Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-dose rhBMP-2 for adults: major and minor complications: a study of 502 spine cases.

BACKGROUND Use of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) has increased considerably since its introduction in 2002. The complications associated with high-dose rhBMP-2 (≥ 40 mg) are unknown. The purpose of our study was to determine outcomes and medical and surgical complications associated with high-dose rhBMP-2 at short-term and long-term follow-up evaluations. METHODS Five hundred and two consecutive adult patients who had received high-dose rhBMP-2 as a part of spinal surgery from 2002 to 2009 at one institution were enrolled. Data were entered prospectively and studied and analyzed retrospectively. Surgical procedures in the thoracic and lumbar spine were included. Major and minor complications were documented intraoperatively, perioperatively, and at the latest follow-up examination. Complications potentially associated with rhBMP-2 use were evaluated for correlation with rhBMP-2 dose. Scoliosis Research Society (SRS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) outcome measures were obtained before and after surgery. RESULTS On average, 115 mg (range, 40 to 351 mg) of rhBMP-2 was used. The average age of the patients (410 women and ninety-two men) at the time of the index procedure was 52.4 years (range, eighteen to eighty years). There were 265 primary and 237 revision procedures, and 261 patients had interbody fusion. An average of 11.5 vertebrae were instrumented. The average duration of follow-up was forty-two months (range, fourteen to ninety-two months). The diagnoses included idiopathic scoliosis (41%), degenerative scoliosis (31%), fixed sagittal imbalance (18%), and other diagnoses (10%). The rate of intraoperative complications was 8.2%. The rate of perioperative major surgical complications was 11.6%. The rate of perioperative major medical complications was 11.6%. Minor medical complications occurred in 18.9% of the cases, and minor surgical complications occurred in 2.6%. Logistic regression analysis and Pearson correlation did not identify a significant correlation between rhBMP-2 dosage and radiculopathy (r = -0.006), seroma (r = -0.003), or cancer (r = -0.05). Significant improvements in the ODI score (from a mean of 41 points to a mean of 26 points; p < 0.001) and the SRS total score (from a mean of 3.0 points to a mean of 3.7 points; p < 0.001) were noted at the latest follow-up evaluation. CONCLUSIONS This is the largest study of which we are aware that examines complications associated with high-dose rhBMP-2. Major surgical complications occurred in 11.6% of patients, and 11.6% experienced major medical complications. There was a cancer prevalence of 3.4%, but no correlation between increasing rhBMP-2 dosage and cancer, radiculopathy (seen in 1% of the patients), or seroma (seen in 0.6%) was found.
Design and implementation of smart home energy management systems based on zigbee

Today, organizations use IEEE802.15. 4 and ZigBee to effectively deliver solutions for a variety of areas including consumer electronic device control, energy management and efficiency home and commercial building automation as well as industrial plant management. The Smart home energy network has gained widespread attentions due to its flexible integration into everyday life. This next generation green home system transparently unifies various home appliances, smart sensors and wireless communication technologies. The green home energy network gradually forms a complex system to process various tasks. Developing this trend, we suggest a new Smart Home Energy Management System (SHEMS) based on an IEEE802.15. 4 and ZigBee (we call it as a "ZigBee sensor network"). The proposed smart home energy management system divides and assigns various home network tasks to appropriate components. It can integrate diversified physical sensing information and control various consumer home devices, with the support of active sensor networks having both sensor and actuator components. We develop a new routing protocol DMPR (Disjoint Multi Path based Routing) to improve the performance of our ZigBee sensor networks. This paper introduces the proposed home energy control system's design that provides intelligent services for users. We demonstrate its implementation using a real environment.
A PKA–ezrin–Cx43 signaling complex controls gap junction communication and thereby trophoblast cell fusion

