Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alteration of intraaneurysmal hemodynamics by placement of a self-expandable stent. Laboratory investigation.

OBJECT Development of a flexible self-expanding stent system and stent-assisted coiling technique facilitates endovascular treatment of wide-necked brain aneurysms. The hemodynamic effect of self-expandable stent placement across the neck of a brain aneurysm has not been well documented in patient-specific aneurysm models. METHODS Three patient-specific silicone aneurysm models based on clinical images were used in this study. Model 1 was constructed from a wide-necked internal carotid artery-ophthalmic artery aneurysm, and Models 2 and 3 were constructed from small wide-necked middle cerebral artery aneurysms. Neuroform stents were placed in the in vitro aneurysm models, and flow structures were compared before and after the stent placements. Flow velocity fields were acquired with particle imaging velocimetry. RESULTS In Model 1, a clockwise, single-vortex flow pattern was observed in the aneurysm dome before stenting was performed. There were multiple vortices, and a very small fast flow stream was newly formed in the aneurysm dome after stenting. The mean intraaneurysmal flow velocity was reduced by approximately 23-40%. In Model 2, there was a clockwise vortex flow in the aneurysm dome and another small counterclockwise vortex in the tip of the aneurysm dome before stenting. The small vortex area disappeared after stenting, and the mean flow velocity in the aneurysm dome was reduced by 43-64%. In Model 3, a large, counterclockwise, single vortex was seen in the aneurysm dome before stenting. Multiple small vortices appeared in the aneurysm dome after stenting, and the mean flow velocity became slower by 22-51%. CONCLUSIONS The flexible self-expandable stents significantly altered flow velocity and also flow structure in these aneurysms. Overall flow alterations by the stent appeared favorable for the long-term durability of aneurysm embolization. The possibility that the placement of a low-profile self-expandable stent might induce unfavorable flow patterns such as a fast flow stream in the aneurysm dome cannot be excluded.
Maturation of proximal tubule Na+/H+ antiporter activity in sheep during transition from fetus to newborn.

We have studied maturational changes in the kinetics of the proximal tubule Na+/H+ antiporter. Microvillus membrane vesicles were prepared from renal cortex of fetal and newborn lambs. Amiloride-sensitive uptake of 22Na+ by these vesicles was measured and Woolf-Augustinsson-Hofstee plots were used to determine the Michaelis constant (Km) and rate of maximal uptake (Vmax). Initial studies of fetal lambs at 130-132 days gestation (n = 5; term is 145 days) and 3- to 4-day-old lambs (n = 5) revealed no maturational change in Km (7.27 +/- 1.25 for fetuses and 9.01 +/- 1.03 mM for lambs); however, there was a 242% increase in Vmax (from 1.28 +/- 0.33 in the fetuses to 4.37 +/- 0.85 nmol.s-1.mg protein-1 in the lambs, P = 0.005). Further definition of the developmental change in Na+/H+ antiporter Vmax was obtained when 144-day-gestation fetuses (n = 5) were compared with 24-h-old sibling lambs (n = 5) that had been delivered by cesarean section at 144 days gestation. Again, no significant difference was seen in Na+/H+ antiporter Km (14.9 +/- 6.5 for fetuses and 12.5 +/- 3.4 mM for lambs); however, a significant increase in Na+/H+ antiporter Vmax occurred (from 1.41 +/- 0.51 in the fetuses to 3.32 +/- 0.37 nmol.s-1.mg protein-1 in the lambs, P < 0.01). This study shows that there is a maturational increase in renal cortical Na+/H+ antiporter Vmax during the transition from fetal to newborn life. This increase parallels the increase in renal tubular Na+ reabsorption that occurs at this time.
A distributed power coordination scheme for fatigue load reduction in wind farms

We consider a scenario where a wind farm is given a power set point below its actual power production capacity. The objective is to dynamically redistribute power in order to minimize the fatigue loads experienced by the turbines, while maintaining the desired power production at all times. We show that this can be done in a distributed way by coordinating neighboring turbines. The result is a control scheme where both the synthesis and the resulting control law only require each turbine to communicate with a limited set of neighboring turbines.
Repression of Toll-like receptor-4 by microRNA-149-3p is associated with smoking-related COPD

