Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Three-dimensional analysis of molar compensation in patients with facial asymmetry and mandibular prognathism.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the characteristic transverse dental compensations in patients with facial asymmetry and mandibular prognathism and to compare features of dental compensations between two types of mandibular asymmetry using 3-dimensional (3D) cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). MATERIALS AND METHODS Seventy-eight adult patients with skeletal Class I (control group; n = 33; 19 men and 14 women) or skeletal Class III with facial asymmetry (experimental group; n = 45; 23 men and 22 women) were included. The experimental group was subdivided into two groups according to the type of mandibular asymmetry: translation type (T-type; n = 20) and roll type (R-type; n = 19). CBCT images were acquired before orthodontic treatment and 3D analyses were performed. RESULTS The transverse dental distance was significantly different between the two groups only at the palatal root apex of the maxillary first molar (P < .05). In the experimental group, the first molar axes were compensated significantly on both arches except the maxillary nondeviated side. The vertical molar heights were different between the two groups only on the maxillary arch (P < .001). The R-type showed greater mandibular ramal length difference and menton deviation than the T-type (P < .001). In the R-type, transverse compensation of the maxillary first molars was more obvious than with the T-type, which resulted in canting in the maxillary occlusal plane. CONCLUSIONS Mandibular asymmetry with prognathism showed a characteristic transverse dental compensation pattern. The mandibular asymmetry type influenced the amount and direction of molar compensation on the maxillary arch.
Design, modeling, analysis and testing of a novel piezo-actuated XY compliant mechanism for large workspace nano-positioning

In this paper, a new piezo-actuated XY parallel compliant mechanism for large workspace nano-positioning with decoupled motions is developed by incorporating a novel Z-shaped flexure hinge (ZFH)-based mechanism into the mirror-symmetrically distributed structure. The bridge-type mechanism and two-stage leverage mechanisms serve as preliminary displacement amplifiers, while further amplification with motion transfer and decoupled output motions are achieved by means of the ZFH mechanism. Based on finite element theory, a high-precision analytical model of the XY compliant mechanism is established by considering all the connecting linkages as flexible components. Through the improved differential evolution algorithm, the optimized compliant mechanism is capable of performing millimeter-scale workspace nano-positioning with decoupled motions. In addition, the input displacement unbalance, resulting from the lateral force which has potential to damage the piezoelectric actuators, is markedly lowered to a negligible value. The performance of the fabricated compliant mechanism with optimized parameters is investigated to well agree with both the analytical model and ANSYS simulation. In addition, based on the inverse kinematics derived from the model and experimental results, different elliptical vibration trajectories are accurately acquired.
Loss of Social Behaviours in Populations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Infecting Lungs of Patients with Cystic Fibrosis

Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is an opportunistic, bacterial pathogen causing persistent and frequently fatal infections of the lung in patients with cystic fibrosis. Isolates from chronic infections differ from laboratory and environmental strains in a range of traits and this is widely interpreted as the result of adaptation to the lung environment. Typically, chronic strains carry mutations in global regulation factors that could effect reduced expression of social traits, raising the possibility that competitive dynamics between cooperative and selfish, cheating strains could also drive changes in P. aeruginosa infections. We compared the expression of cooperative traits - biofilm formation, secretion of exo-products and quorum sensing (QS) - in P. aeruginosa isolates that were estimated to have spent different lengths of time in the lung based on clinical information. All three exo-products involved in nutrient acquisition were produced in significantly smaller quantities with increased duration of infection, and patterns across four QS signal molecules were consistent with accumulation over time of mutations in lasR, which are known to disrupt the ability of cells to respond to QS signal. Pyocyanin production, and the proportion of cells in biofilm relative to motile, free-living cells in liquid culture, did not change. Overall, our results confirm that the loss of social behaviour is a consistent trend with time spent in the lung and suggest that social dynamics are potentially relevant to understanding the behaviour of P. aeruginosa in lung infections.
Nuclear myosin/actin-motored contact between homologous chromosomes is initiated by ATM kinase and homology-directed repair proteins at double-strand DNA breaks to suppress chromosome rearrangements

