Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Static-charge-sensitive bed ballistocardiography in cardiovascular monitoring.

We evaluated the autonomic influence on balistocardiograms recorded by a static-charge-sensitive bed for cardiovascular monitoring in nine healthy males (20-44 years) and its clinical use in 11 patients who underwent coronary bypass surgery (51-59 years). The ballistocardiogram displayed a distorted low amplitude from the empty beating heart during bypass surgery, impaired by a reduced effective transmural filling pressure of the heart, and returned to its pre-bypass level when the preload to the heart and its pumping was restored. Submaximal dynamic exercise and isoprenaline caused the heart rate to rise to 90-114 beats min-1, and increased the ballistocardiographic amplitude threefold, while at the same time shortening the interval between the R-wave of the electrocardiogram and the peak of the ballistocardiographic waveform (P < 0.01). In contrast, atropine accelerated the heart rate to 96 beats min-1, but did not significantly change the amplitude or temporal pattern of the ballistocardiogram. Thus, the ballistocardiogram reflects sympathetic and parasympathetic influence on the contractility of the myocardium and the effect of cardiac filling (e.g. during bypass surgery).
Mechanical strength of trabecular bone at the knee.

Interest in the biomechanical properties of trabecular bone has expanded in response to the problems related to total and partial joint replacement with the knee joint constituting a main focus of attention. This relatively recent development has left a number of fundamental problems unanswered, especially related to the machining, storage and testing of trabecular bone specimens. Nevertheless, these studies have contributed to the understanding of the mechanical function of trabecular bone. Regarding the role of trabecular bone at the knee joint, the following conclusions may be emphasized (conclusions drawn from the author's previous studies (I-X) are shown in italics): (1) Trabecular bone is almost exclusively responsible for the transmission of load at the proximal tibial epiphysis from the knee joint to the metaphysis. The peripheral shell surrounding the epiphysis is not composed of cortical bone and plays a negligible role in load transmission. (2) The compressive strength and stiffness of trabecular bone is primarily dependent upon the apparent density, trabecular architecture and the strength of the bone material. Direct and indirect sources suggest that the true material strength of trabecular bone is less than that of cortical bone. The epiphyseal trabecular architecture, featuring a marked polarity with alignment of primary trabeculae at right angles to the joint surface, is responsible for functional anisotropy which points to the axial compressive properties as the more important mechanical parameters. (3) Tensile and shear properties are of special relevance to mechanical loosening of implants. These properties may be derived from the apparent density, and a close empirical relation to the axial compressive strength and stiffness is suggested. (4) The foam-like structure of trabecular bone is the basis for the large energy absorptive capacity. (5) The pattern of axial compressive stiffness and strength at the normal proximal tibia differs little among individuals. Supporting the medial tibial plateau is a large high strength area with maximal strength centrally and slightly anteriorly, while laterally there is a restricted area of relatively high strength posteriorly with a lower maximal value than medially. Bone strength is significantly reduced within ten millimeters of the subchondral bone plate, and this reduction continues distally at the lateral condyle. At both condyles strength is reduced towards the periphery with very low values being obtained at the margins of the condyles and at the intercondylar region. Absolute bone strength values are influenced by the level of physical activity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Dexmedetomidine as an adjuvant to bupivacaine in caudal analgesia in children

Context: Postoperative pain management is becoming an integral part of anesthesia care. Various techniques of pediatric pain relief have been designed among which the most commonly practiced is caudal epidural block. Several adjuvants have been used to prolong the duration of caudal analgesia such as clonidine, neostigmine, ketamine, opioids, and ephedrine. We have designed the study using dexmedetomidine as an adjuvant to assess analgesic efficacy, duration of postoperative analgesia, hemodynamic stability, postoperative sedation, and any adverse effects in children. Aims: The aim is to study the effects of dexmedetomidine as an adjuvant to bupivacaine in caudal analgesia in pediatric patients posted for infraumbilical surgeries. Settings and Design: This is a randomized, double-blind study in which effect of dexmedetomidine is studied when added to bupivacaine in the caudal epidural block. The observations are made intraoperatively for hemodynamic stability and postoperatively for the duration of analgesia. Subjects and Methods: This study was conducted in 100 children of American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status I and II, aged 2–10 years, undergoing elective infraumbilical surgeries. They were divided into two groups as follows: Group A: (0.25%) bupivacaine 1 ml/kg + normal saline (NS) 1 ml. Group B: (0.25%) bupivacaine 1 ml/kg + 1 μg/kg dexmedetomidine in 1 ml NS. As this study was double-blind, patients were randomly assigned to receive either (bupivacaine + saline) or (bupivacaine + dexmedetomidine) in each group. The patients were observed for hemodynamic stability, respiratory depression, and postoperative pain using face, legs, activity, cry, consolability (FLACC) pain scale for 24 h postoperatively. Statistical Analysis Used: Unpaired Student's t-test. Results: The mean duration of effective analgesia in Group A patients was 4.33 ± 0.98 h versus 9.88 ± 0.90 h in Group B patients. Likewise, the difference in mean FLACC score of both the groups was also statistically significant, 7.21 ± 0.76 and 6.49 ± 1.72 in Group A and Group B, respectively. Conclusion: Dexmedetomidine as adjuvant to Bupivacaine increases duration of caudal analgesia and improves hemodynamic stability without an increase in adverse effects in children undergoing infraumbilical surgeries.
The murine gamma‐herpesvirus‐68 MK3 protein causes TAP degradation independent of MHC class I heavy chain degradation

