Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A biomechanical cadaveric analysis of polymethylmethacrylate-augmented pedicle screw fixation.

OBJECT Instrumentation of the osteoporotic spine can be fraught with complications such as hardware failure. A cadaver study was performed to determine the biomechanical performance of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA)-augmented pedicle screws. METHODS Three osteoporotic human cadaveric specimens with a mean bone mineral density of 0.70 g/cm2 were used to evaluate the performance of a novel fenestrated bone tap in pedicle screw augmentation. On this device, tap threads serve a dual purpose in preventing backflow of cement toward neural elements while allowing for a custom form for subsequent screw placement. The tap was used to inject a mean volume of 3.7 ml PMMA/pedicle (range 2-8.0 ml PMMA/pedicle) followed by pedicle screw placement between L-5 and T-5, alternating between augmented and nonaugmented instrumentation. Axial pullout testing was then performed. RESULTS Pedicle screw pullout strength was increased in both primary and salvage procedures by 119% (p = 0.001) and 162% (p = 0.01), respectively, after PMMA augmentation. Additionally, the injected cement volumes were divided into two groups, a low-cement group (< or = 2.8 ml/pedicle) and a high-cement group (> or = 5.5 ml/pedicle). Interestingly, the pullout strength did not significantly change with increased cement usage between the two groups (p > 0.05 for all comparisons). CONCLUSIONS Polymethylmethacrylate-augmented pedicle screw fixation results in a significant increase in the axial pullout strength of augmented pedicle screws in both primary and revision procedures. This technique may be a valuable adjunct in cases in which bolstering of the screw-bone interface is necessary.
Modeling and simulation of a new bioinspired muscle actuator

In this paper a new linear bioinspired actuator is developed. This actuator is made to mimic the biological muscle's structure and function. Ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) smart material is used to emulate the motion of the cross-bridges of biological muscle. A dynamic model of the proposed actuator is developed using the wave propagation technique. Modeling and simulation of the bioinspired actuator shows that one muscle unit actuator produces a maximum force of 0.12 N, axial displacement of 4 mm in each step, and a maximum axial displacement of about 30% of total muscle unit length. Sixteen IPMC sets are used; each set contains three IPMC segments connected in series. The length, width and height of each segment are 16mm, 10mm, 0.2 mm respectively. The total muscle unit length and diameter are 120 mm and 70 mm respectively.
Pathological gambling: a review of the neurobiological evidence relevant for its classification as an addictive disorder

In light of the upcoming eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD‐11), the question arises as to the most appropriate classification of ‘Pathological Gambling’ (‘PG’). Some academic opinion favors leaving PG in the ‘Impulse Control Disorder’ (‘ICD’) category, as in ICD‐10, whereas others argue that new data especially from the neurobiological area favor allocating it to the category of ‘Substance‐related and Addictive Disorders’ (‘SADs’), following the decision in the fifth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The current review examines important findings in relation to PG, with the aim of enabling a well‐informed decision to be made with respect to the classification of PG as a SAD or ICD in ICD‐11. Particular attention is given to cognitive deficits and underlying neurobiological mechanisms that play a role in SADs and ICDs. These processes are impulsivity, compulsivity, reward/punishment processing and decision‐making. In summary, the strongest arguments for subsuming PG under a larger SAD category relate to the existence of similar diagnostic characteristics; the high co‐morbidity rates between the disorders; their common core features including reward‐related aspects (positive reinforcement: behaviors are pleasurable at the beginning which is not the case for ICDs); the findings that the same brain structures are involved in PG and SADs, including the ventral striatum. Research on compulsivity suggests a relationship with PG and SAD, particularly in later stages of the disorders. Although research is limited for ICDs, current data do not support continuing to classify PG as an ICD.
Dynamics of Leptomycin B‐Sensitive Nucleocytoplasmic Flux of Parathyroid Hormone‐Related Protein

