Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of sedation level for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography – a prospective validation study

Abstract Background and aims: There is no consensus on how to assess the depth of sedation for endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). This study was carried out in order to evaluate different methods of assessment of depth of sedation: bispectral index (BiS), modified Richmond Agitation/Sedation Scale (mRASS), modified Ramsay Sedation Scale (mRSS) and modified Observer Assessment of Alertness and Sedation (mOAAS) and their applicability to clinical practice. Methods: Two hundred patients were recruited. Sedation was given by standard clinical practice using propofol sedation or patient controlled sedation. Sedation was assessed on all patients using the above-mentioned methods. BiS was considered the reference point for sedation scales. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to determine the consistency of different scales in respect to each other and prediction probability and Spearman’s correlation coefficients of sedation scales were calculated to show the relationship between sedation scales and BiS. Results: All scales showed high reliability with overall Cronbach’s alpha 0.943. Dropping scales suggested better consistency between mOAAS, mRSS and mRASS than with BiS. Spearman’s correlation and prediction probability showed similar results with all tested scales: mOAAS (0.695, 0.739), mRSS (0.673, 0.735), mRASS (0.683, 0.738), p < . 01 for all scales. Conclusions: All tested methods were found to be reliable in the assessment of the depth of sedation when compared with each other. However, mRASS, mRSS and mOAAS require the patient to respond to verbal or tactile stimulus, which may impair execution of ERCP, whereas BiS information is collected directly from electroencephalogram and thus may be preferable in clinical setting.
Screening of Spotlight CSK images for large area monitoring and detection of infrastructures

This paper presents an automatic pre-screening algorithm of SAR images of huge size (more than 20;000×20;000 pixels), which is capable to identifying extended infrastructures in an effective and computationally efficient way. The algorithm is tested on true one-look Cosmo-SkyMed SAR image data for target detection purposes on an airport scenario. Both visual and objective results are presented to show the potentials of the proposed method.
Density Dependence, Landscape, and Weather Impacts on Aquatic Aedes japonicus japonicus (Diptera: Culicidae) Abundance Along an Urban Altitudinal Gradient

Abstract The Asian Bush Mosquito, Aedes (Finlaya) japonicus japonicus (Theobald) is an important globally invasive mosquito species. In comparison with other major invasive mosquitoes, relatively little is known about Ae. j. japonicus population dynamics in the field. Here, we present results from a 54-biweek long study of Ae. j. japonicus abundance in ovitraps set across the altitudinal gradient of Mt. Konpira, Nagasaki, Japan. Spatially, we found that Ae. j. japonicus fourth instar larvae (Aj4il) were more abundant at the base and top of Mt. Konpira and in ovitraps with more platykurtic water temperature (WT) distributions. In contrast, we found that temporally Aj4il were more abundant when ovitrap WT was more leptokurtic with 2 weeks of lag, and with high relative humidity SD with 2 months of lag. We also found that Aj4il were unlikely present when ovitrap WT was below 12.41°C. Parameter estimates for the Ricker model suggested that Ae. j. japonicus population growth was under density-dependence regulation, with a stable population dynamics whose fluctuations were associated with changes in ovitrap WT kurtosis and demographic stochasticity. Our results suggest that Aj4il abundance is more sensitive to temperature changes in kurtosis than mean values, potentially limiting the predictive ability of Ae. j. japonicus niche models based on the increase of average temperatures with global warming, and suggesting this mosquito species has a relatively coarse-grained response to temperature changes.
Characterization of vaginal Lactobacillus strains and their potential antagonistic effects on Candida albicans.