The murine gamma‐herpesvirus‐68 MK3 protein has an intricate interaction with the peptide loading complex that involves MK3 stabilization, a rapid degradation of MHC class I heavy chains, and a slower degradation of TAP. Here we have used tapasin chimeras to distinguish functionally the different immune evasion mechanisms of MK3. Tapasin was cloned in two alternatively spliced forms that differed by a single transmembrane valine residue. Each restored antigen presentation and MK3 function in tapasin‐deficient cells. The transmembrane/cytoplasmic portion of tapasin, linked to the extracellular domain of CD8, also restored TAP stability and MK3 stability in tapasin‐deficient cells. MK3 did not associate with or degrade MHC class I in these cells, which lacked the endoplasmic reticulum domain of tapasin, but degraded TAP at least as efficiently as when full‐length tapasin was present. The un‐degraded MHC class I consequently showed impaired maturation. The fact that MK3 required intact tapasin to degrade MHC class I but only the transmembrane/cytoplasmic portion of tapasin to degrade TAP indicated that these two immune evasion functions operate independently.
An enhanced Discrete Wavelet Packet Transform for Feature Extraction in Electroencephalogram Signals

Extracting features from electroencephalogram (EEG) is a challenging task because the signals are complex and chaotic in nature. EEG signals are time varying as human brain produces different frequency bands within different period of time. Due to this reason, several time-frequency methods have been used to extract features, and this includes the Discrete Wavelet Packet Transform (DWPT). DWPT was introduced to provide efficient localization of frequency bands, however, the decomposition of DWPT produces noises in the data points of sub-signals which in return affected the quality of the extracted features. Moreover, when the decomposition of DWPT happens, the length of sequences is decreased by half at every level. If it occurs at the last level, the sequence length will become very short and some frequency bands (i.e. alpha, beta, gamma) will be scattered in several location in the decomposition tree. Hence, this study introduces eDWPT which is the enhanced of DWPT. This method has been evaluated on a preprocessed EEG dataset of 6 subjects (i.e DEAP database) and compared against the standard DWPT. Two experiments of emotion recognition were performed and it is learned that the proposed feature extraction method (i.e eDWPT) produce a higher classification accuracy. Such a result indicates that the proposed eDWPT has the potential to be used as a feature of extraction method in other signal processing.
Experimental validation for the diffraction effect in the ultrasonic field of piston transducers and its influence on absorption and dispersion measurements

The aim of this work was to study the diffraction effects in the ultrasonic field of piston source transducers and their importance for accurate measurements of attenuation and dispersion in viscoelastic materials. In laboratory measurements, the diffraction phenomena are mainly due to the beam spread of the ultrasonic wave propagating in viscoelastic materials. This effect is essentially related to the estimated attenuation and dispersion in the material. In this work, a frequency domain system identification approach, using the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE), was applied to the measured data in order to determine a function for correcting the diffraction losses in both normal and oblique incidences for a large frequency band (300 kHz to 3 MHz). The effective radius of the used transmitter was determined by the inverse problem when ultrasonic beam propagation was investigated in a water medium. Using the estimated radius, the propagation through viscoelastic materials was established, and the acoustic parameters of these materials were estimated. Attention was paid to the determination of the attenuation and dispersion in the materials. These quantities were compared to those obtained without diffraction correction in order to see the influence of introducing the diffraction correction into the propagation model.
Association between socio-economic status and childhood undernutrition in Bangladesh; a comparison of possession score and poverty index

