Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integration of silicon etched waveguides with MCM-D for V- and W-band

This paper describes the design, analysis and realization of a fully planar transition from stripline to silicon waveguide. The trapezoidal waveguide is wet etched in silicon and bonded to an MCM-D structure containing the transition. The transition consists of a stripline ending in a resonating rectangular BCB cavity. Power is fed from this cavity to the waveguide through a slot in the bottom plane of the waveguide which is formed on the top metallization of the MCM-D structure. Transitions were designed at 60 GHz and 100 GHz. The simulated insertion loss of the transition is 1.1 dB at 60 GHz and 1 dB at 100 GHz. The transition bandwidths are 10.8% and 9.1%, respectively.
β/γ Oscillatory Activity in the CA3 Hippocampal Area is Depressed by Aberrant GABAergic Transmission from the Dentate Gyrus after Seizures

Oscillatory activity in the CA3 region is thought to be involved in the encoding and retrieval of information. These oscillations originate from the recurrent excitation between pyramidal cells that are entrained by the synchronous rhythmic inhibition of local interneurons. We show here that, after seizures, the dentate gyrus (DG) tonically inhibits β/γ (20–24 Hz) field oscillations in the CA3 area through GABA-mediated signaling. These oscillations originate in the interneuron network because they are maintained in the presence of ionotropic glutamate receptor antagonists, and they can be blocked by GABAA receptor antagonists or by perfusion of a calcium-free extracellular medium. Inhibition of this oscillatory activity requires intact DG-to-CA3 connections, and it is suppressed by the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluR). The influence of mGluR activation was reflected in the spontaneous subthreshold membrane oscillations of CA3 interneurons after one seizure but could also be observed in pyramidal cells after several seizures. Coincident stimulation of the DG at θ and β/γ frequencies produced a frequency-dependent excitation of interneurons and the inhibition of pyramidal cells. Indeed, these effects were maximal at the frequency that matched the mGluR-sensitive spontaneous field oscillations, suggesting a resonance phenomenon. Our results shed light on the mechanisms that may underlie the deficits in memory and cognition observed after epileptic seizures.
Reoperations After Lumbar Disc Surgery: A Population-Based Study of Regional and Interspecialty Variations

Study Design. A follow-up study using nationwide administrative databases. Objectives. To explore rates of reoperation after lumbar disc surgery and their regional and interspecialty variations. Summary of Background Data. In many Western countries, rates of lumbar disc surgery display significant geographic variations suggesting varying treatment criteria among operating surgeons. Few population-based studies have explored the risk of reoperation after disc surgery, and regional or interspecialty variations in the reoperations are unknown. Methods. Patients who underwent lumbar spine surgery from January 1, 1987 through December 31, 1995, were identified in the Finnish Hospital Discharge Register. Data on the patients’ initial disc operations, subsequent operations, and cause-of-death records were linked using personal identification codes. The Kaplan–Meier method and proportional hazard model were used to analyze risks of reoperation after initial surgery, according to hospital catchment area rates of disc surgery and for neurosurgical and orthopedic patients of university hospitals. Results. 12.3% of 25,359 surgical patients with herniated lumbar discs underwent subsequent lumbar operations corresponding to the cumulative risk of 18.9% in the 9-year follow-up. Reoperation rates increased during the study period with the recent patient cohorts exhibiting risks. The reoperation risk showed a systematic geographic variation: the higher the regional disc surgery rate, the higher the reoperation risk. Overall, neurosurgical patients had a higher reoperation risk than orthopedic patients (relative risk [RR]: 1.57, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.17–2.10), but this was not a uniform finding. Conclusions. The reoperation risk after disc surgery increased during the study period and was higher in hospital catchment areas with higher overall discectomy rates. The reoperation risks varied among the university hospitals but tended to be higher for neurosurgical rather than for orthopedic patients.
Impacts of carbon emission reduction mechanisms on uncertain make-to-order manufacturing

