Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of acute kidney injury after zero ischemia robot-assisted partial nephrectomy versus open and laparoscopic partial nephrectomy in patients with renal mass

Aim: Robotic assisted laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (RALPN) is promising option for RCC treatment with favorable outcomes. In this present study we aimed to compare the incidence of (AKI) acute kidney injury measured by AKIN (Acute Kidney Injury Network) criteria between open partial nephrectomy (OPN), laparoscopic partial nephrectomy (LPN) and RALPN procedures with zero ischemia periods. Material and Methods: The medical records of 88 patients with renal mass who underwent OPN, LPN and RALPN at our institution [24 female/64 male; median age of 55 (IQR: 46–65) years] were evaluated retrospectively. AKI was defined by AKIN criteria. Results: Twenty-six patients underwent OPN, 32 LPN and 30 patients RALPN. Mean preoperative creatinine was 0.92 ±0.43 mg/dl, mean hemoglobin level was 14.0±1.9 g/dl. Total of 19 patients developed AKI according to the AKIN criteria, all of those had stage 1 AKI, 10 (53%) in OPN, 7 (3%) in LPN and 2 (11%) in RALPN group (p=0,004). Multivariate regression analysis adjusted by age and gender showed that operation time per minute [1.02 (CI 95%, 1.00, 1.04) p=0.04], fluid administered as ml/kg/hour [1.003 (CI 95%, 1.000, 1.006) p=0.04], red blood cell transfused as unit [1.27 (CI 95%, 1.07, 1.52) p=0.006] and operation type as RALPN surgery versus OPN and LPN [0.11 (CI 95%, 0.02, 0.58) p=0.01] were significantly associated with development ıf AKI. Conclusion: Robot assisted partial nephrectomy is more favorable approach compared to OPN and LPN with lower operation time and lower hemoglobin loss .
Wideband Differentially Fed Dual-Polarized Antenna for Existing and Sub-6 GHz 5G Communications

This letter proposes a differentially fed <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm$</tex-math></inline-formula><inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$45^{\circ }$</tex-math></inline-formula> dual-polarized antenna with ultrawideband operation. It consists of two orthogonal stepped-dipoles backed by an inverted pyramidal cavity reflector for improvement in broadside gain. The stepped dipoles built on both sides of the substrate are constructed from small square pads and square loops for multiresonances to enhance the bandwidth. The dipoles are fed from four coaxial lines with a crossed-strip structure to accommodate the differential feed. The final design with overall size of 0.75<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\text{min}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> × 0.75<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\text{min}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> × 0.21<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\text{min}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\lambda _{\text{min}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> is the free-space wavelength referring to the lowest operational frequency) has been fabricated and measured. The antenna achieves a measured bandwidth of 74.2% (1.74–3.79 GHz) for return loss <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$>$</tex-math></inline-formula>15 dB and a measured isolation better than 43 dB among the differential ports. Its bandwidth can cover the frequency spectrums of the existing and new wireless communication systems such as 2G/3G/4G (1710–2690 MHz) and sub-6 GHz 5G (3100–3800 MHz). Additionally, the measured peak broadside gain is 10.5 dBi with cross-polarization level of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$< $</tex-math></inline-formula>20 dB within the operational bandwidth.
Random-Finite-Set-Based Distributed Multirobot SLAM

This article addresses fully distributed multirobot (multivehicle) simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). More specifically, a multivehicle scenario is considered, wherein a team of vehicles explore the scene of interest in order to cooperatively construct the map of the environment by locally updating and exchanging map information in a neighborwise fashion. To this end, a random-set-based local SLAM approach is undertaken at each vehicle by regarding the map as a random finite set and updating the first-order moment, called probability hypothesis density (PHD), of its multiobject density. Consensus on map PHDs is adopted in order to spread the map information through the team of vehicles also taking into account the different and time-varying fields of view of the team members. The convergence of the consensus strategy is analyzed theoretically, and the effectiveness of the proposed approach is assessed on both simulated and experimental datasets. The complexity and scalability of the proposed approach are also analyzed both theoretically and experimentally.
Enhanced and Facilitated Indoor Positioning by Visible-Light GraphSLAM Technique

