Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Very Long-Term Outcome of Non-Surgically Treated Patients with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy with Hippocampal Sclerosis: A Retrospective Study

Objective Surgical intervention can result in complete seizure remission rates of up to 80% in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy with hippocampal sclerosis (TLE-HS). However, certain patients cannot be treated surgically for various reasons. We analyzed the very long-term clinical outcomes of patients with TLE-HS who could not be treated surgically. Methods Subjects were selected from among patients with TLE-HS who were actively followed up for >10 years and treated with medication without surgical treatment. Patient medical records were used to retrospectively study seizure frequency, various clinical factors, and social adjustment. Patients who were seizure-free or had only aura were classified into Group 1; the others were classified into Group 2. Clinical factors including both patient and disease-specific factors were compared between the two groups. Current social adjustment, including the education, work, and economic status of each patient, was also investigated. Results Forty-one (41) subjects met the criteria for analysis, of which 12 (29%) were classified into Group 1. The average age of patients in Group 1 was higher than that of Group 2 (p = 0.0468). Group 2 included a significantly higher rate of patients who had more than one seizure per week at the onset (p = 0.0328), as well as a greater mean number of anti-epileptic drugs taken (p = 0.0024). Regarding social adjustment, Group 2 contained significantly fewer current jobholders than Group 1 (p = 0.0288). Conclusions After very long-term follow-up periods, 29% of patients with TLE-HS had a good outcome through treatment with anticonvulsant medications. Older patients tended to have fewer seizures, and seizure frequency at the onset was the only factor that predicted outcome.
Mesh Smoothing Schemes Based on Optimal Delaunay Triangulations

We present several mesh smoothing schemes based on the concept of optimal Delaunay triangulations. We define the optimal Delaunay triangulation (ODT) as the triangulation that minimizes the interpolation error among all triangulations with the same number of vertices. ODTs aim to equidistribute the edge length under a new metric related to the Hessian matrix of the approximated function. Therefore we define the interpolation error as the mesh quality and move each node to a new location, in its local patch, that reduces the interpolation error. With several formulas for the interpolation error, we derive a suitable set of mesh smoothers among which Laplacian smoothing is a special case. The computational cost of proposed new mesh smoothing schemes in the isotropic case is as low as Laplacian smoothing while the error-based mesh quality is provably improved. Our mesh smoothing schemes also work well in the anisotropic case.
Posterior decompression and short segmental pedicle screw fixation combined with vertebroplasty for Kümmell’s disease with neurological deficits

The aim of this study was to investigate the treatment of Kümmell’s disease with neurological deficits and to determine whether intravertebral clefts are a pathognomonic sign of Kümmell’s disease. A total of 17 patients who had initially been diagnosed with Kümmell’s disease were admitted, one patient was excluded from this study. Posterior decompression and vertebroplasty for the affected vertebrae were conducted. Pedicle screw fixation and posterolateral bone grafts were performed one level above and one level below the affected vertebrae. Vertebral tissue was extracted for histopathological examination. The mean time of follow-up was 22 months (range, 18 to 42 months). The anterior and middle vertebral heights were measured on standing lateral radiographs prior to surgery, one day postoperatively and at final follow-up. The Cobb angle, the visual analog scale (VAS) and the Frankel classification were used to evaluate the effects of the surgery. The VAS, anterior and middle vertebral heights and the Cobb angle were improved significantly one day postoperatively and at the final follow-up compared with the preoperative examinations (P<0.05). No significant differences were observed between the one-day postoperative results and those at final follow-up (P>0.05). The neurological function of all patients was improved by at least one Frankel grade. All patients in this study exhibited intravertebral clefts, and postoperative pathology revealed bone necrosis. One patient (not included in this study) showed an intravertebral cleft, but the pathology report indicated a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The intravertebral cleft sign is not pathognomonic of Kümmell’s disease. Posterior decompression with short-segment fixation and fusion combined with vertebroplasty is an effective treatment for Kümmell’s disease with neurological deficits.
Neuropeptide Y in the Amygdala Induces Long-Term Resilience to Stress-Induced Reductions in Social Responses But Not Hypothalamic–Adrenal–Pituitary Axis Activity or Hyperthermia

