) referred their patients to other dialysis centers, 22% (n = 8) accommodated their patients during a later shift or on a different day; the rest of the centers either experienced brief power outages that did not affect operations or experienced a power outage on days that the center is usually closed. Some centers in the study cohort reported receiving patients from other centers for dialysis 33% (n = 27). Thirty-two percent (n = 26) of the centers queried had backup generators on site. Eleven percent (n = 4) of the centers experiencing power outages reported that backup generators were brought in by their parent companies. Conclusions Comprehensive emergency planning for dialysis centers should include provisions for having backup generators on site, having plans in place for the timely delivery of a generator during a power outage, or having predesignated backup dialysis centers for patients to receive dialysis during emergencies. Most dialysis centers surveyed in this study were able to sustain continuity of care by implementing such pre-existing emergency plans. AbirM, JanS, JubeltL, MerchantR, LurieN. The impact of a large-scale power outage on hemodialysis center operations. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2013;28(6):1-4.
Thermoreality: thermally enriched head mounted displays

With rise in the popularity of virtual reality, head mounted displays (HMDs) have become a main piece of hardware that delivers an immersive experience to the user. As one of the approaches to further enhance the user's presence in the virtual reality environment, haptic feedback has been widely used in the current VR space.
Grasp pattern variations seen in the scleroderma hand.

OBJECTIVES Therapists generally describe a person's grasp in terms of normal prehension patterns that have been discussed in the literature. However, the grasp pattern used by a person with a hand impairment may not fit into these patterns. The purpose of this study was to describe, with qualitative classification systems, static grasp patterns used by hands impaired by scleroderma and to determine the relationship between hand impairment and variations in grasp. METHODS Seventeen subjects with scleroderma were observed grasping a key, a coin, a glass, and a saucepan. Their grasp patterns were recorded on the basis of which fingers were used to grasp the object, the surface areas of the fingers in contact with the object, and the position of the joints of the fingers. In addition, range of motion, grip and pinch strength, skin thickening, digital ulcers, calcium deposits, and tendon friction rubs were assessed. RESULTS More variations in grasp were seen with the coin, glass, and saucepan than with the key. The presence of digital sores indicated more difficulty holding a coin, whereas the presence of calcium deposits indicated more difficulty holding a coin, glass, and saucepan. The number of fingers with contractures correlated with the ability to hold all four objects. CONCLUSIONS Persons with scleroderma show qualitative differences in grasp as compared to normal prehension patterns. These differences are influenced by impairments in the scleroderma hand. Qualitative descriptions of grasp patterns may provide therapists with additional means to document change after surgical or therapeutic intervention.
Association between coronary lesion severity and distal microvascular resistance in patients with coronary artery disease.

Homogeneity of microvascular resistance in different perfusion areas of the same heart is generally assumed. We investigated the effect of the severity of an epicardial stenosis on microvascular resistance in 27 patients with coronary artery disease and stable angina. All patients had an angiographically normal coronary artery, an artery with an intermediate lesion, and an artery with a severe lesion; the latter was treated with angioplasty. In each patient, distal blood flow velocity and pressure were measured during baseline and maximal hyperemia (induced by intracoronary adenosine) using a Doppler and pressure guide wire, respectively. The ratio of mean distal pressure to average peak blood flow velocity was used as an index for the microvascular resistance (MRv). Within patients, the hyperemic MRv was higher in arteries with more severe stenosis (P = 0.021). After percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), the hyperemic MRv decreased (pre-PTCA, 2.6 vs. post-PTCA, 1.9 mmHg.cm(-1)s(-1), P < 0.01) toward the value of the reference artery (1.7 mmHg.cm(-1)s(-1); P = 0.67). We conclude that there is a positive association between coronary lesion severity and variability of distal microvascular resistance that normalizes after angioplasty. This study challenges the concept of uniform distribution of hyperemic MRv that is relevant for the interpretation of both noninvasive and invasive diagnostic tests.
THE EFFECT OF Tribulus terrestris EXTRACT ON EGG YOLK LIPIDS AND SERUM CHOLESTEROL CONTENT IN GUINEA FOWLS

