Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cross-Sectional Study of Candidemia from Isfahan, Iran: Etiologic Agents, Predisposing Factors, and Antifungal Susceptibility Testing

Background: Candidemia is a fatal invasive fungal infection that involves thousands of patients annually and is associated with high mortality rate and economic burden. The incidence of candidemia is increasing due to the use of invasive medical instruments and immunosuppressive drugs. The treatment of infection is problematic because of the increased resistance of clinical strains to antifungal drugs. The aim of the present study was to identify Candida species isolated from candidemia and determination of antifungal susceptibility patterns of clinical isolates. Materials and Methods: Three thousand eight hundred BACTEC bottles suspected to candidemia were evaluated from April 2019 to June 2020. For primary identification, a positive blood culture was subcultured onto the sabouraud glucose agar and CHROMagar™ Candida. For molecular identification, ITS1-5.8SrDNA-ITS2 region was amplified by ITS1 and ITS4 primers and MspI restriction enzyme was applied to digest polymerase chain reaction amplicons. Minimum inhibitory concentration of seven antifungals was determined against clinical isolates by broth microdilution method in accordance with the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute M27-A3 and M27-S4 documents. Results: Forty-six out of 3800 suspected specimens were positive for candidemia (1.2%). The age range of the patients was between 11 days and 89 years, with a median age of 34.8 years. Candida albicans was found to be the most Candida species (58.7%), followed by C. parapsilosis complex (19.6%), C. glabrata complex (8.7%), C. krusei (6.5%), C. famata (4.3%), and C. tropicalis (2.2%). Resistance to amphotericin B, fluconazole, itraconazole, and voriconazole was detected in 13.6%, 11.3%, 6.8%, and 4.5% of clinical isolates, respectively. Conclusion: The incidence of non-albicans Candida species is increasing that must be highlighted. Since resistant Candida strains are found repeatedly, consecutive tracing of the species distribution and in vitro antifungal susceptibility of clinical isolates is recommended for better management of infections.
An Ant Colony System Based Method for Edge Extraction

This paper proposes a novel application of ant colony system for edge extraction which the food definition is combined the idea of the gradient and the multi-scale. After building the food map, ant colony system is employed to obtain the maximal food response, which makes the method adapt to strong or weak edge basing on the local extremum instead of global one. With the feedback of the pheromone and prior directional searching, the simple ants achieve ideal edges based on the direct response and the mutual cooperation. Furthermore, the method can work well in both gray level images and color images. Finally, the experiments prove that edge extraction result of the proposed method is better than other intelligent ones and traditional ones, and it is not sensitive to the noise.
EVALUATION OF A MODIFIED ASPHALT: NOVOPHALT. FINAL REPORT

Because of increased traffic loads and truck tire pressures over the last few years, the rutting of asphalt pavements has worsened. Additives such as polymers are being used in an attempt to improve the performance of these pavements. One such product is Novophalt, which is the registered trademark of an asphalt modified with 4 to 6% of a polyolefin polymer, primarily polyethylene. A Novophalt surface mixture was used near an intersection on a new construction project to guard against rutting caused by heavy trucks. This study evaluated the construction and performance of sections of pavement with control and Novophalt mixtures at this location. The polymer-modified mixture was manufactured, placed, and compacted with no difficulty. Severe ruts developed in both the control and Novophalt sections under stopped traffic near the traffic light. The rutting was found to be caused by a weak base mixture under the Novophalt surface; the rutting under the control mixture was probably also related to the base mixture. No significant rutting occurred in the control and Novophalt sections in the areas not subjected to severe traffic loads. Although the comparison between the control and Novophalt mixtures was vitiated by the performance of the underlying base mixture, the project demonstrated that construction with the Novophalt mixture could be accomplished satisfactorily.
Thermal Balancing of a Multi-Cylinder Diesel Engine Operating on Diesel, B5 and Palm Biodiesel Blends