Parathyroid hormone‐related protein is responsible for hypercalcemia induced by various tumors. The similarity of its N‐terminus to that of parathyroid hormone enables parathyroid hormone‐related protein to share parathyroid hormone's signaling properties, but the rest of the molecule possesses distinct functions including a role in the nucleus/nucleolus in reducing apoptosis and enhancing cell proliferation. We have previously shown that parathyroid hormone‐related protein nuclear import is mediated by importin β1. Here we use fluorescence recovery after photobleaching for the first time to show that, in living cells, parathyroid hormone‐related protein is exported from the nucleus in a leptomycin B‐sensitive manner, implicating CRM1 as the parathyroid hormone‐related protein nuclear export receptor. Leptomycin B treatment significantly reduced the rate of nuclear export 4 −10‐fold, thereby increasing parathyroid hormone‐related protein concentration in the nucleus/nucleolus about 2‐fold. Intriguingly, this also led to a 2‐fold reduced nuclear import rate. Inhibiting the nuclear export of a protein able to shuttle between nucleus and cytoplasm through distinct receptors thus can also affect nuclear import, indicating that the subcellular localization of a protein containing distinct nuclear import and export signals is the product of an integrated system. Although there have been several recent studies examining the dynamics of intranuclear transport using fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, this represents, to our knowledge, the first use of the technique to examine the kinetics of nucleocytoplasmic flux in living cells.
A new generation of sodium chloride porogen for tissue engineering

Porogen leaching is a widely used and simple technique for the creation of porous scaffolds in tissue engineering. Sodium chloride (NaCl) is the most commonly used porogen, but the current grinding and sieving methods generate salt particles with huge size variations and cannot generate porogens in the submicron size range. We have developed a facile method based on the principles of crystallization to precisely control salt crystal sizes down to a few microns within a narrow size distribution. The resulting NaCl crystal size could be controlled through the solution concentration, crystallization temperature, and crystallization time. A reduction in solution temperature, longer crystallization times, and an increase in salt concentration resulted in an increase in NaCl crystal sizes due to the lowered solubility of the salt solution. The nucleation and crystallization technique provides superior control over the resulting NaCl size distribution (13.78 ± 1.18 μm), whereas the traditional grinding and sieving methods produced NaCl porogens 13.89 ± 12.49 μm in size. The resulting NaCl porogens were used to fabricate scaffolds with increased interconnectivity, porous microchanneled scaffolds, and multiphasic vascular grafts. This new generation of salt porogen provides great freedom in designing versatile scaffolds for various tissue‐engineering applications.
ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND FT-IR ANALYSIS OF DATURA INNOXIA AND DATURA METEL LEAF AND SEED METHANOLIC EXTRACTS

Background: Datura (family- Solanaceae), has a long history of being used as herbal medicine. These medicinal effects have been attributed to the phytochemicals present in the plant leaves and seeds, in particular alkaloids, flavonoids and phenolic compounds. The objective of this study was to investigate the methanolic leaf and seed extracts of Datura innoxia (DLP-I & DSP-I) and Datura metel (DLP-M & DSP-M) for their total phenolic, flavonoids and in-vitro antioxidant properties. Materials and Methods: Determination of total phenolic content and total flavonoid content and antioxidant activity in terms of total antioxidant assay, ABTS assay, DPPH assay and in-vitro lipid peroxidation inhibiting activity were determined along with the FT-IR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) analysis of the extracts. Results: The highest total phenolic and total flavonoid content were registered by the D. innoxia leaf extract (70.26 ±1.12 mg GAE/g and 34.24 ± 1.28 mg RE/g respectively). Maximum DPPH radical scavenging activity was exerted by the leaf extract of D. innoxia (IC50 = 146.69 ± 8.46 μg/mL) among the four different methanolic extracts. The highest activity of the ABTS assay was found in Datura innoxia leaf extract (IC50 value = 149.42 ± 13.43 μg/mL) and the highest total antioxidant capacity was found to be present in D. innoxia leaf extract (221.25 ± 1.06 mg AAE/g) whereas D. metel seed extract registered the maximum lipid peroxidation inhibition activity (IC50 = 112 ± 1.30 μg/mL). The FT-IR data also supported the maximum activity in D. innoxia (leaf and seed) extracts. Conclusion: The results thus obtained suggested that the plant Datura innoxia possess considerable antioxidant activity over Datura metel and therefore can be established as a potential source of natural antioxidant.
Survival in Portopulmonary Hypertension: Mayo Clinic Experience Categorized by Treatment Subgroups

