Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Marginal Gap of Milled versus Cast Gold Restorations

PURPOSE This in vitro study evaluated and compared the vertical marginal gap of cast and milled full coverage gold copings using two margin designs (chamfer and chamfer bevel) before and after fitting adjustments. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ten impressions were made of two metal master dies (one chamfer margin, one chamfer-bevel margin) and poured twice in Type IV stone. The 20 subsequent casts with 40 dies were split into four groups (n = 10); cast gold bevel, cast gold chamfer, milled gold bevel, and milled gold chamfer groups. The cast specimens received approximately 40 μm die relief no closer than 1 mm from the finish line. Cast copings were hand waxed, cast in a high noble gold alloy, chemically divested, and the sprues were removed. For milled gold copings, casts were scanned and copings designed using 3shape D900 scanner and software. Parameters were set to approximate analog fabrication (cement gap = 0.01 mm; extra cement gap = 0.04 mm, drill radius = 0.65 mm). Copings were milled from the same high noble alloy. All copings were seated on their respective master die in a custom scanning jig and measured using a measuring microscope at 90× (60 measurements per specimen, 15 per surface). Following initial measurements, all copings were adjusted on stone dies. The number of adjustment cycles was recorded and post-adjustment measurements were made using the same method. Data were analyzed using independent and paired t-tests. RESULTS Milled gold copings with a beveled margin (11.7 ± 20.4 μm) had a significantly (p < 0.05) smaller marginal gap than cast gold copings with a beveled margin (43.6 ± 46.8 μm) after adjustment. Cast gold copings with a chamfer margin (22.7 ± 24.7 μm) had a significantly (p < 0.05) smaller marginal gap than milled gold copings with a chamfer margin (27.9 ± 31.6 μm) following adjustments. Adjustments significantly decreased marginal gap for both cast groups (p < 0.05) and the milled chamfer bevel group (p < 0.05) but had no significant effect on the milled chamfer group. CONCLUSIONS Within the limitations of this study, results indicate that gold restorations milled with the tested parameters provide a vertical marginal gap that is an acceptable alternative to traditional gold crown casting techniques.
Single-breath diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide: a predictor of PaO2, maximum work rate, and walking distance in patients with emphysema.

OBJECTIVE The National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT) is a randomized, multicenter, clinical trial comparing two different methods of lung volume reduction surgery plus medical therapy to medical treatment alone in patients with advanced emphysema. The purpose of this article was to use the data obtained from the NETT to assess the ability of the single-breath diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO) to predict the need for supplemental oxygen during rest and exercise, as well as overall exercise capacity. METHODS One thousand seventy-one patients with a mean (+/- SD) FEV(1) of 0.76 +/- 0.24 L were studied. RESULTS The mean DLCO was 8.0 +/- 3.1 mL/min/mm Hg (28 +/- 10% of predicted). The mean resting PaO(2) was 64 +/- 10 mm Hg. There was a positive association between DLCO and both resting PaO(2) and the requirement for oxygen during a walk at 1 mile per hour (mph). The odds of requiring supplemental oxygen while walking at 1 mph was nine times greater in patients with a DLCO of < or = 20% of predicted than for patients with a DLCO of > 35% of predicted, after adjusting for age and gender. Eighty four percent of individuals with a DLCO of < or = 20% required supplemental oxygen with low levels of exercise compared to 38% of those with a DLCO of > 35%. CONCLUSION Our results demonstrated that patients with reduced DLCO, particularly when < or = 20% of predicted, are more likely to have reduced PaO(2) at rest and are more likely to require supplemental oxygen with low levels of activity. Thus, DLCO is useful in evaluating whether supplemental oxygen is required for exercise.
MCM and CPM Combination as Compared to The Use of FDE for CPM

