Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of a series for surgical management of insulinomas in central China

The aims of this study were to summarize the characteristics of insulinoma in central China and to present our experience with surgical management in the Department of Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery of The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University. 617 patients were enrolled in this retrospective analysis, including 89 cases of insulinoma and 528 cases of other pancreatic tumors. All patients had been confirmed by histopathology reports and underwent surgical treatment. Medical data and operative notes were incorporated into the database. Among the 617 patients, 4 died during the perioperative period. In the insulinoma group, no deaths occurred. The average size of the insulinoma tumor was 1.4±0.8 cm. The ratio of open surgical procedure (57) to laparoscopic resection (32) was 1.8/1. The mean interoperation blood loss was significantly lower in the laparoscopic group (LA) (mean 35.2±17.4ml, range from 10 to 170ml) than that in the open surgical (OA) group (mean 64.7±38.6ml, range from 25 to 400ml). The mean postoperative hospital stay was also lower in the LA group (mean 8.1 ± 3.2days, range from 5 to 20 days) than that in the OA group (Mean 13.1±8.2days, range from 9 to 60 days). There was no significant difference for postoperative complications between the two groups (LA:37.5% vs OA:40.3% ). The rate of clinically significant postoperative-pancreatic-fistula (POPF) was 21.3 %, and there was only one case of C-degree-POPF. The average length of postoperative- gastrointestinal function recovery was 2.8 ± 0.9 days. And the average length of blood glucose fluctuation was 18±7.2 days. During the follow-up, 2 cases were found to be hypoglycemic again, and the rate of significant weight loss was 57.3% (51/89). Insulinoma was rare among patients who underwent surgical treatment at the Department. Their cases were benign, and their treatment was unproblematic. However, there was a small group of cases that could be associated with problematic clinical situations, and, therefore, treatment of patients with insulinoma should be conducted at specialist centers. Correct diagnostic and therapeutic management, involving close cooperation between multiple medical specialists, results in completely curing most patients.
Transient dynamics of soft particle glasses in startup shear flow. Part I: Microstructure and time scales

The rheology and microstructure of soft particle glasses during startup flow are studied using three-dimensional particle dynamics simulations at different particle volume fractions and shear rates. The behavior of transient stress depends on the applied shear rate. At high shear rates, soft particle glasses exhibit a static yield stress signaled by a stress overshoot followed by a relaxation to a steady-state value. The buildup of the stress is driven by an interplay between structural anisotropy due to an accumulation of particles along the compression axis and a depletion along the extension axis and a compression of particles that are soft and deformable. At low shear rates, the stress increase is monotonic and without any stress overshoot. The time scale at which structural anisotropy and the stress are maximum is correlated to the nonaffine dynamics of SPGs through the persistence time of shear-induced particle collisions and to the residence time of particles inside their transient cages. The static yield strain γ p and the reduced static yield stress σ p / σ y, where σ y is the dynamic yield stress deduced from steady flow measurements, follow universal behaviors when correlated with the dimensional shear rate η s γ ˙ / G 0, with η s being the suspending fluid viscosity and G 0 the storage modulus, which expresses the competition between elastic restoring forces and viscous dissipation. Dense suspensions of thermosensitive core–shell colloids, star-like micelles, and poly(ethylene oxide)-protected silica particles follow the same universal curves, suggesting the generality of our results.
School librarians supporting students’ reading for pleasure: A job description analysis

Reading for pleasure is an undervalued but highly beneficial practice conferring a range of educative and socio-emotional advantages. School librarians may play a key role in supporting reading for pleasure and associated literature advocacy; however, relatively little is known about how reading for pleasure may be valued within the job description of contemporary school librarians. It cannot be assumed that reading for pleasure is positioned as a valued aspect of the school librarians’ educative role in the United States and Australia, given factors such as evolving demands placed on the profession. Through hybrid content analysis of job description documents, this article explores which aspects of the current school librarian role are related to supporting reading for pleasure, comparing expectations between nations. While there are some similarities in the nature of the reading for pleasure role in the United States and Australia, Australian school librarians are far more likely to be expected to foster reading for pleasure.
High Current-Induced Electron Redistribution in a CVD-Grown Graphene Wide Constriction

Investigating the charge transport behavior in one-dimensional quantum confined system such as the localized states and interference effects due to the nanoscale grain boundaries and merged domains in wide chemical vapor deposition graphene constriction is highly desirable since it would help to realize industrial graphene-based electronic device applications. Our data suggests a crossover from interference coherent transport to carriers flushing into grain boundaries and merged domains when increasing the current. Moreover, many-body fermionic carriers with disordered system in our case can be statistically described by mean-field Gross-Pitaevskii equation via a single wave function by means of the quantum hydrodynamic approximation. The novel numerical simulation method supports the experimental results and suggests that the extreme high barrier potential regions on graphene from the grain boundaries and merged domains can be strongly affected by additional hot charges. Such interesting results could pave the way for quantum transport device by supplying additional hot current to flood into the grain boundaries and merged domains in one-dimensional quantum confined CVD graphene, a great advantage for developing graphene-based coherent electronic devices.
Silica Nanotubes with Widely Adjustable Inner Diameter and Ordered Silicas with Ultralarge Cylindrical Mesopores Templated by Swollen Micelles of Mixed Pluronic Triblock Copolymers