To determine the natural history of portopulmonary hypertension (POPH), a retrospective screening‐right heart catheterization‐survival analysis of patients was performed. We categorized patients by three treatment subgroups: (1) no therapy for pulmonary hypertension (PH) or liver transplantation (LT), (2) therapy for PH alone and (3) therapy for PH followed by LT. Seventy‐four patients were identified between 1994 and 2007. Nineteen patients received no therapy for PH and no LT representing the natural history of POPH. Five‐year survival was 14%, and 54% had died within 1 year of diagnosis. Five‐year survival in 43 patients receiving therapy for PH but no LT was 45%, and 12% had died within 1 year of diagnosis. Twelve patients underwent LT and 5‐year survival for the nine receiving therapy for PH was 67% versus 25% in the three who were not pretreated with prostacyclin therapy. The survival of untreated patients with POPH was poor. Subgroups of patients selected to medical treatment with or without LT had better long‐term survival. Mortality did not correlate with baseline hemodynamic variables, type of liver disease or severity of hepatic dysfunction. Medical therapy for POPH should be considered in all patients with POPH, but the treatment effects and impact on those considered for LT still requires well‐designed, prospective study before practice guidelines can be suggested.
Frequential Characterization of Healthy and Pathologic Newborns Cries

In this paper, we present recent developments in the characterizat ion of healthy and pathologic cries of newborns. We have identified and quantified acoustic characteristics that appear the most relevant in differentiating between pathological and healthy cries; such as fundamental frequency (F0), irregularity of F0 and presence of hyper-phonic modes. The results obtained are very encouraging, since the characteristics measured actually differentiate pathological cries fro m the cries of healthy babies.
Role of AAO template filling process parameters in controlling the structure of one-dimensional polymer nanoparticles

Solution template wetting is a common technique used to fabricate elongated polymer nanostructures; however, the parameters controlling the resulting morphology remain unclear. The purpose of this investigation was to elucidate the effects of process variables on the types of nanostructures obtained and to understand the physical mechanisms associated with structure development. 1 wt% polystyrene–THF solutions were infiltrated into commercial and homemade anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) templates. The wetting interaction between the AAO template and the polymer solution was examined through contact angle measurements. In general, for moderate dipping times (<18 h), the morphology of the nanopolymer was rod-like at low molecular weights, while tubes were observed at high molecular weight, even at this low concentration. Nanorods were obtained for all molecular weights for extended dipping times. The data suggest that phase separated layers may grow sequentially from the pore walls and yield nanotubes if the growth is interrupted or produce nanorods for unhindered deposition over long periods.
Role of Cross-Talk between IFN-α-Induced Monocyte-Derived Dendritic Cells and NK Cells in Priming CD8+ T Cell Responses against Human Tumor Antigens1

