Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A middle fidelity model is effective in teaching and retaining skill set needed to perform a laparoscopic pyloromyotomy.

INTRODUCTION An inanimate technical skills trainer for laparoscopic pyloromyotomy (LP) has not been described. A middle fidelity model, reproducing the three consistent steps in LP, was developed as a component of a teaching module for surgical residents, and tested on medical students, residents, and pediatric surgeons. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the first phase of the study, a cohort of 29 pediatric surgeons used the LP model and completed questionnaires about the model's realism and accuracy. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze questionnaire responses. Chi-square tests were performed to determine if level of experience influenced responses. For the second phase of the study, medical students and surgical residents individually participated in the training of cognitive knowledge about hypertrophic pyloric stenosis and skills acquisition for LP. Subject testing consisted of simulator task performance and multiple-choice quiz administration immediately after training and repeated at 8 weeks after training. Data were analyzed by using paired sample t-tests and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS The pediatric surgeons agreed that the model accurately simulated essential components of the pyloromyotomy, and that the model would be an excellent tool to introduce surgeons to LP. A total of 26 students and early surgical residents completed the training and testing. Knowledge-based test performance improved from pre- to postinstruction by 17.45 [standard error of the mean (SEM) + 3.5] (P < 0.001) and from preinstruction to 8 weeks by 4.54 (SEM = 3.2) (P = 0.17). Mean improvement in time of simulator task performance was 85.2 +/- 75.4 seconds. Based on a one-way ANOVA, higher level of training was associated with decreased mean times (P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS Face and content validities of the simulation were demonstrated by the pediatric surgeons. An effective training experience was demonstrated with medical students and residents. At 2 months, simulator task-completion rates and task-performance times showed technical skills were retained, whereas, based on test scores, cognitive knowledge was not as well retained.
Evaluation of the eZono 4000 with eZGuide for ultrasound-guided procedures

Ultrasound-guided procedures are increasingly common in a variety of acute care settings, such as the operating room, critical care unit and emergency room. However, accurate judgment of needle tip position using traditional ultrasound technology is frequently difficult, and serious injury can result from inadvertently advancing beyond or through the target. Needle navigation is a recent innovation that allows the clinician to visualize the needle position and trajectory in real time as it approaches the target. A novel ultrasound machine has recently been introduced that is portable and designed for procedural guidance. The eZono 4000™ features an innovative needle navigation technology that is simple to use and permits the use of a wide range of commercially available needles, avoiding the inconvenience and cost of proprietary equipment. This article discusses this new ultrasound machine in the context of other currently available ultrasound machines featuring needle navigation.
Temozolomide in combination with docetaxel in patients with advanced melanoma: a phase II study of the Hellenic Cooperative Oncology Group.

PURPOSE Temozolomide is a novel oral alkylating agent that is effective against melanoma. Moreover, temozolomide readily crosses the blood-brain barrier and may consequently be effective in patients with brain metastases. This phase II study was performed to assess the efficacy and safety of the combination regimen of temozolomide and docetaxel in patients with advanced metastatic melanoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS Sixty-five patients with metastatic melanoma were enrolled. Treatment consisted of intravenous docetaxel (80 mg/m(2)) on day 1 and oral temozolomide (150 mg/m(2)) on days 1 to 5, every 4 weeks, for a maximum of six cycles. RESULTS Sixty-two patients were eligible for the efficacy and safety analysis. Seventeen patients (27%) achieved an objective response, including five complete (8%) and 12 partial responses (19%). Median response duration was 9.5 months. Among responders, median time to progression (TTP) was 11.2 months and median overall survival (OS) was 16 months. For all treated patients, the median TTP was 4 months and median OS was 11 months. Three (38%) of eight patients who presented with brain metastases had a partial response for 5, 6, and 12 months. Of 52 patients who did not have brain involvement at presentation, only four (8%) developed brain metastases at a median follow-up of 14 months. Myelosuppression was the primary toxicity. CONCLUSION The combination of temozolomide and docetaxel was effective and well tolerated as first-line treatment for patients with advanced metastatic melanoma and demonstrated encouraging antitumor activity against brain metastases.
A heuristic routing algorithm for network coding aware 1+1 protection route design for instantaneous recovery