Recently, indoor positioning has played a critical role in many emerging indoor applications. However, due to complicated indoor environments, it is still challenging to develop an indoor positioning system with high positioning accuracy and low deployment efforts. In this work, an indoor positioning system based on visible light fingerprinting is proposed by leveraging a novel visible light GraphSLAM (VL-GraphSLAM) technique. The proposed VL-GraphSLAM provides enhanced solutions at both frontend and backend to improve the accuracy of estimated trajectories. Then, the estimated trajectory is anchored in floor map based on a novel door detection method to recover indoor walking paths. Based on VL-GraphSLAM, we construct a database with the visible light received signal strength labeled by the locations of walking paths, which is called visible light map. Moreover, a Kalman filter is adopted to fuse the visible light fingerprinting and inertial sensors to locate users. Comprehensive experiments illustrate that our proposed system can accurately recover walking paths (0.4 m) and locate users (0.9 m) in an accuracy of submeter, which significantly outperforms a traditional WiFi-based fingerprinting system and is more convenient to deploy than a traditional visible light positioning based on ranging.
Hydrodynamic stability analysis of an industrial two-phase thermosyphon heat rejection system

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) gaseous diffusion plants operated by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc., which produce enriched uranium, use a thermosyphon heat rejection system. In this system, thermal energy from the process gas (UF[sub 6]) is transferred to a natural convection boiling loop in which the working fluid is CFC-114. When CFC-114, which is a partially halogenated chlorofluorocarbon, dissociates in the atmosphere, it is believed to accelerate the rate of ozone (O[sub 3]) destruction. Because of large CFC-114 fugitive losses from the operating plants and growing environmental concern over ozone depletion, the DOE has begun a program to identify an alternate cooling system design.
Lightweight aggregate concrete produced with crushed stone sand as fine aggregate

Abstract Lightweight aggregate concrete mixtures incorporating 0, 10, 20, and 30 weight percent replacement of normal-weight aggregate with lightweight aggregate and crushed stone as fine aggregate were tested at 7, 28, 56, and 90 days for various strength and durability characteristics of hardened concrete. Test results indicated that compressive, flexural, and split tensile strengths and static modulus of elasticity of concrete mixtures reduced with an increase in the percent replacement of normal-weight aggregate with lightweight aggregate. Furthermore, the volume of permeable voids and hence moisture sorption in lightweight aggregate concrete reduced as the lightweight aggregate content was increased pointing at the enhanced durability of the lightweight aggregate concrete mixtures. A significant reduction in dry density of hardened concrete was recorded due to the inclusion of lightweight aggregate in concrete mixtures. Considering the strength and reduction in dry mass, 20 wt. % replacement of normal-weight aggregate with lightweight aggregate is considered to be an optimum level. Reduced density of lightweight aggregate concrete mixtures is viewed as a major source of economical design of structural members as the lower concrete density will result into a reduction of self-weight of the structural members, which will allow the economical structural design of such members with smaller cross-sections. Test results of this work also showed the viability of 100% replacement of desert sand with crushed stone sand as fine aggregate towards the production of lightweight aggregate concrete.
Guided Co-Segmentation Network for Fast Video Object Segmentation

Semi-supervised video object segmentation is a task of propagating instance masks given in the first frame to the entire video. It is a challenging task since it usually suffers from heavy occlusions, large deformation, and large variations of objects. To alleviate these problems, many existing works apply time-consuming techniques such as fine-tuning, post-processing, or extracting optical flow, which makes them intractable for online segmentation. In our work, we focus on online semi-supervised video object segmentation. We propose a GCSeg (Guided Co-Segmentation) Network which is mainly composed of a Reference Module and a Co-segmentation Module, to simultaneously incorporate the short-term, middle-term, and long-term temporal inter-frame relationships. Moreover, we propose an Adaptive Search Strategy to reduce the risk of propagating inaccurate segmentation results in subsequent frames. Our GCSeg network achieves state-of-the-art performance on online semi-supervised video object segmentation on Davis 2016 and Davis 2017 datasets.
Mining Cardinality Restrictions in OWL