In the present study we evaluated the role of IFN-α in the generation of dendritic cells (IFN-DCs) with priming activity on CD8+ T lymphocytes directed against human tumor Ags. A 3-day treatment of monocytes, obtained as adherent PBMCs from HLA-A*0201+ healthy donors, with IFN-α and GM-CSF led to the differentiation of DCs displaying a semimature phenotype, but promptly inducing CD8+ T cell responses after one in vitro sensitization with peptides derived from melanoma (gp100209–217 and MART-1/Melan-A27–35) and adenocarcinoma (CEA605–613) Ags. However, these features were lost when IFN-DCs were generated from immunosorted CD14+ monocytes. The ability of adherent PBMCs to differentiate into IFN-DCs expressing higher levels of costimulatory molecules and exerting efficient T cell priming capacity was associated with the presence of contaminating NK cells, which underwent phenotypic and functional activation upon IFN-α treatment. NK cell boost appeared to be mediated by both direct and indirect (i.e., mediated by IFN-DCs) mechanisms. Experiments performed to prove the role of contaminating NK cells in DC differentiation showed that IFN-DCs generated in the absence of NK were phenotypically less mature and could not efficiently prime antitumor CD8+ lymphocytes. Reciprocally, IFN-DCs raised from immunosorted CD14+ monocytes regained their T cell priming activity when NK cells were added to the culture before IFN-α and GM-CSF treatment. Together, our data suggest that the ability of IFN-DCs to efficiently prime anti-tumor CD8+ T lymphocytes relied mostly on the positive cross-talk occurring between DCs and NK cells upon stimulation with IFN-α.
The homoeobox gene SIX1 alters myosin heavy chain isoform expression in mouse skeletal muscle

Six1 is necessary for the genesis of several tissues, but in adults, it is expressed primarily in skeletal muscle where its function is unclear. Overexpression of Six1 with a cofactor in skeletal muscle causes slow‐to‐fast fibre‐type transition. We sought to characterize the effects of a physiologically relevant Six1 knockdown.
Impact of integrating microchannel cooling within 3D microelectronic packages for portable applications

This work presents the impact of integrating microfluidic channels at different locations in a 3D stacked chip configuration to improve its thermal management. Bringing fluidic cooling within the microelectronic package can allow the use of higher power chips in limited space applications, but suitable sites for the microchannels in packaged 3D stacks must be determined. The approach uses an analytical representation of microfluidics and heat transfer at the package level to evaluate the equivalent thermal resistances. This analytical lumped-element circuit model is used to compare different microchannel cooling configurations, for 3D stacked chips. With the addition of microfluidic cooling, the allowable power level increases dramatically. The study also shows that locating the fluid cooling inside or adjacent to the chip stack reduces the thermal resistance over 6 times compared to microchannels located at the surface of the molding or the ball grid array. Within the chip stack however, the location does not have a noticeable impact. The actual thermal design power of microprocessors for portable applications has the potential to be doubled by using microfluidic cooling with moderate flow rates and pressure drops.
Mind the gap: mechanisms regulating the endothelial barrier

The endothelial barrier consists of intercellular contacts localized in the cleft between endothelial cells, which is covered by the glycocalyx in a sievelike manner. Both types of barrier‐forming junctions, i.e. the adherens junction (AJ) serving mechanical anchorage and mechanotransduction and the tight junction (TJ) sealing the intercellular space to limit paracellular permeability, are tethered to the actin cytoskeleton. Under resting conditions, the endothelium thereby builds a selective layer controlling the exchange of fluid and solutes with the surrounding tissue. However, in the situation of an inflammatory response such as in anaphylaxis or sepsis intercellular contacts disintegrate in post‐capillary venules leading to intercellular gap formation. The resulting oedema can cause shock and multi‐organ failure. Therefore, maintenance as well as coordinated opening and closure of interendothelial junctions is tightly regulated. The two principle underlying mechanisms comprise spatiotemporal activity control of the small GTPases Rac1 and RhoA and the balance of the phosphorylation state of AJ proteins. In the resting state, junctional Rac1 and RhoA activity is enhanced by junctional components, actin‐binding proteins, cAMP signalling and extracellular cues such as sphingosine‐1‐phosphate (S1P) and angiopoietin‐1 (Ang‐1). In addition, phosphorylation of AJ components is prevented by junction‐associated phosphatases including vascular endothelial protein tyrosine phosphatase (VE‐PTP). In contrast, inflammatory mediators inhibiting cAMP/Rac1 signalling cause strong activation of RhoA and induce AJ phosphorylation finally leading to endocytosis and cleavage of VE‐cadherin. This results in dissolution of TJs the outcome of which is endothelial barrier breakdown.
Dose-Dependent Prevention of Fibrosis in Aorta of Salt-Loaded Stroke-Prone Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats by Combined Delapril and Indapamide Treatment