Background Smoking is the leading cause of COPD. Exploring molecular markers and understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of smoking-related COPD are helpful for early clinical diagnosis and treatment of the disease. This study aims to identify specific circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) from the blood of COPD patients with a long history of smoking. Methods Blood samples from four different groups were collected, and miRNA microarray was performed. Differential expression of miRNAs was verified by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. In vitro, THP-1 cells were cultured and stimulated with cigarette smoke extract (CSE) or transfected with miR-149-3p inhibitor/mimics. Protein levels of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR-4) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) were detected using Western blot and immunofluorescence. Interleukin (IL)-1β and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels were determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results miRNA profiling revealed that the expression of 56 miRNAs was changed between the four groups. Expression of miR-149-3p in group C (non-smoker non-COPD) was higher than in group S (smoker non-COPD), S-COPD (smoker with stable COPD) and AE-COPD (smoker with acute exacerbation COPD). CSE stimulation down-regulated the expression of miR-149-3p and up-regulated the TLR-4 and NF-κB levels in THP-1 cells. Transfecting miR-149-3p inhibitors in THP-1 cells also increased the expression of its target genes. Furthermore, overexpression of miR-149-3p inhibited the TLR-4/NF-κB signaling pathways and reduced the secretion of IL-1β and TNF-α. Conclusion This study found that smoking can induce differential expression of circulating miR-NAs, such as down-regulation of miR-149-3p. Reducing miR-149-3p may increase the inflammatory response in COPD patients through the regulation of the TLR-4/NF-κB signaling pathway.
Legislative and Court Decisions That Promulgated Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is not confined to the illegal practices of targeting, questioning, and arresting minority group members by law enforcement officials because of their involvement in criminal activity; it is systemic and pervasive in private and public institutions. Other minority groups are racially profiled; however, this discussion focuses on racial profiling of African Americans. Specifically, this article provides a sociohistorical perspective of selected legislative and court decisions that promulgated racial profiling. The enforcement of these decisions was based on the degree of ethnic/racial visibility. Consequently, today's incidence of de facto racial profiling is the result of de jure practices.
Design of an ultrawide band low noise microstrip amplifier using 3D sonnet- based SVRM with particle swarm optimization for space applications

In this work, a determinististic, efficient design methodology is put forward to design a wide-band, low-noise microstrip amplifier, where the microstrip widths, lengths {W<sup>→</sup>,ℓ<sup>→</sup>} of the input/ output matching networks are obtained accurately and fast for a substrate {ε<sub>r</sub>, h, tanδ} using the cost-effective 3D EM- based Support Vector Regression Machine (SVRM) microstrip model provided that ensuring the stable source Z<sub>S</sub>(ω) and load Z<sub>L</sub>(ω) terminations for the compatible {Noise F(ω) ≥ F<sub>min</sub>(ω), Input VSWR Vi(ω) ≥1, Gain G<sub>Tmin</sub>(ω)>G<sub>T</sub>(ω)≥G<sub>Tmax</sub>(ω), Bandwidth B} quadrates of the employed transistor. The 3D EM- based SVRM microstrip model provides the accurate and fast characterization of the equivalent transmission line in terms of the characteristic impedance Z<sub>0</sub> and the dielectric constant ε<sub>eff</sub> within the continuous domain of {0.1mm ≤ W ≤ 4.6 mm, 2 ≤ ε<sub>r</sub> ≤ 10, 0.1mm ≤ h ≤ 2.2mm, 2GHz ≤ f ≤ 14GHz} in an efficient manner. In the modeling process, the substantial reduction (up to %64) is obtained utilizing sparseness of SVRM in the number of expensive fine discretization training data with the negligible loss in the predictive accuracy using the quasi-TEM microstrip synthesis formulas as the coarse model that allow to identify the regions of the design space requiring denser sampling. Moreover, the multi-objective amplifier design problem is reduced into the two single-objective design problems of the input(IM)/ output (OM)matching networks to provide the source Z<sub>S</sub>(ω) and load Z<sub>L</sub>(ω) terminations to the transistor, respectively. Finally the design methodology is applied to the design of typical wideband low-noise amplifiers of the transistor NE3512S02 within 3GHz and 8GHz using T-, II- L types of microstrip matching circuits satisfying the maximum gain provided the available minimum noise and a permitted amount of input mismatching at each operation frequency. In the design optimization of the IM/OM networks, a Memetic Algorithm (MA) in which a simple local optimizer called Nelder-Mead (NM) algorithm is used along with the global optimizer Particle Swarm (PSO) algorithm is used. Furthermore, typical T-T designed amplifier is validated using the Circuit Simulator AWR and 3 D EM Simulator SONNET.
Tail asymptotics for the supremum of an independent subadditive process, with applications to monotone-separable networks

Tail asymptotics for the supremum of an independent subadditive process are obtained as a function of the logarithmic moment generating function. We use this analysis to obtain large deviations results for queueing networks in their stationary regime. In the particular case of (max,plus)-linear recursions, the rate of exponential decay of the stationary solution can be explicitly computed.
Social complexity and transitive inference in corvids

The social complexity hypothesis asserts that animals living in large social groups should display enhanced cognitive abilities along predictable dimensions. To test this concept, we compared highly social pinyon jays, Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus, with relatively nonsocial western scrub-jays, Aphelocoma californica, on two complex cognitive tasks relevant to the ability to track and assess social relationships. Pinyon jays learned to track multiple dyadic relationships more rapidly and more accurately than scrub-jays and appeared to display a more robust and accurate mechanism of transitive inference. These results provide a clear demonstration of the association between social complexity and cognition in animals.
On the Possibility of Tunable-Gap Bilayer Graphene FET

We explore the device potential of a tunable-gap bilayer graphene (BG) FET exploiting the possibility of opening a bandgap in BG by applying a vertical electric field via independent gate operation. We evaluate device behavior using atomistic simulations based on the self-consistent solution of the Poisson and Schrodinger equations within the nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. We show that the concept works, but the bandgap opening is not strong enough to suppress band-to-band tunneling in order to obtain a sufficiently large Ion/Ioff ratio for CMOS device operation.
Nicolas Sarkozy ou la masculinité mascarade du Président

L'analyse de la construction de l'identite strategique du President de la Republique Nicolas Sarkozy devoile la facon dont l'identite sexuelle travaille le role presidentiel, mais aussi comment elle peut etre definie comme un « capital corporel identitaire » qui fonctionne a plein dans et pour le corps politique. L'investissement exacerbe, explicite et inedit du President dans une « virilite ressource » se comprend en effet dans le contexte paritaire francais et son duel avec Segolene Royal, mais aussi par une logique compensatoire liee a la structure de ses capitaux et a sa trajectoire. Nicolas Sarkozy retourne en ressources des stigmates apparents, par la revendication d'une « rupture » dans le style presidentiel, qui passe notamment par la mise en avant d'une masculinite populaire et decomplexee. Pour la premiere fois au sein de la Republique universaliste, la virilite n'est donc plus un privilege implicite, mais apparait comme un capital comme un autre.
Gait kinematics after taping in participants with chronic ankle instability.