We provide evidence for a mechanism of DNA repair that requires nuclear myosin/actin-dependent contact between homologous chromosomes to prevent formation of chromosomal rearrangement in human cells. We recently showed that DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) induced by γ-rays or endonucleases cause ATM-dependent contact formation between homologous chromosomes at damaged sites of transcriptionally active chromatin in G0/G1-phase cells. Here, we report that the mechanism of contact generation between homologous chromosomes also requires homology-directed repair proteins, including BRCA1, RAD51 and RAD52, and nuclear myosin/actin-motors. Moreover, inhibition of ATM kinase or deficiency in nuclear actin polymerization causes carcinogenic RET/PTC chromosome rearrangements after DSBs induction in human cells. These data suggest that DSBs in transcriptionally active euchromatin in G0/G1-phase cells are repaired through a mechanism that requires contact formation between homologous chromosomes and that this mechanism is mediated by HDR proteins and nuclear myosin/actin motors.
Nutritional Regrets and Knowledge in National Collegiate Athletic Association

The aim of this study was to describe the nutritional regrets and sport nutrition knowledge of Division I NCAA athletes and determine if higher knowledge would be related to fewer regrets. Additionally, we explored whether differences would emerge on nutrition knowledge or nutritional regrets based on gender or year in school. This was a cross-sectional, questionnairebased study conducted during the spring and summer of 2015. A total of 196 Division I NCAA student-athletes (145 male and 51 female) from a single university completed a questionnaire at the end of their competitive season. Comparisons on nutrition-related regrets and sport nutrition knowledge were conducted using Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests. A Spearman’s rho correlation was used to examine the relationship between nutrition-related regrets and sports nutrition knowledge. Most student-athletes possessed regrets related to their eating habits, with few regretting weight management practices. Total nutritional regrets were higher in females than males, but did not differ significantly by school level. There was no significant association between nutritional knowledge and regrets. Interventions that incorporate education, strategies that increase dietary choice self-efficacy, and goal-setting may prove to be more efficacious in minimizing regrets in nutrition-related decision-making.
Alcohol Use During Pregnancy is Associated with Specific Alterations in MicroRNA Levels in Maternal Serum

Background Given the challenges of confirming prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) during pregnancy using currently established biomarkers of alcohol consumption, we examined whether serum microRNAs (miRNAs) may serve as stable biomarkers for PAE. Alterations in the levels of specific circulating miRNAs have been associated with various disease states and in animal models of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Methods Pregnant women in this prospective study were recruited from substance abuse and general maternity clinics affiliated with the University of New Mexico. Serum was collected at the time of admission for delivery from 14 subjects who reported ≥1 binge‐drinking episode or ≥3 drinks/wk during pregnancy and 16 subjects who reported abstinence during pregnancy and tested negative for 5 ethanol biomarkers. Total RNA was isolated from serum and used for microarray analysis. Results False discovery rate‐corrected analyses of covariance revealed that 55 miRNAs were significantly altered between the 2 groups. Hierarchical clustering using only the significantly altered miRNAs grouped samples into alcohol‐consuming and non‐alcohol‐consuming individuals. Discriminant analysis then identified miRs‐122*, ‐126, ‐216b, ‐221*, ‐3119, ‐3942‐5p, ‐4704‐3p, ‐4743, ‐514‐5p, and ‐602 as the top 10 discriminators between the 2 groups. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis of putative miRNA targets illustrated that miRNAs identified in this study are involved in biological pathways that mediate the effects of alcohol, such as brain‐derived neurotrophic factor, ERK1/2, and PI3K/AKT signaling. Conclusions This is the first report of alterations in serum miRNA expression that are associated with alcohol use during human pregnancy. These results suggest that serum miRNAs could be useful as biomarkers of alcohol exposure.
Enhanced Nanomagnetic Gene Transfection of Human Prenatal Cardiac Progenitor Cells and Adult Cardiomyocytes