Abstract Objective To determine how much of the variation in nutritional status of Bangladeshi children under 5 years old can be attributed to the socio-economic status of the family. Design Nutritional status used reference Z-scores of weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and weight-for-height (WHZ). A ‘possession score’ was generated based on ownership of a radio, television, bicycle, motorcycle and telephone, and the availability of electricity, with categories of 0 to 4+ possessions. A five-point (quintile) ‘poverty index’ was created using principal component analysis. Setting The Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2004 was the source of data. Subjects A sample of 4891 children aged <5 years was obtained. Results Some 57·8 % of the sample was either stunted, wasted or underweight (7·7 % were stunted, wasted and underweight). Of those stunted (48·4 %), 25·7 % were also underweight. Underweight and wasting prevalences were 40·7 % and 14·3 %, respectively. Mean WAZ, HAZ and WHZ did not differ by sex. Children of mothers with no education or no possessions were, on average, about 1 sd more underweight and stunted than those with higher educated mothers or with 4+ possessions. The possession score provided much greater discrimination of undernutrition than the poverty index. Nearly 50 % of children from households with no possessions were stunted, wasted or underweight (only 27 % in the poorest quintile), compared with only 3–6 % of children from households with 4+ possessions (over 13 % in the richest quintile). Conclusions Maternal education and possession score were the main predictors of a child’s nutritional status. Possession score was a much better indicator of undernutrition than the poverty index.
NSGA and SPEA Applied to Multiobjective Design of Power Distribution Systems

This paper presents, for the first time, an application of two well-know multiobjective optimization techniques, namely, nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA) and strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm (SPEA), to the multiobjective design of power distribution systems. These algorithms have been applied to a multiobjective optimization problem with some technical constraints, minimizing the total costs while maximizing the reliability of the power distribution system. The NSGA uses a fitness sharing scheme to achieve diversity among the obtained solutions. In SPEA, it is necessary to apply a reduction procedure because of the number of solutions. For this purpose, a fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm has been applied, with this being the first time that an FCM algorithm in the SPEA has been used. The obtained results from both techniques have been compared, concluding that both offer similar efficiency in order to solve the stated multiobjective optimization problem. The developed methodology is applicable to practical cases of design, allowing for additional requirements that the designer imposes
Cloud-to-ground lightning activity in a hailstorm over the central Lower Latitude Plateau of China

A thunderstorm that developed over the central Lower Latitude Plateau of China on 16 July 2006 is analyzed in detail using the data from a CG lightning location network and Doppler radar. This severe thunderstorm produced hailstones as large as 15 mm and had a lifetime of 3 h and 20 min. The thunderstorm exhibited strong vertical development with cloud top reaching 15.9km. The CG parameters considered are the flash rate, the flash polarity, the multiplicity, and the peak current. The thunderstorm produced especially low positive CG proportions associated with negative CGs with high values of peak current and multiplicity. This second part is mostly centered on the detailed analysis of the CG lightning behavior, its relationship with radar-derived storm parameters, and CG lightning correlation with hazardous weather. The analysis of the storm cells life cycle has showed similar trends between the CG lighting flash rates and radar-derived parameters like the area of reflectivity above 30 dBZ at the -10°C isotherm height. There is a distinct increase in CG flash rate during the rapid development stage of hailstorms. The CG lightning “jump” pattern seems more robust to forecast in a short-term basis the possible occurrence of severe weather.
Understanding Individuals' Knowledge Creation and Learning Behavior in R&d Teams

Teams are widely used in organized workplaces. This study developed and tested a model to understand how to promote knowledge creation and learning behavior by individuals in a team setting. Team members in the same context may perceive differences in contextual factors. Is it possible to promote greater knowledge creation and learning by individuals when they perceive various team contextual factors? In this study, individual motivation and team contextual factors were considered simultaneously to explore the direct and interaction effects of these factors. We employed a motivation–opportunity–ability (MOA) framework, which included individual motivation, psychological safety, and collective efficacy. The proposed model was an empirical test using survey data from 207 R&D team members and 42 team leaders. The team members answered the individual motivation, psychological safety, and collective efficacy questions; their team leaders answered the knowledge creation and learning behavior questions. Results revealed that extrinsic motivation, collective efficacy, and psychological safety directly affected an individual’s knowledge creation and learning behavior. Notably, intrinsic motivation had no direct effect; however, it affected an individual’s knowledge creation and learning behavior when collective efficacy was strong or psychological safety was weak. These findings yielded important implications for research and practice.
Automating Release of Deep Link APIs for Android Applications