Lot sizing in queuing networks is pivotal to batch manufacturing, especially in stochastic environments. Despite development in lot sizing optimisation, the results are often rendered unrealistic because few studies have considered the impacts of relevant environmental regulation policies on production planning. This paper incorporates stochastic lot sizing optimisation with two dominant carbon emission reduction mechanisms – the carbon emission constraint and the cap-and-trade system – to examine their operational and environmental impacts on make-to-order manufacturing. It also compares these two mechanisms in environmental conservation. Numerical experiments validate the importance of considering the carbon emission regulations to traditional production planning problems. The results highlight that the market-based characteristics of the cap-and-trade mechanism motivate firms with economic benefits to adopt low-carbon technologies and environmental-friendly facilities to curb greenhouse gases emission. In contrast, the carbon emission constraint mechanism is like administrative orders to force out outmoded industries and outdated technologies.
Rise to dominance of angiosperm pioneers in European Cretaceous environments

The majority of environments are dominated by flowering plants today, but it is uncertain how this dominance originated. This increase in angiosperm diversity happened during the Cretaceous period (ca. 145–65 Ma) and led to replacement and often extinction of gymnosperms and ferns. We propose a scenario for the rise to dominance of the angiosperms from the Barremian (ca. 130 Ma) to the Campanian (ca. 84 Ma) based on the European megafossil plant record. These megafossil data demonstrate that angiosperms migrated into new environments in three phases: (i) Barremian (ca. 130–125 Ma) freshwater lake-related wetlands; (ii) Aptian–Albian (ca. 125–100 Ma) understory floodplains (excluding levees and back swamps); and (iii) Cenomanian–Campanian (ca. 100–84 Ma) natural levees, back swamps, and coastal swamps. This scenario allows for the measured evolution of angiosperms in time and space synthesizing changes in the physical environment with concomitant changes in the biological environment. This view of angiosperm radiation in three phases reconciles previous scenarios based on the North American record. The Cretaceous plant record that can be observed in Europe is exceptional in many ways. (i) Angiosperms are well preserved from the Barremian to the Maastrichtian (ca. 65 Ma). (ii) Deposits are well constrained and dated stratigraphically. (iii) They encompass a full range of environments. (iv) European paleobotany provides many detailed studies of Cretaceous floras for analysis. These factors make a robust dataset for the study of angiosperm evolution from the Barremian to the Campanian that can be traced through various ecosystems and related to other plant groups occupying the same niches.
Rheumatoid arthritis and pregnancy: impediments to optimal management of both biologic use before, during and after pregnancy

Purpose of reviewTumour necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) and other biologic response modifiers are being increasingly used for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) among women of childbearing age, raising concerns regarding the potential safety of inadvertent or intentional exposure of these agents to the developing fetus. Recent findingsTNFi and other biologics whose constructs contain a functional IgGFc piece are actively transported across the placenta during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Very little drug passively diffuses to the fetal circulation during the first trimester, when organogenesis occurs. Cumulative data from both the rheumatology and gastroenterology literature suggest that the rate of birth defects following antenatal TNFi exposure does not appear to be higher than that seen in the general population. There are very little data available on pregnancy outcomes following antenatal exposure to other biologic medications for RA. SummaryCumulative evidence suggests that TNFi use during pregnancy carries low risk for teratogenicity. A single case of fatal BCG infection in an exposed neonate following live virus vaccination highlights the potential need to defer live virus vaccines for at least 6 months in exposed neonates until more data of risk factors for infection susceptibility are available.
Altered Gene Expression and Spine Density in Nucleus Accumbens of Adolescent and Adult Male Mice Exposed to Emotional and Physical Stress