ABSTRACT Cell fusion occurs as part of the differentiation of some cell types, including myotubes in muscle and osteoclasts in remodeling bone. In the human placenta, mononuclear cytotrophoblasts in a human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG)-driven process fuse to form multinucleated syncytia that allow the exchange of nutrients and gases between the maternal and fetal circulation. Experiments in which protein kinase A (PKA) is displaced from A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs), or in which specific AKAPs are depleted by siRNA-mediated knockdown, point to ezrin as a scaffold required for hCG-, cAMP- and PKA-mediated regulation of the fusion process. By a variety of immunoprecipitation and immunolocalization experiments, we show that ezrin directs PKA to a molecular complex of connexin 43 (Cx43, also known as GJA1) and zona occludens-1 (ZO-1, also known as TJP1). A combination of knockdown experiments and reconstitution with ezrin or Cx43 with or without the ability to bind to its interaction partner or to PKA demonstrate that ezrin-mediated coordination of the localization of PKA and Cx43 is necessary for discrete control of Cx43 phosphorylation and hCG-stimulated gap junction communication that triggers cell fusion in cytotrophoblasts.
Massive Parallel Networks of Evolutionary Processors as NP-Problem Solvers

This paper presents a new connectionist model that might be used to solve NP-problems. Most well known numeric models are Neural Networks that are able to approximate any function or classify any pattern set provided numeric information is injected into the net. Concerning symbolic information new research area has been developed, inspired by George Paun, called Membrane Systems. A step forward, in a similar Neural Network architecture, was done to obtain Networks of Evolutionary Processors (NEP). A NEP is a set of processors connected by a graph, each processor only deals with symbolic information using rules. In short, objects in processors can evolve and pass through processors until a stable configuration is reach. Despite their simplicity, we show how the latter networks might be used for solving an NP-complete problem, namely the 3-colorability problem, in linear time and linear resources (nodes, symbols, rules).
The method of fundamental solutions , a dipole formulation for potential problems

This paper introduces the use of a dipole formulation within the Method of Fundamental Solutions for potential problems. The present formulation is set up by taking the limiting case of two adjacent sources. The necessary kernels are derived in explicit forms. Two numerical examples, including torsion analysis of irregular cross section, are solved. Several parametric studies are presented to demonstrate different configurations for the placement of sources (monopoles or dipoles). The accuracy of the present new formulation is verified by comparing its results to those obtained from the traditional source formulation.
Simultaneous detection of Escherichia coli heat-stable and heat-labile enterotoxin genes with a single RNA probe

A single RNA probe was synthesized and used to detect simultaneously the methanol-soluble heat-stable enterotoxin and heat-labile enterotoxin genes in Escherichia coli strains. The results with the biotinylated or radioactive probe correlated 100% with the biological assay results for both toxins. The RNA probe detected the three known heat-stable enterotoxin A alleles.
A possible way to motivate ambivalent patients to undergo detoxification.

( Received 12 July 2005; first review notified 15 August 2005; in final revised form 19 September 2005; accepted 22 October 2005) Health-related quality-of-life and well-being are two important outcome measures for inpatients attending alcohol treatment programs. Rapid improvement in well-being and health related quality-of-life may be a possible way to motivate ambivalent patients to undergo detoxification. The present letter is an ancillary report of a randomized controlled trial on pharmacological management of alcohol withdrawal. It focuses on changes in patients' perception of well-being and health-related quality-of-life over the first …
MEASUREMENTS, TECHNOLOGY, AND LAYOUT OF SENSITIVE ANISOTROPIC MAGNETORESISTIVE SENSORS

Related with the detection of weak magnetic fields, the anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) effect is utiliz ed in many biomedical and industrial applications. Compar ed to giant magnetoresistance (GMR) and tunneling magneto resistance (TMR) it offers the advantage of low hys teresis and low noise. Philips KMZ sensors consist of patterned NiFe thin film structures in a Wheatstone bridge configuration equ ipped with Barber-pole structures for output linearizatio n [1]. As periodical flipping by a perpendicular field improv es stability and reduces noise and hysteresis, these sensors hav e built-in flat flipping and feedback (compensation) coils so that they are ideally suited for magnetometers. Various sensor designs and electronic evaluation ci rcuits have been developed to overcome temperature depende nce, offset, and hysteresis, for example [2]. The resist ivity ρ in the plane of a thin ferromagnetic film with uniaxial an isotropy varies with the angle between the current density a nd the spontaneous magnetization which is rotated by the a pplied field Hα. The sensivity of a Wheatstone-bridge arrangement (supply voltage Vs, bridge output voltage Vb ) is
Formulation and quality evaluation of aglutenics biscuits supplimented with rice bran for coeliac patients