—This paper compares Multi-Carrier Modulation (MCM) and Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) combination, with the use of Frequency Domain Equalization (FDE) for Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM). It is shown that these two constant envelope methods exploit the frequency diversity of multi path channel. In addition, they have 0dB Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) and high power efficiency. However, MCM-CPM combination outperforms applying FDE for CPM due to superior performance of multicarrier systems in frequency selective channels by using orthogonal subcarriers.
HIV Testing of Pregnant Women: A Policy Analysis

The promising findings of ACTG 076, which identified a hopeful strategy for substantially reducing HIV transmission from mother to fetus, has stimulated a debate on counseling and testing protocols for pregnant women. This article presents an analysis of five state policy alternatives that address HIV counseling and testing. The policy analysis utilizes vertical and horizontal equity, user preference including avoidance of stigma and the right to privacy, effectiveness, and feasibility as evaluative criteria for examination of the policies. Interviews with state health department personnel enhance the policy analysis. While universal HIV counseling and voluntary testing for pregnant women emerges as the most acceptable policy, public health professionals must assume a vital role in facilitating the adoption of ethical and just state policies in an atmosphere sometimes hostile to women at risk for HIV.
Take the First Right and Go Straight Forever: Novel Planning Algorithms in Stochastic Infinite Domains

We study new planning algorithms for stochastic, infinite state Markov Decision Processes (MDP). Our objective is to find the policy in the MDP with the greatest probability of reaching the goal. Given a reward function we would also like the algorithm to find the policy, among those tied for greatest probability of reaching the goal, with the greatest expected total reward. We first describe an algorithm that begins at the start state and incrementally expands more states as needed. It solves a sub-MDP to find a fringe state to expand, expands that state, and then checks if it should terminate. We show that the algorithm is only guaranteed to terminate on finite domains and select infinite ones. We show that if we only care about maximizing the probability of reaching the goal, some reward functions will cause the algorithm to expand fewer nodes than others. We finally consider a modified breadth-first search algorithm. This algorithm, while still not guaranteed to terminate for most domains, is guaranteed to find a finite optimal policy in finite time without knowing when to terminate. We additionally show that neither algorithm with any reward function will minimize the expected number of steps to the goal. These algorithms show two approaches to solving stochastic, infinite MDPs to optimize first for the probability of reaching the goal, and then the expected total reward.
Interleukin-6 and airflow limitation in chemical warfare patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Objectives Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the main late complications of sulfur mustard poisoning. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6 in war veterans with pulmonary complications of sulfur mustard poisoning and their correlation with severity of airways disease. Methods Fifty consecutive patients with sulfur mustard poisoning and stable COPD, and of mean age 46.3 ± 9.18 years were enrolled in this study. Thirty healthy men were selected as controls and matched to cases by age and body mass index. Spirometry, arterial blood gas, six- minute walk test, BODE (body mass index, obstruction, dyspnea, and exercise capacity), and St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire about quality of life were evaluated. Serum IL-6 was measured in both patient and control groups. Results Fifty-four percent of patients had moderate COPD. Mean serum IL-6 levels were 15.01 ± standard deviation (SD) 0.61 pg/dL and 4.59 ± 3.40 pg/dL in the case and control groups, respectively (P = 0.03). There was a significant correlation between IL-6 levels and Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease stage (r = 0.25, P = 0.04) and between IL-6 and BODE index (r = 0.38, P = 0.01). There was also a significant negative correlation between serum IL-6 and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1, r = −0.36, P = 0.016). Conclusion Our findings suggest that serum IL-6 is increased in patients with sulfur mustard poisoning and COPD, and may have a direct association with airflow limitation.
Keeping Your Eyes on the Prize

People’s emotional states influence what they focus their attention on in their environment. For example, fear focuses people’s attention on threats, whereas excitement may focus their attention on rewards. This study examined the effect of anger on overt visual attention to threats and rewards. Anger is an unpleasant emotion associated with approach motivation. If the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on valence, we would expect anger to focus people’s attention on threats. If, however, the effect of emotion on visual attention depends on motivation, we would expect anger to focus people’s attention on rewards. Using an eye tracker, we examined the effects of anger, fear, excitement, and a neutral emotional state on participants’ overt visual attention to threatening, rewarding, and control images. We found that anger increased visual attention to rewarding information, but not to threatening information. These findings demonstrate that anger increases attention to potential rewards and suggest that the effects of emotions on visual attention are motivationally driven.
Power constraint testing for multi-clock domain SoCs using concurrent hybrid BIST

