Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interventions to improve real-world walking after stroke: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of current interventions to improve real-world walking for people with stroke and specifically whether benefits are sustained. Data sources: EBSCO Megafile, AMED, Cochrane, Scopus, PEDRO, OTSeeker and Psychbite databases were searched to identify relevant studies. Review methods: Proximity searching with keywords such as ambulat*, walk*, gait, mobility*, activit* was used. Randomized controlled trials that used measures of real-world walking were included. Two reviewers independently assessed methodological quality using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool and extracted the data. Results: Nine studies fitting the inclusion criteria were identified, most of high quality. A positive effect overall was found indicating a small effect of interventions on real-world walking (SMD 0.29 (0.17, 0.41)). Five studies provided follow-up data at >3–6 months, which demonstrated sustained benefits (SMD 0.32 (0.16, 0.48)). Subgroup analysis revealed studies using exercise alone were not effective (SMD 0.19 (–0.11, 0.49)), but those incorporating behavioural change techniques (SMD 0.27 (0.12, 0.41)) were. Conclusions: A small but significant effect was found for current interventions and benefits can be sustained. Interventions that include behaviour change techniques appear more effective at improving real-world walking habits than exercise alone.
Distinct granuloma responses in C57BL/6J and BALB/cByJ mice in response to pristane

Granuloma formation is an inflammatory response of the host against invading pathogens or indigestible substances. We generated mesenteric oil granulomas by injecting pristane into the peritoneal cavity (PC) of mice, and compared oil granuloma formation in the C57BL/6J and BALB/cByJ strains of mice. The formation and kinetics of oil granulomas were distinct between the two strains. In C57BL/6J mice, injected pristane induced oil granuloma formation at both the mesenteric centers (MG) and margins (SG). MG was resolving by 11 weeks, and SG persisted. In BALB/cByJ mice, MG developed slower but persisted longer than in C57BL/6J mice, and SG resolved sooner than in C57BL/6J mice. Injection of India ink revealed that phagocytes were localised mainly to the SG in C57BL/6J mice, but were located diffusely in both MG and SG of BALB/cByJ mice. SG cells expressed more monocyte chemotactic protein‐1 (MCP‐1) mRNA than MG cells in C57BL/6J mice, but there was no difference in MCP‐1 expression between the MG and SG in BALB/cByJ mice. These observations suggest that the recruitment of inflammatory leucocytes under the direction of chemokines differentiates the patterns of granuloma responses to pristane in C57BL/6J and BALB/cByJ mice.
Enhanced responsiveness of human memory T cells to CD2 and CD3 receptor‐mediated activation

Previous investigations have defined phenotypic differences between unprimed (naive) and antigen‐primed (memory) T cells from human peripheral blood. We now report that memory T cells proliferate much more than naive cells when stimulated with anti‐CD3 monoclonal antibody or pairs of anti‐CD2 monoclonal antibodies. Enhanced responsiveness to receptor‐mediated triggering is a novel mechanism for T cells which could facilitate memory cell response to specific antigen. Furthermore, when triggered via either CD2 or CD3, memory T cells produce substantial amounts of interferon gamma while naive cells produce virtually none; this suggests that differentiation from naive to memory state is accompanied by a stable change in regulation of the gene for interferon‐γ. We conclude that naive and memory T cells are dramatically different in function as well as phenotype.
Pelvic Trauma With Displaced Sacral Fractures: Functional Outcome at One Year

Study Design. A prospective single-cohort study of 31 patients surgically treated for pelvic injuries with displaced sacral fractures. Objective. To describe the medium term functional outcome in unstable sacral fractures. Summary of Background Data. Displaced sacral fractures pose a special challenge in orthopedic surgery due to the high rate of associated injuries. Little information is available on the medium-term functional outcome of patients with injuries which include unstable sacral fractures. Methods. We examined 31 patients with displaced sacral fractures having 10 mm or more displacement, 1 year (mean, 1.4 years; range, 1.0–2.5 years) after injury. Data from a previous study were supplemented with functional outcome measures (work status, independence in ADL, and SF-36). An association between outcome and tested variables was sought. Results. Fifteen months after injury, 65% of the patients had regained their independence in functions pertaining to daily activities; 33% had returned to work. All dimensions of perceived health were affected. Polytrauma and impairments relative to voiding and sexual function had a detrimental effect on outcome. Fracture characteristics were not predictive of poor outcome. Conclusions. Although the majority of patients achieved independent living, medium-term follow-up indicated significant residual disability. The complex nature of these fractures and the associated injuries should be considered in the rehabilitation of these patients.
Predictive analysis of a water demand time series using a numerical method

