Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Single‐incision totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair is safe and feasible in elderly patients: A single‐center experience of 365 procedures

The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility and safety of SILS for totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair in elderly patients. A retrospective analysis of 365 patients who underwent of SILS for totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair from January 2012 to November 2015 at Osaka Police Hospital was performed, and the outcomes of patients aged <80 years and those aged ≥80 years were compared. There was a greater proportion of patients with an ASA score ≥3 among those ≥80 years than among those <80 years. The mean operative time for unilateral inguinal hernia was 94 min in patients <80 years and 98 min in patients ≥80 years. The mean operative time for bilateral inguinal hernia was 133 min in patients <80 years and 130 min in patients ≥80. Intraoperative bleeding was minimal in all patients. Conversion to a different operative procedure occurred in 3% (10/322) of patients <80 years and in 5% (2/43) of patients ≥80 years (P = 0.6). The mean postoperative hospital stay was 2.2 days for patients <80 years and 2.2 days for patients ≥80 years. The mean follow‐up period 21 ± 14 months (range, 3–50 months) for patients <80 years and 17 ± 14 months (range, 3–50 months) for patients ≥80 years (P = 0.3). Postoperative complications were seen in 12% (38/322) of patients <80 years and in 14% (6/43) of patients ≥80 years (P = 0.7). A seroma was seen in 9% (28/322) of patients <80 years and in 12% (5/43) of patients ≥80 years (P = 0.6). A wound infection occurred in 2% (8/322) of patients <80 years. These seromas and wound infections were managed conservatively. Pulmonary embolism was seen in one patient <80 years (0.3%). There was no mortality or recurrence in either group. SILS for totally extraperitoneal inguinal hernia repair has good cosmesis and can be performed in elderly patients with acceptable morbidity and mortality.
Bragg Grating Packages With Nonuniform Dimensions for Strain and Temperature Sensing

This paper presents a novel approach to better reducing the dimensions of sensor packages for specific applications to enable the simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature using fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based sensors. This approach is demonstrated through comparing three packaging designs, in which there is either a nonuniform height or width to vary the response of two co-located FBGs to strain and temperature. In this way, the measurement of the shift in their respective Bragg wavelengths will allow the accurate determination of both the strain and temperature from their dissimilar strain and temperature coefficients. In addition to providing the necessary protection for the sensors, this type of packaging design also allow better control over the differences between the coefficients thus, in turn, maximizing the sensitivity to which strain and temperature values can be determined.
User verification using behavioural cancelable templates

Verificar a identidade de usuarios e um problema enfrentado diariamente por pessoas e sistemas que autorizam o acesso de pessoas levando em conta caracteristicas fisicas e documentos apresentados. Entretanto, esforcos ainda precisam ser aplicados na resolucao de questoes relacionadas a precisao do sistema verificador e na falsificacao de objetos e informacoes pessoais.Assim, o uso de biometria pode minimizar ou resolver estas dificuldades. Infelizmente, a substituicao de tracos biometricos em caso de comprometimento na seguranca de sistemas biometricos e dificultoso. Deste modo, o uso de funcoes nao inversiveis e proposto com o objetivo de distorcer os tracos biometricos, adicionando assim a caracteristica cancelavel aos dados biometricos. Esta tese analisa algumas solucoes para verificacao de usuarios atraves do uso de biometrias comportamentais cancelaveis. Especificamente, as solucoes sao baseadas no TouchAlytics, uma base de dados com tracos realizados por usuarios em uma tela touchscreen presente em smartphones. As solucoes analisadas contituem no uso de classificadores e comite de classificadores para resolucao do problema de verificacao de usuarios. Alem das solucoes descritas, esta tese analisa o uso de multiplos template biometrico cancelaveis utilizando um comite de classificadores (Esquemas de Protecao de Privacidade Multipla). Esta tese tambem apresenta uma discussao facetada do impacto da chave em uma funcao cancelavel. Para isso, apresentamos um estudo empirico na qual utiliza chave unica ou chaves diferentes para protecao dos templates biometricos dos usuarios. Alem disso, um estudo do impacto do tamanho da chave na precisao de um sistema de verificacao biometrico e discutido. A partir dos resultados encontrados, a geracao e armazenamento da chave cancelavel em telefones moveis e analisado. Nos demostramos que o uso de funcoes de tranformacao geralmente fornece performance similar ou superior a performance dos templates sem protecao (dados Original), exceto usando a funcao BioHashing. O uso de multiplos templates protegidos processados por comites de maquina superaram os resultados do uso de classificadores e comites de maquina. Alem do mais, nos mostramos que os sistemas biometricos que utilizam templates cancelaveis preservam a privacidade do usuario, ou seja, fornecem baixa Taxa de Falsa Aceitacao e Falsa Rejeicao em ataques de chave desconhecida e performance similar a templates desprotegidos em ataques com chave conhecida. Baseado nos experimentos de comprimento de chave, nos observamos uma melhora continua quando o comprimento da chave aumenta nas funcoes Interpolacao e BioHashing em ambos os ataques de chave. A funcao Soma Dupla teve melhora inferior mas o importante e que a performance nao diminui com o aumento do comprimento da chave. Concluindo, baseado em nossos resultados, nos propomos o uso de uma chave de usuario unica gerada por sistema para autenticacao de usuario em dispositivos moveis usando multiplos templates biometricos cancelaveis.
Alexandra Pavloudi Women ’ s business activities in Greece : The case of agrotourism