Stressful early life experiences are implicated in lifelong health. However, little is known about the consequences of emotional stress (ES) or physical stress (PS) on neurobiology. Therefore, the following set of experiments was designed to assess changes in transcription and translation of key proteins within the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Male adolescent (postnatal day 35) or adult (8-week-old) mice were exposed to ES or PS using a witness social defeat paradigm. Then, 24 h after the last stress session, we measured levels of specific mRNAs and proteins within the NAc. Spine density was also assessed in separate groups of mice. Exposure to ES or PS disrupted extracellular signal-related kinase 2 (ERK2), reduced transcription of ΔFosB and had no effect on cAMP response element-binding protein (CREB) mRNA. Western blots revealed that exposure to ES or PS decreased ERK2 phosphorylation in adolescents, whereas the same stress regimen increased ERK2 phosphorylation in adults. Exposure to ES or PS had no effect on ΔFosB or CREB phosphorylation. ES and PS increased spine density in the NAc of adolescent exposed mice, but only exposure to PS increased spine density in adults. Together, these findings demonstrate that exposure to ES or PS is a potent stressor in adolescent and adult mice and can disturb the integrity of the NAc by altering transcription and translation of important signaling molecules in an age-dependent manner. Furthermore, exposure to ES and PS induces substantial synaptic plasticity of the NAc.
Application of SMES and Fuel Cell System Combined With Liquid Hydrogen Vehicle Station to Renewable Energy Control

It is an urgent issue to reduce global carbon-dioxide in the world, and hence the renewable energy, that is environmentally friendly, should be supplied as a large amount of the electric power. Since installation of a large amount of the fluctuating renewable energy, such as wind turbine and photovoltaic, will cause the power utility network unstable, we propose an advanced superconducting power conditioning system (ASPCS) that is composed of Electrolyzer-Hydrogen-FC and SMES cooled with liquid hydrogen from a station for vehicles. The ASPCS has a function of compensating the fluctuating renewable energy with SMES that has quick response and large I/O power, and with that has moderate response and large capacity. The SMES is wound with superconductor with a critical temperature of 39 K from an economical point of view, because it is cooled with through a thermo-siphon system to keep safety against a flammable gas. The ASPCS effectively fulfills a power balance by applying a statistical prediction method of Kalman filter algorithm. The capacity of SMES is optimized by using the trend prediction for a number of wind power data. The overall electric efficiency of the ASPCS is evaluated for a typical wind generator.
Morphologic changes in the peritoneal membrane of patients with renal disease.

This study examined the morphologic features of the parietal peritoneal membranes of 130 patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis (PD) and compared them with the features of the peritoneal membranes of normal individuals, uremic predialysis patients, and patients undergoing hemodialysis. The median thickness of the submesothelial compact collagenous zone was 50 microm for normal subjects, 140 microm for uremic patients, 150 microm for patients undergoing hemodialysis, and 270 microm for patients undergoing PD (P < 0.001 for all versus normal subjects). Compact zone thickness increased significantly with the duration of PD therapy [0 to 24 mo, 180 microm (n = 58); 25 to 48 mo, 240 microm (n = 24); 49 to 72 mo, 300 microm (n = 13); 73 to 96 mo, 750 microm (n = 16); >97 mo, 700 microm (n = 19)]. Vascular changes included progressive subendothelial hyalinization, with luminal narrowing or obliteration. These changes were absent in samples from normal subjects but were present in 28% of samples from uremic patients and 56% of biopsies from patients undergoing PD. In the PD group, the prevalence of vasculopathy increased significantly with therapy duration (P = 0.0001). The density of blood vessels per unit length of peritoneum was significantly higher for patients with membrane failure and was correlated with the degree of fibrosis (P = 0.01). For the first time, a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the morphologic changes in the peritoneal membranes of patients undergoing PD is provided. The infrequency of fibrosis in the absence of vasculopathy suggests that vasculopathy may predispose patients to the development of fibrosis. This study provides a sufficiently large cohort of samples to allow structure-function relationships to be established, as well as providing a repository of tissue for further studies.
Stochastic Cloning Unscented Kalman filtering for pedestrian localization applications

