Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autologous chondrocyte grafting promotes bone formation in the posterolateral spine

Pseudarthrosis following spinal fusion remains problematic despite modern surgical and grafting techniques. In surgical spinal fusion, new bone forms via intramembranous and endochondral ossification, with endochondral ossification occurring in the hypoxic zones of the fusion bed. During bone development and fracture healing, the key cellular mediator of endochondral ossification is the hypertrophic chondrocyte given its ability to function in hypoxia and induce neovascularization and ossification. We therefore hypothesize that hypertrophic chondrocytes may be an effective bone graft alternative.
Concussion and Concurrent Cognitive and Sport-specific Task Performance in Youth Ice Hockey Players: A Single-case Pilot Study

Background: Concussion is common in the sport of ice hockey and can cause deficits in cognitive function. In most situations, ice hockey participation requires the performance of more than one skill at a time. It has been reported that following concussion in athletes, performance deficits arise when locomotor and cognitive tasks are performed concurrently that may have otherwise gone unnoticed if assessed in isolation of one another. The purpose of this pilot study was to explore the effect of concussion on cognition during concurrent ice hockey specific tasks in youth ice hockey players. Methods: This single case pilot study compared the performance of 4 male youth ice hockey players who had experienced a concussion in the previous ice hockey season (mean age=11.7 ± 0.3 years; mean time since injury=92.5 ± 49.1 days) to a group of 10 non-injured controls (mean age=11.8 ± 0.8 years). Participants completed a randomized combination of three ice hockey specific tasks while concurrently completing a visual interference task (modified Stroop task). Results: Participants who experienced a concussion within the previous ice hockey season and were ≤ 58 days post-injury demonstrated significantly poorer cognitive performance (increased cognitive dual task cost) across all conditions when completing the visual interference task concurrently with ice hockey specific skills (p ≤ 0.05). Conclusion: This study acts as an initial step towards the development of a sport-specific assessment of functional performance following concussion in youth ice hockey players to help inform safer return to play.
MUTUAL-INFORMATION REGULARIZATION

We propose a reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm that uses mutual-information regularization to optimize a prior action distribution for better performance and exploration. Entropy-based regularization has previously been shown to improve both exploration and robustness in challenging sequential decision-making tasks. It does so by encouraging policies to put probability mass on all actions. However, entropy regularization might be undesirable when actions have significantly different importance. In this paper, we propose a theoretically motivated framework that dynamically weights the importance of actions by using the mutualinformation. In particular, we express the RL problem as an inference problem where the prior probability distribution over actions is subject to optimization. We show that the prior optimization introduces a mutual-information regularizer in the RL objective. This regularizer encourages the policy to be close to a nonuniform distribution that assigns higher probability mass to more important actions. We empirically demonstrate that our method significantly improves over entropy regularization methods and unregularized methods.
MRP IMPLEMENTATION ON SUPPLY MANAGEMENT PROCESS : A BRAZILIAN FURNITURE INDUSTRY CASE STUDY

his paper presents a case study of the implementation of a materials planning tool in a furniture industry, located in Goianira, state of Goiás, Brazil. The technique used was the MRP (Material Requirements Planning). The work was developed based on the process improvement identification, which includes: cost reduction in inventories, greater effectiveness in the production process, and better information accuracy. Based on these requiredments, was executed the MRP implementation, based on internal personnel allocation, and related Organizational Changes required. As a result of this project conclusion, satisfactory results were obtained in: materials flow control, cost decreases on raw materials stocks and purchases. This paper included the use of quantitative demand forecasting techniques, preparation of furniture production structures (BOM – Bills of Materials), and steup into the MRP function in the enterprise ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) application: production batches, minimum inventory and safety levels, and lead times to raw materials supply.
The effect of plant proteins and vegetable oils on the sterol metabolism of Atlantic salmon (salmo salar)

