Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Outcome of Distal Radius Fractures Managed by Barzullah Working Classification

Background: Management of distal radius fractures (DRFs) is still controversial and may be influenced by the initial fracture classification. Even though numerous classification systems have been proposed in this regard, the evaluation and management of this fracture has remained problematic. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the functional outcome of DRF managed on the basis of a new classification. This classification named as Barzullah Working Classification represents a modification of Melone classification, which is based on fracture stability. Patients and Methods: A total of 310 DRFs of patients skeletally matured referred to a tertiary care hospital at a period of 18 months were classified as per the new classification system into four types; metaphyseal stable, metaphyseal unstable, radiocarpal stable, and radiocarpal unstable fractures. They were managed and followed over a mean period of 15.10 ± 5.4 months, and the results were recorded at the final follow-up. Results: The mean age of the patients was 51.22 ± 20.58 years. Most of the patients were females (n=189, 64.19%). The minimal follow up was 6 months with a mean of 15.10 ± 5.4 months. Mean mayo wrist scores were 95 ± 4, 80 ± 7.4, 75 ± 7.4, and 70 ± 6.9, for stable metaphyseal fractures, unstable metaphyseal radial, stable radiocarpal fractures and unstable radiocarpal fractures, respectively. The overall mean mayo wrist functional score was 80.58 ± 12.3 (good results) at final follow up. Conclusions: Various modalities of treatment used differentially in different types of DRFs based on the Barzullah Working Classification give good results in spite of conflicting literature.
A framework for customizing the mobile and remote monitoring of patients with chronic diseases

We present a means of generating a mobile clientserver application that enables customized remote monitoring of patients with chronic diseases. The customization is based on parameters and formal descriptions of: type of chronic disease, patient preferences, the monitoring procedure required by the doctor, prescribed medication and information about the current context (i.e., environment) of the patient, obtained from sensors. Based on this, the system determines which pieces of information should be regularly obtained from the patient through questionnaires and/or sensors of the smart phone and sensors connected to it. Relevant information are the ones that help to detect possible changes in the patient's health condition and the monitoring process of a patient by the doctor. The medical treatment and the kind of chronic disease will define the set of data to be collected. It should be stressed that the goal is not to support automatic medical diagnosis, but only to provide means for physicians to obtain updated information about their patients, so as to allow remote monitoring of patients.
Study of the oscillatory breathing pattern in elderly patients

Some of the most common clinical problems in elderly patients are related to diseases of the cardiac and respiratory systems. Elderly patients often have altered breathing patterns, such as periodic breathing (PB) and Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR), which may coincide with chronic heart failure. In this study, we used the envelope of the respiratory flow signal to characterize respiratory patterns in elderly patients. To study different breathing patterns in the same patient, the signals were segmented into windows of 5 min. In oscillatory breathing patterns, frequency and time-frequency parameters that characterize the discriminant band were evaluated to identify periodic and non-periodic breathing (PB and nPB). In order to evaluate the accuracy of this characterization, we used a feature selection process, followed by linear discriminant analysis. 22 elderly patients (7 patients with PB and 15 with nPB pattern) were studied. The following classification problems were analyzed: patients with either PB (with and without apnea) or nPB patterns, and patients with CSR versus PB, CSR versus nPB and PB versus nPB patterns. The results showed 81.8% accuracy in the comparisons of nPB and PB patients, using the power of the modulation peak. For the segmented signal, the power of the modulation peak, the frequency variability and the interquartile ranges provided the best results with 84.8% accuracy, for classifying nPB and PB patients.
The Alzheimer Variant of Lewy Body Disease: A Pathologically Confirmed Case-Control Study