Energy crisis and global warming are the two most important issues that threaten the peaceful existence of the human species. More dependency on alternative fuels and energy loss minimization can be an effective solution to this affair. In this regard, thermal balance study of an internal combustion (IC) engine using different biodiesels is worthy of investigation. This manuscript provides an in-depth analysis of the engine heat losses in different subsystems of the engine. Finally, thermal balancing of the engine has been done by showing all energy flows in and out of the engine. The investigation was conducted in a four cylinder diesel engine fuelled with pure diesel, B5 (5% Palm biodiesel + 95% Diesel), 10% (PB10) and 20% (PB20) palm biodiesel blends at full load and in the speed range 1000 to 4000 RPM. The water heat loss and lubricating oil heat loss increased whereas the engine brake power, exhaust heat loss and unaccounted heat loss decreased with the increase of biodiesel percentage in the blends.
Inflatable Re-Entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE) Design Overview

*† ‡ § ** †† , Inflatable aeroshells offer several advantages over traditional rigid aeroshells for atmospheric entry. Inflatables offer increased payload volume fraction of the launch vehicle shroud and the possibility to deliver more payload mass to the surface for equivalent trajectory constraints. An inflatable’s diameter is not constrained by the launch vehicle shroud. The resultant larger drag area can provide deceleration equivalent to a rigid system at higher atmospheric altitudes, thus offering access to higher landing sites. When stowed for launch and cruise, inflatable aeroshells allow access to the payload after the vehicle is integrated for launch and offer direct access to vehicle structure for structural attachment with the launch vehicle. They also offer an opportunity to eliminate system duplication between the cruise stage and entry vehicle. There are however several potential technical challenges for inflatable aeroshells. First and foremost is the fact that they are flexible structures. That flexibility could lead to unpredictable drag performance or an aerostructural dynamic instability. In addition, durability of large inflatable structures may limit their application. They are susceptible to puncture, a potentially catastrophic insult, from many possible sources. Finally, aerothermal heating during planetary entry poses a significant challenge to a thin membrane. NASA Langley Research Center and NASA’s Wallop’s Flight Facility are jointly developing inflatable aeroshell technology for use on future NASA missions. The technology will be demonstrated in the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment (IRVE). This paper will detail the development of the initial IRVE inflatable system to be launched on a Terrier/Orion sounding rocket in the fourth quarter of CY2005. The experiment will demonstrate achievable packaging efficiency of the inflatable aeroshell for launch, inflation, leak performance of the inflatable system throughout the flight regime, structural integrity when exposed to a relevant dynamic pressure and aerodynamic stability of the inflatable system. Structural integrity and structural response of the inflatable will be verified with photogrammetric measurements of the back side of the aeroshell in flight. Aerodynamic stability as well as drag performance will be verified with on board inertial measurements and radar tracking from multiple ground radar stations. The experiment will yield valuable information about zero-g vacuum deployment dynamics of the flexible inflatable structure with both inertial and photographic measurements. In addition to demonstrating inflatable technology, IRVE will validate structural, aerothermal, and trajectory modeling techniques for the inflatable. Structural response determined from photogrammetrics will validate structural models, skin temperature measurements and additional in-depth temperature measurements will validate material thermal performance models, and on board inertial measurements along with radar tracking from multiple ground radar stations will validate trajectory simulation models.
The top-heavy shape of authoritarian bureaucracy: evidence from Russia and China