Combined treatment with the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor delapril and the diuretic indapamide prevented vascular damage in vital organs of salt-loaded stroke-prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRsp). Whether the changes occurring after long-term hypertension could also be modulated in large arteries was investigated. Two-month-old SHRsp were salt loaded and treated with the drug regimen until they reached 50% mortality or around midlife. In a first experiment, delapril (12 mg/kg) and indapamide (1 mg/kg) were administered daily separately or in combination. In the second dose-finding experiment, delapril (6, 3, 1.5 mg/kg) and indapamide (0.5, 0.25, 0.125 mg/kg) in decreasing dose combinations were analyzed. Ultrastructural, histomorphometric, and biochemical studies were performed on the thoracic aorta. When compared with delapril (12 mg/kg) or indapamide (1 mg/kg) administered individually for 5 months, the combination 12 + 1 mg/kg was able to prevent the increase in extracellular matrix deposition observed in other treatment groups, as assessed by histomorphometry or 4-OH-proline biochemical determination. In the second experiment, a half-dose (delapril 6 mg/kg + indapamide 0.5 mg/kg) combination was similarly effective in counteracting fibrosis, but the other doses progressively failed. In the first experiment, the combination had a stabilizing effect on hypertension and stimulated diuresis. In the second experiment, arterial blood pressure values and sodium balance were not consistently affected by the treatments that antagonized fibrosis (i.e., delapril 6 mg/kg + indapamide 0.5 mg/kg and, less efficiently, delapril 3 mg/kg + indapamide 0.25 mg/kg). These results suggest that indapamide interacts with ACE inhibitors to limit aortic fibrosis independent of any well-established mechanism.
Efficient methods to train multilingual bottleneck feature extractors for low resource keyword search

Training a bottleneck feature (BNF) extractor with multilingual data has been common in low resource keyword search. In a low resource application, the amount of transcribed target language data is limited while there are usually plenty of multilingual data. In this paper, we investigated two methods to train efficient multilingual BNF extractors for low resource keyword search. One method is to use the target language data to update an existing BNF extractor, and another method is to combine the target language data to train a new multilingual BNF extractor from the start. In these two methods, we proposed to use long short-term memory recurrent neural network based language identification to select utterances in the multilingual training data that are acoustically close to the target language. Experiments on Swahili in the OpenKWS15 data demonstrated the efficiency of our proposed methods. The first method facilitates rapid system development, while both methods outperform using baseline BNF extractors in terms of accuracy.
Modal kinematics for multisection continuum arms

This paper presents a novel spatial kinematic model for multisection continuum arms based on mode shape functions (MSF). Modal methods have been used in many disciplines from finite element methods to structural analysis to approximate complex and nonlinear parametric variations with simple mathematical functions. Given certain constraints and required accuracy, this helps to simplify complex phenomena with numerically efficient implementations leading to fast computations. A successful application of the modal approximation techniques to develop a new modal kinematic model for general variable length multisection continuum arms is discussed. The proposed method solves the limitations associated with previous models and introduces a new approach for readily deriving exact, singularity-free and unique MSF's that simplifies the approach and avoids mode switching. The model is able to simulate spatial bending as well as straight arm motions (i.e., pure elongation/contraction), and introduces inverse position and orientation kinematics for multisection continuum arms. A kinematic decoupling feature, splitting position and orientation inverse kinematics is introduced. This type of decoupling has not been presented for these types of robotic arms before. The model also carefully accounts for physical constraints in the joint space to provide enhanced insight into practical mechanics and impose actuator mechanical limitations onto the kinematics thus generating fully realizable results. The proposed method is easily applicable to a broad spectrum of continuum arm designs.