Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
comparative evaluation of vertical microgaps and torque loss i two ball attachment systems of mandibular implant retained overdentures

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the size of possible vertical microgaps and torque loss of two different-attachment-systems in mandibular Implant-Retained-Overdentures. Materials and Methods: Two lab models with two parallel Straumann fixtures (at a 22 mm distance) were prepared. Straumann and Rhein 83 SRL balls and sockets (n=5) were used. All the samples were inserted in the artificial saliva. The samples were subject to fatigue test in Zwick/ROELL Zwickline machine (Z010 Germany) before and after 1100, 2200, 3300, and 5500 cycles under a 50 newton Load cell (51mm/min). At the end of each cycle the size of vertical microgaps at the implant-abutment-interface were recorded at four sites with a stereomicroscope (Olympus Japan, SZX_19, x200) by two experts. Torque loss was recorded before and after cyclic dislodgement of the ball attachments using a torque meter ((LT, Lutron TQ, 8800). Results: Rhein ball abutments showed more vertical microgap than Straumann ball abutments (p<0.001). After cyclic loading, the percentage of torque loss in Straumann ball abutments was significantly lower than that of Rhein ball abutments (p=0.001). Conclusion: Despite the limitations of this in-vitro study, the vertical microgap and torque loss were significantly higher in Rhein system than those of Straumann system. Of course, both systems showed an acceptable size of vertical microgaps after all fatigue-test-cycles.
Use of Medical Resources by Preterm Infants Born at Less than 33 Weeks' Gestation Following Discharge from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit in Korea

This study was aimed to provide data on the use of medical resources by preterm infants following discharge from the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). The cohort included preterm infants (n=2,351) born at 22-32 weeks' gestation who were discharged from the NICUs of 44 Korean hospitals between April 2009 to March 2010. Mean duration of post-discharge follow-up was 425±237 days. After discharge from the NICU, 94.5% of total infants visited a pediatric outpatient clinic (11.5±9.8 mean visits), 42.9% visited a pediatric clinic for respiratory problems irregularly (4.9±6.6 mean visits), and 31.1% utilized emergency center at least once. Among all visits to the emergency center, 24.7% resulted in readmission and 50.8% of those visits were due to respiratory problems. At least one episode of readmission was required by 33.6% (788/2,346) of total infants, and 18.4% (431/2,346) of total infants were readmitted with respiratory problems at least once. Among all infants readmitted for respiratory problems, 16.2% (70/341) were diagnosed with respiratory syncytial virus infection which accounted for 30.3% of viral etiologies confirmed by laboratory testing. Infants born at <30 weeks' gestation had more frequent total readmission and respiratory readmission than those ≥30 weeks' gestation (2±1.7 vs. 1.7±1.2, P=0.009, 1.8±1.2 vs. 1.5±1.1, 0.027, respectively). Overall, use of medical resources is common, and respiratory problems are the leading cause of use of medical resources. Total readmissions and respiratory readmissions are more frequent in more immature infants.
Structural chromosomal aberrations, aneuploidy, and mosaicism in early cleavage mouse embryos derived from spermatozoa exposed to γ-rays