The prevalence of top-heavy bureaucracies in non-democracies cannot be explained by the theories of Parkinson, Tullock, Niskanen, or Simon or by classical managerial theories. When bureaucracy positions carry rents, the competition for promotion becomes a rent-seeking process. Borrowing the career-tournament theory framework from managerial scholarship, we argue that top-heavy bureaucracy resembles a tournament with too many finalists. When rent is centralized at the top (i.e. power centralization), as is the case in many non-democracies, the optimal bureaucracy should be top-heavy, accommodating and encouraging relatively more finalists at the top to compete for the final big prize. We provide suggestive evidence by analyzing ministry organizations in China (1993–2014) and Russia (2002–2015). After some fluctuations, the shape of Russian ministries eventually converged with that of China. In the steady state, their ministry shapes are far more top-heavy than what is prescribed by managerial theories. At the micro-level, ministry power centralization, measured by the perceived influence of the ministers, is correlated with ministry top-heaviness in Russia. Points for practitioners Our theory suggests that a top-heavy authoritarian bureaucratic structure naturally follows from a back-loaded sequential career tournament and an effort-maximizing bureaucratic leader. Our findings also suggest that Chinese and Russian ministries both converge to a highly top-heavy structure in the long run. We demonstrate that the top-heavy structure first arose during the planned-economy experiment in the Soviet Union. Our research sheds new light on public-sector reforms that aim to reduce bureaucracy top-heaviness in autocracies.
The effects of benchmarking and ABCM organizational support and coherence on organizational performance: A test of two-way interaction

Using a hierarchical regression model, this study examines the complementarity of benchmarking and activity-based cost management (ABCM) on performance. Survey data were collected from 97 U.S. manufacturing business units. Overall, the results indicate support for the theoretical framework linking benchmarking/ABCM interaction to the performance of business units. The implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.
An Agent Based Approach for Effort Estimation in Production Support

Estimating the effort required in resolving an incident for a production support engagement has been a long standing problem. Although, a lot of work has been done in software engineering field in estimating effort required for software development, there is no adequate body of work on production support effort estimation. Reliable effort estimates for handling each kind of incidents can have the benefits of planning the complete project engagement for many services firm which thrive on production support projects. This paper presents a framework for estimating mean effort required to resolve an incident. It takes agent based modelling approach to capture the attributes and interactions of the agents. The framework has been tested with few policy experiments to assess the amount of effort required to resolve the incidents and its impact on SLA compliance. The model has been tested with industry data and holds promise to be a reliable tool to conduct policy experiments and enhance resource utilization.
Assessment of body composition in cystic fibrosis: agreement between skinfold measurement and densitometry.

INTRODUCTION few studies have evaluated body composition (BC) through different techniques, and the degree of agreement between them in adults with cystic fibrosis (CF). OBJECTIVES to describe BC using techniques to assess nutritional status and to test their concordance in CF. METHODS a cross-sectional study in CF patients in a clinically stable situation. Nutritional assessment was performed using skinfold measurement (SM) and densitometry (DXA). Fat-free mass index (FFMI) was also determined. The diagnosis of malnutrition was established if body mass index (BMI) < 18.5 kg/m2. Fat-free mass (FFM) malnutrition was diagnosed when FFMI was < 17 kg/m2 in males and < 15 kg/m2 in females (FFMI: fat-free mass in kg/height in m2). RESULTS forty-one patients were studied (twenty-two females, 53.7 %); median age was 29.8 (interquartile range, 20.9-33.7); BMI was 21.6 (19.8-23.0). Only four (9.8 %) patients had a BMI < 18.5. By DXA, FFM (kg) results were: median, 52.8 (47.8-56.9) with FFMI of 17.9 (16.7-19.3) in males and 36.7 (33.1-38.9) in females, FFMI of 14.7 (14.2-15.8). Twenty (48.6 %) patients presented FFM malnutrition, with 16.7 % of males and 59.1 % of females being affected. By SM, the FFMI was 18.7 (17.2-20.0) in males and 14.9 (14.2-15.8) in females; moreover, sixteen (39.1 %) patients presented malnutrition of FFM, with 20.8 % of males and 61.8 % of females being affected. For FFM (kg), a high concordance was obtained between SM and DXA (intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.950); likewise when they were compared by applying the ESPEN criteria for FFM malnutrition. However, when the techniques were compared to classify malnutrition according to FFMI, the kappa coefficient was only moderate (k = 0.440). The mean difference between FFM by DXA and SM was +1.44 ± 0.62 kg in favor of SM, with greater dispersion as FFM increased. CONCLUSIONS the prevalence of FFM malnutrition is high in adult CF patients, despite a normal BMI, especially in females. Notwithstanding the good statistical agreement between SM and DXA, concordance was moderate. Therefore, DXA remains the technique of choice, and SM may be used when the former is not available.
Bubble counter based on photoelectric technique for leakage detection of cryogenic valves

