Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Ovariectomy and Ovariohysterectomy in Terms of Postoperative Pain Behavior and Surgical Stress in Dogs

This study was conducted to evaluate the clinical relevance and effectiveness of ovariectomy (OVE) and ovariohysterectomy (OVH) in terms of postoperative pain behavior and surgical stress. Thirteen healthy intact mongrel purpose-bred female dogs were used in this study. OVE was performed in six dogs whereas OVH was performed in seven dogs. Prior to, 1, 2, 4, 6, 12, and 24 h after surgery, pain assessment was performed by using the Short form of Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS-SF) and blood analysis for the determination of glucose, creatine kinase (CK), and cortisol were done. Also, surgical time, duration of anesthesia, and incision length were compared between two groups. As a result, OVH group as opposed to OVE group showed significantly longer in surgical time, duration of anesthesia, and incision length. Also, based on the two-way ANOVA test, the CMPS-SF had significant differences (p < 0.05) between two groups, with the OVE dogs having lower values at 1, 2, 4, and 6 h postoperatively. In addition, in terms of CK, the value at 1, 2, 4, 6, and 12 h were significantly (p < 0.05) increased from the baseline value for the OVH group. However, as for CK in OVE group, the values at 4, 6, and 12 h were significantly increased from the baseline value. As for blood glucose, a significant (p < 0.05) increase from the baseline was shown at 1 h postoperatively in OVH group and no significant increase was shown in OVE group. In terms of serum cortisol level, the values at the 1 and 2 h were significantly (p < 0.05) increased from the baseline value for both groups. In conclusion, our study has shown that OVE can be considered as a superior choice in terms of sterilization technique in female dogs, considering shorter incision length, surgical time, duration of anesthesia along with lower pain and surgical stress response than OVH.
A Rundown Through Various Methods Used in the Formulation of Solid Self-Emulsifying Drug Delivery Systems (S-SEDDS)

The most common route of the drug administration is oral route despite the fact that most drugs have low oral aqueous solubility and bioavailability especially for BCS class II and class IV drugs. Many methods have been developed in recent years to overcome the poor solubility and oral bioavailability which includes self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) as one of the approaches. Not only for hydrophobic drugs, but also for hydrophilic compounds with low permeability, bioavailability can be enhanced by self nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems. Recently, a lot of focus and attention has been put in the conversion of liquid SEDDS (L-SEDDS) to solid SEDDS (S-SEDDS) to overcome the limitations of liquid formulations related to their physical and chemical stability, portability, accurate dosing, and limited choices of dosage forms. This article aims to review the formulation components used in SEDDS, various approaches used in the conversion of L-SEDDS to S-SEDDS, their applications, merits, and demerits.
Segmentation of kidney using C-V model and anatomy priors

This paper presents an approach for kidney segmentation on abdominal CT images as the first step of a virtual reality surgery system. Segmentation for medical images is often challenging because of the objects' complicated anatomical structures, various gray levels, and unclear edges. A coarse to fine approach has been applied in the kidney segmentation using Chan-Vese model (C-V model) and anatomy prior knowledge. In pre-processing stage, the candidate kidney regions are located. Then C-V model formulated by level set method is applied in these smaller ROI, which can reduce the calculation complexity to a certain extent. At last, after some mathematical morphology procedures, the specified kidney structures have been extracted interactively with prior knowledge. The satisfying results on abdominal CT series show that the proposed approach keeps all the advantages of C-V model and overcome its disadvantages.
Teaching methods used in primary care

Different teaching methods are used for different levels of learning. Some methods involve the learner taking a more active role in patient management that would be more applicable for postgraduate teaching while others pertain to a more passive involvement that would be employed in undergraduate teaching. No method is exclusively linked to any particular level and a particular teaching method is selected according to the learnersâ�� needs and educational objectives. Common teaching methods used in primary care are discussed below, and the advantages and disadvantages of these methods are summarised in Table 1.
Gene Therapy Outcomes in Experimental Models of Inflammatory Arthritis

