Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceval Sutureless Valve – are Sutureless Valves Here?

With the advent of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) techniques, a renewed interest has developed in sutureless aortic valve concepts in the last decade. The main feature of sutureless aortic valve implantation is the speed of insertion, thus making implantation easier for the surgeon. As a result, cross clamp times and myocardial ischemia may be reduced. The combined procedures (CABG with AVR in particular) can be done with a short cross clamp time. Perceval valve also provides an increased effective orifice area as compared with a stented bioprosthesis. Sutureless implantation of the Perceval valve is not only associated with shorter cross-clamp and cardiopulmonary bypass times but improved clinical outcomes too. This review covers the sutureless aortic valves and their evolution, with elaborate details on Perceval S valve in particular (which is the most widely used sutureless valve around the globe).
A CMOS VLSI Implementation of an Asynchronous ALU

data path are reduced by about 0.5 pF per signal. Thus the saving in power is extended to other surrounding functions. 4. CONCLUSIONS This paper describes an asynchronous implementation of an ARM ALU. The unit exploits the fact that most operations can be completed quickly to discard the hardware typically used in an ALU to speed up a few worst-case operations; these operations are rare and so are allowed to take longer. Although it appears that a typical addition in a real programme is somewhat slower than a completely random distribution would suggest it is still much faster than the worst case. The average time for an addition is still about half that of the worst case, with logical operations faster still. Although not as fast as can be achieved by elaborate carry prediction schemes the unit gives a good throughput for a minimal number of transistors. An asynchronous unit can function with smaller timing safety margins than an externally clocked one as the unit's self-timed nature means that processing and environmental variations will affect the speeds of the logic and timing circuitry equally. The design should also function at reduced supply voltages. This would reduce instruction throughput but would be more than compensated for by the reduction in power dissipation giving more MIPs per watt. The resultant design is a simple, compact ALU. It's lack of carry prediction logic makes it somewhat slower than other designs but this should be compensated for by its ability to deliver most results in less than the worst case time and a reduction in power consumption. It is believed that an ALU in this form will be able to perform significantly more calculations at a reasonable speed with a given amount of energy than a comparable, synchronous unit. The work described here has been carried out as part of ESPRIT project 5386 (the Open Microprocessor systems Initiative-Microprocessor Architecture Project, OMI-MAP), and the author gratefully acknowledges this support. He is also grateful for additional specific support received during the course of this work from This is based on the specified cycle time of the processor and the relative complexity of the various units which must operate in this time. This figure will be a worst case estimate and should be compared to the 45ns figure in table 3. It is interesting to note that the typical operation for the asynchronous unit is actually faster …
Broad AOX expression in a genetically tractable mouse model does not disturb normal physiology

ABSTRACT Plants and many lower organisms, but not mammals, express alternative oxidases (AOXs) that branch the mitochondrial respiratory chain, transferring electrons directly from ubiquinol to oxygen without proton pumping. Thus, they maintain electron flow under conditions when the classical respiratory chain is impaired, limiting excess production of oxygen radicals and supporting redox and metabolic homeostasis. AOX from Ciona intestinalis has been used to study and mitigate mitochondrial impairments in mammalian cell lines, Drosophila disease models and, most recently, in the mouse, where multiple lentivector-AOX transgenes conferred substantial expression in specific tissues. Here, we describe a genetically tractable mouse model in which Ciona AOX has been targeted to the Rosa26 locus for ubiquitous expression. The AOXRosa26 mouse exhibited only subtle phenotypic effects on respiratory complex formation, oxygen consumption or the global metabolome, and showed an essentially normal physiology. AOX conferred robust resistance to inhibitors of the respiratory chain in organello; moreover, animals exposed to a systemically applied LD50 dose of cyanide did not succumb. The AOXRosa26 mouse is a useful tool to investigate respiratory control mechanisms and to decipher mitochondrial disease aetiology in vivo. Summary: Previous limitations are overcome in this first genetically tractable mouse model expressing invertebrate alternative oxidase, AOX, which can suppress pathological stresses in the mitochondrial respiratory chain.
Reactivity of Human IgM Binding Murine Monoclonal 6B6C1 (IgG2a) with Other Murine Monoclonal IgG Antibodies

Approximately 6% of sera positive in a dengue virus IgM‐capture enzyme immunoassay (EIA) represent false‐positives due to interaction between IgM and horseradish peroxidase (HRP)‐labeled monoclonal antibody (MAb) 6B6C1 (IgG2a). To better understand this interaction, we assessed the reactivity of captured IgM from these sera with other HRP‐labeled MAbs. J. Clin. Lab. Anal. 27:27–30, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Are Supervisory Feedback Messages a Motivational Factor to Enhance Employee Retention