To ensure responsible use of the valuable marine ingredients a major effort is being invested in understanding effects of replacing fish meal and fish oil partially or completely with plant proteins and vegetable oils in aquaculture diets. Decreased dietary n-3/n-6 ratio and cholesterol levels and the introduction of vegetable oil derived phytosterols may affect Atlantic salmon health as well as nutritional product quality. Atlantic salmon plasma cholesterol is naturally very high being more than twice the upper range for healthy humans (11 mM in salmon vs 5 mM for healthy humans). Increased plasma and LDL cholesterol is a known risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease in humans and phytosterols are known to lower plasma cholesterol. In Atlantic salmon, however, the role of dietary phytosterols as cholesterol lowering agents is still unexplored. The aim of the study was to investigate if the cholesterol metabolism and plasma cholesterol levels were altered in seawater phase Atlantic salmon when fed diets with either fish oil (FO) or vegetable oil (VO) based feeds for 6 months. The fish were fed diets with a high and constant inclusion of plant proteins, and either fish oil (FO) or 80 % of the FO replaced by olive oil (OO), rapeseed oil (RO) or soybean oil (SO). These oils were selected for their different levels of phytosterols and n-3/n-6 ratios to make it possible to determine whether it was the sterol composition of the feeds or the fatty acid composition being the main factor affecting fish cholesterol metabolism. Neither plasma nor lipoprotein cholesterol differed at any sampling point between Atlantic salmon fed the different experimental diets, indicating that cholesterol levels is metabolically regulated also in Atlantic salmon. Phytosterols tended to accumulate in liver, especially in the fish fed RO, which was the diet with the highest content of phytosterols. An increased mRNA expression of genes encoding for proteins involved in cholesterol synthesis (ACAT2, DHCR7 and SREBP2) was observed in VO fed fish. Higher triacylglycerol levels in the liver, as well as a slightly elevated VLDL cholesterol and protein was seen in the RO fed fish compared to the other dietary groups. The changes observed in the RO fed salmon are thought to be caused by lower absorption of dietary cholesterol in this dietary group, caused by an influence of phytosterols on the intestinal sterol-absorber NPC1L1.The results from this study indicate that as long as Atlantic salmon is fed vegetable ingredient based diets low in cholesterol, cholesterol synthesis is up regulated, and dietary phytosterols does not affect the plasma nor lipoprotein cholesterol levels further. However, a high phytosterol-low cholesterol diet, as provided by the RO feed, does have a significant effect on the lipid and sterol metabolism on these fish, possibly due to a cholesterol deficit.
THE DESIGN OF HALF-SUBTRACTOR LOGIC FUNCTION BASED ON NONLINEAR DIRECTIONAL COUPLER

In this paper a novel design of all-optical half-subtractor based on nonlinear directional coupler is proposed. By using four waveguides and appropriately adjusting the refractive indices and selecting the proper length of waveguides, halfsubtractor function can be obtained. The operation of this function is simulated by RSoft CAD-Layout (BeamPROP) simulator. The simulation results confirm the alloptical half-subtractor circuit without any optoelectronic conversions.
Evaluation of Percutanous Endoscopic Gastrostomy in Elderly Patients with Silicosis and Comorbidities

To clarify the indications and usefulness of Percutanous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) in patients with Silicosis and some co-morbidities, we analyzed eight cases of silicosis, who suffered from dysphagia and had received a PEG for tube feeding during the period from 1998 to 2002. The characteristics, and clinical course, of each case were statistically analyzed before and during PEG usage. All cases were bed-ridden males, with a mean age of 80 years. The profusion rate (PR) grade of silicosis was for five cases in category 2, and for three cases in category 4. Most of the co-morbidities were dementia (five cases), and chronic heart failure (four cases). There were no significant improvements in the measured nutrition criteria (albumin, lymphocytes) nor in respiratory function (arterial O2) between before and during PEG usage. Tube feeding through the PEG was not performed in three cases because of repeated aspiration pneumonia. The mean duration of PEG usage was 9 months, ranging from 5 to 20 months. Five cases died of the co-morbidities. Furthermore, there was significant deterioration in the bacteriological data (p=0.001), suggesting a worsening of the swallowing disturbances during PEG usage, or the emergence of more resistant organisms as a result of empirical antibiotic therapy. The present results suggest that the indications of PEG in cases of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) such as silicosis, associated with other morbidities, and with dysphagia, are somewhat limited. The patient's general condition should be an important factor in deciding whether or not this technique should be used.
Selective preservation of MeCP 2 in catecholaminergic cells is sufficient to improve the behavioral phenotype of male and female Mecp 2-deficient mice

Rett syndrome (RTT) is a neurodevelopmental disorder caused primarily by mutations of the X-linked MECP2 gene. Although the loss of MeCP2 function affects many neural systems, impairments of catecholaminergic function have been hypothesized to underlie several of the cardinal behavioral deficits of RTT patients and Mecp2-deficient mice. Although recent Mecp2 reactivation studies indicate that RTT may be a reversible condition, it remains unclear whether specifically preserving Mecp2 function within a specific system will be sufficient to convey beneficial effects. Here, we test whether the selective preservation of Mecp2 within catecholaminergic cells will improve the phenotype of Mecp2-deficient mice. Our results show that this targeted preservation of Mecp2 significantly improves the lifespan, phenotypic severity and cortical epileptiform discharge activity of both male and female Mecp2-deficient mice. Further, we found that the catecholaminergic preservation of Mecp2 also improves the ambulatory rate, rearing activity, motor coordination, anxiety and nest-building performances of Mecp2-deficient mice of each gender. Interestingly, our results also revealed a gender-specific improvement, as specific cortical and hippocampal electroencephalographic abnormalities were significantly improved in male, but not female, rescue mice. Collectively, these results support the role of the catecholaminergic system in the pathogenesis of RTT and provide proof-of-principle that restoring MeCP2 function within this specific system could represent a treatment strategy for RTT.
AcSel: selecting variables with accuracy in correlated datasets