During the past decade the development of medical therapies for the treatment of the inflammatory arthopathies such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) was revolutionized by the development of disease modifying anti-rheumatic biological drugs (DMARBDs) (Ŝenolt et al., 2009). DMARBDs were first discovered to be effective by altering intracellular signaling pathways and those gene expressional events that have proven to be relevant to RA pathogenesis and progression through the use of experimental studies in pre-clinical in vitro testing systems (Malemud, 2010; Malemud & Miller, 2008, Malemud & Pearlman, 2009; Marone et al., 2008; Walker et al., 2006). Those DMARBDs that appeared to have significant modifying effects on immune deregulation were then shown to ameliorate arthritis by virtue of their capacity to delay the onset or reducing the severity of inflammatory arthritis in several well-validated small animal models of RA (Feely et al., 2009). Finally, those DMARBDs which proved to have disease-modifying effects in rodent models of RA were then assessed for their efficacy, tolerability and safety in human RA clinical trials (Gibbons & Hyrich, 2009). Those successful DMARBDs are now fully incorporated into RA treatment regimens in the clinical practice setting.
Recurrent Neural Networks with the Soft 'Winner Takes All' Principle Applied to the Traveling Salesman Problem

This work shows the application of Wang’s Recurrent Neural Network with the "Winner Takes All" (WTA) principle to solve the classic Operational Research problem called the Traveling Salesman Problem. The upgrade version proposed in this work for the ‘Winner Takes All’ principle is called soft, because the winning neuron is updated with only part of the activation values of the other competing neurons. The problems in the TSPLIB (Traveling Salesman Problem Library Reinelt, 1991) were used to compare the soft version with the ‘Winner Takes All’ hard version and they show improvement in the results using the 'Winner Takes All' soft version in most of the problems tested. The implementation of the technique proposed in this paper uses the parameters of Wang‘s Neural Network for the Assignment problem (Wang, 1992; Hung & Wang, 2003) using the ’Winner Takes All' principle to form Hamiltonian circuits (Siqueira et al. 2007) and can be used for both symmetric and asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problems. The 2-opt technique is used to improve the routes found with the proposed Neural Network, thus becoming a technique that is competitive to other Neural Networks. Other heuristic techniques have been developed recently to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, and the work of Misevicius et al. (2005) shows the use of the ITS (Iterated Tabu Search) technique with a combination of intensification and diversification of solutions for the TSP. This technique is combined with the 5-opt and errors are almost zero in almost all of the TSPLIB problems tested. The work of Wang et al. (2007) shows the use of Particle Swarm to solve the TSP with the use of the fraction (quantum) principle to better guide the search for solutions. The authors make comparisons with Hill Climbing, Simulated Annealing and Tabu Search, and show in a 14-cities case that the results are better than those of the other techniques. In the area of Artificial Neural Networks, an interesting technique can be found in the work of Massutti & Castro (2009), who use a mechanism to stabilize winning neurons and the centroids of the groups of cities for the growing and pruning the network. The authors show modifications in the Rabnet’s (real-valued antibody network) parameters for the Traveling Salesman Problem and comparisons made with TSPLIB problems solved by other techniques show that the Rabnet has better results.
new electrobiochemical reactor for removal of Selenium, arsenic, and nitrate

extraction and processing of minerals, metals, and fossil fuels can release various metals, including selenium and arsenic, and nitrates into wastewaters that can be costly and difficult to treat to levels meeting current drinking water and/or discharge criteria. A new electrobiochemical reactor (eBR) takes advantage of the eh and pH behavior of contaminants using low voltage to lower oxidation reduction potentials (oRP), augment microbial transformations to achieve better contaminant removal, utilize fewer nutrients, and allow smaller, more robust treatment systems.
The Workshop Programme Multimodal Corpora: Models Of Human Behaviour For The Specification And Evaluation Of Multimodal Input And Output Interfaces Tuesday 25th May 2004