out collaboration between all SW most of the experiments and data analyses. QW made the table and figures. Author BX provided Lactobacillus strains. RZ performed the statistical analysis. BW the literature searches. QL in the design of this study. HZ proofread the manuscript and critical TL the study the first of ABSTRACT Aims: To characterize Lactobacillus strains for potential beneficial effects, especially for inhibition of Candida albicans growth. Materials and Methods: Twelve vaginal Lactobacillus strains belonging to five species from our laboratory collection were studied. The acid production and hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ) production were determined. The biofilm formation ability was measured by a semi-quantitative microtiter plate assay. Besides the detection of autoaggregation and coaggregation capacities with C. albicans using a spectrophotometric assay, aggregating clusters were observed by light microscopy. The spot inhibition, agar overlay and Oxford Cup methods were used to test antagonistic activities of Lactobacillus strains against C. albicans. Results: Seven strains of L. fermentum (A011, A024, A025, A035, A041, A044 and A081) and L. salivarius A023 were revealed to decrease the medium pH below 4.5 just within six hours due to the rapid growth. L. jensenii A083 and L. gasseri A054 were the best biofilm formers in polystyrene plates, whereas the other ten strains could form biofilm with varying affinities. In addition to significant H 2 O 2 production found in L. jensenii A083, L. crispatus A014 and A055, these strains showed strong autoaggregation and coaggregation abilities with C. albicans (ATCC 90029 and Z03). L. salivarius A023, L. fermentum A025 and L. crispatus A014 displayed strong activities against C. albicans in spot inhibition and agar overlay assays. Conclusion: The potential beneficial properties of Lactobacillus spp. were strain specific. Among the tested strains, L. salivarius A023, L. fermentum A025 and L. crispatus A014 might be better candidates for further investigation on the inhibition of C. albicans growth .
The Long Hunt for pssR—Looking for a Phospholipid Synthesis Transcriptional Regulator, Finding the Ribosome

ABSTRACT The phospholipid (PL) composition of bacterial membranes varies as a function of growth rate and in response to changes in the environment. While growth adaptation can be explained by biochemical feedback in the PL synthesis pathway, recent transcriptome studies have revealed that the expression of PL synthesis genes can also be tuned in response to various stresses. We previously showed that the BasRS two-component pathway controls the expression of the diacylglycerol kinase gene, dgkA, in Escherichia coli (A. Wahl, L. My, R. Dumoulin, J. N. Sturgis, and E. Bouveret, Mol Microbiol, 80:1260–1275, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2958.2011.07641.x ). In this study, we set up a strategy to identify the mutation responsible for the upregulation of pssA observed in the historical pssR1 mutant and supposedly corresponding to a transcriptional repressor (C. P. Sparrow and J. Raetz, J Biol Chem, 258:9963–9967, 1983). pssA encodes phosphatidylserine synthase, the first step of phosphatidylethanolamine synthesis. We showed that this mutation corresponded to a single nucleotide change in the anti-Shine-Dalgarno sequence of the 16S rRNA encoded by the rrnC operon. We further demonstrated that this mutation enhanced the translation of pssA. Though this effect appeared to be restricted to PssA among phospholipid synthesis enzymes, it was not specific, as evidenced by a global effect on the production of unrelated proteins. IMPORTANCE Bacteria adjust the phospholipid composition of their membranes to the changing environment. In addition to enzymatic regulation, stress response regulators control specific steps of the phospholipid synthesis pathway. We wanted to identify a potential regulator controlling the expression of the phosphatidylserine synthase gene. We showed that it was not the previously suggested hdfR gene and instead that a mutation in the anti-Shine-Dalgarno sequence of 16S RNA was responsible for an increase in pssA translation. This example underlines the fact that gene expression can be modulated by means other than specific regulatory processes.
Preparation and Properties of La-Doped BiFeO3 Thin Films

Bi1-xLaxFeO3(x=0, 0.3) thin films were deposited on glass/ITO substrates through Sol-Gel Dip-Coating method and rapid annealing process. The structures were detected by X-ray diffraction patterns, Raman spectrometer and scanning electron microscopy. The magnetic, ferroelectric and optical properties of the films were studied by vibrating sample magnetometer, ferroelectric integrate tester and photovoltaic performance testing system, respectively. The experimental results indicate that BiFeO3 thin film presents rhombohedral perovskite structure and Bi0.7La0.3FeO3 films showed distorted perovskite structure, which were confirmed by XRD patterns and Raman spectrometer. The magnetism and ferroelectric properties of the films were obviously enhanced by La doping. Furthermore, the photocurrent response and photovltaic effect in BLFO thin films were detected.
This is a repository copy of A Systematic Review of Longitudinal Associations Between Reaction Time Intraindividual Variability and Age-Related Cognitive Decline or Impairment , Dementia , and Mortality