Mixtures of commercially available Pluronic poly(ethylene oxide)-poly(propylene oxide)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO-PPO-PEO) triblock copolymers combined with appropriate swelling agents are proposed as templates for silica nanotubes and ordered silicas with very large cylindrical mesopores. In particular, swollen micelles of Pluronic F127 (EO106PO70EO106) with long poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) chains and low poly(propylene oxide) (PPO) content (30 wt %) mixed with a Pluronic with a higher PPO content (60–70 wt %) and short PEO chains were found at 11 °C to template two-dimensional hexagonal SBA-15 silicas with ultralarge (100) interplanar spacings up to ∼30 nm. Moreover, when the ratio of the silica precursor to the triblock copolymer mixture was appropriately lowered, silica nanotubes were readily obtained. While the addition of the high-PPO-content Pluronic facilitated the uptake of the swelling agent (toluene), allowing one to achieve very large inner tube diameters (∼35 nm), smaller diameters down to ∼10 .
Effects of barley and corn as sources of silage and grain on dry matter intake, ruminal fermentation, and total-tract digestibility in growing beef heifers

Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the use of barley (BS) or corn (CS) silage when fed with dry-rolled barley grain (BG), corn grain (CG), or an equal blend (BCG) of BG and CG for backgrounding cattle. Ruminally cannulated heifers (n = 5) were assigned to an incomplete 6 × 6 Latin square design. Treatments contained either BS or CS in combination with BG, CG, or BCG. Samples were collected to determine dry matter intake, ruminal fermentation, total-tract nutrient digestibility, and nitrogen (N) balance. Interactions between cereal silage and cereal grain sources were detected for the molar proportions of propionate and butyrate where the magnitude of change with the type of cereal grain was increased in heifers fed CS relative to BS. Feeding CS increased estimated microbial N production (silage, P = 0.022) and fecal N excretion (silage, P = 0.042) over BS. Diets containing BG had greater dry matter, organic matter, starch, and gross energy digestibility values compared with CG, but values for BCG were not different (grain, P ≤ 0.043). Based on limited silage × grain interactions, use of CS in backgrounding diets may increase microbial N production relative to BS and dry-rolled CG may reduce apparent total-tract nutrient digestibility relative to dry-rolled BG.
The Causal Effect of Polls on Turnout Intention: A Local Randomization Regression Discontinuity Approach

Abstract This letter reports the results of a study that combined a unique natural experiment and a local randomization regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of polls on turnout intention. We found that the release of a poll increases turnout intention by 5%. This effect is robust to a number of falsification tests of predetermined covariates, placebo outcomes, and changes in the time window selected to estimate the effect. The letter discusses the advantages of the local randomization approach over the standard continuity-based design to study important cases in political science where the running variable is discrete; a method that may expand the range of empirical topics that can be analyzed using regression discontinuity methods.
Taking a closer look at indoor route guidance; usability study to compare an adapted and non-adapted mobile prototype

ABSTRACT As indoor wayfinding can be very challenging, adapted systems, which adapt the route instruction type, are being developed to facilitate more supportive indoor route guidance. In this study, such a system has been developed based on the results of an online survey. This adapted system was compared with a non-adapted system by use of eye tracking, position tracking, an orientation test and a questionnaire. The results revealed that using symbols instead of photos reduced the imposed cognitive load, while using 3D-simulations instead of photos improved the environmental awareness. This resulted in less wayfinding errors with the adapted system, compared to the non-adapted system. Therefore, the present study provides additional evidence on the benefits of adapted systems for indoor route guidance.
Development and psychometric properties of a new observational coding system for sibling interactions

ABSTRACT The main aim of this study is to build a new observational coding system for sibling interactions (Sistema de Codificación de Interacciones entre Hermanos – SCIH) and to analyze its psychometric properties and validity. First, this study offers the first Spanish adaptation of a self-report questionnaire to measure sibling relationships that replicate the original structure of the SRQ in a sample of 469 children and adolescents. Then, the study focused on the development of the SCIH, which analyzes siblings’ relationships by means of a system of live observation and it examined five dimensions: Warmth, Conflict, Dominance, Aggression, and Support in a sample of 50 pairs of siblings. The main contribution of this study is the description of the development of a new observational coding system for siblings and the confirmation of its inter-rater reliability. Limitations and future lines are discussed.
Enhancing Self-Efficacy During Community Service: Factors Influencing AmeriCorps’ Members’ Change in Self-Efficacy