Magnetic nanoparticle-based gene transfection has been shown to be an effective, non-viral technique for delivery of both plasmid DNA and siRNA into cells in culture. It has several advantages over other non-viral delivery techniques, such as short transfection times and high cell viability. These advantages have been demonstrated in a number of primary cells and cell lines. Here we report that oscillating magnet array-based nanomagnetic transfection significantly improves transfection efficiency in both human prenatal cardiac progenitor cells and adult cardiomyocytes when compared to static magnetofection, cationic lipid reagents and electroporation, while maintaining high cell viability. In addition, transfection of adult cardiomyocytes was improved further by seeding the cells onto Collagen I-coated plates, with transfection efficiencies of up to 49% compared to 24% with lipid reagents and 19% with electroporation. These results demonstrate that oscillating nanomagnetic transfection far outperforms other non-viral transfection techniques in these important cells.
BP neural network based bearing fault diagnosis with differential evolution & EEMD denoise

In mechanical equipment, rolling bearing is frequently used. Its running state directly affects the performance of the whole machine and it is also the main cause of mechanical equipment failure. This paper focuses on the fault diagnosis of the rolling bearings. The method of fault diagnosis based on the self-adaptive denoise of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) and improved back propagation (BP) neural network with differential evolution (DE) algorithm is studied. Firstly, the signal is decomposed by EEMD, and then the reconstructed signal of adaptive noise reduction is acquired based on the threshold of distance measurement. Secondly, utilizing the error of BP neural network as the objective function, weights and thresholds of the network are optimized by DE algorithm. Finally, the optimized BP network is used for fault diagnosis. Experimental results show that the proposed method is more effective and accurate than the traditional BP neural network.
Combined and independent impact of diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease on residual platelet reactivity

Summary Patients with both chronic kidney disease (CKD) and diabetes mellitus (DM) are at increased risk for thrombotic events compared to those with one abnormality alone. Whether this can be attributed to changes in platelet reactivity among those with both CKD and DM is unknown. We prospectively studied 438 clopidogrel-naïve patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Platelet function tests were performed 4–6 hours after loading with 600 mg of clopidogrel. Platelet reactivity was assessed using the VerifyNow system and expressed as P2Y12 reaction units (PRU). High residual platelet reactivity (HRPR) was defined as PRU > 230. Patients were categorised into four groups by the presence or absence of CKD and DM. Among those without CKD or DM (n=166), DM alone (n=150), CKD alone (n=60) and both CKD and DM (n=62) the mean PRU levels were 201.6 ± 96.3, 220.5 ± 101.1, 254.9 ± 106.7 and 275.0 ± 94.5, respectively (p<0.001). Analogously, the prevalence of HRPR was 42.3%, 50.7%, 63.3% and 75.8%, respectively (p< 0.001). Associations between either CKD or DM alone and HRPR were attenuated after multivariable adjustment while the odds for HRPR associated with both CKD and DM remained significant (OR [95% CI]: 2.61 [1.16 – 5.86]). In conclusion, the presence of both CKD and DM confers a synergistic impact on residual platelet reactivity when compared to either condition alone. Whether more potent platelet inhibitors may improve outcomes among patients with both abnormalities warrants investigation.
Leveraging the Big Data Produced by the Network to Take Intelligent Decisions on Flow Management

Software-defined network (SDN) offers a very advantageous feature of programming the network at run time by decoupling the control plane from data plane to have centralized and better forwarding decisions. To attain the maximum throughput and relatively less latency within a large network, we have captured the real-time big data produced by the network. Big data is revolutionizing the modern computer science world to analyze the extremely large datasets to predict the future requirements. Therefore, it would be useful to embed intelligence in the systems. With the power of SDN, we programmed our network at run time using Ryu controller to dump the network traffic and engineer it accordingly. We proposed a methodology for taking intelligent decisions with traffic engineering in SDN. Results have shown that SDN leverages the big data to decrease the latency time by adding programs in the controller of SDN. An algorithm is presented to maximize the bandwidth utilization to possess higher throughput after shaping the traffic. It is found through the results that our proposed methodology of applying intelligence on traffic management in SDN outperforms those without intelligence decision making.
Synthesis of super‐hydrophobic polymer nanocomposites as a smart self‐cleaning coating films