We present an approach to mine cardinality restriction axioms from an existing knowledge graph, in order to extend an ontology describing the graph. We compare frequency estimation with kernel density estimation as approaches to obtain the cardinalities in restrictions. We also propose numerous strategies for filtering obtained axioms in order to make them more available for the ontology engineer. We report the results of experimental evaluation on DBpedia 2016-10 and show that using kernel density estimation to compute the cardinalities in cardinality restrictions yields more robust results that using frequency estimation. We also show that while filtering is of limited usability for minimum cardinality restrictions, it is much more important for maximum cardinality restrictions. The presented findings can be used to extend existing ontology engineering tools in order to support ontology construction and enable more efficient creation of knowledge-intensive artificial intelligence systems.
Reinforcement Learning-Based Collision Avoidance and Optimal Trajectory Planning in UAV Communication Networks

In this paper, we propose a reinforcement learning approach of collision avoidance and investigate optimal trajectory planning for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication networks. Specifically, each UAV takes charge of delivering objects in the forward path and collecting data from heterogeneous ground IoT devices in the backward path. We adopt reinforcement learning for assisting UAVs to learn collision avoidance without knowing the trajectories of other UAVs in advance. In addition, for each UAV, we use optimization theory to find out a shortest backward path that assures data collection from all associated IoT devices. To obtain an optimal visiting order for IoT devices, we formulate and solve a no-return traveling salesman problem. Given a visiting order, we formulate and solve a sequence of convex optimization problems to obtain line segments of an optimal backward path for heterogeneous ground IoT devices. We use analytical results and simulation results to justify the usage of the proposed approach. Simulation results show that the proposed approach is superior to a number of alternative approaches.
Functional implications of impaired dynamic cerebral autoregulation in young healthy women; a comparative investigation

Women exhibit higher prevalence of orthostatic hypotension with presyncopal symptoms compared to men. These symptoms could be influenced by an attenuated ability of the cerebrovasculature to respond to rapid changes in blood pressure (BP) [dynamic cerebral autoregulation (dCA)]. However, the influence of sex on dCA remains equivocal. We compared dCA in 11 women (25 ± 2 y) and 11 age-matched men (24 ± 1 y) using a multimodal approach including a sit-to-stand maneuver and forced oscillations (5 min of squat-stand performed at 0.05 and 0.10 Hz). The prevalence of initial orthostatic hypotension (IOH; decrease in systolic ≥ 40 mmHg and/or diastolic BP ≥ 20 mmHg) during the first 15 sec of sit-to-stand was determined as a functional outcome. In women, the decrease in mean middle cerebral artery blood velocity (MCAvmean) following the sit-to-stand was greater (−20 ± 8 vs. -11 ± 7 cm sec-1; p=0.018) and the onset of the regulatory change (time lapse between the beginning of the sit-to-stand and the increase in the conductance index (MCAvmean/mean arterial pressure(MAP)) was delayed (p=0.007). Transfer function analysis gain during 0.05 Hz squat-stand was ∼48% higher in women (6.4 ± 1.3 vs. 3.8 ± 2.3 sec; p=0.017). The prevalence of IOH was comparable between groups (4/9 vs. 5/9, p=0.637). These results indicate the cerebrovasculature of healthy women has an attenuated ability to react to large and rapid changes in BP in the face of preserved orthostasis, which could be related to a higher cerebrovascular reserve to face a rapid transient hypotension. NEWS & NOTEWORTHY The novel findings of this study are that healthy women have impaired dynamic cerebral autoregulation, although the prevalence of orthostatic intolerance was similar in women and men. These results indicate the cerebrovasculature of healthy women has an attenuated ability to react to large and rapid changes in blood pressure in the face of preserved orthostasis, which could be related to a higher cerebrovascular reserve to face a rapid transient hypotension.
Scale-up of precipitation processes