This paper proposes a heuristic routing algorithm to design instantaneous recovery protection routes for all possible source destination pairs by provisioning network coding (NC) based 1+1 protection technique. We consider a static routing problem in networks where each node has the coding capability, and the exact traffic demand matrix is given. In the proposed heuristic algorithm a network with N nodes is divided into N scenarios, where each node is chosen as the common destination and k nodes among the remaining ones are the sources, where 2 ≤ k ≤N-1. By dividing the network into several scenarios with k sources and a common destination (k S D), all the possible source destination pairs, according to the given traffic matrix, are considered. It was reported that a mathematical programming approach to determine NC based 1+1 protection routes for any kSD scenario is an intractable problem for large k values. In the proposed heuristic algorithm we tackle this intractable problem by choosing either two or three sources out of k sources at a time according to the largest effective gain first policy, and then routing is assigned to the selected 2SD or 3SD scenario by using our developed mathematical models. The largest effective gain first policy ensures the best possible resource saving for each of the selected 2SD or 3SD scenario. We compare the total path costs of NC based 1+1 protection for all possible source destination pairs, obtained by our proposed heuristic algorithm, with that of the conventional 1+1 protection technique (without NC). Numerical results observes that almost 15% resource saving is achieved in our examined networks.
Modeling and Design of a Three-Dimensional Inductor with Magnetic Core

As the demand for portable electronic devices increase, the need to replace offchip discrete devices with on-chip devices is imperative. Inductors are one such passive device that is widely used in low noise amplifiers, oscillators, etc. Current on-chip spiral inductors suffer from large parasitics and area for a meager value of inductance and quality factor. The need to overcome these issues has led to the development inductors with new geometries housing magnetic cores that show an enhanced inductance compared to the air core coil. In this thesis, we discuss the design of a three-dimensional spiral inductor with a Co-Fe nanoparticle core that will be fabricated as per the process rules set by VT MT SPL. The changes in the value of the inductance, resistance, quality factor and parasitics are studied for varying number of turns of the coil, thickness of the coil, spacing between turns and different materials used as the coil. An optimum design incorporating the least parasitics and reasonable inductance is proposed.
Granuphilin Modulates the Exocytosis of Secretory Granules through Interaction with Syntaxin 1a

ABSTRACT The molecular mechanism for the regulated exocytosis of dense-core granules in endocrine cells remains relatively uncharacterized compared to that of synaptic vesicles in neurons. A novel set of Rab and its effector, Rab27a/granuphilin, which is localized on insulin granules in pancreatic beta cells, was recently identified. Here we demonstrate that granuphilin directly binds to syntaxin 1a on the plasma membrane, and this interaction is regulated by Rab27a. Granuphilin shows affinity to syntaxin 1a with a closed conformation but not to mutant syntaxin 1a, which adopts an open conformation constitutively. Overexpression of granuphilin significantly enhances basal insulin secretion but profoundly inhibits high K+-induced insulin secretion. The effect of granuphilin on insulin secretion was impaired by its mutation that disrupts the binding to either Rab27a or syntaxin 1a. Thus, granuphilin is the first regulator in the exocytotic pathway that functions by directly connecting two critical vesicle transport proteins, Rab and SNARE.
A Compact Fourier Transform Spectrometer on a Silicon Optical Bench With an Electrothermal MEMS Mirror

This paper reports a compact Fourier transform spectrometer system with a large-stroke electrothermal microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) mirror and other optical components all integrated on a micromachined silicon optical bench with the footprint of 2 cm × 2 cm. The linear optical path difference (OPD) scan range generated by the MEMS mirror reaches up to 450 μm, and the tilting of the mirror plate is reduced down to <;±0.002° by using a new openloop control method. A spectral resolution of 40 cm-1, or 1.1 nm at 532 nm, has been achieved. The overall size of the system is reduced dramatically and the performance is improved significantly compared with the prior work.
Hybrid Imitative Planning with Geometric and Predictive Costs in Off-road Environments

Geometric methods for solving open-world off-road navigation tasks, by learning occupancy and metric maps, provide good generalization but can be brittle in outdoor environments that violate their assumptions (e.g., tall grass). Learning-based methods can directly learn collision-free behavior from raw observations, but are difficult to integrate with standard geometry-based pipelines. This creates an unfortunate conflict – either use learning and lose out on well-understood geometric navigational components, or do not use it, in favor of extensively hand-tuned geometry-based cost maps. In this work, we reject this dichotomy by designing the learning and non-learning-based components in a way such that they can be effectively combined in a self-supervised manner. Both components contribute to a planning criterion: the learned component contributes predicted traversability as rewards, while the geometric component contributes obstacle cost information. We instantiate and comparatively evaluate our system in both in-distribution and out-of-distribution environments, showing that this approach inherits complementary gains from the learned and geometric components and significantly outperforms either of them.
Application of break-even point analysis

The determination of Break-even point represents the important information for the enterprise because it defines the minimum amount of products that enterprise needs to produce for cover their fixed and variable costs. Knowing the Break-even point allows enterprise to properly estimate revenues necessary to ensure profits. In this paper, authors deal with the identifying Break-even point and indicate a model example of its calculation.
Criteria for Reducing Unnecessary Testing for Herpes Simplex Virus, Varicella-Zoster Virus, Cytomegalovirus, and Enterovirus in Cerebrospinal Fluid Samples from Adults