Objective: Intraindividual variability (IIV) in reaction time refers to the trial-to-trial fluctuations in responding across a given cognitive task. Cross-sectional research suggests that IIV increases with normal and neuropathological ageing and it may serve as a marker of neurobiological integrity. This raises the possibility that IIV may also predict future cognitive decline and, indeed, neuropathology. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review to address these issues. Methods: A search of electronic databases Embase, Medline, PsycINFO and Web of Science was completed on 17 May 2016 that identified longitudinal investigations of IIV in middleaged or older adults. Results: 688 studies were initially identified of which 22 met the inclusion criteria. Nine included longitudinal IIV measures and 17 predicted subsequent outcome (cognitive decline or impairment, dementia, mortality) from baseline IIV. The results suggested IIV increased over time, particularly in participants aged over 75 years. Greater baseline IIV was consistently associated with increased risk of adverse outcomes including cognitive decline or impairment, and mortality. Conclusion: Increased IIV over time is associated with normal ageing. However, further increases in IIV over and above those found in normal ageing may be a risk factor for future cognitive impairment or mortality. Measures of IIV may therefore have considerable potential as a supplement to existing clinical assessment to aid identification of individuals at risk of adverse outcomes such as dementia or death.
Inhibition of lysophosphatidic acid receptor ameliorates Sjögren's syndrome in NOD mice

Lysophosphatidic acid (LPA), a bioactive lysophospholipid, is involved in the pathogenesis of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. In this study, we investigated the role of LPA/LPA receptor (LPAR) signaling in the pathogenesis of Sjögren's syndrome (SS). We found that autotaxin, an LPA producing enzyme, and LPAR1 and LPAR3 mRNA, and IL-17 mRNA were highly expressed in the exocrine glands of 20-week-old nonobese diabetic (NOD) mice, which show SS symptoms at this age, as compared with non-symptomatic 8-week-old NOD mice. In an adoptive transfer model using NOD lymphocytes, treatment with Ki16425, an LPAR1/3 antagonist, restored tear and saliva secretion and decreased symptoms of SS compared with the vehicle-treated group. IL-17 levels in serum and lacrimal glands were also significantly reduced by Ki16425 in recipient mice. In addition, Ki16425 treatment of 20-week-old NOD mice, which spontaneously developed SS, restored saliva volume. Treatment of NOD splenocytes with LPA induced the expression of IL-17 in a dose-dependent manner, and Ki16425 inhibited this increase. LPA stimulated the activation of ROCK2 and p38 MAPK; and inhibition of ROCK2 or p38 MAPK suppressed LPA-induced IL-17 expression. Our data suggest that LPAR signaling stimulates SS development by induction of IL-17 production via ROCK and p38 MAPK pathways. Thus, LPAR inhibition could be a possible therapeutic strategy for SS.
Randomized phase III trial of low-molecular-weight heparin enoxaparin in addition to standard treatment in small-cell lung cancer: the RASTEN trial

Abstract Background Coagulation activation and venous thromboembolism (VTE) are hallmarks of malignant disease and represent a major cause of morbidity and mortality in cancer. Coagulation inhibition with low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) may improve survival specifically in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients by preventing VTE and tumor progression; however, randomized trials with well-defined patient populations are needed to obtain conclusive data. The aim of RASTEN was to investigate the survival effect of LMWH enoxaparin in a homogenous population of SCLC patients. Patients and methods We carried out a randomized, multicenter, open-label trial to investigate the addition of enoxaparin at a supraprophylactic dose (1 mg/kg) to standard treatment in patients with newly diagnosed SCLC. The primary outcome was overall survival (OS), and secondary outcomes were progression-free survival (PFS), incidence of VTE and hemorrhagic events. Results In RASTEN, 390 patients were randomized over an 8-year period (2008–2016), of whom 186 and 191 were included in the final analysis in the LMWH and control arm, respectively. We found no evidence of a difference in OS or PFS by the addition of enoxaparin [hazard ratio (HR), 1.11; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.89–1.38; P = 0.36 and HR, 1.18; 95% CI 0.95–1.46; P = 0.14, respectively]. Subgroup analysis of patients with limited and extensive disease did not show reduced mortality by enoxaparin. The incidence of VTE was significantly reduced in the LMWH arm (HR, 0.31; 95% CI 0.11–0.84; P = 0.02). Hemorrhagic events were more frequent in the LMWH-treated group but fatal bleedings occurred in both arms. Conclusion LMWH enoxaparin in addition to standard therapy did not improve OS in SCLC patients despite being administered at a supraprophylactic dose and despite resulting in a significant reduction in VTE incidence. Addition of LMWH cannot be generally recommended in the management of SCLC patients, and predictive biomarkers of VTE and LMWH-associated bleeding in cancer patients are warranted.
The Effect of Active Creation on Psychological Health: A Feasibility Study on (Therapeutic) Mechanisms