Purpose: To quantitatively and qualitatively investigate the changes in chromosomal aberrations during early cleavage in mouse embryos derived from γ-irradiated spermatozoa. Materials and methods: Mature males were exposed to 2 Gy or 4 Gy of 137Cs γ-rays, and their spermatozoa were used to produce embryos via in vitro fertilisation (IVF). The metaphase chromosomes were prepared from one-cell, two-cell, and four-cell embryos. In the chromosome preparations from two-cell and four-cell embryos, the separation of the sister blastomeres was precluded by treatment of the embryos with concanavalin A. The incidence of embryos with structural chromosomal aberrations, aneuploidy, or mosaicism was estimated. The fates of the different types of γ-ray-induced structural chromosomal aberrations were also investigated in those embryos. Results: The exposure of spermatozoa to 2 Gy or 4 Gy γ-rays caused structural chromosomal aberrations in 25.9% and 35.7% of the resultant one-cell embryos, respectively. At two-cell embryonic stage, the incidence of structural chromosomal aberrations was 17.4% in the 2 Gy group and 27.1% in the 4 Gy group. At the four-cell embryonic stage, although the incidence of control embryos with structural chromosomal aberrations was considerably high, the net incidence of embryos with radiation-induced structural chromosomal aberrations was similar to that at the one-cell stage. The incidence of aneuploidy was high in two-cell and four-cell embryos after both doses of γ-rays. The incidence of mosaicism increased significantly in dose- and embryonic-stage-dependent manners. Anaphase lag, and the degeneration and non-disjunction of the aberrant chromosomes were frequently observed in aneuploid and mosaic embryos. Conclusions: Mouse sperm DNA is highly vulnerable to γ-rays. The structural chromosomal aberrations of sperm origin are unstable in their behaviour and structure during cleavage, and therefore cause secondary aneuploidy and mosaicism in the early cleavage embryos.
Queue management for TCP traffic over 3G links

We propose a novel active queue management scheme tailored to the specific characteristics of third generation (3G) cellular networks. Such links are often the bottleneck for an end-to-end connection and dedicated to one host. Taking advantage of these specific characteristics, we developed a queuing scheme that is simpler than popular random early detection (RED) schemes. Despite its simplicity, our solution yields superior performance for 3G links in terms of high link utilization, low queuing delay, and high end-to-end throughput for TCP bulk data transfers. Our simulation results show a clear win over both conventional drop-tail queuing and also a comparable RED scheme.
The Roving Diagnostic Unit– art, madness, fun and the potential for change

Mental health issues are common and remain highly stigmatised despite high profile campaigns. In the European Union, the direct and indirect costs of mental health problems including treatments and lost productivity are estimated at €450 billion per year ("European Framework", 2016). Treatment is typically delivered via mental health services led by psychiatrists, and usually dominated by diagnostic labelling and the use of psychoactive medications. Within the field, diagnosis is contested, with a schism between neurological and socially informed approaches. The push towards advances in neuroscience and the increased 'biologising' of mental health means that relationships, meanings and values are demoted, that is, the wider context of a person's life assumes less importance (Bracken et al, 2012; Rapley et al, 2011). This paper considers the concepts of labelling and diagnosis and how they may be explored using arts-based practice, specifically The Roving Diagnostic Project. The potential of this type of project to influence artistic practice is also explored.
Cloaking and Redirection: A Preliminary Study

Cloaking and redirection are two possible search engine spamming techniques. In order to understand cloaking and redirection on the Web, we downloaded two sets of Web pages while mimicking a popular Web crawler and as a common Web browser. We estimate that 3% of the (cid:12)rst data set and 9% of the second data set utilize cloaking of some kind. By checking manually a sample of the cloaking pages from the second data set, nearly one third of them appear to aim to manipulate search engine ranking. We also examined redirection methods present in the (cid:12)rst data set. We propose a method of detecting cloaking pages by calculating the di(cid:11)erence of three copies of the same page. We examine the di(cid:11)erent types of cloaking that are found and the distribution of di(cid:11)erent types of redirection.
Closed Form SER Expressions for QPSK OFDM Systems With Frequency Offset in Rayleigh Fading Channels

In this letter, the performance of QPSK OFDM systems with frequency offsets is investigated. Closed form expressions for the symbol error rate (SER) that are valid for any frequency offset in Rayleigh fading channels are derived. To achieve this, a modification to the result of the integral of the product of two Q-functions over the Rayleigh distribution is provided. The modification makes the result of this integral valid in any case whether the arguments of the Q-functions are positive or negative. Simulation results are provided to demonstrate the accuracy of the derived expressions.
Deep stacking networks with time series for speech separation