The objective of the study was to identify clinical features that distinguish patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), who were classified as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, from patients with AD. We examined a group of 27 patients from our memory clinic, originally diagnosed with AD, of whom 6 were postmortem found to have DLB. For the present study, we compared cognitive, noncognitive and neurological symptoms between the two groups. We found that there were no differences on ratings of dementia and scales for activities of daily living. Patients with DLB performed better on the MMSE and the memory subtest of the CAMCOG, but there was no difference in any other cognitive domain. Furthermore, genetic risk factors, including family history of dementia or allele frequency of the apolipoprotein ε4, did not discriminate between the two groups, and there were no differences on CCT scans. Taken together, our findings suggest that Lewy body pathology may be present in patients who do not show the typical clinical features which distinguish DLB from AD.
Frequency-Unspecific Effects of θ-tACS Related to a Visuospatial Working Memory Task

Working memory (WM) is crucial for intelligent cognitive functioning, and synchronization phenomena in the fronto-parietal network have been suggested as an underlying neural mechanism. In an attempt to provide causal evidence for this assumption, we applied transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) at theta frequency over fronto-parietal sites during a visuospatial match-to-sample (MtS) task. Depending on the stimulation protocol, i.e., in-phase, anti-phase or sham, we anticipated a differential impact of tACS on behavioral WM performance as well as on the EEG (electroencephalography) during resting state before and after stimulation. We hypothesized that in-phase tACS of the fronto-parietal theta network (stimulation frequency: 5 Hz; intensity: 1 mA peak-to-peak) would result in performance enhancement, whereas anti-phase tACS would cause performance impairment. Eighteen participants (nine female) received in-phase, anti-phase, and sham stimulation in balanced order. While being stimulated, subjects performed the MtS task, which varied in executive demand (two levels: low and high). EEG analysis of power peaks within the delta (0.5–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), and beta (12–30 Hz) frequency bands was carried out. No significant differences were observed between in-phase and anti-phase stimulation regarding both behavioral and EEG measurements. Yet, with regard to the alpha frequency band, we observed a statistically significant drop of peak power from pre to post in the sham condition, whereas alpha power remained on a similar level in the actively stimulated conditions. Our results indicate a frequency-unspecific modulation of neuronal oscillations by tACS. However, the closer participants’ individual theta peak frequencies were to the stimulation frequency of 5 Hz after anti-phase tACS, the faster they responded in the MtS task. This effect did not reach statistical significance during in-phase tACS and was not present during sham. A lack of statistically significant behavioral results in the MtS task and frequency-unspecific effects on the electrophysiological level question the effectiveness of tACS in modulating cortical oscillations in a frequency-specific manner.
Epidemiology of myeloproliferative neoplasms in the United States

Abstract Myelofibrosis (MF), polycythemia vera (PV) and essential thrombocythemia (ET) are three classic BCR ABL fusion gene-negative chronic myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Though rare, it is important to understand the burden of illness of these disorders for public health planning, healthcare insurers and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Therefore, we have described the incidence of MF and prevalence of MF, ET and PV in the United States between 2008 and 2010 based on data from two large health plans. The incidence of primary MF was about 1 per 100 000 per year and did not vary over the study years. The prevalence of PV (44–57 per 100 000) and ET (38–57 per 100 000) was much higher than that of MF (4–6 per 100 000) or subgroups containing MF (post-PV MF = 0.3–0.7 per 100 000; post-ET MF = 0.5–1.1 per 100 000). Additional research using other national databases and/or study designs is needed to substantiate these findings.
Expression of MCM-3 and MCM-7 in Primary Cutaneous T-cell Lymphomas.