Coeliac disease is a chronic disorder of intestine in which patients cannot bear gluten, a wheat protein. There is no medication of this disease instead of using gluten free food. Moreover, coeliac patients use foods with low fiber and find food products with poor quality, hence generally face the problems of constipation and malnutrition. To cope up this problem the present research was designed. Gluten free biscuits developed with rice, maize and chickpea flours supplemented with 5%, 10% and 15% stabilized rice bran (SBR) packed in HDPE in the experiment to find the higher quality and more nutritional gluten free biscuit formulations. The rice bran was stabilized with dry heat treatment before supplementation. Physicochemical analysis of biscuits revealed that moisture, ash, crude protein, fiber and thickness were significantly increased with the increment of SBR. While, width and spread factor of biscuits were decreased with the increased levels of SBR. Sensory evaluation of biscuits revealed that biscuit supplemented with 5-10% SBR were liked by the panelists. Therefore, it can be concluded from the results that aglutenics biscuits (Developed with rice flour 35 % + maize flour 35 % + chickpea flour 30 %) supplemented with 10-15% SRB are more suitable for consumption.
Improving Web accessibility for visually handicapped people using KAI

Currently, the vast majority of content published on the Internet is inaccessible to visually impaired users. However, designers have guidelines that guarantee the accessibility of pages as well as software tools to facilitate this task. It is necessary to consider the user's perspective too, allowing him/her to participate in the restructuring or presentation process of content. There are few software tools which are able to do this. KAI (Accessibility Kit for the Internet) considers both the user and the designer. It classifies the different components of a published Web page and presents them to the user according to his/her needs. At the same time, it improves their accessibility. KAI is based on a new language, BML (Blind Markup Language) that helps authors develop better structured pages. It provides two levels of independence: original Web code and user platform. KAI includes a mixed audio/touch browser that enables selective reading of contents.
Functions of the N-terminal Region of Cyclic Nucleotide Phosphodiesterase 3 (PDE 3) Isoforms*

The N-terminal portion of phosphodiesterase (PDE) 3 was arbitrarily divided into region 1 (amino acids 1–300), which contains a large hydrophobic domain with six predicted transmembrane helices, and region 2 (amino acids 301–500), with a smaller hydrophobic domain (∼50 residues). To analyze these regions, full-length human (H)PDE3A and mouse (M)PDE3B and a series of N-terminal truncated mutants were synthesized in Sf9 cells. Activities of HPDE3A, H3A-Δ189, MPDE3B, and M3B-Δ196, which retained all or part of the hydrophobic domain in region 1, were recovered almost entirely in particulate fractions. H3A-Δ321 and M3B-Δ302, containing region 2, were recovered essentially equally in particulate and cytosolic fractions. H3A-Δ397 and H3A-Δ457, lacking both hydrophobic domains, were predominantly cytosolic. H3A-Δ510 and M3B-Δ604, lacking both regions 1 and 2, were virtually completely cytosolic. M3B-Δ196 eluted as a large aggregated complex during gel filtration. With removal of greater amounts of N-terminal sequence, aggregation of PDE3 decreased, and H3A-Δ607, H3A-Δ721, and M3B-Δ604 eluted as dimers. Truncated HPDE3A proteins were more sensitive than full-length HPDE3A to inhibition by lixazinone. These results suggest that the hydrophobic domains in regions 1 and 2 contain structural determinants important for association of PDE3 with intracellular membranes, as well for self-association or aggregation during gel filtration and sensitivity to a specific inhibitor.
Web Service Discovery for Cloud-Based Mobile Application Using Multi-Level Clustering and QoS-Based Ranking

