Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcomes of retrograde nailing of distal femoral fractures in Indian population: a prospective study -

Background: Distal femur fractures are tough to handle, and the choice of implant for internal fixation remains controversial. One of the therapeutic principles that can be employed for the treatment of distal femoral fractures is retrograde intramedullary nailing, which follows the principle of biological osteosynthesis. Objective: To investigate in a retrospective manner the results of retrograde nailing in distal femoral fractures and selected cases of femoral shaft fractures. Emphasis was posed on long-term functional outcome, especially in daily activities. Materials and Methods: Retrograde femoral nailing was used from January 2010 to October 2015 in level 1 trauma center for the treatment of various types of femoral fractures (AO/ASIF-type 32/33) in 20 patients with 21 fractures. Patients were followed up till fracture healing and invited to a functional follow-up using Neer’s knee scoring system. Result: Osseous healing occurred in shaft fractures in 18.33 weeks on an average when compared with 15.25 weeks in supracondylar fractures. Stiffness was seen as only late postoperative complication in five of 19 (26.31%) patients beyond 1 year of postoperation. Two patients with pathological fracture died on follow-up owing to metastasis. After a mean 20.4 month follow-up, the mean scores were 85 in shaft and 74 in distal femoral fractures (I/A and E/A). Motion was better in shaft fractures (arc of motion—mean: 116.67°) than in distal femoral fractures (arc of motion—mean: 102.18°). Conclusion: Retrograde nailing represents a reliable fixation method for extra-articular (33A) and intra-articular (33C) fractures of the supracondylar area. In femoral shaft fractures, retrograde inserted nails offer a valuable alternative, especially when the proximal femoral approach is obstructed. There is a need of methodologically sound clinical trials to generate high quality evidence for efficacy of retrograde nailing.
Evolutionary hybrid computation in view of design information by data mining

Design Informatics has three points of view. First point is the efficient exploration in design space using evolutionary computation. Second point is the structurization and visualization of design space using data mining. Third point is the application to practical problems. In the present study, the influence of the seven pure and hybrid optimizers for design information has been investigated in order to explain the selection manner of optimizer for data mining. A single-stage hybrid rocket design problem is picked up as the present design object. As a result, mining result depends on not the number of generation (convergence) but the optimizers (diversity). Consequently, the optimizer with diversity performance should be selected in order to obtain global design information in the design space. Therefore, the diversity performance has also been explained for the seven optimization methods by using three standard mathematical test problems with/without noise. The result indicates that the hybrid method between the differential evolution and the genetic algorithm is beneficial performance for efficient exploration in the design space under the condition for large-scale design problems within 102 order evolution at most. Moreover, the comparison among eight crossovers indicates that the principal component analysis blended crossover is good selection on the hybrid method between the differential evolution and the genetic algorithm.
Learning effect of Humphrey Matrix perimetry.

BACKGROUND Humphrey Matrix perimetry is a recent development in automated perimetry that uses frequency-doubling technology (FDT). We evaluated the learning effect of Humphrey Matrix perimetry with a full-threshold 30-2 strategy. METHODS Twenty-four patients with primary open-angle glaucoma and early visual field defects as assessed by standard automated perimetry and 24 healthy control subjects participated. All subjects had no prior experience with FDT visual field tests. Humphrey Matrix perimetry using a full-threshold 30-2 strategy was performed 3 times within 1 month. Various visual field indices were compared across multiple tests. RESULTS Mean deviation (MD) showed a larger defect at the first test than at the second and third tests (p < 0.001), and the mean total improvement of the MD was 2.80 decibels (dB) in the glaucoma group and 1.71 dB in the control group. Pattern standard deviations (PSDs) were decreased as the tests were repeated, but test duration, fixation losses, and false-positive or false-negative rate were not changed significantly. Additionally, the Glaucoma Hemifield Test (GHT) showed unstable results. INTERPRETATION In patients naive to the FDT test, Humphrey Matrix perimetry showed a large learning effect on MD and PSD among the various visual field indices. The GHT results of Humphrey Matrix perimetry showed a large instability.
The Architecture of Hopfield and Bidirectional Neural Networks An Associative Memory Artificial Neural Network System

This paper presents an artificial neural network system using Hopfield and Kosko associative memory algorithms. Both of algorithms are used for recognising patterns from partial/noisy input or from other associated patterns. The recognition rate of the system has been effectively improved by adjusting the network’s parameters and by modifying the associative memory function for converging to a global minimum. The system developed has been tested using a set of data and the results obtained has proved its efficiency and robustness. The advantage of the Hopfield network can be
XRCC3 Gene Polymorphism Is Associated with Survival in Japanese Lung Cancer Patients

