Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early clinical results of cementless, bipolar hemiarthroplasty in intracapsular femur neck fractures.

OBJECTIVES In this study we report our initial experience with the use of cementless, bipolar hemiarthroplasty in elderly patients with intracapsular femur neck fractures. PATIENTS AND METHODS We operated 67 consecutive patients (39 females, 28 males; mean age 74.4±11.0 years; range 41 to 99 years) who admitted to our clinic June 2007 and November 2009, due to intracapsular femur neck fracture and implanted cementless, rectangular, dual-taper, straight femoral stem (Zweymüller stem) with bipolar head prosthesis. All patients were allowed to full weight bearing with a walker within the first postoperative 48 hours. RESULTS According to the Garden's classification, there were nine type II, 53 type III and five type IV fractures. Twelve patients were lost to follow-up and 21 deceased during the postoperative follow-up period. Among 34 patients with complete follow-up, 30 were evaluated for the clinical outcome. The mean follow-up time and Harris hip score of the evaluated patients were 19.4 months and 79.4 points, respectively. It was seen that, the patient age significantly correlated with the clinical outcome and a better mean hip score was obtained in the '70 years and younger age group' (83.6 points) as compared to the 'older than 70 years age group' (75.6 points) (p=0.014). Mortality rate was found to be higher in patients older than 70 years (47% vs. 18%; p=0.036) and with displaced fractures (45% vs. 0%; p=0.018). CONCLUSION Zweymüller cementless bipolar hemiarthroplasty may be an alternative treatment method for intracapsular femur neck fractures especially in the patients under the age of 70 years.
Variance Reduction for Structured Prediction with Bandit Feedback

We present BanditLOLS, an algorithm for learning to make joint predictions from bandit feedback. The learner repeatedly predicts a sequence of actions, corresponding to either a structured output or control behavior, and observes feedback for that single output and no others. To address this limited feedback, we design a structured cost-estimation strategy for predicting the costs of some unobserved structures. We demonstrate the practical importance of this strategy: without it, performance degrades dramatically over time due to high variance. Furthermore, we empirically compare a number of different exploration methods ( -greedy, Boltzmann sampling, and Thompson sampling) and show the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. Our approach yields improved performance on three natural language processing tasks.
Control of Mammary Function During Lactation in Crossbred Dairy Cattle in the Tropics

The major problems for the dairy practices in the tropical country are low milk yield and short lactation period of either pure exotic or crossbred dairy cattle. Many factors affect milk production in dairy cattle in tropical areas including high environmental temperature and humidity, lower genetic potential for milk production in indigenous cattle and inadequate supply of food during the dry and hot summer season. Crossbreeding of indigenous and exotic cattle for tropical use has been exploited as an efficient tool for blending the adaptability of native cattle with the high milking potential of exotic breeds resulting in increased milk production. In crossbred cattle, mechanisms of milk secretion are known to be inherited and are thought to be among the causes of differences in metabolic parameters. Milk secretion is a continuous process and requires a continuous supply of substrates for milk productions. Short persistency of lactation is the low ability of cow to continue producing milk at a high level after the peak of lactation. Improved persistency of lactation can contribute to decreasing the cost of the production system because lactation persistency is associated with feeding and health costs including reproductive performance. (Solkner & Fuchs,1987). There are many different ways to improve persistency of lactation, e.g. during summer, different types of crop residues have been used to feed animals as roughage in attempting to improve dairy productivity during period of scarcity (Jayasuriya & Perera, 1982; Promma et al., 1994). However, there is considerable evidence that understanding the mechanism acting within the body in relation to the control of milk secretion may improve of milk production in crossbred dairy cattle in tropics.
Crystal Structure of Swine Vesicular Disease Virus and Implications for Host Adaptation