We present our multimedia Visualization for Situated Temporal Analysis (VisSTA) system that facilitates analysis of multi-modal human communication incorporating video, audio, speech transcriptions, and coded multimodal (e.g. gesture and gaze) data. VisSTA is based on the Multiple Linked Representation strategy and keeps the user temporally situated by ensuring tight linkage among all representational components. The system features multiple representations, which include a hierarchical video-shot organization, a variety of animated graphs, animated multi-tier text transcripts, and an avatar representation. VisSTA is a multivideo system permitting simultaneous playing of multiple synchronized video streams that are time-locked to other data components. An integrated observation database system is included in VisSTA for storing the results of data analysis.
Personalizing Query Refinement Based on Latent Tasks

Search tasks, comprising a series of search queries representing the similar information need, have been accepted as atomic units of modeling users’ search intensions. However, most studies on user search tasks focus on applying user interests in personalizing search results, and few have examined the performance of applying search tasks to optimize the ranking list of candidate queries generated by query refinement. Moreover, few of the existing studies has examined the dynamic characteristics of user search task and user interests within a search task. This paper proposes a method for user profiling which addresses the two issues above. Our approach uses a four-descriptor model to represent long-term and short-term user interests extracted from search sessions within a search task. Then a graphical model is proposed to improve the rankings of the candidate queries for query refinement to assess the task dependency via exploiting a latent task space. Experimental results show that the proposed user-profiling method contributes to an increased precision of search results, and it produces more accurate refined queries, thereby potentially resulting in shorter search sessions.
Trichoderma asperellum , Identified as a Novel Fungal Biocontrol Agent for the Control of Plant Pathogen

Twenty isolates of biocontrol Trichoderma species were isolated from rhizosphere soils of different host plants in various locations of Tamil Nadu, India. Of which, TTH1 exhibited better inhibition (64.4%) of mycelial growth of the pathogen, S. rolfsii followed by TV 1 (60%) and TED 1 (60%) under in vitro conditions. These three isolates were further tested for their chitinase activity on agarose gel amended with chitin. TTH 1 produced more integrated dense value (IDV) of 105015 on agarose gel followed by TV 1 (96385) and TED 1 (77487) isolates. It indicated that TTH 1 produced more chitinase to degrade the cell wall of pathogen while tested in dual plate technique. The ITS1 to ITS2 region of TTH 1 isolate was amplified and compared with nucleotide sequences from the GenBank database after sequencing. UPGMA tree was constructed using CULSTAL X 1.81 for their similarity. Finally it was confirmed as Trichoderma asperellum. Keywords—Anatagonistic potential, chitinase, plant pathogen, Trichoderma asperellum Trichoderma isolates
The Hardware Design and Implementation of a Key Exchange Protocol for Low-cost IoT Devices

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which was enforced in May 2018 clearly stated that the protection of data by organizations is a mandatory task. Protecting or securing data on data collecting and sensing devices used in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform is a challenge for the fact that the devices are resource-constrained in terms of operation frequency, hardware area, computational complexity, and power consumption. The first step to securing data on low-cost IoT devices is to generate keys for subsequent encryption and authentication. This paper, therefore, proposes and implements a lightweight key exchange protocol with the capability of authenticating the generated key without the need for public-key cryptography. The protocol is meant to be simple and make use of minimal hardware resources. It uses components such as the pseudorandom number and bit generators, dot product, XOR gates, shift registers and basic logic gates making it very resource-efficient. The hardware architecture of the protocol was implemented using Verilog Hardware Description Language (HDL) and synthesized using Xilinx ISE 14.7 software which includes XPower Analyzer for power estimation. The protocol was tested on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) board with a synthesizable Reduced Instruction Set Computer Five (RISC-V) processor core. The synthesis and simulation results which include area, maximum frequency, latency, and power consumption show that the protocol is suitable for IoT low-cost devices as compared to standard public-key primitives.
WST 48.10 ROM 17 corr