Super-hydrophobic (SH) surfaces have garnered significant attention due to their potentially diverse range of applications (e.g., self-cleaning surfaces, waterproof fabrics, non-stick containers, and microfluidics). The manufacturing methods of SH surfaces are generally expensive and often require specialized tools. In this study, we employed simplified production methods, and we focused on cheap chemical modification of common polymers using nanocomposites to create SH surfaces. Polymer nanocomposites have many advantages as a coating by increasing volume/area of nanoparticles. Coating clarity, surface hydrophobicity, roughness, electrical properties, and crystallinity are some unique behaviors of nanocomposites. We studied the physical properties of these chemically modified polymers to explore the acquired SH property. We investigated SH films using many techniques such as size-exclusion chromatography (SEC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS). Our goal was to verify that these materials could be used as SH films that acted as cleaned, solid surfaces in direct contact with packaging surfaces. POLYM. COMPOS. , 38:E147–E156, 2017. © 2016 Society of Plastics Engineers
Bilevel Arbitrage Potential Evaluation for Grid-Scale Energy Storage Considering Wind Power and LMP Smoothing Effect

This paper deals with extended-term energy storage (ES) arbitrage problems to maximize the annual revenue in deregulated power systems with high-penetration wind power. The conventional ES arbitrage model takes the locational marginal prices (LMP) as an input and is unable to account for the impacts of ES operations on system LMPs. This paper proposes a bilevel ES arbitrage model, where the upper level maximizes the ES arbitrage revenue and the lower level simulates the market clearing process considering wind power and ES. The bilevel model is formulated as a mathematical program with equilibrium constraints) and then recast into a mixed-integer linear programming using strong duality theory. Wind power fluctuations are characterized by the GARCH forecast model and the forecast error is modeled by forecast-bin-based Beta distributions. Case studies are performed on a modified PJM 5-bus system and an IEEE 118-bus system with a weekly time horizon over an annual term to show the validity of the proposed bilevel model. The results from the conventional model and the bilevel model are compared under different ES power and energy ratings, and also various load and wind penetration levels.
Catalytic Activity of Iron Doped Hexagonal Mesoporous Silica (Fe-HMS)for Degradation of Reactive Green-19 Dye in Water

Iron nitrate supported hexagonal mesoporous (Fe-HMS) catalyst were successfully synthesized for Fenton-like oxidative degradation of Reactive Green-19 (RG19). Effects of pH, light intensity, catalyst amount, dye concentration, sensitizers, etc., were studied to optimize conditions for enhanced photo-catalytic activity. SEM, EDX, BET and UV–Vis (diffused reflectance mode) techniques were used to revealed the Fe-HMS physico-chemical properties. Kinetic study RG-19 treatment process at a reaction temperature 40°C, pH 3, 3 mgL-1 of Fe-HMS, 50 μL of H2O2, and 100 mgL-1 of dye were successfully carried out. The Fenton-like process correlation coefficient favors the first order kinetic model. COD and metal leaching analysis were done and results revealed that they were below DOE standard for effluent. Therefore, the treated water can safely discharge to the environment. The Fe-HMS catalyst reusability proved that it could be reused and has stability in reaction more than four cycles.
Temporality-enhanced knowledgememory network for factoid question answering

Question answering is an important problem that aims to deliver specific answers to questions posed by humans in natural language. How to efficiently identify the exact answer with respect to a given question has become an active line of research. Previous approaches in factoid question answering tasks typically focus on modeling the semantic relevance or syntactic relationship between a given question and its corresponding answer. Most of these models suffer when a question contains very little content that is indicative of the answer. In this paper, we devise an architecture named the temporality-enhanced knowledge memory network (TE-KMN) and apply the model to a factoid question answering dataset from a trivia competition called quiz bowl. Unlike most of the existing approaches, our model encodes not only the content of questions and answers, but also the temporal cues in a sequence of ordered sentences which gradually remark the answer. Moreover, our model collaboratively uses external knowledge for a better understanding of a given question. The experimental results demonstrate that our method achieves better performance than several state-of-the-art methods.
A Flow Cytometric Assay of Platelet Activation Marker P-Selectin (CD62P) Distinguishes Heparin-induced Thrombocytopenia (HIT) from HIT with Thrombosis (HITT)