The predictive analysis of a water demand time series is a complex and non-linear problem that cannot, simply, be solved using techniques from algebra, calculus, differential equations, and partial differential equations. Because of its intimate relationship with computers and computer architecture, a numerical method is proposed as a possible solution. The iteration direction, incremental or decremental, of the proposed technique is determined by the gradient between the first and the last element of the model's input vector. In order to impose a fast rate of convergence to a solution, the iteration step size is biased by means of an offset. The results obtained demonstrate consistency on two different data sets, each containing a sum of 200 instances of data. Prediction accuracy values of 96.04% and 95.61% are obtained on the respective data sets, with rate of convergence values of 0.90×106i.s−1 and 0.47×106i.s−1.
Graphene-like nano-Sheets/36° LiTaO3 surface acoustic wave hydrogen gas sensor

Presented is the material and gas sensing properties of graphene-like nano-sheets deposited on 36deg YX lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducers. The graphene-like nano-sheets were characterized via scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The graphenelike nano-sheet/SAW sensors were exposed to different concentrations of hydrogen (H2) gas in a synthetic air at room temperature. The developed sensors exhibit good sensitivity towards low concentrations of H2 in ambient conditions, as well as excellent dynamic performance towards H2 at room temperature.
Report and Geographic Structure in Europe

Oscar Lao,1,22 Timothy T. Lu,2,22 Michael Nothnagel,2 Olaf Junge,2 Sandra Freitag-Wolf,2 Amke Caliebe,2 Miroslava Balascakova,3 Jaume Bertranpetit,4 Laurence A. Bindoff,5 David Comas,4 Gunilla Holmlund,6 Anastasia Kouvatsi,7 Milan Macek,3 Isabelle Mollet,8 Walther Parson,9 Jukka Palo,10 Rafal Ploski,11 Antti Sajantila,10 Adriano Tagliabracci,12 Ulrik Gether,13 Thomas Werge,14 Fernando Rivadeneira,15,16 Albert Hofman,16 André G. Uitterlinden,15,16 Christian Gieger,17,18 Heinz-Erich Wichmann,17,18 Andreas Rüther,19 Stefan Schreiber,19 Christian Becker,20 Peter Nürnberg,20 Matthew R. Nelson,21 Michael Krawczak,2,23 and Manfred Kayser1,23,* 1Department of Forensic Molecular Biology Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam 3000 CA Rotterdam The Netherlands 2Institut für Medizinische Informatik und Statistik Christian-Albrechts University Kiel D-24105 Kiel Germany 3Institute of Biology and Medical Genetics University Hospital Motol and 2nd School of Medicine Charles University Prague CZ 150 06, Prague 5 Czech Republic 4Unitat de Biologia Evolutiva Pompeu Fabra University 08003 Barcelona, Catalonia Spain 5Department of Neurology Haukeland University Hospital and Institute of Clinical Medicine University of Bergen 5021 Bergen Norway 6Department of Forensic Genetics and Forensic Toxicology National Board of Forensic Medicine SE 581 33 Linkoping Sweden 7Department of Genetics, Development, and Molecular Biology Aristotle University of Thessaloniki GR-540 06 Thessaloniki Greece 8Laboratoire d’Empreintes Génétiques EFS-RA site de Lyon 69007 Lyon France 9Institute of Legal Medicine Medical University Innsbruck A-6020 Innsbruck Austria 10Department of Forensic Medicine University of Helsinki
Charge-Pump Folded Noise Cancelation in Fractional-N Phase-Locked Loops