With the aim to establish the effect of the product Vemoherb-T (dry extract of Tribulus terrestris L) on egg yolk lipids and serum total cholesterol content, the trial was designed with 30 Pearl gray Guinea fowls, at the age of 32 weeks, randomly distributed in control and experimental groups, 12 female and 3 male each. All birds received the same mixture for breeder Guinea fowls. The tested product was added to the compound feed of the experimental group in a dose of 10 mg/kg body weight for a period of 12 weeks. The total lipids, phospholipids, cholesterol content, fatty acids composition in the egg yolk and serum total cholesterol content were determined at the end of the trial. The results from this study indicate that Vemoherb-T does not have any influence on the total lipids and phospholipids content in the egg yolk. The addition of 10mg/kg body weight of the tested product to the forage of Guinea fowls decreased significantly the serum cholesterol level (P<0.01) and the cholesterol content in the egg yolk (P<0.05). It was observed the increase the content of linoleic acid in the yolk (P=0.05) in treated birds in comparison with control group.
Linkages of nitrogen and phosphorus availability to ecosystem processes and succession in forests of northern Sweden and New Zealand

Initially after catastrophic disturbance ecosystems undergo a build-up phase but in the long term absence of catastrophic disturbance ecosystems can enter a phase of decline called ecosystem retrogression. It is characterised by reduced productivity, decomposition rates and rates of nutrient cycling as a consequence of nutrient limitation. Over the course of long-term soil development, phosphorus (P) availability decreases due to leaching and chemical immobilisation, leading to increased soil N: P ratios during retrogression. In contrast, nitrogen (N) is continuously supplied to natural ecosystems through biological N2 fixation, though late successional plant species can have a negative effect on N availability during retrogression, reinforcing N limitation. I studied variation in supply and availability of N and P throughout a 5000 year retrogressive chronosequence in which the soil N: P ratio increases, and investigated how it affected the nutrient status of soil microbes and plants. I found that total N increases considerably during retrogression as a consequence of increased N2 fixation. Total P did not change across the chronosequence but labile mineral P declined in the retrogressive stage and this was connected to decreased soil microbial activity. Plant nutrient status showed diverging trends between trees and dwarf shrubs across the chronosequence, indicating increasing resource partitioning as retrogression proceeds. Variation in leaf traits was due to shifting species composition rather than within species changes. I also studied factors influencing the availability of N and P during the build-up phase of succession as affected by an important extrinsic driver, i.e., herbivory. Herbivory of a N2 fixing shrub had considerable negative effects on the nutrient status of not only its own growth and nutrient status, but also that of neighbouring non-fixing plants and soil processes. These studies in combination have demonstrated how changing availability of nutrients during succession, both in the build-up phase and the retrogressive phase, can be driven by biological processes such as N2 fixation and species effects on carbon (C) quality and, how this in turn leads to differences in the relative success of coexisting plant species in the community. As such, these results demonstrate the dynamic and variable nature of nutrient limitation and the processes leading to it.
NFP-6xxx - a 22nm high-performance network flow processor for 200Gb/s Software Defined Networking

Presents a collection of slides covering the following topics: software defined networking; SDN architecture; flow processor roadmap; NFP-6xxx detailed block diagram; SOC; innovative heterogeneous island architecture; distributed bus structures; latency tolerant processing; PPC; FPC pipelines; hierarchical processing memories; multi-pipelined processing memory; memory engines; flow processing acceleration; data plane acceleration; and cyber security.
DQN Inspired Joint Computing and Caching Resource Allocation Approach for Software Defined Information-Centric Internet of Things Network

With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) network, the IoT devices need to perform the artificial intelligence (AI) model to make decisions according to the specific service requirement under a dynamic environment. However, the generation and usage of AI model typically requires a huge amount of communication, computing, and caching resource. Thus, the construction of the network and the scheduling of the limited network resources to realize the rapid generation and propagation of AI models are critical. Therefore, we propose a software-defined Information Centric-Internet of Things (IC-IoT) architecture to bring caching and computing capabilities to the IoT network. Based on the proposed IC-IoT architecture, we design a joint resource scheduling scheme to uniformly manage the computing and caching resources. The objective is to maximize the reward which consists not only short-term reward but also long-term reward brought by caching popular AI models. The resource scheduling problem is formulated into a multi-dimensional optimization problem. A new deep Q-learning method is proposed due to the complexity and high dimension of this problem. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the software-defined IC-IoT architecture and the joint resource allocation strategy.
Police Involvement in the Needle and Syringe Exchange Programme (NSEP): The Malaysian Experience