The aim of agro-tourism is to contribute to a reversal of the climate of abandonment pervading the countryside and to create favorable conditions for the development of new financial activities. For the most countries, the mainstream of business owners are male, while in Greece, the percentage of women entrepreneurs is only 15%, and in the rural area, even smaller. Government policies and the European Union is supporting women entrepreneurship, since women in the labor sector are important factors of development and society’s progress. This paper presents the findings of a research regarding women’s’ firms functioning in the agrotourism sector. Field research was undertaken in almost all the women’s agrotourism companies or cooperatives all over Greece. In this matter the sample consisted of 203 women’s enterprises functioning in Greece, representing an almost 100% sample of the target research population. Statistical analysis employed frequencies, percentages, means as well as chisquare tests. Results revealed that the type of the agro-tourism firm affect the type of activity chosen from the women’s agrotourism firm, while the women’s agrotourism firms’ manager’s age as well as area of operation of the firm does not. This paper is based on research carried out within the framework of the project co-funded by the European Social Fund and National Resources EPEAEK II ARCHIMIDIS.
Plant Community and Nitrogen Deposition as Drivers of Alpha and Beta Diversities of Prokaryotes in Reconstructed Oil Sand Soils and Natural Boreal Forest Soils

ABSTRACT The Athabasca oil sand deposit is one of the largest single oil deposits in the world. Following surface mining, companies are required to restore soil-like profiles that can support the previous land capabilities. The objective of this study was to assess whether the soil prokaryotic alpha diversity (α-diversity) and β-diversity in oil sand soils reconstructed 20 to 30 years previously and planted to one of three vegetation types (coniferous or deciduous trees and grassland) were similar to those found in natural boreal forest soils subject to wildfire disturbance. Prokaryotic α-diversity and β-diversity were assessed using massively parallel sequencing of 16S rRNA genes. The β-diversity, but not the α-diversity, differed between reconstructed and natural soils. Bacteria associated with an oligotrophic lifestyle were more abundant in natural forest soils, whereas bacteria associated with a copiotrophic lifestyle were more abundant in reconstructed soils. Ammonia-oxidizing archaea were most abundant in reconstructed soils planted with grasses. Plant species were the main factor influencing α-diversity in natural and in reconstructed soils. Nitrogen deposition, pH, and plant species were the main factors influencing the β-diversity of the prokaryotic communities in natural and reconstructed soils. The results highlight the importance of nitrogen deposition and aboveground-belowground relationships in shaping soil microbial communities in natural and reconstructed soils. IMPORTANCE Covering over 800 km2, land disturbed by the exploitation of the oil sands in Canada has to be restored. Here, we take advantage of the proximity between these reconstructed ecosystems and the boreal forest surrounding the oil sand mining area to study soil microbial community structure and processes in both natural and nonnatural environments. By identifying key characteristics shaping the structure of soil microbial communities, this study improved our understanding of how vegetation, soil characteristics and microbial communities interact and drive soil functions.