This paper presents a novel approach for selecting optimal pseudo random and deterministic test patterns and minimizing test time for multi-clock domain SoCs based on a hybrid BIST architecture for each core. For test scheduling, a concurrent method considering peak power upper bound is used. A test scheduling graph is presented for modeling concurrent hybrid BIST test scheduling. Furthermore, a heuristic is proposed for selecting cores to be tested concurrently and the order of applying sequence of test patterns to each core. Experimental results show that the proposed heuristics for both selecting groups of cores to be tested concurrently during the SoC test process, and determining the amount of deterministic and pseudo random test patterns for each core, give us an optimized method for multi clock domain SoC testing compared with the existing methods.
Predicting the reliability of polyisobutylene seal for photovoltaic application

Polyisobutylene (PIB) or butyl rubber has been used widely in applications such as construction materials, adhesives and sealants, agricultural chemicals, medical devices, personal care products, and fuel additives. Due to the unique low gas permeability, flexibility, and excellent weathering resistance, PIB or PIB based materials are frequently employed in photovoltaic (PV) industry as sealant to protect the electrical assembly in the package as well as moisture sensitive PV cells from aggressive environments. Long term behavior of the PIB sealant within the operating temperature range of the PV devices thus becomes a critical factor to the reliability of the device. In this paper, an experimental study of the temperature dependent fatigue behavior of a PIB based joint is presented. A finite element model capturing the joint region geometry is developed and an approach to estimate lifetime is proposed.
Long-Term Homeostasis of Extracellular Glutamate in the Rat Cerebral Cortex across Sleep and Waking States

Neuronal firing patterns, neuromodulators, and cerebral metabolism change across sleep–waking states, and the synaptic release of glutamate is critically involved in these processes. Extrasynaptic glutamate can also affect neural function and may be neurotoxic, but whether and how extracellular glutamate is regulated across sleep–waking states is unclear. To assess the effect of behavioral state on extracellular glutamate at high temporal resolution, we recorded glutamate concentration in prefrontal and motor cortex using fixed-potential amperometry in freely behaving rats. Simultaneously, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs) and electroencephalograms (EEGs) from contralateral cortex. We observed dynamic, progressive changes in the concentration of glutamate that switched direction as a function of behavioral state. Specifically, the concentration of glutamate increased progressively during waking (0.329 ± 0.06%/min) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (0.349 ± 0.13%/min). This increase was opposed by a progressive decrease during non-REM (NREM) sleep (0.338 ± 0.06%/min). During a 3 h sleep deprivation period, glutamate concentrations initially exhibited the progressive rise observed during spontaneous waking. As sleep pressure increased, glutamate concentrations ceased to increase and began decreasing despite continuous waking. During NREM sleep, the rate of decrease in glutamate was positively correlated with sleep intensity, as indexed by LFP slow-wave activity. The rate of decrease doubled during recovery sleep after sleep deprivation. Thus, the progressive increase in cortical extrasynaptic glutamate during EEG-activated states is counteracted by a decrease during NREM sleep that is modulated by sleep pressure. These results provide evidence for a long-term homeostasis of extracellular glutamate across sleep–waking states.
Automatic detection of mitral annulus in echocardiography based on prior knowledge and local context