The Needle and Syringe Exchange Programme (NSEP) in Malaysia is a fully Governmentsupported programme carried out multi-sectorally to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS among drug users. However, NSEP contravenes the Malaysia Dangerous Drugs Act for which the enforcement is under the purview of the Royal Malaysia Police (RMP). This article attempts to highlight the challenges faced by the RMP in supporting the NSEP. Five police officers from the Narcotics Crimes Investigation Department were selected for in-depth interviews. Results show police officers had seized the NSEP’s objective, philosophy and intervention. However, they were not informed on how exactly the NSEP operates in the field. The findings also showed disagreement between law enforcement terms of reference and the NSEP strategies. Much effort is needed to integrate the NSEP into law and the stakeholders’ have to deliberate continually and provide accurate information on the NSEP implementation at all levels. It is also hoped to increase multi-sectoral participation based on punitive prohibition for drug offence in Malaysia.
Efficient Analysis of Traffic Intersection Scenes by Employing Traffic Phase Information

: Analyzing motion patterns in traffic videos can be employed directly to generate high-level descriptions of their content. For traffic videos captured from intersections, usually, we can easily provide additional information about traffic phases. Such information can be obtained directly from the traffic lights or through traffic lights controllers. In this paper, we focus on incorporating additional information to analyze the traffic videos more efficiently. Using side information on traffic phases, the semantic of motion patterns from traffic intersection scenes can be learned more effectively. The learning is performed based on optical ﬂow features extracted from training video clips, and applying them to supervised topic models such as MedLDA and MedSTC. Based on such models, any video clip can be represented based on the learned patterns. Such representations can be further exploited in scene analysis, rule mining, abnormal event detection, etc. Our experiments show that employing side information in intersection video analysis leads to improvement in discovering scene pattern. Moreover, supervised topic models achieve about 4% improvement in abnormal event detection, compared to the unsupervised ones, in terms of area under ROC.
Implantable CPW fed dual folded dipole antenna for biomedical applications

A implantable CPW fed dual folded dipole antenna operating in the ISM band (2.4-2.48 GHz) and WMTS (1.4-1.43 GHz) for biomedical applications. The proposed antenna is made compatible for implantation by embedding it in a biocompatible Poly Dimethyl Siloxane (PDMS). A study of sensitivity of the antenna performance as a function of the dielectric parameters of the environment in which it is immersed was performed. The proposed antenna is simulated using the method of moment's software IE3D by assuming the predetermined dielectric constant for the human muscle tissue, fat and skin and the parameters of the antenna such as return loss, radiation pattern, and VSWR are plotted.
An inductance enhancement technique and its application to a shunt-peaked 2.5 Gb/s transimpedance amplifier design

This brief presents a bandwidth enhancement technique that is applicable to gigahertz-range broadband circuits. Using the inductance enhancement technique proposed in this brief, a 2.5-Gb/s transimpedance amplifier (TIA) has been implemented based on a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. With the input noise reduction, the TIA with the proposed active inductor loads improves the overall system performances including more that 90% increase in bandwidth. Measurements show the bandwidth of 1.73 GHz, transimpedance gain of 68 dB/spl Omega/, and the averaged input referred noise current of 3.3 pA//spl radic/Hz, respectively, while dissipating 50 mW of dc power.
Assessment of Cerebral Blood Volume with Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast Enhanced Gradient‐Echo Imaging

Objective Dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) enhanced MRI was used to study relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV). Materials and Methods We examined 15 healthy subjects and 47 patients with vascular stenosis or occlusion, with brain infarctions, and with cerebral neoplasms. During bolus injection of Gd-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid, a series of rapid T2*-weighted fast low angle shot two-dimensional images were recorded from the same slice. From these images, changes in signal intensity during bolus passage were computed pixel-by-pixel and converted into contrast agent concentration curves. Applying the principles of indicator dilution theory, images of rCBV were calculated. Results and Conclusion Regions of infarctions show almost zero rCBV. In patients with high-grade vascular stenosis or occlusion a bolus delay in comparison to the unaffected side and an increased mean transit time can be observed. Some of the affected areas show an increased rCBV, which is a well-known physiological mechanism that takes place to compensate for the reduced cerebral blood pressure. In brain tumors, rCBV imaging reveals focal or homogeneous areas of increased blood volume. This can even be observed in low-grade astrocytomas with unaffected blood-brain barrier. In CBV imaging, the effects of radiotherapy on tumor tissue can be monitored as a significant decrease of rCBV in tumor tissue after therapy.
Engaging students in creative learning tasks with social networks and video-based learning