Since many service providers are providing similar web services, finding an accurate web service based on user preferences is becoming a challenging task. Therefore, enhancing web service discovery (WSD) method will improve the searching performance. In this paper, we firstly discuss and review some existing web service discovery approaches and identify their limitations. Subsequently, we propose a web service discovery method for cloud-based mobile application by using multi-level clustering technique to improve performance by reducing the searching scope. Our web service discovery architecture is able to increase the discoverability of more accurate web services based on user's preferences. Meanwhile, user preference Quality of Services (QoS) attributes are also used for ranking procedure to allow user to decide the quality of the mobile application. The experimental results show that our approach is able to increase the searching performance and provide a reliable list of selection for users.
CANNULA‐PROBING COMBINED WITH NASAL PROCEDURE FOR DACRYOCYSTITIS NEONATORUM

Between 1973–1976 a total of 2063 cases of dacryocystitis neonatorum have been treated by cannula‐probing in our department. In 37 cases the cannula‐probing had to be combined with a nasal procedure for opening the closed nasolacrimal membrane: a periosteal elevator was passed into the inferior meatus of the nasal cavity and its tip was rubbed against the tip of the cannula‐probe through the imperforate mucosa of the ostium. The patency of the duct was tested by simultaneous syringing.
The genus Cryptosphaeria in the western United States: taxonomy, multilocus phylogeny and a new species, C. multicontinentalis

This study investigates the diversity and taxonomy of Cryptosphaeria species occurring in the western United States on the basis of morphological characters and multilocus phylogenetic analyses of the ribosomal internal transcribed spacer region, parts of a β-tubulin gene, the DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II second-largest subunit gene and the nuclear ribosomal large subunit gene. Cryptosphaeria multicontinentalis sp. nov is described from the Sierra Nevada and central coast of California on Populus tremuloides, P. balsamifera subsp. trichocarpa and P. fremontii. Cryptosphaeria pullmanensis is reported from a wide geographic area in the western United States on the main host, P. fremontii. The pathogen C. lignyota is reported for the first time from the Sierra Nevada of California on P. tremuloides. The phylogenetic analyses showed that C. multicontinentalis is a sister species to C. lignyota. Both species were closely related to C. subcutanea and more distantly related to C. pullmanensis. Characteristics of both teleomorph and anamorph of the newly introduced species C. multicontinentalis are described and illustrated.
Motion estimation using long-term motion vector prediction

Summary form only given. This paper presents a motion estimation technique for the coding of video sequences that is based on long-term temporal prediction. The motion vector of a moving object is tracked from one frame to another using a projection method. The traced motion vector is used as a starting point for the motion estimation search algorithm. The motion estimation algorithm used is based on an optimum fast block matching algorithm. Combinations of both spatial and temporal prediction are also used to obtain a more accurate estimate of the motion vector of the current macroblock. An inaccurately predicted motion vector can have a significant negative impact on the motion estimation algorithm. It can force the search algorithm to be trapped in a local minimum, or to spend unnecessary computations to find the optimum motion vector. The accuracy of the predicted motion vector is estimated using a reliability measure that allows the motion search algorithm to decide whether to use temporal motion vector predictor, spatial motion vector predictor, or both. As a reliability measure we used the mean squared error between the traced motion vectors in the current frame and in the previous frame. The reliability measure increases if the motion vector belongs to a moving object with constant speed. If the reliability measure is smaller than a certain threshold, then we abandon the temporal prediction and use spatial prediction. If both prediction methods fail, we abandon the fast motion search and perform full-search motion estimation in the low-resolution images. The experimental results show that long-term prediction reduces the number of computations performed by the motion search algorithm by up to 20%, while obtaining essentially the same quality.
Geographic Systems and Ecological Security of the Changbai Mountains: An EOS Approach of Study

