Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
O-5 Amikacin disposition and dosing recommendations in neonates with perinatal asphyxia treated with therapeutic hypothermia (amicool study)

Background Aminoglycosides are administered to treat (suspected) neonatal sepsis. The pharmacokinetics (PK) of this antibiotic class are expected to be different in neonates with perinatal asphyxia (PA) treated with therapeutic hypothermia (TH). Effective exposure of the aminoglycoside amikacin in neonates is achieved using a prospectively validated population PK mod-el-derived dosing regimen.1 However, dosing adjust-ments in case of PA with TH are lacking. The aim of the current (AMICOOL) study was to further explore amikacin disposition in neonates by quantifying the impact of PA treated with TH on amikacin clearance and to provide dosing recommendations for this specific patient population. Methods Amikacin therapeutic drug monitoring data were retrospectively collected from term neonates with PA treated with TH and admitted to the neonatal inten-sive care units of VUmc Amsterdam and the University Hospitals Leuven between 2010–2015. Data were added to the original published amikacin population PK dataset.2 A data-driven covariate analysis was performed to assess the impact of PA treated with TH on amikacin clearance. Monte Carlo simulations facilitated the comparison of simulated amikacin exposures using the current dosing guidelines.1 and proposed dosing adaptations for PA treated with TH. We hereby aimed to achieve optimal amikacin trough (<5 mg/L) and peak (>24 mg/L) levels. Stochastic simulations were used to investigate the differ-ences in exposure among typical neonates with PA and TH with varying birth weights (1965–4220 g). Results Data of 55 neonates with PA treated with TH were added to the original amikacin population PK dataset of 930 neonates.2 A 40.6% (RSE 9%) decrease in amikacin clearance for neonates with PA with TH was documented. Based on Monte Carlo simulations, the current dosing guidelines resulted in 40%–57% of neonates with PA and TH displaying amikacin trough concentrations above the toxic trough level (>5 mg/L), while an additional increase of the dosing interval with 12 hours decreased this percentage to 14%. Stochastic simulations showed that among typical neonates the percentage of patients with trough concentrations>5 mg/L ranges 14% to 25%. Conclusion In neonates with perinatal asphyxia treated with therapeutic hypothermia, amikacin clearance is reduced with 40.6%. Based on simulations, an additional prolongation of the dosing interval with 12 hours results in optimised amikacin exposure and reduces toxicity in this specific population. As a future perspective, the model-based dosing proposal needs prospective validation. Since amikacin can be used as a surrogate for glomerular filtration, clearance of other drugs using the same elimination route could also be reduced in case of perinatal asphyxia treated with therapeutic hypothermia and may require further dosing adaptations.
Utilizing Facial Recognition Software to Record Classroom Attendance

Facial recognition software offers many opportunities for educators, especially in regards to recording classroom attendance. With so much time lost in the classroom each day, utilizing facial recognition software allows professors to reclaim that lost time, and, therefore, accomplish more in the classroom. In practice, this technology is relatively new. Within the past few decades advancements have been made to introduce facial recognition techniques to the general public. The majority of the research has been initiated by the intelligence community to track persons of interest. However, these practices have become common with various businesses and even churches. Corporations, such as Amazon and Microsoft, have taken this opportunity to provide customers with access to servers and APIs that allow individuals to incorporate facial recognition software in their own personal lives or for their businesses. There are also those who have elected to create their own facial recognition programs by using libraries, such as OpenCV. Combining the latter method with proper software process procedures has produced a program that is intended to aid professors in the classroom in regards to recording classroom attendance. Because of the litany of tools and libraries required to use facial recognition software, operating these programs within a separate preconfigured virtual environment is likely the best practice. Ubuntu has proven to be the best choice thus far. Using a process most similar to Scrum, this software was developed by utilizing multiple iterations in the form of weekly sprints. After detailing the creation of this software and validating that the solution works as expected, one should gain insight into the inner workings of facial recognition software. The result should fill the needs of school faculty and allow for future researchers to further optimize this technology to enhance its performance and efficiency.
Design and implementation of 802.11 control API and experimental evaluation of channel selection algorithms