In this brief, we propose a technique for Delta-Sigma (ΔΣ) noise cancelation in fractional-N phase-locked loops (PLLs). The proposed method performs noise cancelation for both the shaped noise generated by the ΔΣ modulator and the downfolded noise due to charge pump (CP) nonlinearity. By precoding the CP control pulses, the added hardware complexity is minimal compared with conventional cancelation, whereas noise reduction is large. The proposed method is verified through the system design of a 2.5-GHz ΔΣ fractional-N PLL. Time-domain simulations show 20-dB noise reduction for the downfolded noise when applying the proposed cancelation.
Channel Condition Based Contention Window Adaptation in IEEE 802.11 WLANs

In IEEE 802.11 standard, the backoff parameters of its collision avoidance mechanism can be very inefficient and hence, the network becomes far from its optimal behavior. There have been several mechanisms to tune the Contention Window (CW) with the aim to achieve the optimal throughput in the IEEE 802.11 WLAN, however, the mechanisms do not specifically address a proper setting of the backoff parameters under non-saturated conditions. Noting that typical 802.11 networks are usually non-saturated, in this paper, we analytically derive the CW sizes that maximize the WLAN system throughput under both saturated and non-saturated conditions. Then, using the CW sizes derived, we propose a distributed algorithm that enables each station to dynamically adapt its CW according to the channel congestion status. The performance of the proposed algorithm is investigated through simulation. Simulation results indicate that our proposed backoff algorithm provides a remarkable performance improvement in terms of the delay experienced by a packet in the MAC layer, while maintaining an optimal throughput close to the theoretical throughput limit of the IEEE 802.11 Distributed Coordination Function (DCF) access scheme.
A novel distributed LDoS attack scheme against internet routing

LDoS (Low-rate Denial of Service) attack, exploiting the flaws in the congestion avoidance mechanism of TCP protocol,is periodic, stealthy, and with high efficiency. Since BGP uses TCP as a transport protocol, it is subject to LDoS attacks as well. LDoS attacks can cause table reset, route flapping of BGP protocol. A deliberately constructed distributed low-rate DOS attacks can even generate surge of updates throughout the Internet. In this paper, we investigate the promotion of attack efficiency of this novel attack, and then propose an attack model to simulate the LDoS attack. Experiments prove that this attack model can exponentially lower the attack costs and improve the attack effect.
AtPEX2 and AtPEX10 Are Targeted to Peroxisomes Independently of Known Endoplasmic Reticulum Trafficking Routes1[w]

Controversy exists in the literature over the involvement of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) in the delivery of membrane proteins to peroxisomes. In this study, the involvement of the ER in the trafficking of two Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) peroxisomal membrane proteins was investigated using confocal laser scanning microscopy of living cells expressing fusions between enhanced yellow fluorescent protein (eYFP) and AtPEX2 and AtPEX10. The fusion proteins were always detected in peroxisomes and cytosol irrespective of the location of the eYFP tag or the level of expression. The cytosolic fluorescence was not due to cleavage of the eYFP reporter from the C-terminal fusion proteins. Blocking known ER transport routes using the fungal metabolite Brefeldin A or expressing dominant negative mutants of Sar1 or RabD2a had no effect on the trafficking of AtPEX2 and AtPEX10 to peroxisomes. We conclude that AtPEX2 and AtPEX10 are inserted into peroxisome membranes directly from the cytosol.
AN ELECTRON BEAM DEVICE FOR REAL GAS FLOW DIAGNOSTICS

Abstract : An electron beam device suitable for use in low density, nonradiating flows is described. It is shown that in certain ranges of gas density the electron beam can be employed to determine the rotational temperature, vibrational temperature and concentration of molecular nitrogen in a high speed air flow. The theoretical analysis required for interpretation of the data obtained with an electron beam is presented and examples of application of the technique are given. Certain design criteria for electron beam generators are discussed.
Elevated serum level of the vascular endothelial growth factor predicts radiographic spinal progression in patients with axial spondyloarthritis