This thesis concerns the scale-up of precipitation processes aimed at predicting product particle characteristics. Although precipitation is widely used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, successful scale-up is difficult due to the absence of a validated methodology. It is found that none of the conventional scale-up criteria reported in the literature (equal power input per unit mass, equal tip speed, equal stirring rate) is capable of predicting the experimentally observed effects of the mixing conditions on kinetic rates and particle characteristics. As a result of high gradients in the supersaturation field during precipitation, particularly in the feed zone, high local gradients in the nucleation rate are to be expected. In this thesis, a compartmental mixing model (Segregated Feed Model SFM) linked to the population balance is proposed for scaling up both continuous and semibatch precipitation processes, and is validated with experiments on different scales. Experiments were carried out using two chemical systems (calcium oxalate CaC₂O₄ and calcium carbonate CaCO₃), varying the residence time/feed time, feed concentration, feed point position, impeller type, feed tube diameter and stirring rate in geometrically similar reactors ranging from 0.3 to 301. A new procedure is introduced in order to solve the inverse problem for determination of the kinetic parameters for nucleation, growth, disruption and agglomeration from the particle size distributions obtained in the continuous laboratory-scale experiments. This method, where the kinetic rates were extracted separately and sequentially from the particle size distribution, was found to be a reliable alternative to the conventional simultaneous estimation of all kinetic parameters from the distribution. Using the kinetic parameters extracted from the laboratory-scale experiments, the population balance is solved within the Segregated Feed Model. The local mixing parameters also required for solving the SFM are obtained from a sliding mesh Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. These are used to specify the different micromixing and mesomixing conditions in the feed and bulk zones of the reactor. The model accurately predicts the mean size, coefficient of variation and nucleation rate on different scales for different process and mixing conditions in both continuous and semibatch mode of operation. Furthermore, the model confirms the observed greater effect of mixing on product particle characteristics in semibatch than in continuous operation. This is thought to be due to direct mixing of the feed solution in semibatch operation with the other component already present in the reactor. The methodology proposed here for the scale-up of precipitation processes is very versatile and computationally efficient. It combines the advantages of both a CFD and a population balance approach without having to solve the equations together, which is currently still impracticable due to the excessive computational demand and simulation time required.
Natural chemical control of marine associated microbial communities by sessile Antarctic invertebrates

Organisms living in the sea are exposed to fouling by other organisms. Many benthic marine invertebrates, including sponges and bryozoans, contain natural products with antimicrobial properties, since microbes usually constitute the first stages of fouling. Extracts from 4 Antarctic sponges (Myxilla (Myxilla) mollis, Mycale tylotornota, Rossella nuda, and Anoxycalyx (Scolymastra) joubini) and 2 bryozoan species (Cornucopina pectogemma and Nematoflustra flagellata) were tested separately for antifouling properties in field experiments. The different crude extracts from these invertebrates were incorporated into a substratum gel at natural concentrations for an ecological approach. Treatments were tested by submerging plates covered by these substratum gels under water in situ during 1 lunar cycle (28 d) at Deception Island (South Shetland Islands, Antarctica). Remarkably, the butanolic extracts of M. tylotornota and C. pectogemma showed complete growth inhibition of microscopic eukaryotic organisms, one of the succession stages involved in biofouling. Our results suggest that different chemical strategies may exist to avoid fouling, although the role of chemical defenses is often species-specific. Thus, the high specificity of the microbial community attached to the coated plates seems to be modulated by the chemical cues of the crude extracts of the invertebrates tested.
Introduction to Instrumental Variable Analysis