In-hospital mortality prediction in patients receiving mechanical ventilation in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND Few studies have used pooled data for more than 2 years and few have analyzed data for patients receiving mechanical ventilation in Taiwan. Objective To validate the use of an artificial neural network model for predicting in-hospital mortality in patients receiving mechanical ventilation in Taiwan and to compare the predictive accuracy of the artificial neural network model with that of a logistic regression model. METHODS Retrospective comparison of 1000 pairs of data sets processed by logistic regression and artificial neural network models based on initial clinical data for 213 945 patients receiving mechanical ventilation. For each pair of artificial neural network and logistic regression models, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curves, Hosmer-Lemeshow statistics, and accuracy rate were calculated and compared by using t tests. Global sensitivity analysis and sensitivity score approach were also used to assess the relative significance of input parameters in the system model and the relative importance of variables. RESULTS Compared with the logistic regression model, the artificial neural network model had a better accuracy rate in 96.3% of cases, better Hosmer-Lemeshow statistics in 41.2% of cases, and a better area under the curve in 97.6% of cases. Hospital volume was the most influential (sensitive) variable affecting in-hospital mortality, followed by Charlson comorbidity index, length of stay, and hospital type. CONCLUSIONS Compared with the conventional logistic regression model, the artificial neural network model was more accurate in predicting in-hospital mortality and had higher overall performance indices.
Sugar intake, soft drink consumption and body weight among British children: Further analysis of National Diet and Nutrition Survey data with adjustment for under-reporting and physical activity

We investigated associations between body mass index (BMI) and intake of non-milk extrinsic sugars (NMES) and caloric soft drinks using weighed 7-day food records, nutrient intakes, BMI measurements and 7-day physical activity (PA) diaries from the UK National Dietary and Nutritional Survey of Young People (n=1,294 aged 7–18 years). NMES and caloric soft drinks (excluding 100% fruit juice) were quantified by their contribution to energy intake. BMI z-scores were calculated from UK reference curves and International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cut-off values were used to define overweight. The BMI z-score was weakly inversely correlated with percentage energy from NMES after adjustment for under-reporting and dieting (r=–0.06, P=0.03). The percentage of energy from soft drinks was not associated with the BMI z-score or PA. After excluding under-reporters and dieters, the heaviest children (top quintile: Q5 of BMI z-scores) consumed more total energy (+1,220 kJ/day) than those in the lowest quintile (Q1), but only 60 kJ (5%) was from soft drinks. In logistic regression (adjusted for age and gender, under-reporting, and dieting), overweight was positively associated with energy intake (MJ) (odds ratio [OR]=1.58, confidence interval [CI]=1.42–1.77) and sedentary activity (h) (OR=1.11, CI=1.01–1.23), and inversely associated with moderate/vigorous activity (h) (OR=0.71, CI=0.58–0.86). In the macronutrient model, high fat and protein intake (top tertile vs lowest tertile, g/day) were positively associated with overweight (OR>2.5, P<0.001) while starch had less impact (OR=1.60, CI=1.0–2.55, P<0.05). Top tertile intakes of caloric soft drinks were weakly associated with overweight (OR=1.39, CI=0.96–2.0, P=0.08), while other sources of NMES showed no association (OR=0.81, CI=0.52–1.27, P=0.4). Risk associated with caloric soft drinks appeared non-linear with an increase in odds only for very high consumers (top quintile, mean 870 kJ/day; OR=1.67, CI=1.04–2.66, P=0.03). These data are not consistent with any specific role for NMES or caloric soft drinks in obesity among British children and adolescents, but point instead to a general role of overeating and physical inactivity. Evidence of successful interventions is urgently needed but these must use reliable measurements of exposure (diet and PA) and outcome (BMI z-score, body fat, waist circumference) and have a sufficient timescale.
Study on the performance deterioration of flexible UWB antennas