Employee retention is one of most valuable resources in an organization. Feedback from supervisors provides opportunities to clarify expectations, adjust goal difficulty, improve job performance, and enhance job satisfaction. The present study is intended to investigate the role that supervisory feedback messages play in employee retention decisions. The participants took a three-session survey that aimed to examine their perception of supervisory feedback received through direction-giving messages, empathy-giving messages, and meaning-making messages, as well as the effect that each kind of message had on each participant's retention intent. The follow-up interviews were conducted to explore in-depth insights on the factors motivating the employee to remain in an organization. The results from both quantitative and qualitative phases revealed that positive feedback from supervisors does not necessary motivate employees to keep working in an organization, and negative feedback from supervisors does not necessary motivate employees to quit. These results also revealed that the communicative styles used by supervisors for the direction giving messages, empathy giving messages, and meaning making messages in this study do not influence employees' desires to keep working in an organization. Other motivating factors were also analyzed in this study. Limitations and recommendations for future research were also discussed. Key Terms: goal-setting theory of motivation, feedback, communication style, employee retention, and employee turnover.
Towards quantifying quality in the press: Comparing the stance of UK broadsheets and tabloids towards refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants.

This talk reports work on an ongoing project on the representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK press. Although the project combines approaches within critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, the aim of this talk is to examine how corpus-based techniques can contribute to CDA (e.g. Baker & McEnery, 2005, Hardt-Mautner, 1995; Orpin, 2005; Sotillo & Wang-Gempp, 2004). The analysis is based on two corpora comprising articles relevant to refugees and asylum seekers from 12 national UK newspapers, spanning the last ten years: six broadsheets (87 million words) and six tabloids (30 million words). The starting points for the analysis are keywords, key collocations of the terms refugee(s), asylum seeker(s), immigrant(s), migrants(s) and alien(s), as well as key n-grams containing these terms and selected key collocates. The study also makes use of the notions of semantic prosody (Louw, 1993: 157), and, more significantly, Stubbs' expanded notion of discourse prosody (2001: 111-112). Semantic prosodies can help create a topos without totally explicit argumentation, in that readers are more likely to attend to the connotational rather than the denotational level of specific frequent collocations (e.g. swarms of refugees) (see also van Dijk, 1991: 228; 2000: 219-220), or, in other words, accept the metaphor rather than engage critically with it. This seems more likely if we consider that the frequency of semantic/discourse prosodies is greater than that of the different collocation patterns (e.g. bogus/fake asylum seekers, illegal immigrants) which embody or give rise to it. For example, the topoi of burdening/weighing down, definition, aggregation and quantification (Reisigl & Wodak, 2001: 76-78; Sedlak, 2001: 129) can be created or supported/reinforced by the collective use of quantity/mass/group collocates (e.g. flood/river/tide/wave of refugees; hordes/gangs of refugees), which giver rise to negative semantic prosodies related to the perceived inordinate number or threat of refugees. The comparison will be based on the examination of â�¦ i�§ keywords in the two corpora when compared to each other; i�§ collocates of refugees related to their perceived inordinate numbers and their reported plight; i�§ concordances of negative collocates of the groups in question related to the topoi of abuse, burden, competition and criminality; i�§ concordances of collocates related to the plight of the groups in question.
Unchain my heart, baby let me go—the entry and intracellular transport of HIV

In this issue, McDonald et al. describe the itinerary of the incoming human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) during its travels to the host nucleus. They show that subviral particles tagged with the green fluorescent protein (GFP) are propelled along microtubules (MTs) by minus-end-directed and presumably plus-end-directed MT motors. The tracked particles correspond to functional units, since they no longer include a viral envelope, but do include viral matrix protein, Vpr, capsid protein, and reverse transcription activity.
Magnetorelaxometry for localization and quantification of magnetic nanoparticles for thermal ablation studies

In magnetic heating treatments, intratumorally injected superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MNP) exposed to an externally applied alternating magnetic field generate heat, specifically at the tumor region. This inactivates cancer cells with minimal side effects to the normal tissue. Therefore, the quantity of MNP needs to be thoroughly controlled to govern adequate heat production. Here, we demonstrate the capability of magnetorelaxometry (MRX) for the non-invasive quantification and localization of MNP accumulation in small animal models. The results of our MRX measurements using a multichannel vector magnetometer system with 304 SQUIDs (superconductive quantum interference device) on three mice hosting different carcinoma models (9L/lacZ and MD-AMB-435) are presented. The position and magnitude of the magnetic moment are reconstructed from measured spatial magnetic field distributions by a magnetic dipole model fit applying a Levenberg–Marquadt algorithm. Therewith, the center of gravity and the total amount of MNP accumulation in the mice are determined. Additionally, for a fourth mouse the distribution of MNP over individual organs and the tumor is analyzed by single-channel SQUID measurements, obtaining a sensitive spatial quantification. This study shows that magnetorelaxometry is well suited to monitor MNP accumulation before cancer therapy, with magnetic heating being an important precondition for treatment success.
Feeling of presence in Parkinson's disease