In order to overcome the inconvenience of manual bubble counting, a bubble counter based on photoelectric technique aiming for automatically detecting and measuring minute gas leakage of cryogenic valves is proposed. Experiments have been conducted on a self-built apparatus, testing the performance with different gas inlet strategies (bottom gas-inlet strategy and side gas-inlet strategy) and the influence of gas pipe length (0, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 m) and leakage rate (around 10, 20, 30, 40 bubbles/min) on first bubble time and bubble rate. A buffer of 110 cm3 is inserted between leakage source and gas pipe to simulate the downstream cavum adjacent to the valve clack. Based on analyzing the experimental data, experiential parameters have also been summarized to guide leakage detection and measurement for engineering applications. A practical system has already been successfully applied in a cryogenic testing apparatus for cryogenic valves.
Modeling the Drying Process of Unbound Soils and Cementitiously Stabilized Soils

Moisture variation significantly affects the strength and volume characteristics of soils. One of the barriers to implementing the stiffness-based quality assurance during construction is the variation (often drying) of moisture, which complicates the measurements of stiffness. Studies on the drying of unbound soils and cementitiously stabilized soils typically have focused on the measurement of moisture content or shrinkage, without an in-depth understanding of the drying mechanisms. An accurate characterization of the process of moisture loss in soils and cementitiously stabilized soils during drying is critical to predicting properties such as strength, stiffness, creep, and shrinkage and, therefore, is critical to understanding the engineering performance of such soils. This paper proposes a practical approach to model the moisture loss of soils and cementitiously stabilized soils under one-dimensional drying conditions at a constant temperature. The moisture loss is affected by the ambient relative humidity (RH), pore RH, and the soil's moisture diffusion coefficient. In this study, a nonlinear relationship between the soil diffusion coefficient and the pore RH is developed on the basis of experiments. The governing constitutive differential equation for predicting the pore RH is solved with the finite element method. The modeling procedure and results are verified by the experimental results with reasonable accuracy. It is found that adding cement to soil can reduce the diffusion coefficient significantly and therefore affect the moisture diffusion behaviors.
5 Gbit/s 2-tap low-swing voltage-mode transmitter with least segmented voltage-mode equalisation

A 2-tap low-swing voltage-mode transmitter which compensates the loss of channel at high frequency is proposed. The output driver of the proposed 2-tap transmitter consists of only two voltage-mode drivers, and thereby the design complexity of the pre-driver is greatly reduced compared with that of conventional 2 N -segmented voltage-mode drivers, where N is the number of equalisation control bits. The output impedance of each voltage-mode driver is adjusted not only to make the overall output impedance matched with the characteristic impedance of the channel, but also to achieve the desired equalisation coefficient by adopting the proposed calibration circuitry. With a high equalisation coefficient, the proposed output driver consumes less power compared with the hybrid voltage-mode driver with current-mode equalisation. The proposed transmitter is implemented using a 90 nm low-power CMOS process technology and achieves 0.79 pJ/bit without equalisation and 0.98 pJ/bit with 6 dB equalisation, at the data rate of 5 Gbit/s.
Compact Dual-Band Three-Way Metamaterial Power-Divider with a Hybrid CRLH Phase-Shift Line

A compact dual-band three-way metamaterial power divider is proposed that has three in-phase outputs. Fully printed composite rightand left-handed (CRLH) unequal and equal power dividers are first implemented for 900-MHz and 2.4-GHz bands with the power-division ratios of 2:1 and 1:1, respectively. An initial 1:1:1 power divider is then achieved by incorporating the input of the two-way equal block into an output of the unequal block, and trimming the interconnection parameters. The condition of an identical phase at the three outputs of the power divider is then met by devising a hybrid CRLH phase-shift line to compensate for the different phase errors at the two frequencies. This scheme is confirmed by predicting the performance of the power divider with circuit analysis and full-wave simulation and measuring the fabricated prototype. They results show agreement; the in-phase outputs as well as the desirable power-division are accomplished and outdo the conventional techniques.
Optimal Channel Cross Section with Composite Roughness