Our study uses a social cognitive theory lens to examine the development of AmeriCorps’ members’ context-specific self-efficacy (self-efficacy to perform community service). The analysis uses panel survey data from 189 Ohio State AmeriCorps members collected at the beginning and end of their service terms in 2017–2018 or 2018–2019. Using a random-effects model, the results indicate that generally self-efficacy increased from beginning to end of the service term. Perceptions of having performance accomplishments, having positive role models, and receiving useful feedback significantly increased self-efficacy to perform community service, while experiencing service stress diminished self-efficacy development.
Adaptive robust output-feedback boundary control of an unstable parabolic PDE subjected to unknown input disturbance

In this paper, an adaptive robust boundary controller is designed for an unstable heat equation with external disturbance flowing into the control end. The disturbance and uncertainty effect is cancelled out in the closed-loop system by using on-line approximation of disturbance upper-bound provided as an output of adaptive robust update law. The asymptotic stability of the controlled system in the presence of unknown disturbance and/or parametric uncertainties is proved utilising the Lyapunov theorem. Unlike previous researches, the control implementation does not require prior knowledge of unknown disturbance. Moreover, the controller does not require measuring the system states or estimating the system states by an observer. The adaptive robust controller can be regarded as a combination of the best qualities of the adaptive controller and the robust controller with no prior knowledge of system uncertainty, and asymptotic tracking error performance. Numerical simulations and comparisons are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Research on Li4Ti5O12/CuxO composite anode materials for lithium-ion batteries

The powders of Li 4 Ti 5 O 1 2 /Cu x O composite were prepared by thermal decomposition of a mixture of Cu(NO 3 ) 2 and the precursor Li 4 Ti 5 O 1 2 under mixing H 2 and N 2 atmosphere and under air atmosphere, respectively. Electrochemical performance with particular attention to their high-rate charge-discharge cycling properties was examined. Experimental results showed that the Li 4 Ti 5 O 1 2 /CU x O composite displayed much better high-rate discharge capacity and cycling stability than the precursor Li 4 Ti 5 O 1 2 . The discharge capacity of the composite at 10 C rate reached 137.6 mAh/g after 100 cycles with a capacity loss of only 5.56%. It was also demonstrated that reduced atmosphere was important to the high-rate performance of the composite.
Butterflies on the dry edge of the Atlantic Forest: water availability determines community structure at the Northern limit of Atlantic Forest

The composition of communities of fruit‐feeding butterflies in the Brazilian Atlantic forest changes in response to landscape fragmentation and can be used as an indicator of habitat quality. Landscape fragmentation, aridity, and early signs of global warming at the northernmost distribution of this biome may impose extra challenges for species persistence. We aim to clarify the drivers of fruit‐feeding butterflies' metacommunity structure in the northernmost portion of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We propose to disentangle consequences of habitat loss from fragmentation per se by using both habitat amount and patch scale metrics. We sampled fruit‐feeding butterflies in 15 forest fragments of up to ~30 ha during 1 year. We used fragment size, shape, distance to nearest perennial stream, Euclidean distance to nearest neighbour, forest habitat amount, proximity index, and the percentage of sugarcane within a buffer to elucidate patterns of species richness, abundance, and beta diversity. A configuration metric, stream distance, was the only variable predicting metacommunity total abundance and richness: fragments farther from water had fewer species and individuals. However, forest habitat amount and sugar cane were important to rarefied richness and species replacement between fragments. Our findings suggest that streams and associated riparian zones provide source populations for the butterfly metacommunities in this landscape, which fits the mass effect model. We also emphasise that small forest patches have high conservation value for persistence of butterfly populations, because each fragment preserves a substantial portion of the total species pool.
Improving presentation consistency of radiographic images using deep learning

In general X-ray radiography, inconsistency of brightness and contrast in initial presentation is a common complaint from radiologists. Inconsistencies, which may be a result of variations in patient positioning, dose, protocol selection and implant could lead to additional workflow by technologists and radiologists to adjust the images. To tackle this challenge posed by conventional histogram-based display approach, an AI Based Brightness Contrast (AI BC) algorithm is proposed to improve the consistency in presentation by using a residual neural network trained to classify X-ray images based on N by M grid of brightness and contrast combinations. More than 30,000 unique images from sites in US, Ireland and Sweden covering 31 anatomy/view combinations were used for training. The model achieved an average test accuracy of 99.2% on a set of 2700 images. AI BC algorithm uses the model to classify and adjust images to achieve a reference look and then further adjust to achieve user preference. Quantitative evaluation using ROI based metrics on a set of twelve wrist images showed a 53% reduction in mean pixel intensity variation and a 39% reduction in bone-tissue contrast variation. A study with application specialists adjusting image presentation of 30 images covering 3 anatomies (foot, abdomen and knee) was performed. On average, the application specialists took ~20 minutes to adjust the conventional set, whereas they took ~10 minutes for the AI BC set. The proposed approach demonstrates the feasibility of using deep learning technique to reduce inconsistency in initial display presentation and improve user workflow.
A Novel Method to Identify the Physical Mechanism and Source Region of ELF/VLF Waves Generated by Beat-Wave Modulation Using Preheating Technique