A flexible transparent film uwb antenna for curved surfaces has been designed and developed for wireless communications. The antenna has demonstrated good performance over the entire UWB bandwidth. It can be mounted on any conformal shape by virtue of the film properties of both the antenna as well as the substrate. The radiator and ground are both designed using AgHT-8 while the substrate is of a polymer. The antenna is shown to be able to maintain its performance below the 10dB level throughout the entire UWB bandwidth of 7.5GHz i.e from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz as it is flexed through various radius of curvature thus providing an insight into how to overcome performance deterioration in wearable antennas.
Microtubules and vesicles under controlled tension

ATT10-mm diameter! deﬁne shapes reminiscent of living cells.In this work, three conﬁgurations are studied: an individual microtubule, a linear bundle, and a circular band.Mechanical properties are probed by varying the vesicle membrane tension using micropipet aspiration. Quan-titative results include measurements of the persistence length of a single microtubule, 6.362. 4 mm, and thestretching modulus of the vesicle membrane, k
Transient TLR Activation Restores Inflammatory Response and Ability To Control Pulmonary Bacterial Infection in Germfree Mice

Mammals are colonized by an astronomical number of commensal microorganisms on their environmental exposed surfaces. These symbiotic species build up a complex community that aids their hosts in several physiological activities. We have shown that lack of intestinal microbiota is accompanied by a state of active IL-10–mediated inflammatory hyporesponsiveness. The present study investigated whether the germfree state and its hyporesponsive phenotype alter host resistance to an infectious bacterial insult. Experiments performed in germfree mice infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae showed that these animals are drastically susceptible to bacterial infection in an IL-10–dependent manner. In germfree mice, IL-10 restrains proinflammatory mediator production and neutrophil recruitment and favors pathogen growth and dissemination. Germfree mice were resistant to LPS treatment. However, priming of these animals with several TLR agonists recovered their inflammatory responsiveness to sterile injury. LPS pretreatment also rendered germfree mice resistant to pulmonary K. pneumoniae infection, abrogated IL-10 production, and restored TNF-α and CXCL1 production and neutrophil mobilization into lungs of infected germfree mice. This effective inflammatory response mounted by LPS-treated germfree mice resulted in bacterial clearance and enhanced survival upon infection. Therefore, host colonization by indigenous microbiota alters the way the host reacts to environmental infectious stimuli, probably through activation of TLR-dependent pathways. Symbiotic gut colonization enables proper inflammatory response to harmful insults to the host, and increases resilience of the entire mammal-microbiota consortium to environmental pressures.
Identifying Potential Interaction between BWR Plant Dynamics and Power System Electromechanical Oscillations

The need for maintaining oscillatory stability has long been recognised in power system analysis. The possibility of unstable power oscillations in boiling water nuclear reactors (BWR) has also been known and managed since early in the history of this design concept. In this paper, an analysis of measurements from the Nordic power system is presented that suggests that in certain circumstances, power system electromechanical oscillations and BWR power oscillations could interact. Specifically, it appears that reduced power output from a reactor, combined with low system loading increases the likelihood of the interaction. The significance of this phenomenon is that the probability of occurrence of unstable oscillations when these circumstances coincide may be greater than previously thought. Heuristic rules, measurement technology and stabilisation techniques could all be used to improve the security of the system and reduce the incidence of unstable reactor power oscillations
Consumer Behaviour and Mobile TV Services: Do Men Differ From Women in Their Adoption Intentions?

The mobile communications‟ industry experiences moderate diffusion rates of innovative data services in many countries of the Western world. Mobile TV has been depicted as the “killer application” by both market analysts and mobile service providers. However, these optimistic forecasts have yet to come true. The present article presents the results of a quantitative study conducted in order to explore the relationship between the individual‟s perceptions of value elements and the adoption intentions, in the case of mobile TV. Building on the theory of reason-based choice, we investigate how gender differences influence the relationship between value perceptions and adoption intentions and how gender influences the individual‟s preferences for mobile TV services. The research findings highlight the importance of gender as a differentiating factor both for the value perceptions and the individual‟s preferences. The study underlines the existence of different diffusion patterns between men and women, in the case of mobile TV.
Proceedings of the Workshop on Multiword Expressions: from Parsing and Generation to the Real World, MWE@ACL 2011, Portland, Oregon, USA, June 23, 2011