Creation is an important part of many interventions in creative arts therapies (art, music, dance, and drama therapy). This active part of art-making in arts therapies has not yet been closely investigated. The present study commits to this field of research using a mixed-methods design to investigate the effects of active creation on health-related psychological outcomes. In an artistic inquiry within an experimental design, N = 44 participants engaged in active art-making for eight minutes in the presence of the researcher (first author) with a choice of artistic materials: paper and colors for drawing and writing, musical instruments, space for moving or performing. Before and after the creation, participants completed a well-being, a self-efficacy and an experience of creation scale, and in addition found their own words to express the experiences during the activity. We hypothesized that the experience of empowerment, freedom, impact, and creativity (Experience of Creation Scale) mediates the positive effect of active creation on the outcomes of self-efficacy and well-being, and evaluated this assumption with a mediation analysis. Results suggest that the effect of active creation on both self-efficacy and well-being is significantly mediated by the Experience of Creation Scale. This article focuses on the quantitative side of the investigation. During the process, qualitative and quantitative results were triangulated for a more valid evaluation and jointly contribute to the emerging theory frame of embodied aesthetics.
MicroRNA profiles in a monkey testicular injury model induced by testicular hyperthermia

To characterize microRNAs (miRNAs) involved in testicular toxicity in cynomolgus monkeys, miRNA profiles were investigated using next‐generation sequencing (NGS), microarray and reverse transcription‐quantitative real‐time‐PCR (RT‐qPCR) methods. First, to identify organ‐specific miRNAs, we compared the expression levels of miRNAs in the testes to those in representative organs (liver, heart, kidney, lung, spleen and small intestine) obtained from naïve mature male and female monkeys (n = 2/sex) using NGS analysis. Consequently, miR‐34c‐5p, miR‐202‐5p, miR‐449a and miR‐508‐3p were identified to be testicular‐specific miRNAs in cynomolgus monkeys. Next, we investigated miRNA profiles after testicular–hyperthermia (TH) treatment to determine which miRNAs are involved in testicular injury. In this experiment, mature male monkeys were divided into groups with or without TH‐treatment (n = 3/group) by immersion of the testes in a water bath at 43 °C for 30 min for 5 consecutive days. As a result, TH treatment induced testicular injury in all animals, which was characterized by decreased numbers of spermatocytes and spermatids. In a microarray analysis of the testis, 11 up‐regulated (>2.0 fold) and 13 down‐regulated (<0.5 fold) miRNAs were detected compared with those in the control animals. Interestingly, down‐regulated miRNAs included two testicular‐specific miRNAs, miR‐34c‐5p and miR‐449a, indicating their potential use as biomarkers for testicular toxicity. Furthermore, RT‐qPCR analysis revealed decreased expression levels of testicular miR‐34b‐5p and miR‐34c‐5p, which are enriched in meiotic cells, reflecting the decrease in pachytene spermatocytes and spermatids after TH treatment. These results provide valuable insights into the mechanism of testicular toxicity and potential translational biomarkers for testicular toxicity. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Applied Toxicology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
A blind watermarking algorithm based on DWT-DCT using gold sequence generator

