Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reuse of Insulin Pens Among Multiple Patients at 2 Veterans Affairs Medical Centers

OBJECTIVE To determine whether reuse of insulin pens among multiple patients resulted in transmission of bloodborne pathogens (BBP). DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING Two Veterans Affairs medical centers. PATIENTS Veterans who received insulin via insulin pens from 2010 to 2013. METHODS Patients were identified through electronic health records, notified of possible exposure, and serotested for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis C virus (HCV), and hepatitis B virus. Newly discovered case patients were assessed in relation to potential proximate patients to determine viral strain relatedness by HCV envelope (env) gene sequencing. RESULTS Of 1,791 hospitalized veterans who received insulin via insulin pen, 1,155 were tested for at least 1 viral infection after exposure. Of these, 67 patients were newly diagnosed with 1 or more viral BBPs. For human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B virus no additional strain testing of case or proximate patients was possible; 8 HCV cases and 45 proximates (40 unique patients; 5 patients were positive for 2 genotypes) were identified as needing strain testing. Only 3 cases and their 19 proximates had samples available for further testing. None of the 26 remaining proximate patients had blood available for further testing. Median genetic distance between the HCV env sequences of those available for additional testing ranged from 14% to 24%, indicating nonrelatedness. CONCLUSIONS Our investigation revealed that exposure to insulin pen reuse did not result in HCV transmission among patients who had viral genetic analysis performed. Analysis for any additional potential transmission of blood-borne pathogens was limited by the available samples. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2015;36(10):1121–1129
Adaptive distance protection in presence of SSSC on a transmission line

This paper presents an adaptive distance protection in the presence of Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC), one of the series connected Flexible Alternating Current Transmission System (FACTS) devices. The presence of SSSC on a transmission line has a great influence on the measured impedance at the relaying point. The measured impedance itself depends on the power system structural conditions, pre-fault loading, and especially the fault resistance. In the presence of SSSC, its injected voltage as well as its installation point affects the measured impedance. Therefore, the conventional distance techniques do not fulfill the protective duties satisfactorily and new approaches are required.
Long-term follow-up of fracture nonunions treated with PEMFs.

One hundred thirty-nine established fracture nonunions were treated using a pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) device that also recorded patient usage. Patients who used the device less than an average of three hours a day had a success rate of 35.7% (5/14), while those who used the device in excess of three hours daily had an 80% success rate (108/135). The difference in the success rate was statistically significant at p less than . 05. Treatment success was unaffected by long versus short bone, open versus closed fractures, nonunion of nine to 12 months duration compared to one to ten years, age of patient (whether less than or greater than age 60), gender, recalcitrant versus first time treatment, infected versus noninfected nonunions, fracture gaps up to 1cm, or weightbearing versus nonweightbearing. Ninety-seven fractures in 90 patients (90% follow-up) who averaged more than three hours of PEMF treatment daily and were originally classified as healed were reevaluated clinically and radiographically at four years following treatment (range: 3.6-5.4 years; mean: 4.1 years). Eighty-nine (92%) maintained a solid union. The success rate of PEMF treatment for nonunion repair demonstrated no statistically significant change over long-term follow-up.
A Sensor Signal Amplifier Resilient to EMI

The rising level of electromagnetic pollution recorded in recent years represents a serious threat to the reliability of electronic devices and systems, which our life is plenty of. Besides corrupting nominal signals, electromagnetic interference (EMI) collected by interconnects can drive active nonlinear devices, which integrated circuits are made of, out of their nominal operating region and this usually results in distortion of the signals. The most harmful effect of such a process is the generation of the baseband intermodulation products, i.e., demodulated EMI that can be distinguished from nominal signals unlikely. This point is addressed in the first part of this paper where the expression of the offset induced by the radio frequency interference in MOS differential pair is derived then used to show the effect of EMI in feedback operational amplifiers. Some techniques to obtain higher immunity levels are also presented. The second part of this paper focuses on low-offset low-noise amplifiers of common use in sensor signal conditioning circuits that usually show high susceptibility to EMI. Aiming to address this issue, a new technique based on the dynamic cancelation of EMI-induced errors is presented, and evidences of its effectiveness are provided showing simulation and measurement results.
Coupled convolution method for image processing

