Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Teleoperated Microsurgical Robot and Associated Virtual Environment for Eye Surgery

We have developed a prototype teleoperated microsurgical robot (MSR-1) and associated virtual environment for eye surgery. Bidirectional pathways relay visual, auditory, and mechanical information between the MSR-1 master and slave. The surgeon wears a helmet (visual master) that is used to control the orientation of a stereo camera system (visual slave) observing the surgery. Images from the stereo camera system are relayed back to the helmet (or adjacent screen) where they are viewed by the surgeon. In each hand the surgeon holds a pseudotool (a shaft shaped like a microsurgical scalpel) that projects from the left and right limbs of a force reflecting interface (mechanical master). Movements of the left and right pseudotools cause corresponding movements (scaled down by 1 to 100 times) in the microsurgical tools held by the left and right limbs of the micromotion robot (mechanical slave) that performs the surgery. Forces exerted on the left and right limbs of the slave microsurgical robot via the microtools are reflected back (after being scaled up by 1 to 100 times) to the pseudotools and hence surgeon via actuators in the left and right limbs of the mechanical master. This system enables tissue cutting forces to be felt including those that would normally be imperceptible if they were transmitted directly to the surgeon's hands. The master and slave subsystems (visual, auditory, and mechanical) communicate through a computer system which serves to enhance and augment images, filter hand tremor, perform coordinate transformations, and perform safety checks. The computer system consists of master and slave computers that communicate via an optical fiber connection. As a result, the MSR-1 master and slave may be located at different sites, which permits remote robotic microsurgery to become a reality. MSR-1 is being used as an experimental testbed for studying the effects of feedforward and feedback delays on remote surgery and is used in research on enhancing the accuracy and dexterity of microsurgeons by creating mechanical and visual telepresence.
Comparative assessment of humoral immune responses of aluminum hydroxide and oil-emulsion adjuvants in Influenza (H9N2) and Newcastle inactive vaccines to chickens

Abstract Context Adjuvants are compounds used in the preparation of inactive vaccines to enhance the immune response. Aluminum hydroxide (alum) is one of the first compounds approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which is used as adjuvants in vaccine products for humans. Montanide ISA 70 is an oil-emulsion adjuvant and is used in poultry inactive vaccines. Objective In this study, the effects of alum adjuvant on the efficiency and induction of immune response in inactive vaccines of Influenza and Newcastle are compared with those of ISA 70. Materials and methods Six groups of 7-d-old specific-pathogen-free chickens were inoculated with 0.3 ml of the prepared vaccines via the subcutaneous route in the neck. Immune response in each group after 7, 14, 21, 31, 41, and 45 d was evaluated using the technique of hemagglutination inhibition. Results The results were compared using SPSS software. Results showed that vaccines containing adjuvant ISA 70 depicted a higher increase in the immune response and adjuvant of 20% alum is similar to adjuvant of ISA 70 in boosting the immune system. There was no statistically significant difference between 10% and 20% alum, but these adjuvants are visibly different from ISA 70. Conclusion In conclusion, alum can be used as an easily accessible, harmless, and effective adjuvant; however, to increase the immune period using the inactive vaccines for poultry, more research would be necessary.
A TEST OF THE USE OF GEOGRAPHICAL SEGMENT DISCLOSURES

Our purpose is to investigate the use of geographical segment disclosures. Specifically, we examine whether equity valuations of U.S. multinationals are affected by geographical segment disclosures mandated by Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 14: Financial Reporting for Segments of a Business Enterprise (henceforth SFAS 14). Our results suggest that, when unexpected segmental earnings are large, geographical segment disclosures are used. For the most part, however, we find little evidence that these disclosures affect equity values. This research is motivated by the allegation that geographical segment disclosures are essentially useless. SFAS 14 (paragraph 34) allows considerable discretion in defining reportable segments and firms employ coarse definitions, possibly because of "an innate fear of disclosure" (Wechsler and Wandycz [1990]) or desire to finesse dumping and international transfer-pricing questions (Balakrishnan, Harris, and Sen [1990]). It is not difficult to find anecdotal evidence of coarse segmental definitions. Caterpillar Industries had reported three geographical segments: U.S., Europe, and Other. In June 1990, the company told analysts that Brazilian operations had entered a deep slump. The stock market reaction to this announcement was minimal. A few days later, however, the company informed analysts that this slump would cause second-quarter profits to be less than half the amount reported for the
Do USDA Announcements Affect Comovements Across Commodity Futures Returns

The value of USDA reports has long been a question of interest for researchers and practitioners. However, the impact of announcements on comovements across related commodity prices has not been explored beyond financial asset markets. This is important because the structure of the relationship between commodities could change depending on the type of information revealed in the announcement, thus affecting price perceptions, hedging ratios, and portfolio return variance. This study simultaneously measures the impact of selected USDA reports on the conditional variances and covariances of returns on corn, lean hogs, soybeans, soybean meal, and soybean oil futures contracts using a multivariate GARCH model. It is shown that the largest movements in covariances are observed on the release days of Feed Outlook, Grain Stocks, and Hogs and Pigs reports.
10D-1 On-Line Ultrasonic Inspection at Elevated Temperatures

An ability to perform on-line inspection on live plant without stopping an industrial process would be extremely valuable across a wide range of sectors including: power generation, petrochemical, offshore and steel. Frequently, plant operating temperatures are higher than existing contact inspection technologies can withstand and there is a need to have regular scheduled outages to allow cooling to occur before inspections can take place. There is significant interest therefore in the development of high temperature inspection capabilities to reduce the need for these outages. On-line monitoring would also be important as this would give the confidence needed to enable plant to operate safely beyond initial design life.
The effect of right cerebral hemisphere damage on collaborative planning in conversation: an analysis of intentional structure