BACKGROUND/AIM Primary cutaneous T-cell lymphomas is a group of rare non-Hodgkin lymphomas, originally affecting the skin. Increased proliferation activity is a hallmark of diverse tumors and the proliferation rate, measured by the expression of various markers has a predictive value regarding the malignancy course. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic value and the potential correlation between the expression of proliferation markers Ki-67, MCM-3 and MCM-7, and clinicopathological data for different types of primary cutaneous T-cell lymphomas. MATERIALS AND METHODS Immunohistochemical reactions were performed on paraffin blocks obtained from 90 patients with mycosis fungoides (MF) and 21 patients with other CTCL (oCTCL), in comparison to 19 patients with benign inflammatory dermatosis (lichen planus, eczema), serving as control. RESULTS Statistically significant differences in the expression of Ki-67, MCM-3 and MCM-7 were observed between oCTCL vs. the control group (29% vs. 5%; 17% vs. 5%; 13% vs. 1.5%, respectively, ANOVA with Scheffé post-hoc test: p<0.01). In both, MF and oCTCL Ki-67 expression highly correlated with the expression of MCM-3 (r=0.83; p<0.001 and r=0.91; p<0.001, respectively) and MCM-7 (r=0.84; p<0.001 and r=0.87; p<0.01, respectively; Pearson correlation test). Similarly, a strong positive correlation was observed between MCM-3 and MCM-7 (r=0.81, p<0.001 and r=0.85, p<0.001). Regarding the MF group, Ki-67 and MCM-3 expression was significantly higher in advanced compared to early stages (11% vs. 3% and 15.5% vs. 5.0%, respectively, Student's t-test: p<0.05). Advanced MF had also significantly higher labeling indexes for Ki-67, MCM-3 and MCM-7 compared to benign inflammatory dermatoses (Student's t-test: p<0.01, p<0.001 and p=0.02, respectively). Considering skin involvement in MF, T1b had a significantly higher expression of Ki-67, MCM-3 and MCM-7 than T1a (p<0.001 for all comparisons) with similar observations between T2b and T2a (p=0.02; p<0.01; p=0.01, respectively, Student's t-test test). Regarding extracutaneous involvement, only MCM-3 expression in MF showed a positive relationship with both nodal and distant metastases (ANOVA with Scheffé post hoc test: p<0.01, p<0.01, respectively). Higher Ki-67 and MCM-3 expression correlated with shorter survival in MF, although the latter did not reach statistical significance (10-year survival 0.38 vs. 0.82, p=0.02, and 0.46 vs. 0.81, p=0.06, respectively; log rank test). CONCLUSION All studied proliferation markers may had predictive values regarding the disease severity and prognosis. Further studies are required to analyze their implementation into patient stratification and treatment process such that will improve prognosis in CTCL.
Epigenetic regulation of Atoh1 guides hair cell development in the mammalian cochlea

In the developing cochlea, sensory hair cell differentiation depends on the regulated expression of the bHLH transcription factor Atoh1. In mammals, if hair cells die they do not regenerate, leading to permanent deafness. By contrast, in non-mammalian vertebrates robust regeneration occurs through upregulation of Atoh1 in the surviving supporting cells that surround hair cells, leading to functional recovery. Investigation of crucial transcriptional events in the developing organ of Corti, including those involving Atoh1, has been hampered by limited accessibility to purified populations of the small number of cells present in the inner ear. We used µChIP and qPCR assays of FACS-purified cells to track changes in the epigenetic status of the Atoh1 locus during sensory epithelia development in the mouse. Dynamic changes in the histone modifications H3K4me3/H3K27me3, H3K9ac and H3K9me3 reveal a progression from poised, to active, to repressive marks, correlating with the onset of Atoh1 expression and its subsequent silencing during the perinatal (P1 to P6) period. Inhibition of acetylation blocked the increase in Atoh1 mRNA in nascent hair cells, as well as ongoing hair cell differentiation during embryonic organ of Corti development ex vivo. These results reveal an epigenetic mechanism of Atoh1 regulation underlying hair cell differentiation and subsequent maturation. Interestingly, the H3K4me3/H3K27me3 bivalent chromatin structure observed in progenitors persists at the Atoh1 locus in perinatal supporting cells, suggesting an explanation for the latent capacity of these cells to transdifferentiate into hair cells, and highlighting their potential as therapeutic targets in hair cell regeneration. Highlighted article: Levels of histone H3 methylation and acetylation control the expression of Atoh1, a key regulator of hair cell differentiation, during inner ear development in mice.
Atmospheric Turbulence Degraded-Image Restoration by Kurtosis Minimization