Objective To investigate the role of serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as a predictor of radiographic spinal progression in patients with axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA). Methods Altogether, 172 patients with definite axSpA (95 with ankylosing spondylitis and 77 with non-radiographic axSpA) were included in this study. Spinal radiographs obtained at baseline and after 2 years of follow-up were scored independently by two trained readers in a concealed and randomly selected order according to the modified Stoke Ankylosing Spondylitis Spine Score (mSASSS) scoring system and for the presence of syndesmophytes. Radiographic spinal progression after 2 years was defined as (1) mSASSS worsening by ≥2 units, and (2) new syndesmophyte formation or formation of a bridging syndesmophyte from two single syndesmophytes. Serum VEGF levels were detected at baseline. Results Mean baseline VEGF values were significantly higher in patients with mSASSS worsening by ≥2 units after 2 years (n=22) than in those without progression (562±357 vs 402±309 pg/mL, respectively, p=0.027) and in patients with syndesmophyte formation (n=18) again as compared with those without new bone formation (579±386 vs 404±307 pg/mL, respectively, p=0.041). VEGF as a predictor of radiographic spinal progression performed especially well in patients who were already at high risk for such a progression due to the presence of syndesmophytes at baseline (n=48). In these patients, a VEGF serum level of >600 pg/mL had a sensitivity of 53%, a specificity of 97% and an OR=36.6 (95% CI 3.9 to 341.5) as a predictor of mSASSS worsening by ≥2 units. For syndesmophyte formation, elevated VEGF demonstrated a sensitivity of 47%, a specificity of 94% and an OR=13.6 (95% CI 2.4 to 78.3). Conclusions An elevated serum level of VEGF (>600 pg/mL) is highly specific as a predictor of radiographic spinal progression in patients with axSpA, especially in patients who are at high risk for further progression due to the presence of syndesmophytes.
Liposomes incorporating sodium deoxycholate for hexamethylmelamine (HMM) oral delivery: Development, characterization, and in vivo evaluation

Liposomes incorporating sodium deoxycholate (NaDC) were prepared by the method of reverse phase evaporation and used for drug delivery by the oral route. Hexamethylmelamine (HMM), an anti-tumor agent, was chosen as a model drug and encapsulated into liposomes incorporating NaDC (NaDC-Lip). Several properties of NaDC-Lip containing HMM (HMM NaDC-Lip), such as particle size, entrapment efficiency, pinacyanol chloride (PIN) spectral characteristics with various molar ratio of NaDC/PC, as well as the vesicle stability measurements with calcein were evaluated. In vivo, the area under the plasma concentration–time curve obtained from the pharmacokinetics study of HMM NaDC-Lip was found to be ~ 9.76- and 1.21-fold higher than that of HMM solution and HMM Lip, respectively, indicating that NaDC-Lip can be used as a potential carrier for oral drug administration.
Improvement of current waveforms of position sensor-less vector controlled permanent magnet synchronous motor at high frequency region

This paper presents high frequency region position sensor-less vector control of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drives. The proposed method enables to estimate pole position at high speed and reduce harmonic current. The proposed method estimates flux from a full order observer and estimates pole position with estimated flux. To improve the current waveforms inductances are added to the output side of the inverter. The value of the additional inductances is decided by motor parameters and simulation. Several experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed system.
A multi-locking mechanism on shared object DSM

Shared object Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) minimizes the problem of false sharing by allowing programmer to control the sharing size. This shared object approach for distributed parallel programming works well in task parallelism but not in data parallelism. When the data of a shared object is being modified, a lock on that object must be enforced to exclude any concurrent access on that same object. If the shared data within an object is large, internal false sharing would become a problem. We present a multi-locking mechanism for shared object DSM which allows multiple locks be applied to the different data sets of a shared object and thus enhances its concurrency power.
Tuning lipid mixtures to induce or suppress domain formation across leaflets of unsupported asymmetric bilayers

Plasma membranes of cells are asymmetric in both lipid and protein composition. The mechanism by which proteins on both sides of the membrane colocalize during signaling events is unknown but may be due to the induction of inner leaflet domains by the outer leaflet. Here we show that liquid domains form in asymmetric Montal–Mueller planar bilayers in which one leaflet's composition would phase-separate in a symmetric bilayer and the other's would not. Equally important, by tuning the lipid composition of the second leaflet, we are able to suppress domains in the first leaflet. When domains are present in asymmetric membranes, each leaflet contains regions of three distinct lipid compositions, implying strong interleaflet interactions. Our results show that mechanisms of domain induction between the outer and inner leaflets of cell plasma membranes do not necessarily require the participation of membrane proteins. Based on these findings, we suggest mechanisms by which cells could actively regulate protein function by modulating local lipid composition or interleaflet interactions.
Factors Affecting Survival and Growth of Juvenile Freshwater Mussels Cultured in Recirculating Aquaculture Systems