Resilience to mental and physical stress is a key determinant for the survival and functioning of mammals. Although the importance of stress resilience has been recognized, the underlying neural mediators have not yet been identified. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a peptide known for its anti-anxiety-like effects mediated via the amygdala. The results of our current study demonstrate, for the first time that repeated administration of NPY directly into the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA) produces selective stress-resilient behavioral responses to an acute restraint challenge as measured in the social interaction test, but has no effect on hypothalamic–adrenal–pituitary axis activity or stress-induced hyperthermia. More importantly, the resilient behaviors observed in the NPY-treated animals were present for up to 8 weeks. Antagonizing the activity of calcineurin, a protein phosphatase involved in neuronal remodeling and present in NPY receptor containing neurons within the BLA, blocked the development of long-term, but not the acute increases in social interaction responses induced by NPY administration. This suggests that the NPY-induced long-term behavioral resilience to restraint stress may occur via mechanisms involving neuronal plasticity. These studies suggest one putative physiologic mechanism underlying stress resilience and could identify novel targets for development of therapies that can augment the ability to cope with stress.
Economic Integration and Rules of Origin Under International Oligopoly

Free trade agreements (FTAs) have rules of origin (ROOs) to prevent tariff circumvention by firms of nonmember countries. This article points out that in imperfectly competitive markets, ROOs have another role overlooked in the existing literature. Instead of focusing on the impacts of ROOs in the intermediate-good markets, we draw our attention to the final-good markets to examine the effects of ROOs. We find that under some conditions, ROOs benefit both firms at the expense of consumers. Under some other conditions, ROOs benefit the firm producing outside the FTA and hurt the firm producing inside the FTA.
Promotion of Eco-Products and Environmental Regulation with Learning-by-Doing

This paper studies a dynamic model of eco-product planning, where an eco-product supplied by a single producer is differentiated from a conventional product generating negative externalities, and the production technology of the eco-product is characterized by learning-by-doing. The result states that the learning effect causes the eco-product to be more promoted and brings about more favorable outcomes on social welfare. This study also examines how the environmental regulation on the conventional product, associated with a price distortion, affects the promotion of the eco-product, consumer surplus, the single producer's profit, and negative externalities. It is shown that the impact of the environmental regulation is similar to that of a rise in the learning effect. Furthermore, whether or not the environmental regulation should be adopted is highly dependent on the degree of the learning effect. In the presence of a large learning potential, the environmental regulation may not only promote the eco-product effectively but also improve social welfare through intensifying the learning effect.
Kainate Receptors Act as Conditional Amplifiers of Spike Transmission at Hippocampal Mossy Fiber Synapses

Hippocampal mossy fiber (Mf) synapses are viewed as conditional detonators, assisting CA3 cells in complex network functions. By analyzing mice deficient for GluK2 (GluR6), GluK3 (GluR7) and GluK5 (KA2) genes we show that kainate receptors (KARs) play a crucial role in the control of synaptic integration and spike transmission efficacy at Mf synapses. We dissected out the role of the different KAR functions at Mf synapses and we show that presynaptic and postsynaptic KARs concur to amplify unitary Mf synaptic inputs to trigger spike discharge within a wide range of frequencies (from 1 to 50 Hz). Moreover, KARs strongly favor spike transmission in response to patterns of presynaptic activity mimicking in vivo dentate granule cell activity. By amplifying spike transmission, KARs also facilitate the induction of associative long-term potentiation in CA3. Hence the actions of KARs as amplifiers of spike transmission contribute largely to the “conditional detonator” function of Mf synapses and are likely important for spatial information processing.
Treatment option for sperm- or oocyte-related fertilization failure: assisted oocyte activation following diagnostic heterologous ICSI.