Background A feeling of presence (FP), that is, the vivid sensation that somebody (distinct from oneself) is present nearby, is commonly reported by patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), but its phenomenology has not been described precisely. The objective of this study was to provide a detailed description of FP in PD and to discuss its possible mechanisms. Patients and methods The authors studied 52 non-demented PD patients reporting FP in the preceding month (38 consecutive outpatients and 14 inpatients). FP characteristics were recorded with a structured questionnaire. The outpatients with FP were compared with 78 consecutive outpatients without FP. Results About half the patients said they recognised the ‘identity’ of the presence. More than 75% of patients said the FP were not distressing, were short-lasting, were felt beside and/or behind the patient, and occurred while indoors; most patients checked for a real presence, but their insight was generally preserved. In 31% of cases, the patients had an unformed visual hallucination simultaneously with the FP. A higher daily levodopa-equivalent dose and the presence of visual illusions or hallucinations were independently associated with FP. Discussion Although FP is not a sensory perception, projection of the sensation into the extrapersonal space, along with the frequent co-occurrence of elementary visual hallucinations and the strong association with visual hallucinations or illusions, supports its hallucinatory nature. FP may be viewed as a ‘social’ hallucination, involving an area or network specifically activated when a living being is present, independently of any perceptual clue.
Eurographics Symposium on Geometry Processing (2005) an Image Processing Approach to Surface Matching

Establishing a correspondence between two surfaces is a basic ingredient in many geometry processing applications. Existing approaches, which attempt to match two meshes directly in 3D, can be cumbersome to implement and it is often hard to produce accurate results in a reasonable amount of time. In this paper, we present a new variational method for matching surfaces that addresses these issues. Instead of matching two surfaces directly in 3D, we apply well-established matching methods from image processing in the parameter domains of the surfaces. A matching energy is introduced that can depend on curvature, feature demarcations or surface textures, and a regularization energy controls length and area changes in the induced non-rigid deformation between the two surfaces. The metric on both surfaces is properly incorporated into the formulation of the energy. This approach reduces all computations to the 2D setting while accounting for the original geometries. Consequently a fast multiresolution numerical algorithm for regular image grids can be used to solve the global optimization problem. The final algorithm is robust, generically much simpler than direct matching methods, and very fast for highly resolved triangle meshes. 1. Introduction A correspondence between two surfaces is a function that maps one surface onto the other. The need for a correspondence can be found in numerous geometry processing applications, for example:
Modeling of spatial distribution for scorpions of medical importance in the São Paulo State, Brazil

Aim: In this work, we aimed to develop maps of modeling geographic distribution correlating to environmental suitability for the two species of scorpions of medical importance at São Paulo State and to develop spatial configuration parameters for epidemiological surveillance of these species of venomous animals. Materials and Methods: In this study, 54 georeferenced points for Tityus serrulatus and 86 points for Tityus bahiensis and eight environmental indicators, were used to generate species distribution models in Maxent (maximum entropy modeling of species geographic distributions) version 3.3. 3k using 70% of data for training (n=38 to T. serrulatus and n=60 to T. bahiensis) and 30% to test the models (n=16 for T. serrulatus and n=26 for T. bahiensis). The logistic threshold used to cut models in converting the continuous probability model into a binary model was the “maximum test sensitivity plus specificity,” provided by Maxent, with results of 0.4143 to T. serrulatus and of 0.3401 to T. bahiensis. The models were evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC), using the omission error and the binomial probability. With the data generated by Maxent, distribution maps were produced using the “ESRI® ArcGIS 10.2. 2 for Desktop” software. Results: The models had high predictive success (AUC=0.7698±0.0533, omission error=0.2467 and p<0.001 for T. serrulatus and AUC=0.8205±0.0390, omission error=0.1917 and p<0.001 for T. bahiensis) and the resultant maps showed a high environmental suitability in the north, central, and southeast of the state, confirming the increasing spread of these species. The environmental variables that mostly contributed to the scorpions species distribution model were rain precipitation (28.9%) and tree cover (28.2%) for the T. serrulatus and temperature (45.8%) and thermal amplitude (12.6%) for the T. bahiensis. Conclusion: The distribution model of these species of medical importance scorpions in São Paulo State revealed a higher environmental suitability of these species in the regions north, central, and southeast of the state, warning to emergencies actions for prevention and surveillance from scorpion stings in several counties. There is also a need to best conservation strategies related to neighboring territories, with the implementation of new environmental protected areas and measures of spread control of these species in urban areas of several counties.
Modified Stability Checking for On-line Error Detection