ABSTRACT Excessive utilization of laboratory diagnostic testing leads to increased health care costs. We evaluated criteria to reduce unnecessary nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) for viral pathogens in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from adults. This is a single-center split retrospective observational study with a screening cohort from 2008 to 2012 and a validation cohort from 2013. Adults with available results for herpes simplex virus 1/2 (HSV-1/2), varicella-zoster virus (VZV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), or enterovirus (EV) NAAT with CSF samples between 2008 and 2013 were included (n = 10,917). During this study, 1.3% (n = 140) of viral NAAT studies yielded positive results. The acceptance criteria of >10 nucleated cells/μl in the CSF of immunocompetent subjects would have reduced HSV-1/2, VZV, CMV, and EV testing by 63%, 50%, 44%, and 51%, respectively, from 2008 to 2012. When these criteria were applied to the 2013 validation data set, 54% of HSV-1/2, 57% of VZV, 35% of CMV, and 56% of EV tests would have been cancelled. No clinically significant positive tests would have been cancelled in 2013 with this approach. The introduction of a computerized order entry set was associated with increased test requests, suggesting that computerized order sets may contribute to unnecessary testing. Acceptance criteria of >10 nucleated cells/μl in the CSF of immunocompetent adults for viral CSF NAAT assays would increase clinical specificity and preserve sensitivity, resulting in significant cost savings. Implementation of these acceptance criteria led to a 46% reduction in testing during a limited follow-up period.
Structural tunability and origin of two-level systems in amorphous silicon

Amorphous silicon films prepared by electron beam evaporation have systematically and substantially greater atomic density for higher thickness, higher growth temperature, and slower deposition rate, reaching the density of crystalline Si when films of thickness greater than ∼ 300 nm are grown at 425 ◦C and at < 1 Å/sec. A combination of spectroscopic techniques provide insight into atomic disorder, local strains, dangling bonds, and nanovoids. Electron diffraction shows that the shortrange order of the amorphous silicon is similar at all growth temperatures, but fluctuation electron microscopy shows that films grown above room-temperature show a form of medium-range order not previously observed in amorphous silicon. Atomic disorder and local strain obtained from Raman spectroscopy reduce with increasing growth temperature and show a non-monotonic dependence on thickness. Dangling bond density decreases with increasing growth temperature and is only mildly dependent on thickness. Positron annihilation Doppler broadening spectroscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy show that nanovoids, and not density variations within the network, are responsible for reduced atomic density. Specific heat and mechanical loss measurements, which quantify the density of tunneling two-level systems, in combination with the structural data, suggest that two-level systems in amorphous silicon films are associated with nanovoids and their surroundings; which are in essence loosely bonded regions where atoms are less constrained. PACS numbers: 61.43. Dq, 68.37. -d, 78.66. Jg
Ecobat: An online resource to facilitate transparent, evidence‐based interpretation of bat activity data

Abstract Acoustic surveys of bats are one of the techniques most commonly used by ecological practitioners. The results are used in Ecological Impact Assessments to assess the likely impacts of future developments on species that are widely protected in law, and to monitor developments’ postconstruction. However, there is no standardized methodology for analyzing or interpreting these data, which can make the assessment of the ecological value of a site very subjective. Comparisons of sites and projects are therefore difficult for ecologists and decision‐makers, for example, when trying to identify the best location for a new road based on relative bat activity levels along alternative routes. Here, we present a new web‐based, data‐driven tool, Ecobat, which addresses the need for a more robust way of interpreting ecological data. Ecobat offers users an easy, standardized, and objective method for analyzing bat activity data. It allows ecological practitioners to compare bat activity data at regional and national scales and to generate a numerical indicator of the relative importance of a night's worth of bat activity. The tool is free and open‐source; because the underlying algorithms are already developed, it could easily be expanded to new geographical regions and species. Data donation is required to ensure the robustness of the analyses; we use a positive feedback mechanism to encourage ecological practitioners to share data by providing in return high quality, contextualized data analysis, and graphical visualizations for direct use in ecological reports.
Effects of shock waves on oxidative stress and some trace element levels of rat liver and diaphragm muscles