Video­based learning is a widely used approach for teaching. This paper investigates how this approach could be improved with other well known methodology: computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL). The integration of both approaches results in a creative and engaging educational activity, collaborative film­making. This task is supported by a platform developed as a social network. During the design of the platform, opinions of teachers and students were taken into account. Both, teachers and students, agreed that this approach helps students to understand threshold concepts. In addition, students identified useful facilities in the platform like group­private workspaces or commenting tools. Students’ satisfaction was high, in fact they recommend the use of this approach in more subjects. Keywords—Social Networks; Video­based Learning; Creative learning; STEM;
Design and Implementation of New Multilevel Inverter Topology for Trinary Sequence Using Unipolar Pulsewidth Modulation

This paper proposes a new multilevel inverter (MLI) topology that utilizes trinary sequence for the dc sources. It gives maximum output voltage level with minimum dc source and switch count when compared to other sequences, such as symmetric, natural, binary, and quasi-linear. This is due to the fact that the trinary sequence generates of all additive and subtractive combinations of input dc levels in the output voltage waveform. The concept is implemented on a 9-level asymmetric MLI using only four active devices. Multicarrier unipolar pulsewidth modulation technique is adopted to create the switching pulses. Theoretical calculation of total harmonic distortion in both voltage and current waveforms has been performed using asymptotic time domain formula. These values are compared with simulation and experimental values for different modulation indices. Power loss calculation for proposed topology is discussed with appropriate mathematical equations.
Biogenesis of lipid droplets – how cells get fatter

Abstract Lipid droplets are discrete organelles present in most cell types and organisms including bacteria, yeast, plants, insects and animals. Long considered as passive storage deposits, recent cell biology, proteomic and lipidomic analysis show that lipid droplets are dynamic organelles involved in multiple cellular functions. They have a central function in lipid distribution to different membrane-bound organelles and serve not only as main reservoirs of neutral lipids such as triglycerides and cholesterol but in addition, contain structural proteins, proteins involved in lipid synthesis and transmembrane proteins. A detailed model for how transmembrane proteins such as SNARE proteins can exist in lipid droplets is proposed.
Arginine vasopressin to manage hypoxemic infants after stage I palliation of single ventricle lesions

Objective: Management of patients with single ventricle physiology following stage I palliation procedures is often challenging, with optimization of the ratio of pulmonary-to-systemic blood flow as an important goal. Persistent hypoxemia may be a manifestation of elevated pulmonary vascular resistance and therefore decreased blood flow to the lungs. In such situations, the use of arginine vasopressin to increase systemic vascular resistance may be an effective strategy to improve pulmonary blood flow and maintain adequate pulmonary-to-systemic blood flow ratio. We describe three infants in whom persistent hypoxemia improved after institution of arginine vasopressin. Design: Retrospective chart review. Setting: Twenty-four bed medical-surgical pediatric intensive care unit at a large tertiary care academic hospital. Patients: Three neonates with single ventricle physiology who received arginine vasopressin in the setting of hypoxemia following stage I palliation. Results: Arginine vasopressin was initiated in all three patients for hypoxemia with a goal to increase systemic vascular resistance and generate a higher driving pressure for pulmonary blood flow. Twelve hours after arginine vasopressin initiation, systemic arterial saturation as determined by pulse oximetry and blood pressure increased, whereas heart rate, inotrope score, and Fio2 decreased in all three patients. Urine output was maintained and arterial lactate decreased during this time. Pulmonary-to-systemic flow ratio increased in one patient in whom it could be determined. Conclusion: In patients with single ventricle physiology and persistent hypoxemia following stage I palliation, administration of arginine vasopressin could improve oxygenation possibly by increasing systemic vascular resistance and therefore the pulmonary blood flow.
Customized versus population-based growth curves: Prediction of low body fat percent at term corrected gestational age following preterm birth

Objective: Compare customized versus population-based growth curves for identification of small-for-gestational-age (SGA) and body fat percent (BF%) among preterm infants. Methods: Prospective cohort study of 204 preterm infants classified as SGA or appropriate-for-gestational-age (AGA) by population-based and customized growth curves. BF% was determined by air-displacement plethysmography. Differences between groups were compared using bivariable and multivariable linear and logistic regression analyses. Results: Customized curves reclassified 30% of the preterm infants as SGA. SGA infants identified by customized method only had significantly lower BF% (13.8 ± 6.0) than the AGA (16.2 ± 6.3, p = 0.02) infants and similar to the SGA infants classified by both methods (14.6 ± 6.7, p = 0.51). Customized growth curves were a significant predictor of BF% (p = 0.02), whereas population-based growth curves were not a significant independent predictor of BF% (p = 0.50) at term corrected gestational age. Conclusion: Customized growth potential improves the differentiation of SGA infants and low BF% compared with a standard population-based growth curve among a cohort of preterm infants.