We focused on OGG1 Ser326Cys, MUTYH Gln324His, APEX1 Asp148Glu, XRCC1 Arg399Gln, and XRCC3 Thr241Met and examined the relationship between the different genotypes and survival of Japanese lung cancer patients. A total of 99 Japanese lung cancer patients were recruited into our study. Clinical data were collected, and genotypes of the target genes were identified by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP). Survival analysis to verify the impact of these gene polymorphisms on the clinical outcome of lung cancer showed that lung squamous cell carcinoma patients with the Thr/Met genotype at XRCC3 had a significantly shorter survival time than those with the Thr/Thr genotype (13 months versus 48 months; log-rank test, p < 0.0001). Cox regression analysis showed that the carriers of XRCC3 genotypes were at a significantly higher risk [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 9.35, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.52–34.68, p = 0.001; adjusted HR = 9.05, 95% CI = 1.89–44.39, p = 0.006]. Our results suggest that XRCC3 Thr241Met may act as a favorable prognostic indicator for lung squamous cell carcinoma patients.
Establishing Safety and Stabilization in Traumatized Youth: Clinical Implications for Play Therapists

The relevance of a phase-based treatment approach has recently been discussed in the youth complex trauma literature. In this approach, the first phase emphasizes safety and stabilization, which is often revisited throughout treatment. Clients can present with any number of safety concerns, including poor self-care, high-risk behaviors, revictimization, and dissociation. These issues can impede treatment if play therapists fail to understand them. The authors of this article aim to highlight the safety and stabilization stage of complex trauma treatment, discuss the significant role of safety and stabilization in treatment, and provide play-based interventions for this first phase of treatment.
Versican proteolysis mediates myocardial regression during outflow tract development

An important phase of cardiac outflow tract (OFT) formation is the remodeling of the distal region of the common outlet in which the myocardial sleeve is replaced by with smooth muscle. Here we demonstrate that expression of the proteoglycan versican is reduced before the loss of myocardium from the distal cardiac outlet concomitant with an increase in production of the N‐terminal cleavage fragment of versican. To test whether versican proteolysis plays a role in OFT remodeling, we determined the effects of adenoviral‐mediated expression of a versican isoform devoid of known matrix metalloproteinase cleavage sites (V3) and an N‐terminal fragment of versican (G1). V3 expression promoted an increase in thickness of the proximal OFT myocardial layer independent of proliferation. In contrast, the G1 domain caused thinning and interruptions of the OFT myocardium. These in vivo findings were consistent with findings using cultured primary cardiomyocytes showing that the V3 promoted myocardial cell–cell association while the G1 domain caused a loss of myocardial cell–cell association. Taken together, we conclude that intact versican and G1‐containing versican cleavage products have opposing effects on myocardial cells and that versican proteolysis may facilitate the loss of distal myocardium during OFT remodeling. Developmental Dynamics 236:671–683, 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Reconfiguration Strategies for VLSI Processor Arrays and Trees Using a Modified Diogenes Approach

The authors deal with reconfiguration of a rectangular array of processors arranged as an N*N mesh, and a complete binary tree of N processors. They present new reconfiguration techniques that are modifications of the Diogenes approach proposed earlier by A.L. Rosenberg et al. (1983). These techniques reduce the overheads incurred in the earlier Diogenes schemes. Some of the previous approaches to the problem are summarized. Two schemes are presented for reconfiguring rectangular arrays and a scheme for reconfiguring trees. For the analysis of the different schemes presented, it is assumed that a processor has a square layout. These schemes are analyzed and their performance results are presented. >
Selection of Proper Neural Network Sizes and Architectures—A Comparative Study

One of the major difficulties facing researchers using neural networks is the selection of the proper size and topology of the networks. The problem is even more complex because often when the neural network is trained to very small errors, it may not respond properly for patterns not used in the training process. A partial solution proposed to this problem is to use the least possible number of neurons along with a large number of training patterns. The discussion consists of three main parts: first, different learning algorithms, including the Error Back Propagation (EBP) algorithm, the Levenberg Marquardt (LM) algorithm, and the recently developed Neuron-by-Neuron (NBN) algorithm, are discussed and compared based on several benchmark problems; second, the efficiency of different network topologies, including traditional Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) networks, Bridged Multilayer Perceptron (BMLP) networks, and Fully Connected Cascade (FCC) networks, are evaluated by both theoretical analysis and experimental results; third, the generalization issue is discussed to illustrate the importance of choosing the proper size of neural networks.
Optimizing storage performance in public cloud platforms