Atmospheric turbulence is caused by the random fluctuations of the refraction index of the medium. It can lead to blurring in images acquired from a long distance away. Since the degradation is often not completely known, the problem is viewed as blind image deconvolution or blur identification. Our previous work has observed that blurring increases kurtosis and introduced a new blur identification method based on kurtosis minimization (KM). In this letter, this observation has been studied using phase correlation. The KM method is compared with two other signal processing methods. The limitation of the method is also discussed.
Metrics for measuring domain independence of semantic classes

The design of dialogue systems for a new domain requires semantic classes (concepts) to be identified and defined. This process could be made easier by importing relevant concepts from previously studied domains to the new one. We propose two methodologies, based on comparison of semantic classes across domains, for determining which concepts are domain-independent, and which are specific to the new task. The concept-comparison technique uses a context-dependent Kullback-Leibler distance measurement to compare all pairwise combinations of semantic classes, one from each domain. The concept-projectionmethod uses a similar metric to project a single semantic class from one domain into the lexical environment of another. Initial results show that both methods are good indicators of the degree of domain independence for a wide range of concepts, manually generated for three different tasks: Carmen (children’s game),Movie (information retrieval) and Travel (flight reservations).
HASIL: hardware assisted software-based IP lookup for large routing tables

Making IP Lookup fast and scalable for large routing tables is desirable. Software lookups are flexible and scalable but inherently slow, and hardware methods are fast but inflexible. Therefore, hardware-assisted software lookups seem to be a compromised solution. In this paper, we propose a solution to accelerate software lookup by making small modifications in the instruction set of a generic processor. Our method uses DMP-tree data structure to build its software and runs it using our new instructions to reach flexibility of software and speed of hardware.
Towards a Service-Based Framework for Environmental Data Processing

Scientists are confronted with significant data management problems due to the huge volume and high complexity of environmental data. An important aspect of environmental data management is that data, needed for a process, are not always in the adequate format. In this contribution, we analyze environmental data structure, and model this data using a semantic-based method. Using this model, we design and implement a framework based on Web services for transformation between massive environmental text-based data and relational databases. We present a mapping model for environmental data transformation to be used in the scenario devoted to the methodology for development of stochastic models for prediction of environmental parameters by application of Gaussian processes.
Antibiotic resistance of Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi A in India: emerging and reemerging problem.

BACKGROUND Antibiotic resistance pattern and R-plasmid of Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi A isolates from Kolkata, India are not well documented. AIMS To determine the trend of antibiotic resistance of S. paratyphi A isolates. SETTINGS AND DESIGN A retrospective study was carried out using blood culture isolates of S. paratyphi A (1991 to 2005) obtained from patients of enteric fever from Asansol and Kolkata and its suburbs (India). MATERIALS AND METHODS Antibiotic susceptibility pattern, using seven antibiotics, for the isolates was determined following agar dilution and disk diffusion methods. Transferability of multidrug resistance to ampicillin (Am), chloramphenicol (Chl), cotrimoxazole (Cot) and tetracycline (Tet) among the isolates was determined by in vitro conjugation. The multi-drug resistant (MDR) and antibiotic susceptible S. paratyphi A strains and the trans-conjugants were screened for the presence of plasmid. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED The t test was used to compare the difference between mean minimum inhibitory concentration values of ciprofloxacin (Cp) for nalidixic acid (Nx)-resistant and Nalidixic acid (Nx)-susceptible isolates. RESULTS Among 13 outbreak causing isolates in 1991, 9 (69.23%) showed AmChlCotTet-resistance, while 4 (30.77%) Cot-resistance only. During 1992-1994, all 13 isolates were susceptible to Am, Chl, Cot and Tet. During 1995-2005, isolates demonstrated different resistance patterns and emergence of nalidixic acid (Nx)-resistance. A transferable plasmid conferring AmChlCotTet-resistance was detected among MDR isolates. All the isolates were susceptible to ceftriaxone (Ctx) and ciprofloxacin (Cp). Association between Nalidixic acid (Nx)-resistance and reduced susceptibility to ciprofloxacin (Cp) among 59 S. paratyphi A isolates was noticed (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION Vigilance for R-plasmid and surveillance of antibiotic susceptibility among S. paratyphi A isolates in and around Kolkata, India, are mandatory in order to combat antibiotic resistance of the isolates in this part of the world.
Animal Cytogenetics and Comparative Mapping