ABSTRACT Swine vesicular disease virus (SVDV) is an Enterovirus of the family Picornaviridae that causes symptoms indistinguishable from those of foot-and-mouth disease virus. Phylogenetic studies suggest that it is a recently evolved genetic sublineage of the important human pathogen coxsackievirus B5 (CBV5), and in agreement with this, it has been shown to utilize the coxsackie and adenovirus receptor (CAR) for cell entry. The 3.0-Å crystal structure of strain UK/27/72 SVDV (highly virulent) reveals the expected similarity in core structure to those of other picornaviruses, showing most similarity to the closest available structure to CBV5, that of coxsackievirus B3 (CBV3). Features that help to cement together and rigidify the protein subunits are extended in this virus, perhaps explaining its extreme tolerance of environmental factors. Using the large number of capsid sequences available for both SVDV and CBV5, we have mapped the amino acid substitutions that may have occurred during the supposed adaptation of SVDV to a new host onto the structure of SVDV and a model of the SVDV/CAR complex generated by reference to the cryo-electron microscopy-visualized complex of CBV3 and CAR. The changes fall into three clusters as follows: one lines the fivefold pore, a second maps to the CAR-binding site and partially overlaps the site for decay accelerating factor (DAF) to bind to echovirus 7 (ECHO7), and the third lies close to the fivefold axis, where the low-density lipoprotein receptor binds to the minor group of rhinoviruses. Later changes in SVDV (post-1971) map to the first two clusters and may, by optimizing recognition of a pig CAR and/or DAF homologue, have improved the adaptation of the virus to pigs.
Fuzzycreator: A python-based toolkit for automatically generating and analysing data-driven fuzzy sets

This paper presents a toolkit for automatic generation and analysis of fuzzy sets (FS) from data. Toolkits are vital for the wider dissemination, accessibility and implementation of theoretic work and applications on FSs. There are currently several toolkits in the literature that focus on knowledge representation and fuzzy inference, but there are few that focus on the automatic generation and comparison of FSs. As there are several methods of constructing FSs from data, it is important to have the tools to use these methods. This paper presents an open-source, python-based toolkit, named fuzzycreator, that facilitates the creation of both conventional and non-conventional (nonnormal and non-convex) type-1, interval type-2 and general type-2 FSs from data. These FSs may then be analysed and compared through a series of tools and measures (included in the toolkit), such as evaluating their similarity and distance. An overview of the key features of the toolkit are given and demonstrations which provide rapid access to cutting-edge methodologies in FSs to both expert and non-expert users.
Multiple cutaneous mast cell tumors in a pig

Cutaneous tumors are not usually observed in pigs, and mast cell tumors, in particular, have been rarely described. The current report describes numerous, pink to red, elevated, 1–5-cm nodules in the skin of a 6-month-old slaughter pig. The histopathology of the nodules revealed well-demarcated, but poorly differentiated, populations of round cells that extended from the dermis into subcutaneous tissues. The presence of eosinophils and the observation, at high magnification, of cells with cytoplasmic metachromatic granules, after toluidine blue staining, confirmed the diagnosis of multiple cutaneous mast cell tumors.
Value-driven resource assignment in object-oriented real-time dependable systems

The paper deals with object oriented real time dependable systems required to achieve the best usage of the resources, even under adverse circumstances as transient overloads or component failures. Various possible tradeoffs among the different application requirements must be considered to allow a flexible management of system resources. On the basis of a simple formulation of the concept of object value in real time systems we propose a performability metric that represents a suitable measure of system accomplishment level. A planner component is defined which is responsible for implementing a value driven admission policy that maximises the performability index and hence achieves the optimal utilisation of available system resources. The numerical evaluation of a system organisation taken as an example is performed for different load sets and various redundant execution techniques.
Discovery of a Sexual Cycle in Aspergillus lentulus, a Close Relative of A. fumigatus