Unlike the Web where each web page has a global URL to reach, a specific "content page" inside a mobile app cannot be opened unless the user explores the app with several operations from the landing page. Recently, deep links have been advocated by major companies to enable targeting and opening a specific page of an app externally with an accessible uniform resource identifier (URI). To empirically investigate the state of the practice on adopting deep links, in this article, we present the largest empirical study of deep links over 20,000 Android apps, and find that deep links do not get wide adoption among current Android apps, and non-trivial manual efforts are required for app developers to support deep links. To address such an issue, we propose the Aladdin approach and supporting tool to release deep links to access arbitrary location of existing apps. Aladdin instantiates our novel cooperative framework to synergically combine static analysis and dynamic analysis while minimally engaging developers to provide inputs to the framework for automation, without requiring any coding efforts or additional deployment efforts. We evaluate Aladdin with popular apps and demonstrate its effectiveness and performance.
Circulating endothelial progenitor cells in patients with cardiac syndrome X

Background: Cardiac syndrome X (CSX) encompasses the constellation of anginal chest pain in the presence of a pathological functional test and a normal coronary angiogram. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in the peripheral circulation contribute to tissue vascularisation. Objective: To investigate the number and functional properties of circulating EPCs in patients with CSX. Methods: 17 patients with CSX and a referent population (n = 20) were matched for age, atherosclerotic risk factors and use of drugs. Numbers of EPCs were studied by FACS, and their functional properties, including their proliferative capacity, adherence to matrix and mature endothelial cells as well as their ability to support in vitro tube formation, were investigated. Levels of soluble markers that associate with peripheral mobilisation and homing were studied in the serum samples of all subjects. Results: Patients with CSX had significantly increased numbers of circulating EPCs as compared with the referent population (both CD34+/KDR and CD34+/CD133+). The proliferative capacity of EPCs and their ability to support in vitro tube formation were significantly impaired in patients with CSX as compared with the referent population. However, adhesiveness of EPCs from patients with CSX to fibronectin and cultured mature endothelial cells was enhanced as compared with the referent population. Serum vascular endothelial growth factor correlated with peripheral CD34+/KDR cell numbers, whereas serum concentration of erythropoietin correlated with the number of circulating CD34+/CD133+ cells Conclusion: Patients with CSX have a significantly altered circulating EPC phenotype that could potentially aid in understanding the complex pathogenesis of the syndrome.
Cascade Impactor (CI) Mensuration—An Assessment of the Accuracy and Precision of Commercially Available Optical Measurement Systems

Multi-stage cascade impactors (CIs) are the preferred measurement technique for characterizing the aerodynamic particle size distribution of an inhalable aerosol. Stage mensuration is the recommended pharmacopeial method for monitoring CI “fitness for purpose” within a GxP environment. The Impactor Sub-Team of the European Pharmaceutical Aerosol Group has undertaken an inter-laboratory study to assess both the precision and accuracy of a range of makes and models of instruments currently used for optical inspection of impactor stages. Measurement of two Andersen 8-stage ‘non-viable’ cascade impactor “reference” stages that were representative of jet sizes for this instrument type (stages 2 and 7) confirmed that all instruments evaluated were capable of reproducible jet measurement, with the overall capability being within the current pharmacopeial stage specifications for both stages. In the assessment of absolute accuracy, small, but consistent differences (ca. 0.6% of the certified value) observed between ‘dots’ and ‘spots’ of a calibrated chromium-plated reticule were observed, most likely the result of treatment of partially lit pixels along the circumference of this calibration standard. Measurements of three certified ring gauges, the smallest having a nominal diameter of 1.0 mm, were consistent with the observation where treatment of partially illuminated pixels at the periphery of the projected image can result in undersizing. However, the bias was less than 1% of the certified diameter. The optical inspection instruments evaluated are fully capable of confirming cascade impactor suitability in accordance with pharmacopeial practice.
Function Search in a Large Transcription Factor Gene Family in Arabidopsis: Assessing the Potential of Reverse Genetics to Identify Insertional Mutations in R2R3 MYB Genes

More than 92 genes encoding MYB transcription factors of the R2R3 class have been described in Arabidopsis. The functions of a few members of this large gene family have been described, indicating important roles for R2R3 MYB transcription factors in the regulation of secondary metabolism, cell shape, and disease resistance, and in responses to growth regulators and stresses. For the majority of the genes in this family, however, little functional information is available. As the first step to characterizing these genes functionally, the sequences of >90 family members, and the map positions and expression profiles of >60 members, have been determined previously. An important second step in the functional analysis of the MYB family, through a process of reverse genetics that entails the isolation of insertion mutants, is described here. For this purpose, a variety of gene disruption resources has been used, including T-DNA–insertion populations and three distinct populations that harbor transposon insertions. We report the isolation of 47 insertions into 36 distinct MYB genes by screening a total of 73 genes. These defined insertion lines will provide the foundation for subsequent detailed functional analyses for the assignment of specific functions to individual members of the R2R3 MYB gene family.