This study was designed to investigate whether the short‐term extracorporeal shockwave lithotripsy (ESWL) exposure to kidney produces an oxidative stress and a change in some trace element levels in liver and diaphragm muscles of rats. Twelve male Wistar albino rats were divided randomly into two groups, each consisting of six rats. The animals in the first group did not receive any treatment and served as control group. The right‐side kidneys of animals in group 2 were treated with two‐thousand 18 kV shock waves while anesthetized with 50 mg kg−1 ketamine. The localization of the right kidney was achieved after contrast medium injection through a tail vein under fluoroscopy control. The animals were killed 72 h after the ESWL treatment, and liver and diaphragm muscles were harvested for the determination of tissue oxidative stress and trace element levels. Although the malondialdehyde level increased, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase enzyme activities decreased in the livers and diaphragm muscles of ESWL‐treated rats. Although glutathione level increased in liver, it decreased in diaphragm muscles of ESWL‐treated animals. Fe, Mg and Mn levels decreased, and Cu and Pb levels increased in the livers of ESWL‐treated animals. Fe and Cu levels increased, and Mg, Pb, Mn and Zn levels decreased in the diaphragm muscles of ESWL‐treated animals. It also causes a decrease or increase in many mineral levels in liver and diaphragm muscles, which is an undesirable condition for the normal physiological function of tissues. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Approaching the capacity of the MIMO Rayleigh flat-fading channel with QAM constellations, independent across antennas and dimensions

In this study we consider the challenge of reliable communication over a wireless Rayleigh flat-fading channel using multiple transmit and receive antennas. Since modern digital communication systems employ signal sets of finite cardinality, we examine the use of the quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) constellation to approach the capacity of this channel. By restricting the channel input to the M-QAM subset of the complex-plane, the maximum achievable information rate (CM-QAM ) is strictly bounded away from the channel capacity (C). We utilize a modified version of the Arimoto-Blahut algorithm to determine CM-QAM and the probability distribution over the channel input symbols that achieves it. The results of this optimization procedure numerically indicate that the optimal input symbol distribution factors into the product of identical distributions over each real dimension of the transmitted signal. This is shown to vastly reduce the computational complexity of the optimization algorithm. Furthermore, we utilize the computed optimal channel input probability mass function (pmf) to construct capacity approaching trellis codes. These codes are implemented independent across all antennas and symbol dimensions and, if used as inner codes to outer low-density parity check (LDPC) codes, can achieve arbitrarily small error rates at signal-to-noise ratios very close to the channel capacity CM-QAM . Examples are given for a 2-transmit/2-receive antenna (2 times 2) system
A holistic approach to optimise the power density of a silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET based three-phase inverter

Conventional multi-kW three-phase power converters (e.g. 380 V output) based on silicon (Si) devices (e.g. IGBTs) typically operate at switching frequencies of 50 kHz or less. By contrast, silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs are capable of switching at frequencies of up to several hundreds of kHz while still maintaining high efficiency operation. This opens up opportunities for greater system design optimisation, such as determining the smallest possible power converter volume and weight. Of particular interest is how the switching frequency affects the size of the passive components (e.g. heatsink, line filter, dc-link capacitor and EMI filter) which account for around 70-80% of the power converter's volume and weight. This paper presents a set of models that outline the effect that changing the switching frequency has on the design of a 2-level, 3-phase inverter using silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFETs as the active switches. In particular it will focus on the effect of the switching frequency on the design of the passive components.
Evidence for acute release of thyroid peroxidase during subtotal thyroidectomy.

An immediate reduction of thyroglobulin autoantibodies during subtotal thyroidectomy of thyroglobulin antibody positive patients has previously been shown to indicate an acute release of thyroglobulin into the circulation peroperatively. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether thyroid peroxidase was also released by measuring anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies by a quantitative and antigen specific method both pre- and postoperatively in patients positive for anti-thyroid peroxidase antibodies. Twelve anti-thyroid peroxidase positive patients (11 females, 1 male) referred for surgery of toxic goitre were studied. Median age was 43 years (range 24-64) and median goitre size 86 g (25-165). All patients had been pretreated with antithyroid drugs and were euthyroid at the time of operation. Anti-thyroid peroxidase was measured before operation, 1-8 h, 10 days, 1-3 months, and 12 months postoperatively by a commercial method (DYNO-test, Henning, Berlin). The median anti-thyroid peroxidase level before operation was 1048 kU/l (range 68-10 517 kU/l) and fell during operation to 0.63 (range 0.37-1.28) (p less than 0.01) of initial concentration without further decrease during the next 1-8 h. The comparative decrease in thyroglobulin antibodies was 0.19 (0-0.88). The anti-thyroid peroxidase level was increasing after 10 days, but did not reach initial level until between 3 and 12 months after surgery. However, in 3 of 10 patients anti-thyroid peroxidase had disappeared after 12 months, all of whom had low levels before operation, whereas anti-thyroid peroxidase was 2-4 times higher than preoperatively in 3 other patients. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)