Legislation to control abstraction of water in Scotland is limited and for purposes such as irrigation there are no restrictions in place over most of the country. This situation is set to change with implementation of the European Water Framework Directive. As a first step towards the development of appropriate policy for irrigation control there is a need to assess the current scale of irrigation practices in Scotland. This paper presents a modelling approach that has been used to quantify spatially the volume of water abstractions across the country for irrigation of potato crops under typical climatic conditions. A water balance model was developed to calculate soil moisture deficits and identify the potential need for irrigation. The results were then combined with spatial data on potato cropping and integrated to the sub-catchment scale to identify the river systems most at risk from over-abstraction. The results highlight that the areas that have greatest need for irrigation of potatoes are all concentrated in the central east-coast area of Scotland. The difference between irrigation demand in wet and dry years is very significant, although spatial patterns of the distribution are similar.
Early prediction of hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy in newborn infants in a resource-limited setting

97 Main text . 98 References . 107 Chapter 6 Early clinical signs in newborn infants with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy predict and abnormal amplitude-integrated EEG at age 6 hours . 110 Details of the publication and author contributions . 110 Abstract . 111.111 Main text . 113 References . 133 Chapter 7 Early clinical predictors of a severely abnormal amplitudeintegrated electroencephalogram at 48 hours in cooled neonates with hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy . 136 Details of the publication and author contributions . 136 Abstract . 137 Main text . 138 References . 152 Un ive rsi ty of Ca pe To wn viii Chapter 8 Discussion and conclusions . 155 8.1 Study endpoints and applicability . 155 8.1. 1 A systematic review of early clinical or serum predictors of moderate-severe encephalopathy . 155 8.1. 2 Defining HIE and benchmarking in a South African population . 156 8.1. 3 Evaluating a simple method of neuroprotective hypothermia . 158 8.1. 4 Early clinical signs predicting an abnormal aEEG at age 6 hours . 158 8.1. 5 Early clinical signs predicting death or a severely abnormal aEEG at 48 hours in cooled infants . 160 8.2 Limitations . 161 8.2. 1 A systematic review of early clinical or serum predictors of moderate-severe encephalopathy . 161 8.2. 2 Defining HIE and benchmarking in a South African population . 161 8.2. 3 Evaluating a simple method of neuroprotective hypothermia . 161 8.2. 4 Early clinical signs predicting an abnormal aEEG at age 6 hours . 162 8.2. 5 Early clinical signs predicting death or a severely abnormal aEEG at 48 hours in cooled infants . 163 8.3 Further research . 164 8.3. 1 Predictors of moderate-severe encephalopathy . 164 8.3. 2 Epidemiology and definitions of HIE . 164 8.3. 3 Cooling methods . 165 8.3. 4 Predicting outcomes using the Thompson score . 166 8.4 Final conclusions . 167 8.5 References . 168 Un ive rsi ty of Ca pe To wn ix Appendices Appendix A Data capture form for retrospective folder review . 174 Appendix B Consent and information form: evaluating a simple method of hypothermia.176 Appendix C Data sheet: cooling method evaluation.178 Appendix D Parental information and consent form: aEEG study . 184 Appendix E Data sheet: aEEG and early clinical signs study . 185
Reconstructing historical exposures to elongate mineral particles (EMPs) in the taconite mining industry for 1955–2010