BACKGROUND Failed fertilization occurs in 2-3% of ICSI cycles and is mainly due to lack of oocyte activation. Heterologous ICSI of patient's sperm in mouse oocytes allows discrimination between sperm- and oocyte-related aetiologies of activation failure. Assisted oocyte activation (AOA) by Ca-ionophore treatment can initiate fertilization in subsequent therapeutic ICSI. We report on diagnosis and clinical treatment in 17 patients with previously failed fertilization. METHODS Sperm from patients were injected into mature mouse oocytes. Activation capacity was assessed by 2-cell formation (mouse oocyte activation test, MOAT). When no activation occurred, it was assumed that the spermatozoon was deficient; otherwise an oocyte-related factor was suspected. In a subsequent ICSI cycle, AOA was done by ICSI with CaCl2 followed by a Ca2+ ionophore exposure. Fertilization was checked 16-20 h later. Embryo transfer was on day 2 or 3. RESULTS MOAT showed sperm-related activation deficiency in six globozoospermic patients and two patients with extreme oligoasthenoteratozoospermia. One patient with small sperm acrosomes had a normal activation percentage. In eight other patients, the MOAT revealed a relatively normal activation capacity of the sperm, indicating an oocyte-related defect. After AOA, fertilization rates were 77 and 71% in the sperm- and oocyte-related groups respectively. Five pregnancies were achieved in the globozoospermia group and three in cases of oocyte-related activation failure. CONCLUSIONS Assisted oocyte activation enables normal fertilization and pregnancy in sperm- and oocyte-related fertilization failure.
Solving the Academic Timetable Problem Thinking on Student Needs

The assembling process of an academic timetable structure is one of hardest scholar planning tasks. A well done schedule requires considerable time, because of many factors involved (e.g. professor availability, courses and their workload, students and classrooms). Based on related researches, it is possible to claim that in the most of the institutions, the solution is done by manual work, which requires more time and effort. Although the search for the best solution is infeasible, it is possible to find near optimal solutions using heuristics. Most current solutions provide answers optimizing administrative factors, i.e. considering mainly the factors related to the disciplines, classrooms and professors, not considering students needs, e.g. reducing time gaps between non-consecutive classes. In this work, we focus on the timetable improvement for the students and assess our results using real data from a Brazilian university.
Plain, edge, texture (PET) block classifier using Tchebichef moments and SVM

This paper presents an image block classification method using Tchebichef moments (TMs) and support vector machine (SVM). The test images are divided into non-overlapping 16 × 16 blocks and transformed into moment domain using Discrete Tchebichef Transform. These moment features are then used in the image content (block) classification. SVM is used for learning and classifying the blocks into three types: “plain”, “edge” and “texture”, based on their moment energy level. Experimental results show that the proposed method works well and the classification accuracy is 98.7%.
Topical Negative Pressure on Burns: An Innovative Method for Wound Exudate Collection

Summary: Burn wound exudate is an important source of information on the wound-healing process and systemic improvement of burn patients. Identification of biomarkers for the prediagnosis of local or systemic complications in patients will have a great impact on adapting personalized procedures in burn treatment. No efficient exudate collection method exists that offers a direct and continuous collection over time. We developed an innovative system based on the negative pressure wound therapy technique to directly collect exudate from burn wounds over several days after burn. This method did not cause any complication or pain for patients, and positive influence on wound healing was seen. Exudate samples were further used in different projects for studying biochemical profile, trace element content, kinetics of bacterial growth, and cell cytotoxicity.
A dynamic leaf gas‐exchange strategy is conserved in woody plants under changing ambient CO2: evidence from carbon isotope discrimination in paleo and CO2 enrichment studies

Rising atmospheric [CO2], ca, is expected to affect stomatal regulation of leaf gas‐exchange of woody plants, thus influencing energy fluxes as well as carbon (C), water, and nutrient cycling of forests. Researchers have proposed various strategies for stomatal regulation of leaf gas‐exchange that include maintaining a constant leaf internal [CO2], ci, a constant drawdown in CO2 (ca − ci), and a constant ci/ca. These strategies can result in drastically different consequences for leaf gas‐exchange. The accuracy of Earth systems models depends in part on assumptions about generalizable patterns in leaf gas‐exchange responses to varying ca. The concept of optimal stomatal behavior, exemplified by woody plants shifting along a continuum of these strategies, provides a unifying framework for understanding leaf gas‐exchange responses to ca. To assess leaf gas‐exchange regulation strategies, we analyzed patterns in ci inferred from studies reporting C stable isotope ratios (δ13C) or photosynthetic discrimination (∆) in woody angiosperms and gymnosperms that grew across a range of ca spanning at least 100 ppm. Our results suggest that much of the ca‐induced changes in ci/ca occurred across ca spanning 200 to 400 ppm. These patterns imply that ca − ci will eventually approach a constant level at high ca because assimilation rates will reach a maximum and stomatal conductance of each species should be constrained to some minimum level. These analyses are not consistent with canalization toward any single strategy, particularly maintaining a constant ci. Rather, the results are consistent with the existence of a broadly conserved pattern of stomatal optimization in woody angiosperms and gymnosperms. This results in trees being profligate water users at low ca, when additional water loss is small for each unit of C gain, and increasingly water‐conservative at high ca, when photosystems are saturated and water loss is large for each unit C gain.
A Path Planning for Line Segmentation of Handwritten Documents

This paper describes the use of a novel A path-planning algorithm for performing line segmentation of handwritten documents. The novelty of the proposed approach lies in the use of a smart combination of simple soft cost functions that allows an artificial agent to compute paths separating the upper and lower text fields. The use of soft cost functions enables the agent to compute near-optimal separating paths even if the upper and lower text parts are overlapping in particular places. We have performed experiments on the Saint Gall and Monk line segmentation (MLS) datasets. The experimental results show that our proposed method performs very well on the Saint Gall dataset, and also demonstrate that our algorithm is able to cope well with the much more complicated MLS dataset.
Application of augmented reality and usability approaches for the implementation of an interactive tour applied at the University of Quindio

This work describes the design, implementation and validation of a virtual interactive tour around the University of Quindo by using augmented reality and applying evaluation methods about usability and user-centered design with the aim of improving the user experience, together with the consistency of this tool in its usage; in this case, in the university campus.
A multi-agent system to learn literature ontology: An experiment on English Quran corpus

This paper proposes a Multiple-Agent system to construct an ontology of the English translations of the meanings of Noble Quran. None of the current agent based systems have solved the problem of ontology learning from text documents. The Noble Quran has an unconventional style of discourse containing recurring themes and a plethora of versatile figures of speech making it an inimitable and unique literature. An array of Intelligent Agent instances help in automate the task of ontology learning. The existing vocabulary, concordances, and Index of the Quran which are readily available in electronic form are used as data sources by the multiple agents for the ontology construction process. Alsoan agent starts up with relatively small seed ontology prepared by domain experts as a starting point for the construction of a comprehensive ontology. WordNet lexicon is used to cluster the index terms utilizing the Hypernym, Holonym, Synonym relationships provided by WordNet. This paper has also formulated the OTCM (Ontology Term Coverage Metric) to evaluate the generation of ontology at each phase.
Design and Evaluation of Self-Nanoemulsifying Drug Delivery System of Flutamide

Flutamide (FLT) is an antiandrogen drug for the treatment of prostate cancer. It has the drawback of poor water solubility and needs enhancement of its dissolution rate in simulated gastric fluids. Hence, it is prepared as self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery systems (SNEDDS) with an aim to enhance its dissolution rate. The objectives of the study are to develop SNEDDS of FLT and to characterize for particle size, self-nanoemulsification, and dissolution enhancement. Solubility of FLT was determined in various oils, surfactants, and cosurfactants. Sesame oil was selected as an oil phase, Tween 20 as surfactant, and PEG400 as cosurfactant due to their higher solubilization effect. Various formulations were prepared by simple mixing followed by vortexing. From studies, the optimized SNEDDS formulation was composed of FLT (8.04% w/w), sesame oil (24.12% w/w), Tween 20 (53.38% w/w), and PEG400 (14.46% w/w). The selected SNEDDS could be self-emulsified without precipitation upon simple mixing. The mean particle size of the SNEDDS was 148.7 nm and percent drug content was 99.66. The dissolution rate of FLT from SNEDDS was faster and higher in three different dissolution media such as 2% sodium lauryl sulfate (97.85%), simulated gastric fluid (0.1 N HCl containing 0.5% Tween 20) (95.71%), and simulated intestinal fluid (pH 6.8 buffer) (96.21%).
Eslicarbazepine acetate for the treatment of focal epilepsy: an update on its proposed mechanisms of action

Eslicarbazepine acetate (ESL) is a once daily antiepileptic drug (AED) approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada as an adjunctive therapy in adults with partial‐onset seizures (POS). In humans and in relevant animal laboratory species, ESL undergoes extensive first pass hydrolysis to its major active metabolite eslicarbazepine that represents ~95% of circulating active moieties. ESL and eslicarbazepine showed anticonvulsant activity in animal models. ESL may not only suppress seizure activity but may also inhibit the generation of a hyperexcitable network. Data reviewed here suggest that ESL and eslicarbazepine demonstrated the following in animal models: (1) the selectivity of interaction with the inactive state of the voltage‐gated sodium channel (VGSC), (2) reduction in VGSC availability through enhancement of slow inactivation, instead of alteration of fast inactivation of VGSC, (3) the failure to cause a paradoxical upregulation of persistent Na+ current (INaP), and (4) the reduction in firing frequencies of excitatory neurons in dissociated hippocampal cells from patients with epilepsy who were pharmacoresistant to carbamazepine (CBZ). In addition, eslicarbazepine effectively inhibited high‐ and low‐affinity hCaV3.2 inward currents with greater affinity than CBZ. These preclinical findings may suggest the potential for antiepileptogenic effects; furthermore, the lack of effect upon KV7.2 outward currents may translate into a reduced potential for eslicarbazepine to facilitate repetitive firing.
Optimum nonlinear filtering

This paper is composed of two parts. The first part surveys the literature regarding optimum nonlinear filtering from the (continuous-time) stochastic analysis point of view, and the other part explores the impact of recent applications of neural networks (in a discrete-time context) to nonlinear filtering. In particular, the results obtained by using a regularized form of radial basis function (RBF) networks are presented in fair detail.
Values and Principles in European Union Foreign Policy

1. Introduction: Values, Principles, Identity and European Union Foreign Policy 2. The Constitutive Nature of Values, Images and Principles in the European Union 3. Theoretical Perspectives on the Role of Values, Images and Principles in Foreign Policy 4. Values, Science and the European Union in a Global Order 5. Environmental Values and Climate Change: Contrasting the EU with the USA 6. The European Union and Gender Protection 7. Principles of Democracy and Human Rights: A Review of the European Union's Strategies Towards its Neighbours 8. European Union Human Rights and Democracy in Relations with Russia and China 9. The Use of Force as Coercive Intervention: the Conflicting Values of the EU's External Action 10. Values in European Union Development Cooperation Policy 11. European Union Regulatory Capitalism and Multilateral Trade Negotiations 12. Conclusion: Valuing Principles in European Union Foreign Policy
Bridging shape grammar and Tangible Augmented Reality into collaborative design learning

This paper combines Tangible Augmented Reality and shape grammar into collaborative design learning to bridge the gaps such as the difficulties of imaging the spatial form in a complex content and the obstacle of communication during the collaborative design. This work has been successful in mapping out a space of technical possibilities and providing a possible system setup to pursue the innovative idea. It not only describes the latent trends and assumptions that might be used to motivate and guide the design in cooperative work, but also makes links with existing research in cognitive science and education.