With the emergence of high-throughput technologies, it is possible to measure large amounts of data relatively at low cost. Such situations arise in many fields from sciences to humanities, and variable selection may be of great help to answer challenges that are specific to each of them. Variable selection may allow to know, among all measured variables, which are of interest and which are not. A lot of methods have been proposed to handle this issue, with the Lasso and other penalized regression as special cases. These methods fail in some cases and linear correlation between explanatory variables is the most common of these, especially in big datasets. In this article, we introduce AcSel, a wrapping algorithm able to enhance the accuracy of any variable selection method. To achieve this result, we use intensive computational simulations.
Structural dynamic analysis using Gaussian process emulators

Purpose – In the dynamical analysis of engineering systems, running a detailed high‐resolution finite element model can be expensive even for obtaining the dynamic response at few frequency points. To address this problem, this paper aims to investigate the possibility of representing the output of an expensive computer code as a Gaussian stochastic process.Design/methodology/approach – The Gaussian process emulator method is discussed and then applied to both simulated and experimentally measured data from the frequency response of a cantilever plate excited by a harmonic force. The dynamic response over a frequency range is approximated using only a small number of response values, obtained both by running a finite element model at carefully selected frequency points and from experimental measurements. The results are then validated applying some adequacy diagnostics.Findings – It is shown that the Gaussian process emulator method can be an effective predictive tool for medium and high‐frequency vibrati.
Financial Asset Bubbles in Banking Networks

We consider a banking network represented by a system of stochastic differential equations coupled by their drift. We assume a core-periphery structure, and that the banks in the core hold a bubbly asset. The banks in the periphery have not direct access to the bubble, but can take initially advantage from its increase by investing on the banks in the core. Investments are modeled by the weight of the links, which is a function of the robustness of the banks. In this way, a preferential attachment mechanism towards the core takes place during the growth of the bubble. We then investigate how the bubble distort the shape of the network, both for finite and infinitely large systems, assuming a non vanishing impact of the core on the periphery. Due to the influence of the bubble, the banks are no longer independent, and the law of large numbers cannot be directly applied at the limit. This results in a term in the drift of the diffusions which does not average out, and that increases systemic risk at the moment of the burst. We test this feature of the model by numerical simulations.
MOMENT EXPONENTIAL STABILITY IN THE NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF STOCHASTIC DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS

Relatively little is known about the ability of numerical methods for stochastic differential equations (SDEs) to reproduce almost sure and small-moment stability. Here, we focus on these stability properties in the limit as the timestep tends to zero. Our analysis is motivated by an example of an exponentially almost surely stable nonlinear SDE for which the Euler–Maruyama (EM) method fails to reproduce this behavior for any nonzero timestep. We begin by showing that EM correctly reproduces almost sure and small-moment exponential stability for sufficiently small timesteps on scalar linear SDEs. We then generalize our results to multidimensional nonlinear SDEs. We show that when the SDE obeys a linear growth condition, EM recovers almost surely exponential stability very well. Under the less restrictive condition that the drift coefficient of the SDE obeys a one-sided Lipschitz condition, where EM may break down, we show that the backward Euler method maintains almost surely exponential stability.
Understanding Fundamental Phenomena Affecting the Water Conservation Technology Adoption of Residential Consumers Using Agent-Based Modeling