ABC Fax + 41 61 306 12 34 E-mail karger@karger.ch www.karger. com © 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel 0301–0171/02/0984–0265$19.50/0 Accessible online at: www.karger. com/cgr Abstract. The microchromosomes (MICs) in chicken DT40 lymphocytes are usually clustered in the center of the nucleus, whereas the macrochromosomes (MACs) are preferentially located toward the nuclear periphery. This compartmentalized architecture of the nucleus is associated with a low frequency of translocations between MICs and MACs after induction of DNA breaks by a radiation track(s). In contrast, the MICs in chick embryo fibroblasts (CEFs) tend to be located throughout the entire nuclear volume. The resulting side-to-side arrangement of MIC and MAC territories favors radiation-induced MIC/MAC translocations, which occur more frequently in CEF cells than MIC/MIC or MAC/MAC rearrangements. Collectively, our results suggest that preformed physical contacts are a prerequisite for the generation of chromosome rearrangements through recombinational repair of DNA damage. Cell type-specific higher-order nuclear organization may prevent or stimulate the formation of particular chromosome aberrations in pathology and evolution. Ectopic expression of the recombination protein Rad51 can protect cells from radiation-induced translocations. The repair activity of overexpressed Rad51 is more important for cells that are irradiated in S/G2 phase than for cells in G1 phase. Evidently, homologous recombination between sister chromatids of a replicated chromosome is more frequent than that between homologous or heterologous chromosomes during G1 phase.
An Injection Island GA for Flywheel Design Optimization

This paper presents an approach to optimal design of elastic flywheels using an Injection Island Genetic Algorithm (iiGA). An iiGA in combination with a finite element code is used to search for shape variations to optimize the Specific Energy Density (SED) of elastic flywheels. SED is defined as the amount of rotational energy stored per unit mass. iiGAs seek solutions simultaneously at different levels of refinement of the problem representation (and correspondingly different definitions of the fitness function) in separate sub-populations (islands). Solutions are sought first at low levels of refinement with an axisymmetric plane stress finite element code for high speed exploration of the coarse design space. Next, individuals are injected into populations with a higher level of resolution that uses an axisymmetric three dimensional finite element model to “ fine-tune” the flywheel designs. In true multi -objective optimization, various “sub-fitness” functions can be defined that represent “good” aspects of the overall fitness function. Solutions can be sought for these various “sub-fitness” functions on different nodes and injected into a node that evaluates the overall fitness. Allowing subpopulations to explore different regions of the fitness space simultaneously allows relatively robust and efficient exploration in problems for which fitness evaluations are costly. 1.0 INTRODUCTION This paper will describe the advantages of searching with an axisymmetric plane stress finite element model (with a “sub-fitness” function) to quickly find building blocks needed to inject into an axisymmetric three-dimensional finite element model through use of an iiGA. An optimal annular composite flywheel shape will be sought by an iiGA and, for comparison, by a “ring” topology parallel GA. The flywheel is modeled as a series of concentric rings (see Figure 1). The thickness of each ring varies linearly in the radial direction with the possibilit y for a diverse set of material choices for each ring. Figure 2 shows a typical flywheel model in which symmetry is used to increase computational eff iciency. The overall fitness function for the genetic algorithm GALOPPS was the specific energy density (SED) of a flywheel, which is defined as: SED I mass = 1 2 2 ω 1. ) where ω is the angular velocity of the flywheel (“sub-fitness” function), I is the mass moment of inertia defined by: