Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A PARTICLE-BASED MODEL FOR PREDICTION OF CEMENT DIFFUSION DURING OSTEOPOROTIC HIP AUGMENTATION SURGERY: THEORY AND VALIDATION

Elderly patients with preexisting osteoporotic hip fracture are at high risk of a subsequent fracture in their contralateral hip. Current preventive approaches commonly have a long delay in restoring bone strength leaving patients at continued risk despite preventive efforts. Femoroplasty — injection of bone cement into the proximal femur — has been proposed as a potential preventive approach. However, it can cause complications because of extravasation of the cement into unwanted regions of the bone and an increased pressure within the bone, if not controlled and planned carefully. Therefore, precise modeling of the diffusion of the bone cement in osteoporotic bone and control over the injection process is of substantial importance. This paper presents a patient-specific fluid dynamics model to simulate the diffusion of the bone cement inside femur. The model is based on the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method for particle-based modeling of fluids. The Navier-Stokes equations were built into the SPH formulations and viscosity effects were added to model the flow of cement inside porous media. To validate the model, a new prototype automatic injection device was used to inject acrylic silicone into a porous foam block. Results of simulation of the injection show close matching with experimental data. The model is therefore promising for further development of optimized and fully controlled femoroplasty procedures. © 2010 ASME
Low-Complexity Framework for Movement Classification Using Body-Worn Sensors

We present a low-complexity framework for classifying elementary arm movements (reach retrieve, lift cup to mouth, and rotate arm) using wrist-worn inertial sensors. We propose that this methodology could be used as a clinical tool to assess rehabilitation progress in neurodegenerative pathologies tracking occurrence of specific movements performed by patients with their paretic arm. Movements performed in a controlled training phase are processed to form unique clusters in a multidimensional feature space. Subsequent movements performed in an uncontrolled testing phase are associated with the proximal cluster using a minimum distance classifier (MDC). The framework involves performing the compute-intensive clustering on the training data set offline (MATLAB), whereas the computation of selected features on the testing data set and the minimum distance (Euclidean) from precomputed cluster centroids are done in hardware with an aim of low-power execution on sensor nodes. The architecture for feature extraction and MDC are realized using coordinate rotation digital computer-based design that classifies a movement in ( $9n+31$ ) clock cycles, n being number of data samples. The design synthesized in STMicroelectronics 130-nm technology consumed 5.3 nW at 50 Hz, besides being functionally verified up to 20 MHz, making it applicable for real-time high-speed operations. Our experimental results show that the system can recognize all three arm movements with average accuracies of 86% and 72% for four healthy subjects using accelerometer and gyroscope data, respectively, whereas for stroke survivors, the average accuracies were 67% and 60%. The framework was further demonstrated as a field-programmable gate array-based real-time system, interfacing with a streaming sensor unit.
Peer Effects in Disadvantaged Primary Schools

Using data from a well-executed randomized experiment, we find that the average classroom peer achievement adversely influences own student achievement in math and reading in primary schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods. In addition, using a unique feature of our data, we provide tentative evidence that our focus on students in primary schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods may potentially be the driving force behind the divergence in our results and the results in the existing literature. Finally, we show that these different peer dynamics in disadvantaged neighborhoods can potentially be explained by the frame of reference and the invidious comparison models.
Safeguarding the Promise of Production Outsourcing

Today's product companies (original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs) increasingly outsource production, especially when the activities are asset intensive or require process technologies characterized by rapid innovation. When such an OEM also outsources the procurement of the required materials, especially to the party providing the production services, the OEM risks unpleasant surprises, such as unauthorized part or supplier substitutions, overbilling, mistreatment of the supply base, and the loss of the OEM's procurement leverage. Based on supply chain audits and interviews in numerous industries, we propose and analyze strategies for preventing these outcomes when outsourcing production. We recommend that OEMs carefully consider the underlying means, motives, and opportunities of the service providers when deciding which activities to outsource and how to establish effective business controls. Firms such as Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, and Dell have implemented these ideas.
Yielding behavior of glassy polymers. I. Free-volume model

Rigid, glassy polymers show a diversity of tensile behavior-ranging from apparently brittle to ductile. To delineate some of the factors that control the toughness or impact resistance of these polymers, the yielding behavior of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) was studied. Results of other workers have shown that the cold flow exhibited by many glassy polymers can be explained qualitatively by a free-volume model. The treatment assumes that molecular flow is permitted when the free volume increase, resulting from the dilatational component of the applied stress, is sufficient to bring the total free volume to that characteristic of the polymer liquid. The present study refines this approach by introducing an “effective temperature,” defined as that hypothetical temperature at which the glass would have an equilibrium free volume equal to the total free volume of the nonequilibrium glass at temperature T. Equations are derived which more satisfactorily describe the temperature and strain-rate dependences.
Tri-scan: a novel DFT technique for CMOS path delay fault testing

We propose a novel design for testability technique to apply two pattern tests for path delay fault testing. Due to stringent timing requirements of deep-submicron VLSI chips, design-for-test schemes have to be tailored for detecting stuck-at as well as delay faults quickly and efficiently. Existing techniques such as enhanced scan add substantial hardware overhead, whereas techniques such as scan-shifting or functional justification make the test generation process complex and produce lower coverage for scan based designs as compared to non-scan designs. We exploit the characteristics of CMOS circuitry to enable the application of two-pattern tests. The proposed technique reduces the problem of path delay fault testing for scan based designs to that of path delay fault testing with complete accessibility to the combinational logic, and has minimal area overhead. The scheme also provides significant reduction in power during scan operation.
Categorical Perception of Pitch: Effect of Linguistic Background, Linguistic Meaning and Pitch Contour

The aim of the present study was to assess the effect of linguistic background, linguistic meaning and pitch contour for the perception of pitch. For this purpose, the participants were divided into two groups based on their linguistic background. Group one involved 30 native Mandarin (tonal language) speakers and group two consisted of 30 native Kannada (non-tonal language) speakers. Six syllables common to both Mandarin and Kannada phonology was selected as stimuli. The syllables |ta|, |la| and |da| were considered, where pitch contrast changes the lexical meaning of the syllable in Mandarin, and syllable |to|, |lo| and |do| were selected as, pitch variation does not convey differential meaning in Mandarin. Categorical perception for the pitch continua was assessed for identification task to investigate the effect of linguistic background, linguistic meaning and pitch contour. Results showed no significant effect of linguistic background and linguistic meaning but the mean values were significantly different across pitch contour among
Successful Treatment of Autoimmune Hepatitis With Methotrexate

492 A utoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a chronic progressive condition of unknown etiology characterized by interface hepatitis, abnormal levels of serum globulins, and autoantibodies (1). AIH is a relatively common condition in the United States affecting 11% to 23% of patients with chronic liver disease (2). In children, AIH can have an aggressive course leading to cirrhosis and liver failure. Fortunately, AIH is usually responsive to immunosuppressive therapy with biochemical response expected in a minimum of 80% of patients and even higher response rates reported by Gregorio et al (3,4). Traditionally, steroids are the established therapy to induce remission in AIH; however, long-term use of steroids is limited by significant adverse effects including linear growth failure and osteoporosis. As a result, additional immunosuppressants or steroid-sparing agents (SSA) have been used to limit a patient’s exposure to steroids. The most frequently used medication is 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) or its derivative azathioprine (AZA). Although the majority of patients with respond to the above regimen of induction with steroids and 6-MP/AZA as maintenance therapy (5), there are few data on management of 6-MP/AZA therapeutic failures. Specifically, only a few reports have been published evaluating the efficacy of other immunomodulatory agents for those patients who fail 6-MP/AZA maintenance therapy. Other immunomodulating agents reported include cyclosporine (CSA), mycophenolate mofetil (MMF), and tacrolimus (3); however, to date there are no reports identifying the successful treatment of AIH in the pediatric population with methotrexate (MTX). Accordingly, we report 2 steroid-dependent pediatric patients with AIH, who had sustained remission on MTX.
The Weak Absorbing Outflow in AGN Mrk 279: Evidence of Supersolar Metal Abundances