More than one billion people will face water scarcity within the next ten years due to climate change and unsustainable water usage, and this number is only expected to grow exponentially in the future. At current water use rates, supply-side demand management is no longer an effective way to combat water scarcity. Instead, many municipalities and water agencies are looking to demand-side solutions to prevent major water loss. While changing conservation behavior is one demand-based strategy, there is a growing movement toward the adoption of water conservation technology as a way to solve water resource depletion. Installing technology into one’s household requires additional costs and motivation, creating a gap between the overall potential households that could adopt this technology, and how many actually do. This study identified and modeled a variety of demographic and household characteristics, social network influence, and external factors such as water price and rebate policy to see their effect on residential water conservation technology adoption. Using Agent-based Modeling and data obtained from the City of Miami Beach, the coupled effects of these factors were evaluated to examine the effectiveness of different pathways towards the adoption of more water conservation technologies. The results showed that income growth and water pricing structure, more so than any of the demographic or building characteristics, impacted household adoption of water conservation technologies. The results also revealed that the effectiveness of rebate programs depends on conservation technology cost and the affluence of the community. Rebate allocation did influence expensive technology adoption, with the potential to increase the adoption rate by 50%. Additionally, social network connections were shown to have an impact on the rate of adoption independent of price strategy or rebate status. These findings will lead the way for municipalities and other water agencies to more strategically implement interventions to encourage household technology adoption based on the characteristics of their communities.
Progradation Speed of Tide‐Dominated Tidal Flats Decreases Stronger Than Linearly With Decreasing Sediment Availability and Linearly With Sea Level Rise

We use the results of a one‐dimensional morphodynamic model and the basis of the “Lagrangian equilibrium state” (Maan et al., 2015, https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JF003311) to derive a quantitative relationship between the progradation speed of tidal flats and the suspended sediment concentration in their adjacent waters and show that the speed increases more than linearly with the concentration. We also show that horizontally prograding flats rise vertically with sea level rise at the expense of their horizontal speed via a linear relationship. If accretion rates are insufficient to keep up with sea level rise, however, the intertidal flat submerges and retreats landward at the same time. We apply the obtained relationships to the Yangtze Estuary to estimate the critical sediment concentration level below which a shift from progradation to retreat can be expected.
A Structural Model to Examine How Destination Image, Attitude, and Motivation Affect the Future Behavior of Tourists

This study examines a behavioral model of wetlands tourism using variables of destination image, attitude, motivation, satisfaction and future behavior for tourists at Cigu, Sihcao and Haomeiliao in southwestern Taiwan. Empirical results indicate that destination image directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior. Tourist attitude directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior, while tourist motivation directly affects satisfaction and indirectly affects future behavior. Tourist satisfaction had a significant influence on future behavior, and satisfaction proved a significant mediating variable within this behavioral model.
Prediction Method for Power Transformer Running State Based on LSTM_DBN Network

It is of great significance to accurately get the running state of power transformers and timely detect the existence of potential transformer faults. This paper presents a prediction method of transformer running state based on LSTM_DBN network. Firstly, based on the trend of gas concentration in transformer oil, a long short-term memory (LSTM) model is established to predict the future characteristic gas concentration. Then, the accuracy and influencing factors of the LSTM model are analyzed with examples. The deep belief network (DBN) model is used to establish the transformer operation using the information in the transformer fault case library. The accuracy of state classification is higher than the support vector machine (SVM) and back-propagation neural network (BPNN). Finally, combined with the actual transformer data collected from the State Grid Corporation of China, the LSTM_DBN model is used to predict the transformer state. The results show that the method has higher prediction accuracy and can analyze potential faults.
Dietary fat and cholesterol and the risk of cardiovascular disease among women with type 2 diabetes 1 – 3

Background: Nutritional therapy is a cornerstone of diabetes management, but no epidemiologic studies have investigated the relation between specific dietary fatty acids and cholesterol and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among diabetic patients. Objective: This study assessed the relation between specific dietary fatty acids and cholesterol and CVD risk among women with type 2 diabetes. Design: Among 5672 women with type 2 diabetes from the Nurses’ Health Study, diet was assessed prospectively and updated periodically. Relative risks of CVD were estimated from Cox proportional hazards analysis after adjustment for potential confounders. Results: Between 1980 and 1998, we identified 619 new cases of CVD (nonfatal myocardial infarction, fatal coronary heart disease, and stroke). The relative risk (RR) of CVD for an increase of 200 mg cholesterol/1000 kcal was 1.37 (95% CI: 1.12, 1.68; P 0.003). Each 5% of energy intake from saturated fat, as compared with equivalent energy from carbohydrates, was associated with a 29% greater risk of CVD (RR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.63; P 0.04). The ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fat (P:S) was inversely associated with the risk of fatal CVD. We estimated that replacement of 5% of energy from saturated fat with equivalent energy from carbohydrates or monounsaturated fat was associated with a 22% or 37% lower risk of CVD, respectively. Conclusions: A higher intake of cholesterol and saturated fat and a low P:S were related to increased CVD risk among women with type 2 diabetes. Among diabetic persons, replacement of saturated fat with monounsaturated fat may be more effective in lowering CVD risk than is replacement with carbohydrates. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;79:999–1005.