Abstract Seasonal differences in glochidial maturity, substrate, and diet were studied to determine how these factors affect the survival and growth of juvenile freshwater mussels. Comparisons were made between juveniles produced in the fall and spring of the year; cultured in sediment, sand, or without substrate; and fed either of two species of small (5–10-μm) green algae. The survival and growth of endangered juveniles of oyster mussel Epioblasma capsaeformis were compared with those of a common, seemingly more robust species, the rainbow mussel Villosa iris. The growth of rainbow mussel juveniles was significantly greater than that of oyster mussel juveniles (P < 0.001). The survival and growth of oyster mussel juveniles were significantly greater when propagated in the spring, that is, when glochidia were mature and would normally be released, than in fall (P < 0.001). Survival and growth of juveniles of both species were significantly greater when they were cultured in a sediment substratum rather t.
CTH01-1: A Low Complexity Branch and Bound Approach to Optimal Spectrum Balancing for Digital Subscriber Lines

Crosstalk is a major source of performance degradation in modern xDSL systems. Optimal Spectrum Balancing (OSB) is an algorithm that mitigates the effect of crosstalk by allocating optimal transmit spectra to all interfering DSL modems. Unfortunately, its complexity grows exponentially with the number of lines in the binder. For multiple user scenarios this becomes computationally intractable. This paper presents a branch and bound approach to OSB. The proposed branch and bound operations require almost no computation keeping the total computational complexity low. Simulations show enormous complexity reductions, especially for a large number of users.
A polymorphism in a major antioxidant gene (Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1) predicts incident cardiovascular events in chronic kidney disease patients: an exploratory study

Objective: Oxidative stress is considered a major pathway conducive to cardiovascular disease in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. However, observational studies and clinical trials testing this relationship are controversial. The Nuclear factor-erythroid-2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1) system is a major system regulating antioxidant mechanisms in living organisms. Owing to the fact that genes are transmitted randomly (Mendelian randomization), genetic variants may provide unconfounded assessment of putative causal risk factors. Methods: We have therefore explored the association of eight polymorphisms in the Nrf2 gene and three polymorphisms in the Keap1 gene (capturing over 80% of the genetic variance in the same genes) with cardiovascular events in a multicenter cohort study of 758 CKD patients. Results: During the follow-up period, 117 patients had fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular events and 42 died. The hazard rate of fatal and nonfatal cardiovascular outcomes was about twice higher in patients with the AA or the CA genotype (dominant model) in the rs110857735 polymorphism of the Keap1 gene (hazard rate: 1.85, 95% CI: 1.20–2.84, P = 0.005) than in those with the CC genotype. Further analyses adjusting for Framingham risk factors and CKD-specific risk factors and a bootstrapping validation analysis did not modify the strength of this association. No association was registered between other Keap1 and Nrf2 polymorphisms and cardiovascular disease in the same cohort. Conclusion: In this exploratory study a gene-variant in Keap1, a major gene regulating the antioxidant response, predicts incident cardiovascular events in CKD patients. This finding is in keeping with the hypothesis implicating oxidative stress in cardiovascular disease in this population.
Towards cost reduction of breast cancer diagnosis using mammography texture analysis

In this paper we analyse the performance of various texture analysis methods for the purpose of reducing the number of false positives in breast cancer detection; as a result, the cost of breast cancer diagnosis would be reduced. We consider well-known methods such as local binary patterns, histogram of oriented gradients, co-occurrence matrix features and Gabor filters. Moreover, we propose the use of local directional number patterns as a new feature extraction method for breast mass detection. For each method, different classifiers are trained on the extracted features to predict the class of unknown instances. In order to improve the mass detection capability of each individual method, we use feature combination techniques and classifier majority voting. Some experiments were performed on the images obtained from a public breast cancer database, achieving promising levels of sensitivity and specificity.