Cloud computing is an elastic computing model where users can lease computing and storage resources on demand from a remote infrastructure. It is gaining popularity due to its low cost, high reliability, and wide availability. With the emergence of public cloud storage platforms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, individual applications and enterprise storage are being deployed on Clouds. However, a serious impediment to its wider deployment is the relative lack of effective data management services. Our experiments, as well as industry reports, have shown that the performance and service-level agreement (SLA) cannot be guaranteed when the data is served over public Clouds. The relatively slow access to persistent data and large variability in cloud storage I/O performance can significantly degrade the performance of data-intensive applications. This paper addresses the issue of I/O performance fluctuation over public cloud platforms and we propose a middleware called CloudMW between the Cloud storage and clients to provide the storage services with better performance and SLA satisfaction. Some technologies, including data virtualization, data chunking, caching, and replication, are integrated into CloudMW to achieve a more stable and predictable performance, and permit flexible sharing of storage among the virtual machines (VMs). Experimental results based on Amazon Web Services (AWS) show that CloudMW is able to improve the stability and help provide better SLAs and data sharing for cloud storage.
The effect of weak 50 Hz magnetic fields on the number of free oxygen radicals in rat lymphocytes in vitro

The aim of the work was verification of the hypothesis that weak power frequency (50 Hz) magnetic fields (MF) affected the number of free oxygen radicals in living biological cells and that these changes could be qualitatively explained by the radical pair mechanism. The experiments were performed on rat lymphocytes. One‐hour exposure to 50 Hz MF at 20, 40, or 200 μT flux densities was performed inside a pair of Helmholtz coils with axis along or crosswise to the Earth's static MF. Iron ions (FeCl2) were used as a stimulator of the oxidation processes. Oxygen radicals were measured by fluorimetry using a DCF‐DA fluorescent probe. Only in the lymphocytes exposed at 40 μT MF directed along the Earth's static MF there was a decrease of fluorescence in relation to non‐exposed samples. Our observation seems to confirm the hypothesis that low level power frequency MF affects oxidative processes which occur in living biological cells and that this effect can be explained by the radical pair mechanism. Bioelectromagnetics 25:607–612, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Potential Immune Mechanisms Associated with Anemia in Plasmodium vivax Malaria: a Puzzling Question

ABSTRACT The pathogenesis of malaria is complex, generating a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations. One of the major complications and concerns in malaria is anemia, which is responsible for considerable morbidity in the developing world, especially in children and pregnant women. Despite its enormous health importance, the immunological mechanisms involved in malaria-induced anemia remain incompletely understood. Plasmodium vivax, one of the causative agents of human malaria, is known to induce a strong inflammatory response with a robust production of immune effectors, including cytokines and antibodies. Therefore, it is possible that the extent of the immune response not only may facilitate the parasite killing but also may provoke severe illness, including anemia. In this review, we consider potential immune effectors and their possible involvement in generating this clinical outcome during P. vivax infections.
Women performers as workers : gender in relation to aspects of industrial relations in theatre and television

Performing has been a formally unsegregated occupation for almost 350 years and the achievement of status by its women workers is accepted and expected. However, existing quantitative data indicate that systemic gendered disparities exist in relation to access to work, pay and career longevity. As this is an under-researched occupation the aims of the thesis are first, to map central aspects of the working realities of women performers working in subsidised theatre and terrestrial television in the UK and second, to explore perceptions of women performers’ gendered disadvantage in relation to these aspects. These aims are pursued principally through analysis of semi-structured interview data. As part of the primary aims, the purchase of strategies of legal, social and individual regulation is examined in relation to gendered disadvantage. Consideration of data is structured by work on ideas of gender and the labour process; this work is itself addressed through examination of the woman performer’s working experiences and the ways in which these are perceived by the main participants in these experiences. The study finds effective gender segregation, even more finely segregated by overt classifications of age, appearance, race/ethnicity and status. These classifications, allocated by individual perception, are found to frame the working realities of women performers and result in both systemic advantage and, more commonly, disadvantage. The effects of these perceptions are enhanced by the distinctive characteristics of this occupational sector, its labour markets and labour processes. Analysis of these issues leads to discussion of two key suppositions: that women performers inevitably collude in the perpetuation of their own constraints and that the central work experiences of women performers are manifestations of their position as formal and informal proxies for women’s experiences in wider society.
Mediterranean Diet and Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Assessed Brain Atrophy in Cognitively Normal Individuals at Risk for Alzheimer's Disease.