In many present speech separation approaches, the separation task is formulated as a binary classification problem. Several classification-based approaches have been proposed and performed satisfactorily. However, they do not explicitly model the correlation in time and each time-frequency (T-F) unit is still classified individually. As we know, the speech signal has a very rich time series and temporal dynamic information that can be exploited for speech separation. In this study, we incorporate the correlation in time into classification. Compared with the previous approaches, the proposed approach achieves better separation and generalization performance by using deep stacking networks (DSN) with time series and re-threshold method.
Small motion biological stimulator

T ypically, the study of the tactile sensory nervous system involves the mechanical excitation of a small region of the skin by indenting it with a probe while observing the response of some portion of the nervous system to that stimulus. Since this is not a particularly new art, it seems rather surprising that so little has been done in the way of developing suitable stimulation transducers. A popular, if not quite universal, approach has been to use a commercially available vibration generator that was initially intended for shaking watches. Unfortunately the amplitude and force domain in which the highly sensitive tactile sensory system needs to be driven is vastly different from that for which watches are normally vibrated . Some improvement in probe motion control has been realized by attaching a magnetic-type displacement pickoff to the vibration generator so that it may be operated in a closed, rather than open, loop manner. At small displacement amplitudes this configuration characteristically displays an elastic hysteresis (referred to as an " oil can" effect)
Intermittent Hypoxia Alters Gene Expression in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells of Healthy Volunteers

Obstructive sleep apnea is associated with high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Intermittent hypoxia of obstructive sleep apnea is implicated in the development and progression of insulin resistance and atherosclerosis, which have been attributed to systemic inflammation. Intermittent hypoxia leads to pro-inflammatory gene up-regulation in cell culture, but the effects of intermittent hypoxia on gene expression in humans have not been elucidated. A cross-over study was performed exposing eight healthy men to intermittent hypoxia or control conditions for five hours with peripheral blood mononuclear cell isolation before and after exposures. Total RNA was isolated followed by gene microarrays and confirmatory real time reverse transcriptase PCR. Intermittent hypoxia led to greater than two fold up-regulation of the pro-inflammatory gene toll receptor 2 (TLR2), which was not increased in the control exposure. We hypothesize that up-regulation of TLR2 by intermittent hypoxia may lead to systemic inflammation, insulin resistance and atherosclerosis in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.
Enhancing the information content of fingerprint biometrics with heartbeat signal

Heartbeat signal is an emerging biometric modality which is getting attention for its robustness against spoof attack. Introducing heartbeat into a fingerprint biometric system can yield promising results in two ways. First, it may increase the accuracy of the biometric system and second it may increase its robustness against spoof attacks. In this paper, a score level fusion is used based on the information content of the unimodal biometrics to enhance the information content of fingerprint biometrics. We measure the gain of information content of the multimodal biometric system obtained from fusion of fingerprint and heartbeat signal captured from fingers. Experimental results show that fusion of these two modalities increases the information content of the multimodal biometric system, consequently, increasing its accuracy and robustness against spoof attacks.
Allogeneic transplantation as post-remission therapy for cytogenetically high-risk acute myeloid leukemia: landmark analysis from a single prospective multicenter trial

Background Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation is considered the preferred post-remission therapy in patients with acute myeloid leukemia cytogenetically defined as being at high risk. To substantiate evidence for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in first complete remission in these high-risk patients we performed a landmark analysis within a single prospective multicenter treatment trial. Design and Methods By the time of analysis, 2,347 patients had been accrued into the AMLCG 99 trial between 1999 – 2007. Out of this population, 243 patients under 60 years old fulfilled the criteria for high-risk cytogenetics. Landmark analyses were performed with a control cohort, who remained in first complete remission at least the median time from complete remission to transplantation in the intervention group. Results After standardized induction therapy, 111 patients under 60 years old achieved complete remission. A matched allogeneic donor was identified for 59 patients (30 sibling donors, 29 unrelated donors). Fifty-five patients received an allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant after a median time of 88 days in first complete remission. Of the remaining 56 patients, 21 relapsed within 90 days after achieving first complete remission and for 7 patients with relevant comorbidities no donors search was initiated, leaving 28 patients given conventional post-remission therapy as the control cohort. The median follow-up of surviving patients was 60.4 months. Patients with an allogeneic donor had substantially better 5-year overall and relapse-free survival rates than the control group (48% versus 18%, P=0.004 and 39% versus 10%, P<0.001, respectively). A survival benefit from transplantation was evident regardless of donor type, age and monosomal karyotype. Conclusions Beyond evidence available for subgroups of high-risk patients, the findings of this study establish in a broader manner that allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation is a preferable consolidation treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukemia and high-risk cytogenetics. The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00266136.
Statistical Design of the 6T SRAM Bit Cell