We present analysis and photoionization modeling of the Chandra high-resolution spectrum of Mrk 279. There is clear evidence of an absorbing outflow that is best fit by a two-component model: one with a low-ionization parameter and one with a higher ionization parameter. The column density of the X-ray warm absorber, about log NH = 20, is the smallest known of all active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in which X-ray absorbing outflows are observed. We find that the X-ray and UV/FUV absorbers are part of the same overall outflow. There is some evidence of supersolar carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and iron in the Chandra spectrum of Mrk 279. While this is not a robust result in itself, Chandra data in combination with the UV data and the pressure equilibrium between two phases of the outflow, support the scenario of supersolar abundances. This is the first case in which supersolar abundances are reported in the nucleus of a normal Seyfert galaxy. The data suggest that the outflow originates from a compact region around the nuclear black hole and that it carries insignificant amounts of mass and energy.
The C. elegans Myt1 ortholog is required for the proper timing of oocyte maturation

Maturation promoting factor (MPF), a complex of cyclin-dependent kinase 1 and cyclin B, drives oocyte maturation in all animals. Mechanisms to block MPF activation in developing oocytes must exist to prevent precocious cell cycle progression prior to oocyte maturation and fertilization. This study sought to determine the developmental consequences of precociously activating MPF in oocytes prior to fertilization. Whereas depletion of Myt1 in Xenopus oocytes causes nuclear envelope breakdown in vitro, we found that depletion of the Myt1 ortholog WEE-1.3 in C. elegans hermaphrodites causes precocious oocyte maturation in vivo. Although such oocytes are ovulated, they are fertilization incompetent. We have also observed novel phenotypes in these precociously maturing oocytes, such as chromosome coalescence, aberrant meiotic spindle organization, and the expression of a meiosis II post-fertilization marker. Furthermore, co-depletion studies of CDK-1 and WEE-1.3 demonstrate that WEE-1.3 is dispensable in the absence of CDK-1, suggesting that CDK-1 is a major target of WEE-1.3 in C. elegans oocytes.
Factors influencing the obstetric and perinatal outcome after oocyte donation.

BACKGROUND We evaluated interactions between perinatal outcome after oocyte donation and various maternal factors. METHODS The study included 134 parturients after oocyte donation. Data were collected from medical files and personal interviews. Stepwise logistic regression analyses were used to evaluate associations between perinatal outcomes and selected maternal variables. RESULTS Fifty percent of the women were >43 years old, 30.6% were >45 years and 67.9% were nulliparous. The rates of pregnancy induced hypertension (PIH), gestational diabetes and first and second trimester vaginal bleeding (STB) were 27.6, 23.9, 43.3 and 6% respectively, while 72% had Caesarean deliveries. The rates of preterm (PD), low birth weight (LBW), small for gestational age (SGA) deliveries and major malformations were respectively 14.9, 14.9, 7.6 and 2.2%. Using a logistic regression, PD was significantly associated with PIH, STB and maternal smoking. LBW deliveries were significantly associated with PIH, STB, nulliparity and maternal smoking. SGA babies were significantly associated with PIH. These perinatal outcomes were not associated with advanced maternal age or ovarian failure. CONCLUSIONS There is a high risk of obstetric complications in singleton oocyte donation pregnancies, but the perinatal outcomes are favourable. Patients should be counselled about these risks and monitored for these complications during pregnancy.
Mitral valve abnormalities identified by cardiovascular magnetic resonance represent a primary phenotypic expression of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

Background— Whether morphological abnormalities of the mitral valve represent part of the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) disease process is unresolved. Therefore, we applied cardiovascular magnetic resonance to characterize mitral valve morphology in a large HCM cohort. Methods and Results— Cine cardiac magnetic resonance images were obtained in 172 HCM patients (age, 42±18 years; 62% men) and 172 control subjects. In addition, 15 HCM gene-positive/phenotype-negative relatives were studied. Anterior mitral leaflet (AML) and posterior mitral leaflet lengths were greater in HCM patients than in control subjects (26±5 versus 19±5 mm, P<0.001; and 14±4 versus 10±3 mm, P<0.001, respectively), including 59 patients (34%) in whom AML length alone, posterior mitral leaflet length alone, or both were particularly substantial (>2 SDs above controls). Leaflet length was increased compared with controls in virtually all HCM age groups, including young patients 15 to 20 years of age (AML, 26±5 versus 21±4 mm; P=0.0002) and those ≥60 years of age (AML, 26±4 versus 19±2 mm; P<0.001). No relation was evident between mitral leaflet length and LV thickness or mass index (P=0.09 and P=0.16, respectively). A ratio of AML length to LV outflow tract diameter of >2.0 was associated with subaortic obstruction (P=0.001). In addition, AML length in 15 genotype-positive relatives without LV hypertrophy exceeded that of matched control subjects (21±3 versus 18±3 mm; P<0.01). Conclusions— In HCM, mitral valve leaflets are elongated independently of other disease variables, likely constituting a primary phenotypic expression of this heterogeneous disease, and are an important morphological abnormality responsible for LV outflow obstruction in combination with small outflow tract dimension. These findings suggest a novel role for cardiac magnetic resonance in the assessment of HCM.
A Shared Task on Bandit Learning for Machine Translation

We introduce and describe the results of a novel shared task on bandit learning for machine translation. The task was organized jointly by Amazon and Heidelberg University for the first time at the Second Conference on Machine Translation (WMT 2017). The goal of the task is to encourage research on learning machine translation from weak user feedback instead of human references or post-edits. On each of a sequence of rounds, a machine translation system is required to propose a translation for an input, and receives a real-valued estimate of the quality of the proposed translation for learning. This paper describes the shared task's learning and evaluation setup, using services hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), the data and evaluation metrics, and the results of various machine translation architectures and learning protocols.
Effect of threonine-to-methionine substitution at position 265 on structure and function of TEM-1 beta-lactamase

TEM beta-lactamase variants with the amino acid substitutions R164S, E104K, G238S, and E240K (ABL numbering) display increased activity toward extended-spectrum cephalosporins. The T265M substitution is frequently found to be associated with the above substitutions in extended-spectrum beta-lactamases. However, the residue is located away from the active site in the three-dimensional structure and has been assumed to have no effect on catalysis. To examine the effect of the substitution on the structure and function of TEM beta-lactamase we constructed the following mutants: G238S, T265M, T265M:G238S, and T265M:G238S:E240K. Each enzyme was purified to homogeneity and the kinetic parameters kcat, Km and kcat/Km were determined for cefotaxime, ceftazidime, cephaloridine, and ampicillin. The results indicate that the T265M mutation has little effect on hydrolysis. In addition, we used immunoblotting to show that the substitution has little or no effect on the in vivo steady-state levels of beta-lactamase.
An HVS-based Adaptive Computational Complexity Reduction Scheme for H.264/AVC video encoder using Prognostic Early Mode Exclusion

The H.264/AVC video encoder standard significantly improves the compression efficiency by using variable block-sized Inter (P) and Intra (I) Macroblock (MB) coding modes. In this paper, we propose a novel Human Visual System based Adaptive Computational Complexity Reduction Scheme (ACCoReS). It performs Prognostic Early Mode Exclusion and a Hierarchical Fast Mode Prediction to exclude as many I-MB and P-MB coding modes as possible (up to 73%) even before the actual Rate Distortion Optimized Mode Decision (RDO-MD) and Motion Estimation while keeping a good quality. In the best case, ACCoReS processes exactly one MB Type and one corresponding near-optimal coding mode, such that the complete RDO-MD process is skipped. Experimental results show that compared to state-of-the-art approaches, ACCoReS achieves a speedup of up to 9.14× (average 3×) with an average PSNR loss of 0.66 dB. Compared to exhaustive RDO-MD, our ACCoReS provides a performance improvement of up to 19× (average 10×) for an average 3% PSNR loss.
#SupportTheCause: Identifying Motivations to Participate in Online Health Campaigns