Summary Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) is a well-known complication of heparin administration but usually resolves upon discontinuation without sequelae. However, a small proportion of HIT patients develop thrombosis associated with HIT, designated as HITT, which is often life-threatening and may lead to gangrene and amputations. Existing laboratory methods of confirming HIT/HITT do not distinguish between HIT and HITT. We report a flow cytometric assay of platelet activation marker CD62P to distinguish the effects of addition of HIT vs. HITT plasma to normal blood. Briefly, normal whole blood was incubated with platelet-poor plasma from 12 patients with HITT, 30 with HIT, and 65 controls, in presence and absence of heparin, and expression of CD62P was assayed by flow cytometry. When the ratios of fluorescent intensity of CD62P with heparin divided by that without heparin were compared, HITT plasma induced significantly higher ratios than HIT plasma (HITT ratios ~2.5 vs. HIT ratios ~1.2; p <0.001). Eleven of 12 HITT patients were positive by this test but only 5 of 30 HIT patients were positive (p < 0.0005). In a case of HIT with silent thrombosis, this assay gave a positive results prior to clinically evident thrombosis. In conclusion, this method distinguishes HITT from HIT and may be clinically useful in the detection of HITT, allowing early intervention for preventing catastrophic thrombosis.
Automatic Treebank-Based Acquisition of Arabic LFG Dependency Structures

A number of papers have reported on methods for the automatic acquisition of large-scale, probabilistic LFG-based grammatical resources from treebanks for English (Cahill and al., 2002), (Cahill and al., 2004), German (Cahill and al., 2003), Chinese (Burke, 2004), (Guo and al., 2007), Spanish (O'Donovan, 2004), (Chrupala and van Genabith, 2006) and French (Schluter and van Genabith, 2008). Here, we extend the LFG grammar acquisition approach to Arabic and the Penn Arabic Treebank (ATB) (Maamouri and Bies, 2004), adapting and extending the methodology of (Cahill and al., 2004) originally developed for English. Arabic is challenging because of its morphological richness and syntactic complexity. Currently 98% of ATB trees (without FRAG and X) produce a covering and connected f-structure. We conduct a qualitative evaluation of our annotation against a gold standard and achieve an f-score of 95%.
18F-Fluoroestradiol PET/CT Measurement of Estrogen Receptor Suppression during a Phase I Trial of the Novel Estrogen Receptor-Targeted Therapeutic GDC-0810: Using an Imaging Biomarker to Guide Drug Dosage in Subsequent Trials

Purpose: Evaluate 18F-fluoroestradiol (FES) PET/CT as a biomarker of estrogen receptor (ER) occupancy and/or downregulation during phase I dose escalation of the novel ER targeting therapeutic GDC-0810 and help select drug dosage for subsequent clinical trials. Experimental Design: In a phase I clinical trial of GDC-0810, patients with ER-positive metastatic breast cancer underwent FES PET/CT before beginning therapy and at cycle 2, day 3 of GDC-0810 therapy. Up to five target lesions were selected per patient, and FES standardized uptake value (SUV) corrected for background was recorded for each lesion pretherapy and on-therapy. Complete ER downregulation was defined as ≥90% decrease in FES SUV. The effect of prior tamoxifen and fulvestrant therapy on FES SUV was assessed. Results: Of 30 patients who underwent paired FES-PET scans, 24 (80%) achieved ≥90% decrease in FES avidity, including 1 of 3 patients receiving 200 mg/day, 2 of 4 patients receiving 400 mg/day, 14 of 16 patients receiving 600 mg/day, and 7 of 7 patients receiving 800 mg/day. Withdrawal of tamoxifen 2 months prior to FES PET/CT and withdrawal of fulvestrant 6 months prior to FES PET/CT both appeared sufficient to prevent effects on FES SUV. A dosage of 600 mg GDC-0810 per day was selected for phase II in part due to decreases in FES SUV achieved in phase I. Conclusions: FES PET/CT was a useful biomarker of ER occupancy and/or downregulation in a phase I dose escalation trial of GDC-0810 and helped select the dosage of the ER antagonist/degrader for phase II trials. Clin Cancer Res; 23(12); 3053–60. ©2016 AACR.