ABSTRACT Aspergillus lentulus was described in 2005 as a new species within the A. fumigatus sensu lato complex. It is an opportunistic human pathogen causing invasive aspergillosis with high mortality rates, and it has been isolated from clinical and environmental sources. The species is morphologically nearly identical to A. fumigatus sensu stricto, and this similarity has resulted in their frequent misidentification. Comparative studies show that A. lentulus has some distinguishing growth features and decreased in vitro susceptibility to several antifungal agents, including amphotericin B and caspofungin. Similar to the once-presumed-asexual A. fumigatus, it has only been known to reproduce mitotically. However, we now show that A. lentulus has a heterothallic sexual breeding system. A PCR-based mating-type diagnostic detected isolates of either the MAT1-1 or MAT1-2 genotype, and examination of 26 worldwide clinical and environmental isolates revealed similar ratios of the two mating types (38% versus 62%, respectively). MAT1-1 and MAT1-2 idiomorph regions were analyzed, revealing the presence of characteristic alpha and high-mobility-group (HMG) domain genes, together with other more unusual features such as a MAT1-2-4 gene. We then demonstrated that A. lentulus possesses a functional sexual cycle with mature cleistothecia, containing heat-resistant ascospores, being produced after 3 weeks of incubation. Recombination was confirmed using molecular markers. However, isolates of A. lentulus failed to cross with highly fertile strains of A. fumigatus, demonstrating reproductive isolation between these sibling species. The discovery of the A. lentulus sexual stage has significant implications for the management of drug resistance and control of invasive aspergillosis associated with this emerging fungal pathogen.
Leakage power-aware clock skew scheduling: Converting stolen time into leakage power reduction

Clock skew scheduling has been traditionally considered as a tool for improving the clock period in a sequential circuit. Timing slack is "stolen" from fast combinational blocks to be used by slower blocks to meet a more stringent clock cycle time. Instead, we can leverage on the borrowed time to achieve leakage power reduction during gate sizing and/or dual Vth assignment. In this paper, we present the first approach to the best of our knowledge for integrating clock skew scheduling, threshold voltage assignment, and gate sizing into one optimization formulation. Over 29 circuits in the ISCAS89 benchmark suite, this integrated approach can reduce leakage power by as much as 55.83% and by 18.79% on average, compared to using combinational circuit based power optimization on each combinational block without considering clock skews. Using a 65 nm dual Vth technology library, this corresponds to a 23.87% peak reduction (6.15% on average) in total power at the ambient operating temperature. The average total power reduction further increases to 9.83% if the high temperature library of the same process technology is used.
Substance Abuse Treatment for Older Adults in Private Centers

By 2020, an estimated 4.4 million older adults will require substance abuse treatment compared to 1.7 million in 2000–01. This study examined the availability of special services for older adults, adoption of recommended treatment approaches, and organizational characteristics of centers that offer special services. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews with administrators and/or clinical directors from a nationally representative sample of 346 private treatment centers participating in the 2006–07 National Treatment Center Study. Results indicated that only 18% provided special services for older adults; age-specific recommendations were generally adopted; more older adult-specialty centers offered prescription drug addiction treatment, primary medical care, and housing assistance. The proportion of patients with Medicare payment predicted availability of special services. As more older adults will seek help with a myriad of substance use disorders (SUDs) over the next decade, treatment centers need to get ready for a plethora of challenges as well as unique opportunities for growth.
Effects of nurse-delivered home visits combined with telephone calls on medication adherence and quality of life in HIV-infected heroin users in Hunan of China.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This study aimed to examine the effects of nurse-delivered home visits combined with telephone intervention on medication adherence, and quality of life in HIV-infected heroin users. BACKGROUND Drug use is consistently reported as a risk factor for medication non-adherence in HIV-infected people. DESIGN An experimental, pretests and post-tests, design was used: baseline and at eight months. METHODS A sample of 116 participants was recruited from three antiretroviral treatment sites, and 98 participants completed the study. They were randomly assigned to two groups: 58 in the experimental group and 58 in the control group. The experimental group received nurse-delivered home visits combined with telephone intervention over eight months, while the control group only received routine care. The questionnaire of Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA) Antiretroviral Medication Self-Report was used to assess levels of adherence, while quality of life and depression were evaluated using Chinese versions of World Health Organization Quality of Life Instrument-Abbreviated version (WHOQOL-BREF) and Self-rating Depression Scale, respectively. Data were obtained at baseline and eight months. RESULTS At the end of eight months, participants in the experimental group were more likely to report taking 100% of pills (Fisher's exact = 14.3, p = 0.0001) and taking pills on time (Fisher's exact = 18.64, p = 0.0001) than those in the control group. There were significant effects of intervention in physical (F = 10.47, p = 0.002), psychological (F = 9.41, p = 0.003), social (F = 4.09, p = 0.046) and environmental (F = 4.80, p = 0.031) domains of WHOQOL and depression (F = 5.58, p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS Home visits and telephone calls are effective in promoting adherence to antiretroviral treatment and in improving the participants' quality of life and depressive symptoms in HIV-infected heroin users. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE It is important for nurses to recognise the issues of non-adherence to antiretroviral treatment in heroin users. Besides standard care, nurses should consider conducting home visits and telephone calls to ensure better health outcome of antiretroviral treatment in this population.
Discrete Wavelet Transform & Linear Prediction Coding Based Method for Speech Recognition via Neural Network