In this paper, a method for the statistical design of the static-random-access-memory bit cell is proposed to ensure a high memory yield while meeting design specifications for performance, stability, area, and leakage. The method generates the nominal design parameters, i.e., the widths and lengths of the bit-cell transistors, which provide maximum immunity to the variations in a transistor's dimensions and intrinsic threshold-voltage fluctuations. Moreover, the need to deviate from the conventional bit-cell sizing strategy to obtain a high-yield low-leakage design in the nanometer regime is demonstrated.
A production system for the serial recall of object-locations in graphical layout structures

This paper presents a production system within the ACT-R theory of cognition for the serial recall of object-locations in a graphical layout structure. Concepts of noise and the encoding of object-locations in local allocentric reference systems have been integrated into the visual module for this purpose. The intrinsic reference axis of the local reference systems automatically result from the previously attended objects. The production system describes the process of encoding and rehearsal of object-locations at the stage of the presentation as well at the answer-stage. The model encodes environmental features of the object-locations by object-to-object spatial relations. The production system reproduces the main effects in an experiment which was carried out with 30 subjects.
SPIRIT: Systematic Planning of Intelligent Reuse of Integrated Clinical Routine Data

Summary Background: Secondary use of clinical routine data is receiving an increasing amount of attention in biomedicine and healthcare. However, building and analysing integrated clinical routine data repositories are non -trivial, challenging tasks. As in most evolving fields, recognized standards, well-proven methodological frameworks, or accurately described best-practice approaches for the systematic planning of solutions for secon -dary use of routine medical record data are missing. Objective: We propose a conceptual best-practice framework and procedure model for the systematic planning of intelligent reuse of integrated clinical routine data (SPIRIT). Methods: SPIRIT was developed based on a broad literature overview and further refined in two case studies with different kinds of clinical routine data, including process-oriented nursing data from a large hospital group and high-volume multimodal clinical data from a neurologic intensive care unit. Results: SPIRIT aims at tailoring secondary use solutions to specific needs of single departments without losing sight of the institution as a whole. It provides a general conceptual best-practice framework consisting of three parts: First, a secondary use strategy for the whole organization is determined. Second, comprehensive analyses are conducted from two different viewpoints to define the requirements regarding a clinical routine data reuse solution at the system level from the data perspective (BOTTOM UP) and at the strategic level from the future users perspective (TOP DOWN). An obligatory clinical context analysis (IN BETWEEN) facilitates refinement, combination, and integration of the different requirements. The third part of SPIRIT is dedicated to implementation, which comprises design and realization of clinical data integration and management as well as data analysis solutions. Conclusions: The SPIRIT framework is intended to be used to systematically plan the intelligent reuse of clinical routine data for multiple purposes, which often was not intended when the primary clinical documentation systems were implemented. SPIRIT helps to overcome this gap. It can be applied in healthcare institutions of any size or specialization and allows a stepwise setup and evolution of holistic clinical routine data reuse solutions.
Kinetic Features of L,D-Transpeptidase Inactivation Critical for β-Lactam Antibacterial Activity