This paper develops a Coupled Convolution Model (CCM) for Error Concealment (EC), Image Super Resolution (ISR) and Multifocus Image Fusion (MIF) used in unmanned aerial vehicles. The key points of this paper are: i) for EC, to efficiently exploit the inherent correlation relationship between the lost region and its known adjacent region, this paper introduces a special CCM in order that their convolution model results via different convolution filters are close to the counterpart on the convolution space; ii) for ISR, we develop CCM to train two convolution filters and map the original low-resolution(LR) and high-resolution(HR) image patches onto a unified convolution subspace. iii) as for MIF, since image fusion depends on the local information of source images resulting from the same scene, this paper constructs a special Coupled Two-Dimensional Convolution Model (2D-CCM) for the image patches from different source images. Experimental results show that the proposed CCM is very effective for EC, ISR and MIF.
Optimization of internal electric connection system of large offshore wind farm with hybrid genetic and immune algorithm

This paper first presents development tendency and the importance of internal electric connection system of offshore wind farms. As internal electric connection system plays an important role in reliable operation of wind farm and holds considerable proportion in total investment, optimization of the system is one of the key problems in development of offshore wind farms. Based on analysis of main issues of the problem, optimization model is proposed and explained in this paper. An optimization approach based on hybrid genetic and immune algorithm is presented to search the optimal solution. The model and its solution method are then checked on a practical offshore wind farm near Shanghai, China. The results show that the optimization approach is suitable and valid.
Dosing time-dependent effect of trandolapril on the prevention of cardiac hypertrophy in rats with aortic banding.

Trandolapril was given to male Wistar rats with aortic banding at 10 AM or 10 PM for 6 weeks to examine the influence of dosing time on the development of left ventricular mass (LVM). Aortic banding increased the LVM compared with the sham-operated animals (P<0.01). Trandolapril (1 mg/kg) at 10 AM reduced LVM (1.74+/-0.04 [S.E.M.] mg/g) more than the dosing at 10 PM (1.92+/-0.04 mg/g, P<0.05), suggesting that trandolapril has a dosing time-dependent effect in the prevention of cardiac hypertrophy in rats with aortic banding.
Synthetic nanoparticles camouflaged with biomimetic erythrocyte membranes for reduced reticuloendothelial system uptake

Suppression of the reticuloendothelial system (RES) uptake is one of the most challenging tasks in nanomedicine. Coating stratagems using polymers, such as poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), have led to great success in this respect. Nevertheless, recent observations of immunological response toward these synthetic polymers have triggered a search for better alternatives. In this work, natural red blood cell (RBC) membranes are camouflaged on the surface of Fe3O4 nanoparticles for reducing the RES uptake. In vitro macrophage uptake, in vivo biodistribution and pharmacokinetic studies demonstrate that the RBC membrane is a superior alternative to the current gold standard PEG for nanoparticle ‘stealth’. Furthermore, we systematically investigate the in vivo potential toxicity of RBC membrane-coated nanoparticles by blood biochemistry, whole blood panel examination and histology analysis based on animal models. The combination of synthetic nanoparticles and natural cell membranes embodies a novel and biomimetic nanomaterial design strategy and presents a compelling property of functional materials for a broad range of biomedical applications.
Straight-line path following control of tractor-trailers with off-axle hitching and parameters uncertainties

In this work, we investigate the straight-line path following problem of tractor-trailers with off-axle hitching and parameter uncertainties. A sliding-mode variable structure and parameter adaptive controllers are proposed respectively achieving asymptotical stabilization of the tractor-trailers to the desired straight-line path in forward and backward manner despite unknown geometric parameters, while the linkage angle between the tractor and the trailer being kept bounded and convergent to zero. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.
AAPG Studies in Geology No. 50, (Section Title: Reservoir Permeability, Modeling, and Simulation Studies) Chapter 17: Three-Dimensional Architecture of Ancient Lower Delta-Plain Point Bars Using Ground-Penetrating Radar, Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone, Utah