For channels with composite roughness, an equivalent uniform roughness coefficient and flow geometric elements are used in an optimal design method using the Manning equation. The optimal design problems are formulated in a nonlinear optimization framework with the objective function being a cost function per unit length of the canal. Constraints are the Manning equation, positive values for design variables, and specified values of side slopes or top width. The constrained problem is transformed into an unconstrained problem using the Lagrangian multipliers. To obtain an optimal solution for the resulting unconstrained problem, the first-order necessary conditions for optima are applied. The resulting simultaneous nonlinear equations are solved using the computational methodology developed. This technique is applied to illustrative numerical examples. The evaluations establish the potential applicability of the developed computational methodology for optimal design of open channel cross sections with composite roughness.
Effect of Sugammadex During Transcranial Electrical Motor Evoked Potentials Monitoring in Spinal Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: Neuromuscular blockade suppresses transcranial electrical motor evoked potential (TceMEP) amplitude and is usually avoided during TceMEP monitoring. In this randomized controlled trial, we investigated whether rocuronium-induced suppression of TceMEP amplitude could be reversed by sugammadex in patients undergoing spine surgery. Methods: Seventy-six patients undergoing spinal surgery were randomly allocated into sugammadex and control groups. In the sugammadex group, a rocuronium infusion was titrated to maintain moderate neuromuscular blockade (2 twitches on train-of-four) until dural opening when the rocuronium infusion was discontinued and 2 mg/kg sugammadex administered. In the control group, no neuromuscular blockade was administered after induction of anesthesia. The primary outcome was a comparison between sugammadex and control groups of mean TceMEP amplitudes in the abductor pollicis brevis muscles of both upper extremities 5 minutes after dural. Secondary outcomes included TceMEP amplitudes at 10, 20, 30, and 60 minutes after dural opening. Results: Sixty-six patients were included in the analysis. TceMEP amplitudes were significantly greater in the sugammadex group (629 μV, interquartile range: 987 μV) than in the control group (502 μV, interquartile range: 577 μV; P=0.033) at 5 minutes after dural opening. TceMEP amplitudes were also greater in the sugammadex group at 10 minutes (P=0.0010), 20 minutes (P=0.003), 30 minutes (P=0.001), and 60 minutes (P=0.003) after dural opening. Conclusions: Moderate neuromuscular blockade induced by continuous infusion of rocuronium was effectively reversed by sugammadex. This suggests that sugammadex could be used to enhance TceMEP waveform monitoring during spine surgery requiring muscle relaxation.
Coupled-DC Module-Based Photovoltaic System With Power Mismatch-Tolerated Modulation

This article presents a coupled-DC power module-based cascaded multilevel converter integrating utility-scale photovoltaic (PV) generations (coupled-DC-link power module (CDPM)-PV). CDPM-PV inherits merits such as modular structure, distributed maximum power point tracking (MPPT), direct distribution grid access, from cascaded H-bridge-based PV (CHB-PV) system. But, it supplies more flexible power routes than CHB-PV, through coupling different DC-links. Power routes are intended for enlarging the entire operating range including conditions of active power mismatch arising from nonideal elements such as partial shading and parameter variations. The system construction with its self-balancing principle is first introduced. Switching states for different operating regions are then derived based on the principle of easing implementation. Based on these, a modulation strategy including initial switching pattern selection and coordinated power routing is proposed to allow module-mismatches. Operating ranges are also analyzed and compared with conventional CHB-PV. Simulation results of a 3-MW/13.8-kV system developed in MATLAB/Simulink platform, and experiment results based on a 2.4-kW/311-V setup are presented and have demonstrated that the CDPM-PV topology with proposed modulation strategy can not only ride through a larger range of module mismatches, but also improve solar power utilization and system efficiency owing to noncompromised MPPT.