Data based on the satellites measured reflected or emitted energy can provide valuable information on the spatial evolution of geographical system and ecological security. Information regarding NDVI, land use and land cover change, and classification were obtained from remotely sensed data in the Changbai Mountains area. Remotely sensed data were combined into different indices to compare characteristics of land cover and create an information base for continued study. A classification was performed on the different earth targets and land use classes were grouped together. The results of these analyses allowed researchers to examine the geographical system and ecological security within the Changbai Mountains area.
Application of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for the detection of clenbuterol residues in swine urine and feeds

The present study outlines applications of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the analysis of clenbuterol residues. Antisera were raised from rabbits immunized with diazotized clenbuterol-bovine serum albumin (BSA) conjugate. The assay was specific to clenbuterol with a half-maximum inhibition concentration (IC50) of 1.8 ng/mL and 2.5 ng/mL in blank swine urine and phosphate buffer solution, respectively. The assay had high cross-reactivity (86%) with mabuterol, but low with other adrenergic agonists and antagonists. The average recovery of clenbuterol, as measured with the ELISA, ranged from 90% to 112% in swine urine samples and from 86% to 95% in feeds, respectively. This new assay was compared with commercial ELISA test kits. An excellent correlation (r 2 = 0.98) between the two methods and satisfactory recoveries suggest that the new assay can be suitable for the determination of clenbuterol residues in real samples. The assay was used to analyze clenbuterol residues in 103 swine urine samples and 68 feed samples collected from northern China. Approximately 50% of the urine samples and 25% of the feed samples analyzed were found positive (concentration of clenbuterol ≥ 1 ppb). The results indicate that clenbuterol was misused in some of the areas surveyed.
Exercises – Summer school on foundations and advances in stochastic filtering ( FASF 2015 ) Course 1 : Nonlinear system identification using sequential Monte Carlo methods

(b) Simulate the model (1) to produce T = 100 measurements y1:T . Based on these measurements compute the optimal (in the sense that it minimizes the mean square error) estimate of xt | y1:t for t = 1, . , T . Implement a bootstrap particle filter and compare to the optimal estimates. You can for example perform this comparison by plotting the root mean square estimate (RMSE) ε(N) as a function of the number of particles used in the particle filter (also plot the RMSE for the optimal estimator in the same figure). The RMSE is defined according to ε(N) , √√√√ 1 T T ∑
Student Evaluations of Teaching Tools: A Qualitative Examination of Student Perceptions

Student evaluations of teaching (SET) are common and controversial, yet there is limited understanding of student perceptions of these evaluation tools. The authors examined an evidence-based SET tool for content validity using BSN, RN-to-BSN, and MSN student focus groups to explore individual question items and identify themes. Through communication and relationships with students, SET can influence teaching effectiveness and student learning, although student perceptions of individual items vary greatly.
Heterodyne laser frequency stabilization for long baseline optical interferometry in space-based gravitational wave detectors

The European Space Agency (ESA) selected the gravitational universe as the science theme for L3, a large space mission with a planned launch in 2034. NASA expressed a strong interest in joining ESA as a junior partner. The goal of the mission is the detection of gravitational waves of frequencies between 0.1 mHz and 0.1 Hz, where many long-lived sources are expected to be steady emitters of gravitational waves. Most likely, the mission design will evolve out of the earlier Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) concept. The interferometric heterodyne phase readout in LISA is performed by phase meters developed specifically to handle the low light powers and Doppler-drift of laser frequencies that appear as complications in the mission baseline. LISA requires the frequency noise of its seed lasers to be below 300 Hz= ffiffiffiffiffiffi Hz p throughout the measurement band due to uncertainties in the absolute interferometer arm lengths. We have developed and successfully demonstrated Heterodyne Stabilization (HS), a novel cavitylaser frequency stabilization method that integrates well into the LISA mission baseline due to similar component demand. The cavities for the test setup were assembled with Clearceram-Z spacers, an ultralow thermal expansion coefficient material with potential applicability in interferometric space missions. Using HS, we were able to suppress the frequency noise of two lasers in a bench-top experiment to a level that meets the LISA requirement, suggesting both HS and Clearceram-Z can be considered in future mission concepts.