Abstract As part of ongoing epidemiological studies for assessing the association between exposure to dust from taconite operations and the development of respiratory diseases, the goal of this study was to reconstruct the exposures of workers to elongate mineral particle (EMP) in the Minnesota taconite mining industry from 1955–2010. Historical NIOSH-7400 and equivalent EMP personal exposure data were extracted from two sources: (1) the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) online database recorded for all inspection results since 1978 with 655 EMP monitoring records from 1978–2010 for 13 MSHA Mine IDs associated with this study; and (2) the mining companies’ internal monitoring reports contained 96 personal EMP exposure records. NIOSH-7400 EMP personal exposures were measured for workers in different jobs in all active mines in 2010 by obtaining 1,285 personal samples. After data treatment, all data were grouped into seven mines and eight departments. Within each mine-department, the yearly EMP mean concentration in f/cc for each year of operation was predicted using two approaches. The performance of two approaches varied by situation. The assumptions underlying each approach described in this article have limitations. A linear regression based on limited historical measurements and those made in 2010–2011 (Approach 1) does not yield reasonable and plausible values of the slope. Approach 2 assumes that the EMP and the respirable dust in the same department share the same historical time trend. This approach allowed us to avail of the more reasonable slope estimates from the historical respirable dust data set and yielded more plausible historical exposure estimates for most locations. This work with two different job exposure matrix (JEMs) provides a unique research opportunity to study the potential impact of exposure assessment to epidemiological results. Both JEMs are being used to assess associations between EMP and respiratory disease in epidemiological studies.
Factors influencing physical inactivity among adults in Negeri Sembilan, Peninsular Malaysia.

BACKGROUND Physical inactivity remains the most important modifiable risk factor in preventing a variety of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and has been identified to be a risk factor for obesity, heart disease and cancers. This study examined the prevalence and factors associated with physical inactivity among the suburban adult population in Port Dickson district, Negeri Sembilan, Peninsular Malaysia. MATERIAL AND METHODS This was a community based crosssectional study involving 397 adult respondents conducted in February 2016. Data was collected by face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire. Data regarding socio-demographic factors (age, gender, ethnicity, education level, marital status and monthly income, working hours), current behavioural stage of physical activity and perceived benefits and barriers to physical activity were collected. Physical activity measured using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) with the cut-off point of less than 600 met-min per week was considered to be physically inactive. RESULTS The prevalence of physical inactivity among adult population was 36.3%. Factors significantly associated with physical inactivity included age, gender, marital status, working hours and current behavioural stage of physical activity. CONCLUSION Physical inactivity is high among the adult community in Negeri Sembilan district, Peninsular Malaysia and was strongly associated with age, gender, marital status, working hours and current behavioural stage of physical activity. It is important to identify individuals with physical inactivity and its associated factors early as this could severely affect the quality of life of the individuals.
A case report on crossed aphasia in dextrals

Abstract Rationale: The term crossed aphasia in dextrals (CAD) describes aphasia following a right hemisphere lesion in right-handed subjects. The diagnostic criteria for CAD, defined on the basis of clinical cases observed over the years, are aphasia; lesion in right hemisphere; strong preference for right hand use without familial history of left handedness; structural integrity of left hemisphere; and absence of brain damage in childhood. The studies of CAD have mainly been focused on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the functional neurocognitive lateralization and organization of the brain, such as a dissociation between language and handedness, language and praxis, or other cognitive functions. Patient concerns: We described a case of a patient affected by an aphasic syndrome following cerebral hemorrhage located in right hemisphere. Diagnosis: Considering the correlation between clinical data and instrumental investigations such as magnetic resonance imaging, we diagnose the patient with non-fluent aphasia. Specifically, the patient came to our attention showing a trans-cortical mixed aphasia that, later, developed in a trans-cortical motor aphasia. Contrary to most cases of CAD, our patient does not show apraxia and visuo-spatial neglect. Interventions language and visual attention when latter functions are related to right hemisphere. Interventions: The rehabilitation program consisted in exercises stimulating verbal fluency, comprehension, reading, and writing. Outcomes: After 5 months of rehabilitation patient showed significant improvement in comprehension and absence of echolalia. Lessons: At present there is no agreement about pathogenesis of CAD and neural mechanism is still unclear. Considering the clinical symptomatology, we can argue that we observed a non-fluent aphasia. However, a more large sample should be studied to asses the role of brain circuits.