This thesis presents design and implementation of an HTTP based control API on top of the 802.11 software access point(hostapd) along with experimental evaluation of channel coordination algorithms using the framework developed. The hostapd cli, a front end program to interact with hostapd is modiﬁed to control the channel via HTTP interface through CSA(Channel Switch Announcement) commands. The time taken to switch the channel through this framework is studied experimentally. The API is then used to enable experimental evaluation of radio resource management algorithms running on a central controller. The control framework has been implemented on the ORBIT testbed using a set of 802.11 nodes with speciﬁed topology controlled by a logically centralized algorithm running on a server machine. The setup is used to study candidate channel assignment algorithms in terms of metrics such as total system throughput. Throughput analysis for diﬀerent channel coordination algorithms was carried out using iperf to compare their performance. The performance of WiFi Automatic Channel Selection(ACS), a survey based channel selection algorithm, is compared with alternative graph coloring algorithms including HSum and HMinMax. The
The electronic library: a review

A number of distinct types of “electronic library” now exist. The term has shed the vagueness with which it has been used in the past. Moreover, certain forms of electronic library service will prove more effective and durable than others. The most successful form of electronic library will reproduce the functionality of the traditional library, but must also fully exploit the unique features of electronic information provision.
Computation of 2-D spectra assisted by compressed sampling

The computation of scientific data can be very time consuming even if they are ultimately determined by a small number of parameters. The principle of compressed sampling suggests that we can achieve a considerable decrease in the computation time by avoiding the need to sample the full data set. We demonstrate the usefulness of this approach at the hand of 2-D spectra in the context of ultra-fast non-linear spectroscopy of biological systems where numerical calculations are highly challenging due to the considerable computational effort involved in obtaining individual data points.
Regulation of DNA repair in response to oxidative stress in human cells

Discovering more about maintenance of DNA integrity, despite its continual exposure to both endogenous and exogenous damaging agents is essential. The research presented in this thesis examined the regulation of DNA repair pathways in response to agents shown to induce oxidative stress and oxidative damage to cellular DNA in human dermal fibroblasts. Noncytotoxic doses of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), UVB irradiation, hypochlorite (HOC1) and vitamin C were established. Measurement o f base excision repair (BER) and nucleotide excision repair (NER) factors using a ribonuclease protection assay showed little modulation of gene transcript levels in response to treatment with H2O2 , UVB, HOC1 or vitamin C. Significant changes in protein expression of the BER factors 8-oxoguanine glycosylase (hOGGl) and human apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease (hAPE) and o f the NER factors human homologue of Rad23 (hHR23B) and Xeroderma pigmentosum protein A (XPA) in response to oxidative stress were not observed. Likewise, significant changes in endonuclease nicking activity (measured as the excision activity at a known site of oxidative DNA damage) were not observed. Studies in MCF-7, MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436, MDA-MB-231, T47-D, ZR-75.1 and HBL-100 human breast cancer cell lines revealed significantly elevated endonuclease nicking activity in the MDA-MB-436 cell line compared to human dermal fibroblasts. In contrast to the other breast cancer cell lines under investigation, MDA-MB-436 cells were found to have a relatively low gene expression o f the nucleotide pool sanitiser, human MutT homologue (hMTHl). The other breast cancer cell lines possessed increased gene expression of hMTHl relative to dermal fibroblasts, which may be as a response to increased oxidative stress generated as a consequence of the carcinogenesis process. In conclusion, regulation of DNA repair pathways in response to oxidative stress may be an important consequence in the carcinogenesis process. hMTHl expression and endonuclease nicking activity may provide useful tools for investigations into carcinogenesis in the future.
Diagnosis and prognosis of degradation in lithium-ion batteries

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the most popular energy storage technology in consumer electronics and electric vehicles and are increasingly applied in stationary storage systems. Yet, concerns about safety and reliability remain major obstacles, which must be addressed in order to improve the acceptance of this technology. The gradual degradation of Li-ion cells over time lies at the heart of this problem. Time, usage and environmental conditions lead to performance deterioration and cell failures, which, in rare cases, can be catastrophic due to res or explosions. The physical and chemical mechanisms responsible for degradation are numerous, complex and interdependent. Our understanding of degradation and failure of Li-ion cells is still very limited and more limited yet are reliable and practical methods for the detection and prediction of these phenomena. This thesis presents a comprehensive approach for the diagnosis and prognosis of degradation in Li-ion cells. The key to this approach is the extraction of information on electrode-speci c degradation through open circuit voltage (OCV) measurements. This is achieved in three stages. Firstly, a parametric OCV model is created, which computes the OCV of each electrode. Secondly, a diagnostic algorithm is devised, through which the OCV model is tted to OCV measurements recorded on Li-ion cells at various stages throughout their cycle life. The algorithm identi es the nature and quanti es the extent of degradation experienced by the cells. Lastly, the outputs of the algorithm are used to identify the likely failure modes of the cells and predict their end-of-life. The presented methods improve safe operation and predictions of remaining useful cycle life for commercial Li-ion cells. Greater certainty about the reliability, safety, required maintenance and depreciation of Li-ion battery systems can signi cantly enhance the competitiveness of battery electric storage in both automotive and stationary applications. The ndings presented in this work are therefore not only of technological but also of commercial interest.
Improvement of extended Kalman filter based on multi-innovation theory