In the proposed work, the techniques of wavelet transform (WT) and neural network were introduced for speech based text-independent speaker identification and Arabic vowel recognition. The linear prediction coding coefficients (LPCC) of discrete wavelet transform (DWT) upon level 3 features extraction method was developed. Feature vector fed to probabilistic neural networks (PNN) for classification. The functions of features extraction and classification are performed using the wavelet transform and neural networks (DWTPNN) expert system. The declared results show that the proposed method can make an powerful analysis with average identification rates reached 93. Two published methods were investigated for comparison. The best recognition rate selection obtained was for framed DWT. Discrete wavelet transform was studied to improve the system robustness against the noise of 0dB. Our investigation of speaker-independent Arabic vowels classifier system performance is performed via several experiments depending on vowel type. The declared results show that the proposed method can make an effectual analysis with identification rates may reach 93%. In general, a speaker identification system can be implemented by observing the voiced/unvoiced components or through analyzing the energy distribution of utterances. A number of digital signal processing algorithms, such as LPC technique (Adami & Barone, 2001; Tajima, Port, & Dalby, 1997), Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) (Mashao & Skosan, 2006; Sroka & Braida, 2005; Kanedera, Arai, Hermansky & Pavel, 1999; Daqrouq & Al-Faouri, 2010), DWT (Fonseca, Guido, Scalassara, Maciel, & Pereira, 2007) and wavelet packet transform (WPT) (Lung, 2006; Zhang & Jiao, 2004) are extensively utilized. In the beginning of 1990s, Mel frequency cepstral technique became the most widely used technique for recognition purposes due to its aptitude to represent the speech spectrum in a compacted form (Sarikaya & ansen, 2000). Actually, MFCCs simulate the model of umans’ auditory perception and have been proven to be very effective in automatic speech recognition system and modeling the individual frequency components of speech signals.
Network Coding Schemes for Multi-Layer Video Streaming on Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

In this paper, we present a simulation study of network coding schemes for multi-layer video streaming on multi-hop wireless networks. We consider in this study mainly two points: the packet loss due to the wireless environment and the unequal importance of scalable video packets. First, we study generation based network coding schemes with static and adaptive redundancy to evaluate the effect of redundancy adaptation on packet loss rate. Second, we evaluate an extension of the Expanding Window concept with a hop-by-hop coding to highlight the effect of layer discrimination for scalable video streaming. Extensive simulations have been carried out using ns- 3 for two different video test sequences with quality scalability. The simulation results show that adaptive redundancy can decrease the packet loss rate and introduce less overhead while Expanding Window can improve the PSNR of the video by reducing the base layer's packet loss.
Caregiver Stigma and Burden in Memory Disorders: An Evaluation of the Effects of Caregiver Type and Gender