Active-site serine D,D-transpeptidases belonging to the penicillin-binding protein family (PBPs) have been considered for a long time as essential for peptidoglycan cross-linking in all bacteria. However, bypass of the PBPs by an L,D-transpeptidase (Ldtfm) conveys high-level resistance to β-lactams of the penam class in Enterococcus faecium with a minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) of ampicillin >2,000 µg/ml. Unexpectedly, Ldtfm does not confer resistance to β-lactams of the carbapenem class (imipenem MIC = 0.5 µg/ml) whereas cephems display residual activity (ceftriaxone MIC = 128 µg/ml). Mass spectrometry, fluorescence kinetics, and NMR chemical shift perturbation experiments were performed to explore the basis for this specificity and identify β-lactam features that are critical for efficient L,D-transpeptidase inactivation. We show that imipenem, ceftriaxone, and ampicillin acylate Ldtfm by formation of a thioester bond between the active-site cysteine and the β-lactam-ring carbonyl. However, slow acylation and slow acylenzyme hydrolysis resulted in partial Ldtfm inactivation by ampicillin and ceftriaxone. For ampicillin, Ldtfm acylation was followed by rupture of the C5–C6 bond of the β-lactam ring and formation of a secondary acylenzyme prone to hydrolysis. The saturable step of the catalytic cycle was the reversible formation of a tetrahedral intermediate (oxyanion) without significant accumulation of a non-covalent complex. In agreement, a derivative of Ldtfm blocked in acylation bound ertapenem (a carbapenem), ceftriaxone, and ampicillin with similar low affinities. Thus, oxyanion and acylenzyme stabilization are both critical for rapid L,D-transpeptidase inactivation and antibacterial activity. These results pave the way for optimization of the β-lactam scaffold for L,D-transpeptidase-inactivation.
Ablation of Akt2 Induces Autophagy through Cell Cycle Arrest, the Downregulation of p70S6K, and the Deregulation of Mitochondria in MDA-MB231 Cells

Background Akt/PKB is a promising anticancer therapeutic target, since abnormally elevated Akt activity is directly correlated to tumor development, progression, poor prognosis and resistance to cancer therapies. Currently, the unique role of each Akt isoform and their relevance to human breast cancer are poorly understood. Methodology/Principal Findings We previously found that Akt1, 2 and 3 are localized at specific subcellular compartments (the cytoplasm, mitochondria and nucleus, respectively), raising the possibility that each isoform may have unique functions and employ different regulation mechanisms. By systematically studying Akt-ablated MDA-MB231 breast cancer cells with isoform-specific siRNA, we here show that Akt2 is the most relevant isoform to cell proliferation and survival in our cancer model. Prolonged ablation of Akt2 with siRNA resulted in cell-cycle arrest in G0/G1 by downregulating Cdk2 and cyclin D, and upregulating p27. The analysis of the Akt downstream signaling pathways suggested that Akt2 specifically targets and activates the p70S6K signaling pathway. We also found that Akt2 ablation initially resulted in an increase in the mitochondrial volume concomitantly with the upregulation of PGC-1α, a regulator of mitochondrial biogenesis. Prolonged ablation of Akt2, but not Akt1 or Akt3, eventually led to cell death by autophagy of the mitochondria (i.e., mitophagy). Conclusions/Significance Collectively, our data demonstrates that Akt2 augments cell proliferation by facilitating cell cycle progression through the upregulation of the cell cycle engine, and protects a cell from pathological autophagy by modulating mitochondrial homeostasis. Our data, thus, raises the possibility that Akt2 can be an effective anticancer target for the control of (breast) cancer.
Conformal Weyl gravity and perihelion precession

Department of Physics, University of Malta, Msida, Malta(Received 1 August 2012; published 2 October 2012)We investigate the perihelion shift of planetary motion in conformal Weyl gravity using the metric ofthe static, spherically symmetric solution discovered by Mannheim and Kazanas [Astrophys. J. 342, 635(1989)]. To this end we employ a procedure similar to that used by Weinberg for the Schwarzschildsolution, which has also been used recently to study the solar system effects of the cosmological constant . We show that besides the general relativistic terms obtained earlier from the Schwarzschild–de Sittersolution, the expression for the perihelion shift includes a negative contribution which arises from thelinear term r in the metric. Using data for perihelion shift observations, we obtain constraints on thevalue of the constant similar to that obtained earlier using galactic rotational curves.