Because of the low estimation accuracy of normal extended Kalman filter( EKF) in strong nonlinear system,this paper developed an improved extended Kalman filter( MI-EKF) to solve the problem,and it improved the filtering accuracy greatly. It proposed MI-EKF by combining multi-innovation theory and the standard EKF. MI-EKF had better precision and stability,because MI-EKF considered not only the current measured value,but also gave full consideration to the time before state of motion. Finally,it discussed the impact of algorithm precision which included different numbers of innovations. Simulation results show that the improved algorithm MI-EKF included two innovations is optimal.
Parallel Mining of Large Dataset in Hadoop Distributed Computing Framework

Based on Hadoop distributed computing framework,propose a parallel algorithm for mining the large dataset. The presented algorithm divides the original large non-structured dataset and large middle result files into several smaller-scale data blocks by vertical partitioning pattern in order to ensure the completeness of the frequent item set. The algorithm can reduce the size of the data to be stored in each computing node and decrease the execution times that each computing node calculates the intersection operations by distributing the data blocks to the computing nodes to parallel mining in Hadoop distributed computing environment,and it can improve the efficiency of parallel mining. The experimental results show that the presented parallel mining algorithm can solve the problem that the mining large dataset will generate large amount of data communication and large number of operations for calculating intersection,and it is efficient and scalable.
Diabetes impairs the microglial response to cerebral microbleeds

Approximately 7 – 9 % of the population is living with some form of diabetes. When poorly controlled (which is often the case), this disease is associated with cerebrovascular pathology such as microbleeds and impairments in cognitive function. The presence and burden of microbleeds in the brain has been strongly linked with cognitive decline and increased risk of dementia. Microglia, the resident immune cells of the central nervous system, dynamically respond to vascular insults by extending their processes to the site of injury. The rapid actions of microglia are thought to play a beneficial role in vascular repair since inhibiting these responses can exacerbate injury. Here, we hypothesized that diabetes, especially if not well controlled with insulin, will disrupt microglia responses to damaged microvessels in the brain which will lead to increased plasma leakage from damaged microvessels. Using two-photon in vivo imaging, we show that chronic hyperglycemia in the streptozotocin model of type one diabetes leads to decreased microglial process accumulation around the site of microvascular injury and increased permeability of fluorescent dyes from the damaged vessel 30 minutes after induction of the bleed. Importantly, this impaired microglial and vascular response could be partially mitigated with tight control of blood glucose levels with insulin. These results indicate that chronic hyperglycemia disrupts microglial based repair of damaged microvessels, which may help explain why poorly controlled diabetes is associated with greater a risk of cerebrovascular dysfunction and cognitive decline.
An Empirical Study of Metric-Based Methods to Detect Obfuscated Code

Protecting data and applications from malware and other forms of malicious code has assumed a great relevance in the current era of pervasive web-based applications. Attackers often use code obfuscation to hide harmful programs from automatic detection. Several researchers have proposed methods to classify an unknown program as malicious or benign; however, little work has been done to identify obfuscated code. A promising approach to detect obfuscated code consists of using a set of metrics, collected by static analysis, to classify a program. In this paper we present an empirical evaluation of three text-based metrics to identify obfuscated code. Our experiment shows that the effectiveness of these metrics depends on the obfuscators: there are cases in which the metrics allow the proliferation of false positives (i.e., misclassification of clear code as obfuscated code), which is bothering but not dangerous, and cases where false negatives (i.e. misclassification of obfuscated as clear code) proliferate, which is definitely more dangerous. Based on our experiment, we propose a combination of these three metrics and show how this combination outperforms the individual metrics.
Examining standardised XML validation methods against an industry vocabulary: improvement of XLIFF 2 roundtrip workflows through effective schema design