We consider the task of automatically identifying participants’ motivations in the public health campaign Movember and investigate the impact of the different motivations on the amount of campaign donations raised. Our classification scheme is based on the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (van Zomeren et al., 2008). We find that automatic classification based on Movember profiles is fairly accurate, while automatic classification based on tweets is challenging. Using our classifier, we find a strong relation between types of motivations and donations. Our study is a first step towards scaling-up collective action research methods.
Field-weakening in high-performance PMSM drives: a comparative analysis

A comparative analysis of field-weakening (FW) in vector controlled and DTC permanent magnet synchronous motor drives is performed. Following the description of the fundamentals of these drives, the results of simulations and a comprehensive set of experiments are given. The possibility of unstable operation in the high-speed region using DTC is emphasised. The present paper also highlights some important differences between DTC and vector drives in FW, such as quickness of torque response, torque/flux/current ripple content and implementation aspects. For this purpose two types of DTC drives are implemented, a classical DTC and also a DTC scheme with torque ripple reduction.
Substation and electric systems equipment 3D laser scanning

Three-dimensional laser scanning of power equipment and facilities of electric power systems (power plants and substations) is a new high-tech activity of the 3D laboratory of the <;<;Automated Power Systems>> department of the Ural Power Engineering Institute, UrFU. Laser scanning allows providing full reproduction of topographic and geometric data of the power facility. The implementation of reverse engineering becomes possible on the basis of 3D scanning. Laser scanning of power facilities allows achieving the priority goal of obtaining a three-dimensional primary digital CAD-model and its drawings with high accuracy needed to meet the challenges of designing, construction, quality control, diagnostics and other engineering tasks. This paper presents in detail the methods and stages of laser scanning by the example of simulating (CAD-model creation) a 110/20 kV 40 MVA step-down power transformer.
Analysis of the MammaPrint Breast Cancer Assay in a Predominantly Postmenopausal Cohort

Purpose: Most node-negative breast cancer patients are older and postmenopausal and are increasingly being offered adjuvant chemotherapy despite their low overall risk of distant relapse. A molecular diagnostic test with high negative predictive value (NPV) for distant metastasis in this subgroup would spare many older breast cancer patients adjuvant treatment. Experimental Design: We determined the NPV and positive predictive value of the MammaPrint assay in breast cancer patients who were consecutively diagnosed and treated at the Massachusetts General Hospital between 1985 and 1997. Primary tumors from 100 patients with node-negative, invasive breast cancer (median age, 62.5 years; median follow-up, 11.3 years) were subjected to MammaPrint analysis and classified as being at either low or high risk for distant metastasis. Results: The MammaPrint 70-gene signature displayed excellent NPV as in previous studies, correctly identifying 100% of women at low risk for distant metastases at 5 years. However, this assay had a lower positive predictive value (12% at 5 years) than previously observed. Conclusions: The MammaPrint assay was originally designed to identify younger breast cancer patients at low risk for distant metastasis, who might consequently be spared systemic treatment. We show here that the same signature has a very high NPV for distant recurrence after adjuvant treatment in older breast cancer patients.
Optimization of Cmos 0.18 µM Low Noise Amplifier Using Nsga-Ii for UWB Applications

A design and optimization of 3-5 GHz single ended Radio Frequency (RF) Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) for ultra-wide-band (UWB) applications using standard UMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology is reported. Designing of RF circuit components is a challenging job, since even after performing lengthy calculations and finding parameter values it is less guarantee that the design performs as expected. In view of this the optimization tool; Elitist Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II); has been employed to get the optimized starting values of components in the proposed LNA design. The obtained NSGA-II parameters were simulated using Cadence SpectreRF simulator. The designed Low Noise Amplifier achieves a power gain of 22 dB and a minimum Noise Figure of 3 dB is achieved. It dissipates 12.5 mW of power out of 1.8 V supply.