The work discusses the performance of a Stochastic Cloning Unscented Kalman filter (SC-UKF) which is used to fuse the incremental position and orientation information from the Visual Odometry (VO) using a stereo camera setup and the absolute attitude obtained from a low-cost inertial measurement unit. The system is designed for pedestrian tracking within an uncontrolled environment and employs a quaternion-based attitude representation within the filter state. The attitude is cloned and kept between lower rate VO samples, while inertial data is processed in real-time with a higher sampling rate. Corresponding to the same time span, the relative orientation from the VO is used to correct the IMU-based rotation difference between the cloned and the current attitude. The information of magnetic compass is included in order to improve the heading estimation along with the mechanism for magnetic disturbance compensation. The filter scheme is extended by implementing the INS mechanization equations for position estimation, where the VO data is used as a velocity observation to reduce the growth of the rate of the position error. The performance of the designed SC-UKF is compared to the one of SC-based Extended Kalman filter on a number of representative walking paths. The augmented system shows a better performance especially for the indoor segments such as corridors with insufficient illumination and stairs with monotone walls.
An ins(X;11)(q24;q23) fuses the MLL and the Septin 6/KIAA0128 gene in an infant with AML‐M2

The MLL (HRX, ALL‐1 HTRX) gene at chromosome band 11q23 frequently is rearranged in acute lymphoblastic and myeloblastic leukemia. To date, more than 40 different 11q23 abnormalities have been described on the cytogenetic level, and at least 25 of the respective fusion partner genes are cloned. The vast majority of the respective reciprocal translocations generate a chimeric 5′‐MLL/partner‐3′ gene on the derivative 11q23. In this work, we report a unique ins(X;11)(q24;q23) in an infant with acute myeloid leukemia (AML‐M2) that fuses the human KIAA0128 gene at Xq24 with MLL. In contrast to the typical reciprocal MLL translocations, however, we provide evidence that the 5′‐MLL/KIAA0128‐3′ fusion resides on Xq24 rather than on 11q23. The KIAA0128 gene encodes the human Septin 6 protein, which contains an ATP‐GTP binding motif and three nuclear targeting sequences in its carboxy terminus. The maintenance of the reading frame of the 5′‐MLL/KIAA0128‐3′ mRNA fusion allows for the formation of a novel chimeric protein. Septin 6 is the third member of the Septins that is fused to the MLL protein; the other two are hCDCrel at 22q11 and MSF at 17q25. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Balkanizing the primate orbitofrontal cortex: distinct subregions for comparing and contrasting values

The primate orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is often treated as a single entity, but architectonic and connectional neuroanatomy indicate that it has distinguishable parts. Nevertheless, few studies have attempted to dissociate the functions of its subregions. Here we review findings from recent neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies that do so. The lateral OFC seems to be important for learning, representing, and updating specific object–reward associations. The medial OFC seems to be important for value comparisons and choosing among objects on that basis. Rather than viewing this dissociation of function in terms of learning versus choosing, however, we suggest that it reflects the distinction between contrasts and comparisons: differences versus similarities. Making use of high‐dimensional representations that arise from the convergence of several sensory modalities, the lateral OFC encodes contrasts among outcomes. The medial OFC reduces these contrasting representations of value to a single dimension, a common currency, in order to compare alternative choices.
[Treatment of type II and III open tibial fractures with Ilizarov external fixation].

OBJECTIVES We evaluated the results of patients who were treated with Ilizarov external fixation for type II and III open tibial fractures. METHODS Forty-five patients (4 females, 41 males; mean age 33 years; range 8 to 65 years) with open tibial fractures were treated with the Ilizarov external fixator. According to the Gustilo-Mendoza classification, the fractures were type II, IIIA, IIIB, and IIIC in 12, 20, 9, and 4 patients, respectively. The mean follow-up was 58 months and 4 days (range 42 months and 10 days to 66 months and 11 days). The fixators were applied for a mean of 17.2 weeks (range 6.8 to 55.7 weeks). RESULTS Union was achieved in all cases. A significant difference was observed between type II and III fractures in terms of time to union (p<0.05). Compared to type IIIA fractures, the time to union was significantly longer in type IIIB and IIIC fractures (p<0.05). The most frequent complication was pin-tract infections (27.1%). Refracture occurred in four cases (8.8%). Three patients developed late infections at the fracture site. Radiographically, the results were excellent in 14 patients (31%), good in 22 patients (48.8%), moderate in five patients (11.1%), and poor in four patients (8.8%). Functional results were excellent in 21 patients (46.6%), good in 20 patients (44.4%), and moderate in four patients (8.8%). CONCLUSION Despite technical difficulties and problems associated with pin-tract infections, the Ilizarov external fixator may be the preferred technique in open tibial fractures because of high union rates, the use of thin K-wires with minimal traumatic effect, and more successful functional results.
The Microvascular Volume of the Achilles Tendon Is Increased in Patients With Tendinopathy at Rest and After a 1-Hour Treadmill Run