OBJECTIVES Epidemiological evidence linking diet, one of the most important modifiable environmental factors, and risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is rapidly increasing. Several studies have shown that higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MeDi) is associated with reduced risk of AD. This study examines the associations between high vs. lower adherence to a MeDi and structural MRI-based brain atrophy in key regions for AD in cognitively normal (NL) individuals with and without risk factors for AD. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SETTING Manhattan (broader area). PARTICIPANTS Fifty-two NL individuals (age 54+12 y, 70% women) with complete dietary information and cross-sectional, 3D T1-weighted MRI scans were examined. MEASUREMENTS Subjects were dichotomized into those showing higher vs. lower adherences to the MeDi using published protocols. Estimates of cortical thickness for entorhinal cortex (EC), inferior parietal lobe, middle temporal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) were obtained by use of automated segmentation tools (FreeSurfer). Multivariate general linear models and linear regressions assessed the associations of MeDi with MRI measures. RESULTS Of the 52 participants, 20 (39%) showed higher MeDi adherence (MeDi+) and 32 (61%) showed lower adherence (MeDi-). Groups were comparable for clinical, neuropsychological measures, presence of a family history of AD (FH), and frequency of Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 genotype. With and without controlling for age and total intracranial volume, MeDi+ subjects showed greater thickness of AD-vulnerable ROIs as compared to MeDi- subjects (Wilk's Lambda p=0.026). Group differences were most pronounced in OFC (p=0.001), EC (p=0.03) and PCC (p=0.04) of the left hemisphere. Adjusting for gender, education, FH, APOE status, BMI, insulin resistance scores and presence of hypertension did not attenuate the relationship. CONCLUSION NL individuals showing lower adherence to the MeDi had cortical thinning in the same brain regions as clinical AD patients compared to those showing higher adherence. These data indicate that the MeDi may have a protective effect against tissue loss, and suggest that dietary interventions may play a role in the prevention of AD.
Termination of Nociceptive Bahaviour at the End of Phase 2 of Formalin Test is Attributable to Endogenous Inhibitory Mechanisms, but not by Opioid Receptors Activation

Introduction Formalin injection induces nociceptive bahaviour in phase I and II, with a quiescent phase between them. While active inhibitory mechanisms are proposed to be responsible for initiation of interphase, the exact mechanisms which lead to termination of nociceptive response in phase II are not clear yet. Phase II is a consequence of peripheral and central sensitization processes, which can lead to termination of the noxious stimuli responses; 45-60 minutes after formalin injection via possible recruitment of active inhibitory mechanisms which we have investigated in this study. Methods To test our hypothesis, in the first set of experiments, we evaluated nociceptive response after two consecutive injection of formalin (50µL, 2%), with intervals of 5 or 60 minutes. In the next set, formalin tests were carried out in companion with injection of Naloxone Hydrochloride, a non-selective antagonist of opioid receptors, pre-formalin injection and 30 and 45 minutes post formalin injection. Results While normal nociceptive behaviour was observed in the group receiving one injection of formalin, a diminished response was observed in phases I and II of those receiving consequent injection of formalin, 60 minute after first injection. While second injection of formalin, 5 minute after first injection, had no effect. Administration of naloxone (1mg/kg) decreased nociception in phase 2A; but had no effect on delayed termination of formalin test. Discussion The results of this study suggest the existence of an active inhibitory mechanism, other than the endogenous opioids, that is responsible for termination of nociceptive behaviour at the end of formalin test.
Global War, Limited War and Peace: Hypotheses from Three Experimental Worlds

A number of recent articles on aspects of internation simulation have claimed that a major justification of simulation experiments is their fruitfulness for hypothesis formation and theory construction. Thus, one of the major ways in which simulation may contribute to substantive knowledge of large-scale political, and particularly, international systems, is by way of its heuristic value in suggesting hypothesized relationships which may hold both for the political reference system and the constructed laboratory social system. To paraphrase Hermann': if x is observed to bear a given relationship
Can we trust docking results? Evaluation of seven commonly used programs on PDBbind database

Docking is one of the most commonly used techniques in drug design. It is used for both identifying correct poses of a ligand in the binding site of a protein as well as for the estimation of the strength of protein–ligand interaction. Because millions of compounds must be screened, before a suitable target for biological testing can be identified, all calculations should be done in a reasonable time frame. Thus, all programs currently in use exploit empirically based algorithms, avoiding systematic search of the conformational space. Similarly, the scoring is done using simple equations, which makes it possible to speed up the entire process. Therefore, docking results have to be verified by subsequent in vitro studies. The purpose of our work was to evaluate seven popular docking programs (Surflex, LigandFit, Glide, GOLD, FlexX, eHiTS, and AutoDock) on the extensive dataset composed of 1300 protein–ligands complexes from PDBbind 2007 database, where experimentally measured binding affinity values were also available. We compared independently the ability of proper posing [according to Root mean square deviation (or Root mean square distance) of predicted conformations versus the corresponding native one] and scoring (by calculating the correlation between docking score and ligand binding strength). To our knowledge, it is the first large‐scale docking evaluation that covers both aspects of docking programs, that is, predicting ligand conformation and calculating the strength of its binding. More than 1000 protein–ligand pairs cover a wide range of different protein families and inhibitor classes. Our results clearly showed that the ligand binding conformation could be identified in most cases by using the existing software, yet we still observed the lack of universal scoring function for all types of molecules and protein families. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2011