The ACL 2011 Workshop on Multiword Expressions: from Parsing and Generation to the Real World (MWE 2011) took place on June 23, 2011 in Portland, Oregon, USA, in conjunction to the 49th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (ACL HLT 2011). The workshop has been held every year since 2003 in conjunction with ACL, EACL, COLING and LREC. Multiword Expressions (MWEs) range over linguistic constructions such as idioms (a frog in the throat, kill some time), fixed phrases (per se, by and large, rock'n roll), noun compounds (telephone booth, cable car), compound verbs (give a presentation, go by [a name]), etc. While easily mastered by native speakers, their interpretation poses a major challenge for computational systems, due to their flexible and heterogeneous nature. Surprisingly enough, MWEs are not nearly as frequent in NLP resources (dictionaries, grammars) as they are in real-word text, where they have been reported to account for over 70% of the terms in a domain. Thus, MWEs are a key issue and a current weakness for tasks like Natural Language Parsing (NLP) and Generation (NLG), as well as real-life applications such as Machine Translation.
Placebo-induced changes in behavioural parameters during gait: a pilot study

Behavioural evidence shows placebo modulations of motor performance. Different studies in this field supported that placebo improves sensible physical parameters such as force and speed. However, the effect of placebo on more complicated indices like harmony and symmetry of movement during gait has not been studied up to today. We explored if a placebo modulation of motor performance could affect this sort of indices. Three groups of healthy participants executed a motor task by walking on a treadmill as fast as possible (just below the threshold of running). One experimental group was instructed verbally that treatment with transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS, applied on gastrocnemius muscle) would induce motor enhancement. After applying the placebo procedure, the experimental group achieved better motor performance (more coordinated and symmetric) compared to two control groups (not influenced by the placebo treatment).
Regression Modeling Strategies

Questions/discussions: Slack channels rms and bios330 in vbiostatcourse.slack. com Longer discussions: datamethods.org/c/stat/rms Archive discussions: Google group regmod General questions: stats.stackexchange. com, tag regression-strategies Course notes: hbiostat.org/doc/rms.pdf (full) hbiostat.org/doc/rms1.pdf (1-day) Supplemental material: hbiostat.org/doc/bbr.pdf: Biostatistics for Biomedical Research
Relationship of large and small CD3‐ CD56+ lymphocytes mediating NK‐associated activities

We have defined a population of CD3‐, CD56+ small lymphocytes (SLs) that exhibit the same phenotype and lytic capacity as natural killer (NK) cells. NK cells characteristically express the surface markers CD16 and CD56, mediate non–major histocompatibility complex (MHC)–restricted lysis, and have been equated with CD3‐ large granular lymphocytes (LGLs). In the present study we extended the observation that CD3‐, CD56+ SLs can mediate NK‐ and antibody‐dependent cellular cytotoxicity activity by studying the activation signals and lytic mechanisms that might be utilized by CD3‐, CD56+ SLs in comparison to CD3‐ CD56+ LGLs. Our results show that CD3‐ SLs, similar to CD3‐ LGLs, exhibited activated killing in response to interleukin‐2 (IL‐2). In addition, after IL‐2 activation, the CD3‐ SLs exhibited morphologic changes, including increases in size and granularity, and both morphologically and phenotypically became virtually indistinguishable from CD3‐ LGLs. Similar to CD3‐ LGLs, CD3‐ SLs could be directly activated by IL‐2 alone to secrete significant quantities of interferon‐γ (IFN‐γ) and to express IL‐2 receptor (IL‐2R) p55. Examination of serine esterases and pore‐forming protein (PFP) demonstrated that these cells exhibited a cytoplasmic distribution of perforin, which, unlike that of CD3‐ LGLs, was not associated with dense cytoplasmic azurophilic granules. Serine esterase levels were similar. However, after IL‐2 activation PFP was concentrated in dense cytoplasmic granules, similar or identical to the situation in CD3‐, CD56+ LGLs. These CD3‐, CD56+ subsets appear to represent a continuum of activated cells that might represent various states of maturation of NK cells.