The concept of automation has dramatically changed after the machine-to-machine communication was established in mid 20th century and Information Systems were enabled to form networks and exchange data. Like any form of communication, protocols (standards) are an essential part of such networks and compatibility with the defined protocol is the most fundamental requirement for facilitating an effective exchange environ-
Controversial Issues in Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson's Disease

Since 1992, the application of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation (STN-DBS) for Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been shown to induce dramatic and stable long-term improvement of patients’ motor symptoms. However, some of the motor symptoms, and most of the non-motor symptoms, may not be improved by STN-DBS; in fact, they may deteriorate after surgery. Even after the successful introduction of STN-DBS as a treatment for PD, controversy still exists over a variety of issues: patient selection criteria, the anatomical target such as STN or globus pallidus (GPi), targeting methods (MRI alone, CT scan with image fusion, or ventriculography), microelectrode recordings (yes/no), and anesthetic procedures (awake with sedative or under general anesthesia). In this chapter we will discuss these controversial issues by integrating our experience with a review of the literature.
High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation of benign thyroid nodule is safe and efficacious in patients who continue taking an anti-coagulation or anti-platelet agent in the treatment period

Abstract Background: High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation is a promising treatment for benign thyroid nodules but because bleeding complications can occur following any intervention to the thyroid gland, the safety and efficacy of HIFU ablation were evaluated in patients who continued taking an anti-coagulation or anti-platelet agent during treatment. Methods: From 2015 to 2017, 303 patients who underwent a single-session ablation for a benign thyroid nodule were analyzed. The primary study endpoint was thyroid bleeding, intra-lesional or peri-thyroidal hematoma or neck bruising diagnosed within 4 days of the treatment. Other endpoints included treatment-related complications, extent of nodule shrinkage and symptom score. Nodule volume was estimated by ultrasound. Extent of nodule shrinkage (by volume reduction ratio) (VRR)= [Baseline volume – volume at 6-month]/[Baseline volume] × 100. Obstructive symptom score (by 0– 10 visual analog scale, VAS) was evaluated after treatment. Results: Twelve patients continued taking an anti-coagulation or anti-platelet agent while the other 291 patients did not during treatment. No patients in either group suffered active thyroid bleeding, intralesional/pericapsular hematoma or subcutaneous neck bruising in the first 4 days of treatment. Complication rate and the 6-month VRR were comparable between the two groups (0.0% vs. 1.7%, p = 1.000 and 55.96% vs. 61.29%, respectively, p = .073). Conclusions: HIFU ablation is a feasible treatment in patients who continue to take an anti-coagulation or anti-platelet agent during treatment and might be preferable in patients who continuously require an anti-coagulation or anti-platelet agent for one reason or another during treatment.
Osteoporosis in Thalassemia Major

last two decades the survival of the patients has improved considerably and osteoporosis has become a serious burden. Genetic and acquired factors play role in bone demineralization and osteoporosis is the most common involvement in the skeletal system. It is seen in %40-50 of Thalassemia major patients, even in well-treated ones. Therefore regular screening and preventive interventions are important in these patients. In addition to blood transfusions and iron chelation therapy; hormonal replacement therapy, calcium and vitamin D supplementation; antiresorptive drugs like bisphosphonates are used to inhibit osteoclast function.In this review, an overview of osteoporos is and its treatment modalities in patients with Thalassemia major are presented. (Turkish Journal of Osteoporosis 2012;18: 89-91)
An Introduction to ATLAS Pixel Detector DAQ and Calibration Software Based on a Year's Work at CERN for the Upgrade from 8 to 13 TeV

An overview is presented of the ATLAS pixel detector Data Acquisition (DAQ) system obtained by the author during a year-long opportunity to work on calibration software for the 2015-16 Layer-2 upgrade. It is hoped the document will function more generally as an easy entry point for future work on ATLAS pixel detector calibration systems. To begin with, the overall place of ATLAS pixel DAQ within the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the purpose of the Layer-2 upgrade and the fundamentals of pixel calibration are outlined. This is followed by a brief look at the high level structure and key features of the calibration software. The paper concludes by discussing some difficulties encountered in the upgrade project and how these led to unforeseen alternative enhancements, such as development of calibration “simulation” software allowing the soundness of the ongoing upgrade work to be verified while not all of the actual readout hardware was available for the most comprehensive testing.