CONTEXT Chronic ankle instability is characterized by repetitive lateral ankle sprains. Prophylactic ankle taping is a common intervention used to reduce the risk of ankle sprains. However, little research has been conducted to evaluate the effect ankle taping has on gait kinematics. OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of taping on ankle and knee kinematics during walking and jogging in participants with chronic ankle instability. DESIGN Controlled laboratory study. SETTING Motion analysis laboratory. PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS A total of 15 individuals (8 men, 7 women; age = 26.9 ± 6.8 years, height = 171.7 ± 6.3 cm, mass = 73.5 ± 10.7 kg) with self-reported chronic ankle instability volunteered. They had an average of 5.3 ± 3.1 incidences of ankle sprain. INTERVENTION(S) Participants walked and jogged in shoes on a treadmill while untaped and taped. The tape technique was a traditional preventive taping procedure. Conditions were randomized. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Frontal-plane and sagittal-plane ankle and sagittal-plane knee kinematics were recorded throughout the entire gait cycle. Group means and 90% confidence intervals were calculated, plotted, and inspected for percentages of the gait cycle in which the confidence intervals did not overlap. RESULTS During walking, participants were less plantar flexed from 64% to 69% of the gait cycle (mean difference = 5.73° ± 0.54°) and less inverted from 51% to 61% (mean difference = 4.34° ± 0.65°) and 76% to 81% (mean difference = 5.55° ± 0.54°) of the gait cycle when taped. During jogging, participants were less dorsiflexed from 12% to 21% (mean difference = 4.91° ± 0.18°) and less inverted from 47% to 58% (mean difference = 6.52° ± 0.12°) of the gait cycle when taped. No sagittal-plane knee kinematic differences were found. CONCLUSIONS In those with chronic ankle instability, taping resulted in a more neutral ankle position during walking and jogging in shoes on a treadmill. This change in foot positioning and the mechanical properties of the tape may explain the protective aspect of taping in preventing lateral ankle sprains.
Lifetime optimization of Wireless Sensor Network through energy efficient clustering for robust data routing

Many routing protocols have been designed and evaluated for Wireless Sensor Networks using simulation tools. Only a few of these proposed works have been tested in real world scenarios. This paper presents a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) data aggregation & routing protocol that is particularly suited to largely deployed sensor networks. The proposed mechanism combines a gradient based routing scheme with the hierarchical scheme of the LEACH protocol. By combining these two protocols and taking the important factor of node energy into consideration when selecting the cluster heads, a robust strategy for data aggregation and routing is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol improves the wireless sensor network performance in two ways. First, the data aggregation feature reduces 75% data load on the network and second, energy aware clustering and cost aware multi-hop communication increases the lifetime of network as compared to LEACH and EEPSC routing protocols
The Experience of Respite during Home-Based Family Caregiving for Persons with Advanced Cancer

The purpose of this qualitative interpretive study was to explore the experience of respite during home-based family caregiving for persons with advanced cancer. Fifteen caregivers were interviewed twice after the death of their family member. Three main themes emerged from the data analysis. First, caring for a dying family member at home is an emotionally intense, exhausting, and singular experience, set in a world apart from everyday life patterns. Second, the caregivers differentiated between cognitive breaks and physical (getting away from) breaks of respite. To achieve a cognitive break and yet remain within the caregiving environment was viewed as important, whereas the physical separation from it was significant only if it contributed in some meaningful way to the caregiving. Third, the meaning of respite is rooted in the desire to bring a measure of quality and normalcy to the life of the dying person. Respite means staying engaged in living life with the dying family member.
Newsvendor Networks: Inventory Management and Capacity Investment with Discretionary Activities

We introduce a class of models, callednewsvendor networks, that allow for multiple products and multiple processing and storage points and investigate how their single-period properties extend to dynamic settings. Such models provide a parsimonious framework to study various problems of stochastic capacity investment and inventory management, including assembly, commonality, distribution, flexibility, substitution and transshipment. Newsvendor networks are stochastic models with recourse that are characterized by linear revenue and cost structures and a linear input-output transformation. While capacity and inventory decisions are locked in before uncertainty is resolved, some managerial discretion remains via ex-post input-output activity decisions. Ex-post decisions involve both the choice of activities and their levels and can result in subtle benefits. This discretion in choice is captured through alternate or "nonbasic" activities that can redeploy inputs and resources to best respond to resolved uncertain events. Nonbasic activities are never used in a deterministic environment; their value stems from discretionary flexibility to meet stochastic demand deviations from the operating point.The optimal capacity and inventory decisions balance overages with underages. Continuing the classic newsvendor analogy, the optimal balancing conditions can be interpreted as specifying multiple "critical fractiles" of the multivariate demand distribution; they also suggest appropriate measures for and trade-offs between product service levels. This paper shows that the properties of optimal newsvendor network solutions extend to a dynamic setting under plausible conditions. Indeed, we establish dynamic optimality of inventory and capacity policies for the lost sales case. Depending on the nonbasic activities, this also extends to the backordering case. Analytic- and simulation-based solution techniques and graphical interpretations are presented and illustrated by a comprehensive example that features discretionary input commonality and a flexible processing resource.
A Robust Method for Hand Gesture Segmentation and Recognition Using Forward Spotting Scheme in Conditional Random Fields