In theory, instrumental variable (IV) analysis, like randomized controlled trials, can adjust for measured and un‐ measured confounders. IVs need to meet the following three conditions: (i) they are associated with treatment assign‐ ment; (ii) they have no direct association with the outcome and are associated with the outcome exclusively through the treatment; and (iii) they are not associated with any of the measured confounders. Studies have presented several types of IV, including preferences of the facility or physician, differential distance, and days of the week. Two types of estimation method have been introduced: two-stage least squares and two-stage residual inclusion. The assumption of monotonicity limits the generalizability of estimates of causal effects in IV analysis because the target population of IV analysis is “compliers” (those who always comply with the assigned treatment). IV analysis using two or more IVs is feasible but requires the overidentifying restriction test. Despite several limitations, IV analysis is a feasible option that may be used for causal inference in comparative effectiveness studies using retrospective observational data. KeY WOrDS instrumental variable analysis, two-stage least squares, two-stage residual inclusion, monotonicity, causal inference
A Calibration Method for Mobile Omnidirectional Vision Based on Structured Light

Mobile omnidirectional structured light vision is increasingly used in scene perception and robot navigation. A wide range of information is obtained by means of the vision system by only one image and laser image features are detected and extracted easily and quickly. In this paper a novel calibration method for mobile omnidirectional camera based on structured light is presented. Firstly, a set of parallel laser planes is emitted on the walls of corridor as auxiliary targets by structured light and intersects with wall orthogonally. Secondly, the constraint relationship is analyzed between the vanishing points in fisheye images and intrinsic parameters of imaging model. Finally, effects of the laser stripes’ interval and the angle between the wall which contains laser stripes and ground on calibration results are evaluated. Compared to Scaramuzza method, the calibration method shows its superiority in terms of both feasibility and efficiency. The method with the characteristic of self-calibration since the planar target is replaced by actively projected laser stripes. The result illustrates that our method has the advantages of simple and feasible operation, but result is effective and accurate. The calibration parameters are independent of the laser stripes’ interval and the angle between the wall and ground. Therefore, the method of the mobile omnidirectional structured light vision presented in this paper can be applied to many areas.
Blooming of 3D to 5D Printing Technology in Biomedical Engineering

The aeon of 2D printing has moved towards 3D additive manufacturing to 4D bioprinting which has now advanced to 5D printing. These advanced techniques are widely being used in various streams of engineering and medical fields. 3D printing involves a procedure of fabricating three dimensional items through additive manufacturing, i.e., creating the substance by laying one layer over the other. In medical field, the 3D printing utilizes the bioink (containing live cells and biomaterials) for creating the biological models. But these models exhibit the stationary conduct after their manufacture and also lack the stimulus responses. Thus, this led to development of 4D technologies which creates 3D objects which are able to alter their shape and size with time on variation of some external impetus like pH, temperature, light, magnetic field & electric field etc. Major 4D printing techniques are based on deformation of materials and maturation of engineered tissue constructs. 5D printing permits the creation of 3D object in five different angles towards top which leads to the formation of a tougher and curved layered object.
Response of different basil varieties to soil salinity.

A b s t r a c t. A pot experiment was carried out during two successive seasons to study the effects of varieties of basil (Ocimum basilicum var. odoratus, Ocimum basilicum var. alba, Ocimum basilicum var. thyrsiflorum and Ocimum basilicum var. purpurascens) and soil salinity levels (0, 1 500, 3 000 and 4 500 mg kg -1 ) on oil content and its composition. Essential oil (%) and oil yield (ml plant -1 ) were significantly increased by using 1 500 mg kg -1 of soil salinity compared to control. On the contrary, there was significant decrease in this regard by using higher level of soil salinity, at 4 500 mg kg -1 . The major components of the essential oil of basil varieties were eugenol and linalool in the two cuts. Soil salinity treatments at 1 500 and 4 500 mg kg -1 levels increased the content of linalool and, on the contrary, there was a decrease in eugenol content by using 1 500 and 4 500 mg kg -1 of soil salinity in