The paper propose a unified error detection technique, based on stability checking, for on-line detection of delay, crosstalk and transient faults in combinational circuits and SEUs in sequential elements. The proposed method, called modified stability checking (MSC), overcomes the limitations of the earlier stability checking methods. The paper also proposed a novel checker circuit to realize this scheme. The checker is self-checking for a wide set of realistic internal faults including transient faults. Extensive circuit simulations have been done to characterize the checker circuit. A prototype checker circuit for a 1mm2 standard cell array has been implemented in a 0.13mum process
GTFS-Viz: tool for preprocessing and visualizing GTFS data

This paper presents a tool called GTFS-Viz for preprocessing and visualizing General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data. GTFS data is a common format for the public transportation schedules with associated geographic information The tool consists of two main parts: preprocessor and visualizer. The preprocessor retrieves and transfers the GTFS data into a new data format for the visualizer. The visualizer displays an animation of public transport movement according to its schedule specified in the GTFS data on a map. It also displays a graph of the number of public transport vehicles per hour, and allows the user to choose a specific transport route, trip, and stations to visualize. This is the first attempt to build a tool that preprocesses and visualizes GTFS data that is publically available in a format that is not so easy to process with existing standard data visualization tools.
Muscle pressure and flow during expiration in infants.

The postinspiratory activity of the inspiratory muscles (Pmusl) was estimated in 12 infants (2 to 4 days old) by analysis of the rise in mask pressure after airway occlusion at end inspiration. We reasoned that if at the end of inspiration Pmusl instantaneously ceased, the mask pressure would immediately increase to the relaxation pressure value corresponding to that volume. Any delay would suggest some degree of Pmusl. In 9 infants, Pmusl reached zero before the end of an average expiration (TE), although lasting for a long portion of TE (83% +/- 25 SD). We then compared the expiratory tidal flow-volume curves during resting breathing with the curves of "relaxed" expirations. In general, the tidal curve shows a linear portion that can be extrapolated to zero flow. From this extrapolation it is apparent that the end-expiratory level (FRC) is above the resting volume of the respiratory system (Vr), the FRC-Vr difference averaging 3.11 ml/kg. In 6 infants, the tidal expiratory flow-volume curve was displaced to the left of the "relaxed" curve, whereas in the remaining infants the two curves superimposed. These analyses suggest that in infants during tidal breathing (1) Pmusl can substantially contribute to the rise in FRC, and (2) the final portion of expiration is in most cases "relaxed. " In some infants, however, a braking mechanism, probably of laryngeal origin, further decreases the expiratory flow and may contribute in maintaining the mean lung volume elevated.
Impact of barrier integrity on liner reliability in 3D through silicon vias

For 3D chip stacking using Cu through silicon vias (TSV's), dielectric liner reliability is crucial and is closely related to the barrier integrity. In this study, two different Cu barriers are compared in terms of dielectric liner reliability. By using two stress modes, where different voltage polarities are applied to the TSV, the impact of barrier integrity on liner reliability is segregated and PVD Ti is shown to be superior to PVD Ta for our particular liner. The field acceleration factors are extracted using classical TDDB and from controlled ramp rates, where a good match is found between the two methods. When applying a positive voltage to the TSV during stress, a bimodal distribution of the TDDB lifetime is observed for the PVD Ta barrier. This is linked to a competition between Cu induced dielectric breakdown and intrinsic dielectric breakdown.
Optimized Entropy-constrained Vector Quantization of lossy Vector Map Compression

Quantization plays an important part in lossy vector map compression, for which the existing solutions are based on either a fixed size open-loop codebook, or a simple uniform quantization. In this paper, we proposed an entropy-constrained vector quantization to optimize both the structure and size of the codebook at the same time using a closed-loop approach. In order to lower the distortion to a desirable level, we exploit two-level design strategy, where the vector quantization codebook is designed only for most common vectors and the remaining (outlier) vectors are coded by uniform quantization.
New Music Teachers Speak out on Mentoring

I felt quite alone as a new music teacher, especially after being a student for four years with peers all around. Luckily, I worked one day a week at a second school, and I could watch the end of another music teacher's classes if I arrived early. These brief: stolen momentsweremy main sourceof ideasand materials all year! I had very little contact with other music teachers this year. It's tempting to become a classroom teacher just because they have a peer group to work with. (First yearmusic teacher, Interview8)
Defocus Magnification

A blurry background due to shallow depth of field is often desired for photographs such as portraits, but, unfortunately, small point‐and‐shoot cameras do not permit enough defocus because of the small diameter of their lenses. We present an image‐processing technique that increases the defocus in an image to simulate the shallow depth of field of a lens with a larger aperture.