Due to the inherent noisy, low resolution and limited imaging range of echocardiography, it is difficult to identify mitral annulus (MA) where valves end that is crucial for further segmentation, modeling and multi-modalities registration of mitral valves. This work aims to automatically detect MA hinge points combining information of intra-cardiac local context and location relationships. The method includes the following steps: (1) segment left ventricle (LV) by prior shape and local histogram fitting based Active Contour Model (ACM); (2) design the local context features for training and classification of MA hinge points; (3) utilize additive min kernel based Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier for fast computation to obtain MA candidates; (4) estimate MA hinge points by K-means algorithm under the location constraint of LV and MA. Our method was tested on echocardiographic four chamber image sequence of 10 pediatric patients (6 boys, 4 girls, 7.6±3.4 years). Compared with the manual annotations, the automatically detected MA results are reliable with reasonable accuracy, for lateral point (2.0±1.9, 1.8±1.2) pixels and for septal point (2.9±2.6, 1.2±1.0) pixels.
Transformation-invariant visual representations in self-organizing spiking neural networks

The ventral visual pathway achieves object and face recognition by building transformation-invariant representations from elementary visual features. In previous computer simulation studies with rate-coded neural networks, the development of transformation-invariant representations has been demonstrated using either of two biologically plausible learning mechanisms, Trace learning and Continuous Transformation (CT) learning. However, it has not previously been investigated how transformation-invariant representations may be learned in a more biologically accurate spiking neural network. A key issue is how the synaptic connection strengths in such a spiking network might self-organize through Spike-Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP) where the change in synaptic strength is dependent on the relative times of the spikes emitted by the presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons rather than simply correlated activity driving changes in synaptic efficacy. Here we present simulations with conductance-based integrate-and-fire (IF) neurons using a STDP learning rule to address these gaps in our understanding. It is demonstrated that with the appropriate selection of model parameters and training regime, the spiking network model can utilize either Trace-like or CT-like learning mechanisms to achieve transform-invariant representations.
Shear thickening of concentrated dispersions

• A submitted manuscript is the author's version of the article upon submission and before peer-review. There can be important differences between the submitted version and the official published version of record. People interested in the research are advised to contact the author for the final version of the publication, or visit the DOI to the publisher's website. • The final author version and the galley proof are versions of the publication after peer review. • The final published version features the final layout of the paper including the volume, issue and page numbers.
Application of Particle Filter Technique for Lifetime Determination of a LED Driver

Assessing product reliability through its degradation study is gaining wider acceptance as it provides insight to its degradation physics and shorten the required test time. In this paper, a degradation study for a linear-mode LED driver is conducted, and it is found that the measurement errors incorporated in the degradation study can reduce the accuracy of its lifetime estimation and that the errors cannot be reduced by using conventional regression method such as nonlinear least squares (NLS) and nonlinear mixed-effect estimation (NLME). To improve the estimation accuracy, a particle filter (PF) is implemented and combined with NLS for a single test unit, and a PF is combined with NLME for grouped test units. With this combination, the minimum test time is only one-fifth of the conventional method and the coefficient of variation for t50% is reduced by 71% as compared with using NLME alone. With the proposed methods, we can also determine the remaining useful life of a product in situ as illustrated in this paper.
Promotility Medications – Now and in the Future

Gastrointestinal promotility drugs stimulate smooth muscle contractions to enhance gastric emptying and small and large bowel transit. Currently available drug classes with prokinetic properties include antidopaminergic agents, serotonergic agents, and motilin-receptor agonists. Due to moderate prokinetic effects, poor symptomatic responses and the presence of adverse effects, there is a clear need for new classes of prokinetics. Several newer prokinetic drugs and drug classes are currently under evaluation. Selecting candidate agents and designing the appropriate therapeutic trials is hampered by the lack of insight in the pathophysiology of motility-related symptoms. As gastrointestinal motor disorders are chronic, relapsing, and remitting disorders, it seems desirable that studies with candidate prokinetic drugs establish a long-term efficacy and not only short-term effects on gastrointestinal functions.
Improving LPC analysis of noisy speech by autocorrelation subtraction method