Accurate three-dimensional description of reservoir architecture using outcrop analogs is hampered by limited exposure of essentially two-dimensional outcrops. This study contains the first fully three-dimensional description of ancient marine-influenced point bar sandstones of lower delta-plain distributary channels and is based on the integration of detailed outcrop and drill-hole data, and twoand three-dimensional ground-penetrating radar data. The studied outcrops are in the Cretaceous Ferron Sandstone of east-central Utah. Point bars deposited in marine-influenced, lower delta-plain channels show complex facies and geometries that resemble both fluvial point bars (upward-fining grain-size distribution and laterally stacked inclined bedsets), and tidally influenced point bars (extensive mud drapes on the inclined bedset surfaces and upstream migration of inclined bedsets). The bankfull width and mean bankfull depth were estimated at 225-150 m (738-492 ft) and at 3.9-5.2 m (12.8-17.1 ft), respectively. The heterogeneities in these point-bar deposits include mudstone drapes on the upper bounding surfaces of the inclined bedsets, and mudstone intraclast conglomerates lying on basal erosional scours of inclined bedsets. The spatial distribution of these heterogeneities is determined by direct mapping in outcrop in conjunction with modeling ground-penetrating radar amplitudes by geostatistical techniques. Mudstone layers are generally 5 m (16 ft) in length in the direction parallel to flow with a small percentage of mudstone layers 15 m (49 ft) in length, and 10 m (33 ft) perpendicular to flow, downdip along the inclined beds. The detailed distribution of heterogeneities inside reservoirs potentially affects flow behaviour.
Chronic pain‐induced emotional dysfunction is associated with astrogliosis due to cortical δ‐opioid receptor dysfunction

It has been widely recognized that chronic pain could cause physiological changes at supraspinal levels. The δ‐opioidergic system is involved in antinociception, emotionality, immune response and neuron‐glia communication. In this study, we show that mice with chronic pain exhibit anxiety‐like behavior and an increase of astrocytes in the cingulate cortex due to the dysfunction of cortical δ‐opioid receptor systems. Using neural stem cells cultured from the mouse embryonic forebrain, astrocyte differentiation was clearly observed following long‐term exposure to the selective δ‐opioid receptor antagonist, naltrindole. We also found that micro‐injection of either activated astrocyte or astrocyte‐conditioned medium into the cingulate cortex of mice aggravated the expression of anxiety‐like behavior. Our results indicate that the chronic pain process promotes astrogliosis in the cingulate cortex through the dysfunction of cortical δ‐opioid receptors. This phenomenon may lead to emotional disorders including aggravated anxiety under chronic pain‐like state.
Fast Scalable Reverse Time Migration Seismic Imaging on Blue Gene / P

We present an optimized Blue Gene implementation of Reverse Time Migration, a seismic imaging algorithm widely used in the petroleum industry today. Our implementation is novel in that it uses large communication bandwidth and low latency to convert an embarrassingly parallel problem into one that can be efficiently solved using massive domain partitioning. The success of this seemingly counterintuitive approach is the result of several key aspects of the imaging problem, including very regular and local communication patterns, balanced compute and communication requirements, scratch data handling, multiple-pass approaches, and most importantly, the fact that partitioning the problem allows each sub-problem to fit in cache, dramatically increasing locality and bandwidth and reducing latency. This approach can be easily extended to next-generation imaging algorithms currently being developed. In this paper we present details of our implementation, including application-scaling results on Blue Gene/P.
Öğrenmede Etkili Yollar: Öğrenme Stratejileri ve Öğretimi

Orenme stratejileri bireyin kendi kendisine orenmesi kolaylatiran yaklaimlardan her biridir. Orenme stratejileri yineleme, anlamlandirma, orgutleme, anlamayi izleme, duyusal stratejiler olarak siniflandirabilir. Okullarda orencilere belli disiplinlerin temel kavram ve ilkeleri oretilirken orenme stratejileri de oretilmelidir. lkoretimden balayarak oretimin her duzeyinde derslerde konunun gerektirdii orenme stratejilerinin oretimine yer verilmelidir.
THE DETERMINANTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF WORKPLACE SEX AND RACE COMPOSITION