Background: Achilles tendinopathy (AT) is initiated asymptomatically and is therefore often discovered at a very late stage. Purpose: To elucidate whether the microvascular volume (MV) of the Achilles tendon is elevated in patients with AT compared with healthy controls during pre-exercise rest, after acute exercise, and 24 hours after exercise. Additionally, this study investigated the muscle activation pattern of the gastrocnemius muscle and the relative elasticity of the Achilles tendon during a 1-hour treadmill run in healthy patients and in patients with AT. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Real-time harmonic contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEU) measurements of the MV of the Achilles tendon were taken in 18 volunteers (9 patients with AT, 9 healthy controls). The CEU analyses were conducted before exercise, immediately after a 1-hour treadmill run, and 24 hours after exercise. Surface electromyography (EMG) signals of the gastrocnemius were recorded continuously during the 1-hour treadmill run. Results: In both the controls and the patients with AT, the MV of the Achilles tendon was increased after exercise as compared with before exercise (P < .005). Additionally, the MV signal was significantly larger in the patients with AT before, immediately after, and 24 hours after the running exercise compared with values in healthy controls (P < .0001). The muscle activation pattern differed in patients with AT compared with controls in that controls had increased EMG amplitudes at the end of the 1-hour treadmill run in the medial and lateral gastrocnemius (P < .0001). Moreover, patients with AT had approximately 15% less elastic Achilles tendons at the beginning of the 1-hour treadmill run, a condition that did not change because of exercise. Conclusion: Acute exercise increases the MV of the Achilles tendon in healthy patients and patients with AT in a similar manner. However, patients with AT have a significantly larger MV at all time points compared with healthy patients, supporting the hypothesis that microvascular changes may be involved in the pathogenesis of tendinopathy. Clinical Relevance: This study underlines that tendon flexibility is altered in patients with AT and that CEU is a promising tool to establish the early diagnosis of this condition.
Effects of Lexical Stress in Auditory Word Recognition

Although research examining the use of prosodic information in the processing of spoken words has increased in recent years, results from these studies have been inconclusive. The present series of experiments systematically examines the importance of one prosodic variable (lexical stress) in the recognition of isolated spoken words. Data collected in an identification task suggest that segmental information may be more heavily relied upon when appropriate lexical stress information is not available. Results of subsequent reaction time experiments support the hypothesis that lexical stress influences the processing of auditorily presented words. in three shadowing experiments, correctly stressed items were produced faster than incorrectly stressed items, and in a lexical decision experiment, correctly stressed words were classified faster than incorrectly stressed words. Thus, this work provides evidence across several experimental tasks for the use of lexical stress information in the processing of spoken words. Moreover, the data suggest that lexical stress should be an important aspect of the representation of words in an interactive model of auditory word recognition.
Method for Monitoring Quality of Extension Programs: A Dashboard Construction Process

We describe a process for construction and use of a "dashboard" for monitoring the quality of in-person nonformal education programs. We followed the process to develop a 4-H special interest (SPIN) club dashboard, but the steps are applicable to any education program that includes instruction over multiple sessions. The dashboard construction process comprises selecting performance measures, choosing data collection strategies, designing the content and layout of the dashboard, collecting data, and populating the dashboard with performance metrics. Although these process steps are intuitive, specific decision options within each step can be complex. Our article includes discussion of these complexities in the context of our SPIN club application.