A robust linear predictive coding (LPC) method that can be used in noisy as well as quiet environment has been studied. In this method, noise autocorrelation coefficients are first obtained and updated during non-speech periods. Then, the effect of additive noise in the input speech is removed by subtracting values of the noise autocorrelation coefficients from those of autocorrelation coefficients of corrupted speech in the course of computation of linear prediction coefficients. When signal-to-noise ratio of the input speech ranges from 0 to 10 dB, a performance improvement of about 5 dB can be gained by using this method. The proposed method is computationally very efficient and requires a small storage area.
Realtime scheduling using GPUs - proof of feasibility

This paper will report our evaluation to use openCL as a platform for hard realtime scheduling. Specifically, we have evaluated which types of tasks are faster on GPGPU than on CPU. We have investigated computational tasks, memory intensive tasks (especially tasks using low latency GDDR memory) and disk intensive tasks. This study is the first part of a larger research program to design an innovative Linux scheduler subsystem that runs on GPGPU and schedules tasks running on GPGPU as well as on CPU. Based on the results obtained from benchmarking various types of tasks, we found out that some of them are faster on GPGPU than on CPU and therefore should preferably be executed on GPGPU. Preliminary data suggest that we can expect a speed up of up to 10-fold with respect to execution time and latency.
COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF FORAGING AND HABITAT USE BY THE SYMPATRIC CARIBBEAN PARROTFISH SCARUS-VETULA AND SPARISOMA-VIRIDE (SCARIDAE)

On the fringing reef of Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles, a comparative study was made of habitat use, diet selection, foraging behaviour and food acquisition of the parrotfish species Scarus vetula and Sparisoma viride. The species are sympatric and live in the same reef habitats (depth zones). Both species show similar foraging selectivity, but exploit algal resources differently. Preferred food items are turf algae on substrates infested with endolithic algae, whereas crustose corallines are avoided. Foraging preferences are related to yield, i.e. the amount of AFDW (ash-free dry weight), protein and energy that can be harvested per bite. Foraging behaviour differs between the species. S. vetula takes more bites in long forays, has higher bite rates (no, of bites s(-1)), and makes fewer and smaller scars on grazing substrates than S. viride. Furthermore, S. vetula prefers flat substrate surfaces while adult S. viride graze by preference on concave surfaces. Species-specific differences in preference and utilization of grazing substrates are related to feeding mode. S. vetula employs a scraping feeding mode by which mainly epilithic algae are ingested. In contrast, S. viride is an excavating grazer that ingests large amounts of endolithic and crustose algae. Intake and assimilation of algal AFDW, protein and energy were quantified through a combination of laboratory feeding trials and field observations. S. vetula has lower food intake (mg AFDW bite(-1)) than S. viride (0.8 x 10(-3) x fish wet wt, FWW, and 2.3 x 10(-3) x FWW respectively), resulting from smaller (shallower) bites. Assimilation efficiencies of total AFDW, protein and energy by S. vetula were higher than in S. viride grazing on the same dead coral substrates, In spite of different feeding modes and different fractions of the primary production harvested, daily amounts of assimilated nutrients and energy are similar for both species, resulting from higher feeding rates (no. of bites h(-1)) and higher assimilation efficiency in S. vetula.
Ergodic Properties for Multirate Linear Systems

Stochastic analysis of a multirate linear system typically requires the signals in the system to possess certain ergodic properties. Among them, ergodicity in the mean and ergodicity in the correlation are the most commonly used ones. We show that multirate operations and time-variant linear filtering can destroy these ergodic properties. Motivated by this fact, we introduce the notions of strong ergodicity in the mean and strong ergodicity in the correlation. We show that these properties are preserved under a number of operations, namely, downsampling, upsampling, addition, and uniformly stable linear (time-variant) filtering. We also show that white random processes with uniformly bounded second moments are strongly ergodic in the mean and that mutually independent random processes with uniformly bounded fourth moments are jointly strongly ergodic in the correlation. The main implication of these results is that if a multirate linear system is driven by white (independent) random processes with uniformly bounded second (fourth) moments, then every signal in the system is strongly ergodic in the mean (correlation) and therefore ergodic in the mean (correlation). An application of these results is also discussed