▪ Abstract This chapter reviews research on the determinants and consequences of race and sex composition of organizations. Determinants include the composition of the qualified labor supply; employers' preferences, including the qualifications they require; the response of majority groups; and an establishment's attractiveness, size, and recruiting methods. The race and sex composition of an establishment affects workers' cross-group contact; stress, satisfaction, and turnover; cohesion; stereotyping; and evaluation. Composition also affects organizations themselves, including their performance, hiring and promotion practices, levels of job segregation, and wages and benefits. Theory-driven research is needed (a) on the causal mechanisms that underlie the relationships between organizational composition and its determinants and consequences and (b) on the form of the relationships between organizational composition and workers outcomes (e.g., cross-group contact, cohesion, turnover, etc). Research is nee.
The origin and liver repopulating capacity of murine oval cells

The appearance of bipotential oval cells in chronic liver injury suggests the existence of hepatocyte progenitor/stem cells. To study the origin and properties of this cell population, oval cell proliferation was induced in adult mouse liver by 3,5-diethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydrocollidine (DDC) and a method for their isolation was developed. Transplantation into fumarylacetoacetate hydrolase (Fah) deficient mice was used to determine their capacity for liver repopulation. In competitive repopulation experiments, hepatic oval cells were at least as efficient as mature hepatocytes in repopulating the liver. In mice with chimeric livers, the oval cells were not derived from hepatocytes but from liver nonparenchymal cells. This finding supports a model in which intrahepatic progenitors differentiate into hepatocytes irreversibly. To determine whether oval cells originated from stem cells residing in the bone marrow, bone marrow transplanted wild-type mice were treated with DDC for 8 months and oval cells were then serially transferred into Fah mutants. The liver repopulating cells in these secondary transplant recipients lacked the genetic markers of the original bone marrow donor. We conclude that hepatic oval cells do not originate in bone marrow but in the liver itself, and that they have valuable properties for therapeutic liver repopulation.
Complete Genome Sequence of Geobacillus thermoglucosidans TNO-09.020, a Thermophilic Sporeformer Associated with a Dairy-Processing Environment

ABSTRACT Thermophilic spore-forming bacteria are a common cause of contamination in dairy products. We isolated the thermophilic strain Geobacillus thermoglucosidans TNO-09.020 from a milk processing plant and report the complete genome of a dairy plant isolate consisting of a single chromosome of 3.75 Mb.
Outcome selection bias in meta-analysis

Publication bias has been previously identified as a threat to the validity of a meta-analysis. Recently, new evidence has documented an additional threat to validity, the selective reporting of trial outcomes within published studies. Several diseases have several possible measures of outcome. Some articles might report only a selection of those outcomes, perhaps those with statistically significant results. In this article, we review this problem while addressing the questions: what is within-study selective reporting? how common is it? why is it done? how can it mislead? how can it be detected? , and finally, what is the solution? We recommend that both publication bias and selective reporting should be routinely investigated in systematic reviews.
On the use of variable frame rate analysis in speech recognition

Changes in spectral characteristics are important cues for discriminating and identifying speech sounds. These changes can occur over very short time intervals. Computing frames every 10 ms, as commonly done in recognition systems, is not sufficient to capture such dynamic changes. In this paper, we propose a variable frame rate (VFR) algorithm. The algorithm results in an increased number of frames for rapidly-changing segments with relatively high energy and less frames for steady-state segments. The current implementation used an average data rate which is less than 100 frames per second. For an isolated word recognition task, and using an HMM-based speech recognition system, the proposed technique results in significant improvements in recognition accuracy especially at low signal-to-noise ratios. The technique was evaluated with mel frequency cepstral coefficient (MFCC) vectors and MFCC vectors with enhanced peak isolation.
Direct binding to and tyrosine phosphorylation of the alpha subunit of the type I interferon receptor by p135tyk2 tyrosine kinase