One of the most important effects of ionospheric heating by HF (high-frequency) waves is the generation of ELF/VLF (extremely low-frequency/very low-frequency) waves by modulated heating. An important limitation of amplitude modulation (AM) is its dependence on ionospheric electrojet, which means to achieve better modulation effect, some strict spatio-temporal conditions must be met. To solve this problem, some possible methods have been proposed including beat-wave (BW) modulation. However, due to the controversy of its mechanism and the source region of the stimulated ELF/VLF waves, it is not clear whether it is an electrojet-independent method or not, which has become one of the hot topics in recent years. In this paper, we found that the effect of preheating on modulation efficiency of BW based on different theories is the opposite. We suppose the opposite character of the influence and effect on the efficiency of BW in D region and F region as a base for a novel method to identify the physical mechanism and source region of BW. This method can be feasible to solve the controversy of BW. The feasibility of this method is verified by simulation results in the paper.
The Impact of r-g on the Euro-Area Government Spending Multiplier

We compute government spending multipliers for the Euro Area (EA) contingent on the interestgrowth differential, the so-called r-g. Whether the fiscal shock occurs when r-g is positive or negative matters for the size of the multiplier. Median estimates vary conditional on the specification, but the difference between multipliers in the negative and positive r-g regimes differs systematically from zero with very high probability. Over the medium run (5 years), median cumulated multipliers range between 1.22 and 1.77 when r-g is negative, and between 0.51 and 1.26 when r-g is positive. We show that the results are not driven by the state of the business cycle, the monetary policy stance, or the level of government debt, and that the multiplier is inversely correlated with r-g. The calculations are based on the estimates of a factor-augmented interacted panel vector-autoregressive model. The econometric approach deals with several technical problems highlighted in the empirical macroeconomic literature, including the issues of fiscal foresight and limited information.
Negative density dependence in the mortality and growth of tropical tree seedlings is strong, and primarily caused by fungal pathogens

Natural enemies have been implicated as agents of negative density dependence (NDD) in tropical forests, but their relative contributions to NDD, and thus to the maintenance of diversity, are largely unknown. We monitored the rates of survival and relative growth rates on seedlings for 10 years in tropical moist forest in Manu National Park, Peru. We then experimentally manipulated the plots to exclude fungal pathogens, insects, small mammals and large mammals for an additional 31 months to assess the influence of these natural enemies on density‐dependent interactions among tropical seedlings. Fungal pathogens made the most important contribution to NDD. The application of fungicide led to lower mortality rates, faster growth rates and decreased species diversity. Other taxa of natural enemies had at most minor effects on seedling performance. Synthesis. We conclude that fungal pathogens are the strongest contributors to the widely observed NDD that occurs among seedlings. Moreover, the presence of fungal pathogens augments the species diversity of seedlings, indicating their critical contribution to the maintenance of species coexistence and the structure of tropical tree communities.
Antigenotoxic potential of gel extract of Aloe vera against Sodium azide genotoxicity in Allium cepa cells

Nowadays, the increasing rate of human exposure to various kinds of environmental mutagens has necessitated the search for natural antimutagens /antigenotoxic agents in natural products. In this study, Aloe vera gel extract was tested for its possible antigenotoxicity following the Allium cepa assay. Ten onions (Allium cepa) per dose were grown for 48 and 72 hours on gel extract of A. vera at 6.25%, 12.5%, 25.0%, 50.0% and 100.0% in combination with sodium azide (0.05mg/ml) solution for microscopic and macroscopic evaluations, respectively. Distilled water and sodium azide were the negative and positive controls, respectively. The cell division in the root tips, and root growth in the exposed A. cepa were inhibited in a dose dependent manner by the mixture of A. vera and sodium azide. However, the mixture of absolute (100.0%) dose and sodium azide completely arrested cell division and induced lower root length than that recorded for sodium azide alone. The genotoxicity of sodium azide was inversely reduced by the doses of A. vera except at 100.0%. These results show that gel extract of A. vera possesses strong antigenotoxic /antimutagenic potency at lower dose range of 6.25% to 25.0% in A. cepa cells, however, its higher doses above 50.0% to 100.0% could be severely toxic when being considered for suppression of environmental mutagens’ mutagenicity or genotoxicity. This suggests that gel extract of A. vera contains phytochemical(s) that can be useful in the development of anticancer drug.