This paper proposes a forward spotting method that handles hand gesture segmentation and recognition simultaneously without time delay. To spot meaningful gestures of numbers (0-9) accurately, a stochastic method for designing a non-gesture model using Conditional Random Fields (CRFs) is proposed without training data. The non-gesture model provides a confidence measures that are used as an adaptive threshold to find the start and the end point of meaningful gestures. Experimental results show that the proposed method can successfully recognize isolated gestures with 96.51% and meaningful gestures with 90.49% reliability.
Political Economy: Institutions, Competition and Representation

The contents of this volume are drawn from the seventh International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics, and represent recent advances in the development of concepts and methods in political economy. Contributors include leading practitioners working on formal, applied, and historical approaches to the subject. The collection will interest scholars in the fields of political science and political sociology no less than economics. Part I outlines relevant concepts in political economy, including implementation, community, ideology, and institutions. Part II covers theory and applications of the spatial model of voting. Part III considers the different characteristics that govern the behaviour of institutions, while Part IV analyses competition between political representatives. Part V is concerned with the way in which government acquires information held by voters or advisors, and Part VI addresses government choice on monetary policy and taxation.
Impact of gate process technology on EOT of HfO2 gate dielectric

To facilitate CMOS scaling beyond the 65 nm technology node, high-permittivity gate dielectrics such as HfO2 will be needed in order to achieve sub-1.3nm equivalent oxide thickness (EOT) with suitably low gate leakage, particularly for low-power applications. Polycrystalline silicongermanium (poly-SiGe) is a promising gate material because it is compatible with a conventional CMOS process flow, and because it can yield significantly lower electrical gate-oxide thickness as compared with poly-Si. In this paper, the effects of the gate material (Si vs. SiGe) and gate deposition rate on EOT and gate leakage current density are investigated. Poly-Si0.75Ge0. 25 gate material yields the lowest EOT and is stable up to 950C for 30 seconds, providing 2 orders of magnitude lower leakage current compared to poly-Si gate material. A faster gate deposition rate (achieved by using S2H6 instead of SiH4 as the gaseous Si source) is also effective for minimizing the increases in EOT and leakage current with high-temperature annealing.
Semen alterations in HIV-1 infected men.

BACKGROUND Couples in whom the man is infected by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) increasingly request assisted reproductive technology (ART) to allow safe procreation. Semen quality is critical in such situations. METHODS Semen characteristics were evaluated in 189 HIV-infected men requesting ART. At the time of semen analysis all men were healthy and 177 were receiving anti-retroviral therapy. Comparisons were made with HIV-seronegative men, partners of women requiring IVF because of tubal infertility, after matching for age and sexual abstinence delay. RESULTS The most significant semen alterations found in the HIV-infected men were reduced percentages of rapidly progressive sperm [median (range), 10% (0-30%) compared with 15% (5-30%) in the controls, P < 0.001], and increased concentrations of non-spermatic cells [3 x 10(6)/ml (0.2-16 x 10(6)/ml) compared with 1.1 x 10(6)/ml (0.1-14 x 10(6)/ml) in the controls, P < 0.001]. HIV-infected men also showed lower ejaculate volumes [2.8 ml (0.6-9.3 ml) compared with 3.6 ml (1.1-11 ml), P < 0.05] and total sperm counts [262.5 x 10(6) (0-1003 x 10(6)) compared with 310.5 x 10(6) (48.3-1679 x 10(6)), P < 0.05]. CONCLUSIONS Semen evaluation in a large population of HIV-infected men requesting ART evidenced several alterations. Some of these anomalies might be related to anti-retroviral treatments.