Binding of type I interferons (IFNs) to their receptors induces rapid tyrosine phosphorylation of multiple proteins, including the alpha and beta subunits of the receptor, the polypeptides that form the transcriptional activator ISGF3 alpha (Stat113, Stat84, and Stat91), and the p135tyk2 and Jak-1 tyrosine kinases. In this report, we demonstrate that the alpha subunit of the type I IFN receptor (IFN-R) corresponds to the product of a previously cloned receptor subunit cDNA and, further, that the p135tyk2 tyrosine kinase directly binds and tyrosine phosphorylates this receptor subunit. Glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins encoding the different regions of the cytoplasmic domain of the alpha subunit can bind the p135tyk2 contained in human cell lysates. The association between the alpha subunit and Tyk2 was demonstrated by immunoblotting with anti-Tyk2 and antiphosphotyrosine antibodies and by using an in vitro kinase assay. Analogous experiments were then performed with recombinant baculoviruses encoding constitutively active Jak family tyrosine kinases. In this case, p135tyk2, but not Jak-1 or Jak-2 protein, binds to the GST-IFN-R proteins, suggesting that the interaction between these two proteins is both direct and specific. We also demonstrate that Tyk2, from extracts of either IFN alpha-treated human cells or insect cells infected with the recombinant baculoviruses, can catalyze in vitro phosphorylation of GST-IFN-R protein in a specific manner. Deletion mutants of the GST-IFN-R protein were used to localize both the binding and tyrosine phosphorylation site(s) to a 46-amino-acid juxtamembrane region of the alpha subunit, which shows sequence homology to functionally similar regions of other cytokine receptor proteins. These data support the hypothesis that the Tyk2 protein functions as part of a receptor complex to initiate intracellular signaling in response to type I IFNs.
Corticostriatal connections of extrastriate visual areas in rhesus monkeys

The striatal connections of extrastriate visual areas were examined by the autoradiographic technique in rhesus monkeys. The medial as well as the dorsolateral extrastriate regions project preferentially to dorsal and lateral portions of the head and of the body of the caudate nucleus, as well as to the caudodorsal sector of the putamen. The rostral portion of the annectant gyrus has connections to the caudal sector of the body and to the genu, whereas projections from the caudal portion of the lower bank of the superior temporal sulcus are directed to dorsal and central sectors of the head and the body, to the genu and the tail, as well as to the caudal putamen. The ventrolateral extrastriate region is related mainly to the ventral sector of the body, to the genu and the tail, and to the caudal putamen. In contrast, the striatal projections of the ventromedial extrastriate cortex resemble those of the medial and dorsolateral regions. The caudal inferotemporal cortex is related strongly to the tail of the caudate nucleus and to the ventral putamen.
On ultra-low power hybrid NEMS-CMOS

In this paper we advocate the use of nano-electromechanical switches (NEMS) to eliminate static power consumption, and propose a dual-voltage hybrid NEMS-CMOS scheme to also reduce dynamic power consumption. The main idea is to use a smaller voltage to propagate information, and a larger voltage to drive the NEMS. CMOS amplifiers can be used to interface these two voltages. It follows that synthesizing gates with a large(r) number of inputs is beneficial, which matches very well the optimal NEMS circuit topology. Simulation results based on a particular 4-input Boolean function, show that significant power reductions can be expected when using such a hybrid design approach.
Evaluating the effect of soil moisture, surface temperature, and humidity variations on MODIS-derived NDVI values

The capability to observe soil moisture frequently and over large regions could significantly enhance our ability to monitor vegetation conditions over time and space. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effects of soil moisture, temperature, and humidity variations on vegetation conditions in the UAE. Visible and near-infrared channels of MODIS instrument on board of aqua satellite were used in this study. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was applied to map the extent of vegetation coverage. It was found in this study that the vegetation areas with NDVI values between 0 and 0.2 have significant correlation with average soil moisture, minimum humidity and maximum temperature and the humidity has the maximum effect on these vegetated areas. However, much lower correlation was found with high NDVI areas.