In modernistic days there is a fast growth in multimedia data like text, images and videos. Security is one of the most important aspects while transmitting the multimedia data specially images over cyberspace without any loss of information. Digital image watermarking is one of the many approaches to protect the digital images from unconstitutional manipulations. In this paper a new watermarking algorithm based on gold sequence generator is used. The suggested algorithm proposes multilevel discrete wavelet transform (DWT) to get the multi-resolution sub-bands and energy is determined for each subband. Depending on the energy, lowest energy sub-bands are preferred as they have little information when compare with other sub-bands. Further, discrete cosine transform (DCT) is applied to the lowest energy sub-band and mid frequency components are considered for embedding the watermark. Two preferred Pseudo-Noise (PN) sequences are used to generate number of gold sequences and these gold sequences are used to embed the attributes of arnold transformed watermark image. The outcome shows that the recommended method has improved performance when compared to current DWT, only DCT, only DWT-DCT approaches. Most of the current methods are suitable 2 3 Technology, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India Associate Professor,Department of CSE, ANU College of Science, Acharya Professor,Department of CSE, ANU College of Engineering and 1Assistant Professor,Department of CSE, ANU College of Engineering and 1392 Chaitanya Konda, Gangadhara Rao Kancherla & Sreenivasa Reddy Edara for embedding binary images into gray images where as the proposed method is useful for embedding gray level images into color images. The suggested method has enhanced imperceptibility and robustness against attacks.
Channel-Coded Collision Resolution by Exploiting Symbol Misalignment

In random-access networks, such as the IEEE 802.11 network, different users may transmit their packets simultaneously, resulting in packet collisions. Traditionally, the collided packets are simply discarded. To improve performance, advanced signal processing techniques can be applied to extract the individual packets from the collided signals. Prior work of ours has shown that the symbol misalignment among the collided packets can be exploited to improve the likelihood of successfully extracting the individual packets. However, the failure rate is still unacceptably high. This paper investigates how channel coding can be used to reduce the failure rate. We propose and investigate a decoding scheme that incorporates the exploitation of the aforementioned symbol misalignment into the channel decoding process. This is a fine-grained integration at the symbol level. In particular, collision resolution and channel decoding are applied in an integrated manner. Simulation results indicate that our method outperforms other schemes, including the straightforward method in which collision resolution and channel coding are applied separately.
Issues with common assumptions in HDR imaging from multiple exposures

Multiple-exposure approaches for HDR image generation share a set of building assumptions: that the full dynamic range of the scene can be recovered, that color channels are independent, and that the camera response function remains constant while changing the exposure. The contributions of this paper are, on one hand, to highlight how these assumptions do not hold in general, and then to propose a method to improve multiple-exposure combination, compensating for the violations of the latter assumptions and allowing us to obtain HDR results, both for static and dynamic scenes, that are shown to be more accurate to the ground truth HDR image (derived directly from RAW pictures) than those obtained with state-of-the-art multiple-exposure combination methods, according to several image metrics. And, very importantly, the tone-mapped versions of the HDR pictures obtained with our method show no hue shifts, color artifacts or contrast problems, which are issues that commonly crop up with other multiple-exposure approaches.
Generating signals with multiscale time irreversibility: The asymmetric weierstrass function

Time irreversibility (asymmetry with respect to time reversal) is an important property of many time series derived from processes in nature. Some time series (e.g., healthy heart rate dynamics) demonstrate even more complex, multiscale irreversibility, such that not only the original but also coarse-grained time series are asymmetric over a wide range of scales. Several indices to quantify multiscale asymmetry have been introduced. However, there has been no simple generator of model time series with "tunable" multiscale asymmetry to test such indices. We introduce an asymmetric Weierstrass function W(A) (constructed from asymmetric sawtooth functions instead of cosine waves) that can be used to construct time series with any given value of the multiscale asymmetry. We show that multiscale asymmetry appears to be independent of other multiscale complexity indices, such as fractal dimension and multiscale entropy. We further generalize the concept of multiscale asymmetry by introducing time-dependent (local) multiscale asymmetry and provide examples of such time series. The W(A) function combines two essential features of complex fluctuations, namely fractality (self-similarity) and irreversibility (multiscale time asymmetry); moreover, each of these features can be tuned independently. The proposed family of functions can be used to compare and refine multiscale measures of time series asymmetry.