Despite considerable gains in public awareness of dementia, dementia patients and their caregivers continue to be stigmatized. Previous work has explored stigma and burden among adult children of persons with dementia in Israel, but no similar data exist for spousal caregivers or caregivers in general in the United States. This study examines the differences in stigma and burden experienced by spousal and adult child caregivers and male and female caregivers of persons with dementia. Eighty-two caregivers were given the Zarit Burden Inventory Short Form (ZBI) and the Caregiver Section of the Family Stigma in Alzheimer's Disease Scale (FS-ADS-C). Scores on the FS-ADS-C and ZBI were positively correlated (r s = .51, p < .001). Female caregivers reported experiencing more stigma on the FS-ADS-C (t(80) = −4.37, p < . 001) and more burden on the ZBI (t(80) = −2.68, p = . 009) compared to male caregivers, and adult child caregivers reported experiencing more stigma on the FS-ADS-C (t(30.8) = −2.22, p = . 034) and more burden on the ZBI (t(80) = −2.65, p = . 010) than spousal caregivers. These results reinforce the importance of support for caregivers, particularly adult child and female caregivers who may experience higher levels of stigma and burden.
Salicylic acid nanoparticles (SANPs) improve growth and phytoremediation efficiency of Isatis cappadocica Desv., under As stress

Arsenic (As) is a toxic metalloid dispersed in the environment and it cause serious toxicity to plants. Salicylic acid (SA) plays an important role in many plant growth processes involved in plant defence against heavy metal or metalloid stress. In the present study, for the first time, chitosan nanoparticles was synthesised, loaded by SA and the positive role of SA on growth and phytoremediation efficiency of Isatis cappadocica against As toxicity were evaluated. The highest arsenate treatment (1200 µM) caused a decrease in plant biomass that, however, its combined application with salicylic acid nanoparticles (SANPs) substantially increase in shoot height, root length and their biomass production compared with As stressed plants. The pretreatment of SANPs by increasing arsenate supply, simultaneously increased the As concentration in roots and shoots of I. cappadocica which reached a maximum of 705 and 1188 mg/kg, respectively. This results suggest that high levels of As stress induce stress status in I. cappadocica which SANPs pretreatment application limit these toxic effects of As. Therefore, SANPs has a significant beneficial effect on the growth and phytoremediation efficiency of I. cappadocica subjected to As stress.
Selected Standard Protocols for the Synthesis, Phase Transfer, and Characterization of Inorganic Colloidal Nanoparticles

Synthesis, characterization, and applications of colloidal nanoparticles have been a prominent topic of current research interests within the last two decades. Available reports in the literature that describe the synthesis of colloidal nanoparticles are abundant with various degrees of reproducibility and simplicity. Moreover, different methods for the characterization of colloidal nanoparticle’s basic properties are employed, resulting in conflicting results in many cases. Herein, we describe “in detail” selected standard protocols for the synthesis, purification, and characterization of various types of colloidal inorganic nanoparticles including gold nanoparticles, silver nanoparticles, iron oxide nanoparticles, and quantum dots. This report consists of five main parts: The first and the second parts are dedicated to describing the synthesis of various types of hydrophobic and hydrophilic nanoparticles in organic solvents and in aqueous solutions, respectively. The third part describes surface modific.
Improving Reading Comprehension in a Foreign Language: Strategic Reader.

Second language reading comprehension is the most important skill required by students, especially in a foreign language context. One way to help these students improve their reading comprehension is strategy instruction. In the present study, the effect of two strategies, namely, summarizing and students-generated questions have been investigated. The participants in the study were all female intermediate EFL students, between 14 and 39 years old. A quasiexperimental research design was employed with a treatment lasting 5 weeks on three intact groups—two experimental groups and one control group. The results of a one-way ANOVA indicated that there was significant difference between the summary group and the control group, whereas no significant difference was observed between the summary group and the student-generated question group, and also between student-generated question group and the control group. Therefore, it is recommended that EFL teachers ask their students to prepare a reading passage summary to help them improve their reading comprehension.