This study investigated the impact of right cerebral hemisphere damage on the capacity to take shared responsibility for the development of an intentional structure in conversation. Intentions are important determiners of both discourse structure and utterance meaning in context. Right‐hemisphere damaged (RHD) individuals have been reported to have difficulty in the use of prosody as well as performing and appreciating the process of discourse tailoring which is dependent on recognizing speakers intentions. Audio taped samples of naturalistic conversations between RHD individuals and normal speakers were analysed. Text‐level discourse processing analyses involved measures of global discourse structure and self‐monitoring accuracy. Prosodic analyses included fundamental frequency (F0) resetting, pause durations and inter‐turn intervals. The results revealed that speakers with right cerebral hemisphere damage do not, first, use prosody to alert listeners to changes in discourse structure, and, second, assume equal responsibility for the development and maintenance discourse structure.
Delivery of carboplatin by carbon-based nanocontainers mediates increased cancer cell death

Since the activity of several conventional anticancer drugs is restricted by resistance mechanisms and dose-limiting side-effects, the design of nanocarriers seems to be an efficient and promising approach for drug delivery. Their chemical and mechanical stability and their possible multifunctionality render tubular nanomaterials, such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon nanofibres (CNFs), promising delivery agents for anticancer drugs. The goal of the present study was to investigate CNTs and CNFs in order to deliver carboplatin in vitro. No significant intrinsic toxicity of unloaded materials was found, confirming their biocompatibility. Carboplatin was loaded onto CNTs and CNFs, revealing a loading yield of 0.20 mg (CNT–CP) and 0.13 mg (CNF–CP) platinum per milligram of material. The platinum release depended on the carrier material. Whereas CNF–CP marginally released the drug, CNT–CP functioned as a drug depot, constantly releasing up to 68% within 14 days. The cytotoxicity of CNT–CP and CNF–CP in urological tumour cell lines was dependent on the drug release. CNT–CP was identified to be more effective than CNF–CP concerning the impairment of proliferation and clonogenic survival of tumour cells. Moreover, carboplatin, which was delivered by CNT–CP, exhibited a higher anticancer activity than free carboplatin.
Prevalence and risk factors for childhood obesity in Changsha and Shenzhen in China.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and the risk factors for childhood obesity in Changsha and Shenzhen, China. METHODS A case-control study was conducted in 209 obese children (the cases) identified in the investigation on childhood obesity in 6 288 children aged 6 to 9 years in Changsha and Shenzhen in China and 209 children with normal weight (the controls). The cases and controls were matched by gender, age, and school. Adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the risk factors were measured. RESULTS The prevalence rate of overweight and obese children was 9.28% and 3.30% in Changsha, and 12.17% and 4.22% in Shenzhen, respectively. The rate of overweight children is significantly higher in Shenzhen than in Changsha. No statistical difference was observed in the rate of obesity between the children in both cities. Paternal obesity (OR 1.78, 95% CI 1.01 to 3.16), maternal weight gain during pregnancy>or=15.0 kg (OR 5.22, 95% CI 2.78 to 9.80), birth weight>or=4.00 kg (OR 2.55, 95% CI 1.24 to 5.26), unhealthy snacks>or=1 per week (OR 3.94, 95% CI 1.11 to 13.99), and watching television>or=2 hours per day(OR 2.35, 95% CI 1.01 to 5.47) were associated with childhood obesity when potential confounding factors were adjusted by multi-variable logistic regression analysis. CONCLUSION Paternal obesity, gestational weight gain, high birth weight, and unhealthy life-style are important risk factors for obesity in urban children in south China.
A Hash-Based Space-Efficient Page-Level FTL for Large-Capacity SSDs

With increasing demands on high-performance and large-capacity SSDs in the enterprise-scale storage, the concern about the inefficient use of the DRAM space in SSDs rises, especially for those using page-level FTL (Flash Translation Layer). In such an FTL, the address mapping scheme allows a logical page address (LPA) to be mapped to any physical page address (PPA) in the disk. Though it provides flexible address management and minimizes internal data movements, it requires a large address mapping table whose size is proportional to the capacity of the disk. With the increase of SSD's capacity, the table can be too large to be held entirely in the DRAM buffer of the SSD, causing constantly accessing to the flash for the address translation. This performance penalty due to the buffer misses is particularly high with workloads of weak access locality and large working sets. In this paper, we propose a space- efficient page- level FTL using hash functions in the address translation, named Hash-based Page- level FTL, or HP-FTL in short, to address the concern. HP-FTL trades mapping flexibility with limited performance impact for high space efficiency allowing the entire table to fit in the buffer and eliminating translation misses. The experiment results show that HP-FTL can provide up to 2.6X throughput compared to DFTL, a representative page-level FTL, using the same amount of DRAM for buffering the table. Meanwhile, HP-FTL reduces the mapping table size to about 25% of the table space required by page- level mapping schemes, including DFTL, without having any buffer misses.
Adolescent resiliency to family adversity.

The factors associated with adolescent resiliency to childhood adversity were examined in a birth cohort of 940 New Zealand adolescents studied to the age of 16 years. Resilient teenagers were defined by: (a) high exposure to family adversity during childhood and (b) an absence of a wide range of externalising problems during adolescence including substance abuse, juvenile offending and school problems. Resilient teenagers were characterised by significantly higher IQ (p < .001), lower novelty seeking (p < .01) and lower affiliations with delinquent peers (p < .005) with these factors acting accumulatively to influence the probability of resilience to externalising problems.
Zebrafish Olfactomedin 1 Regulates Retinal Axon Elongation In Vivo and Is a Modulator of Wnt Signaling Pathway

Olfactomedin 1 (Olfm1) is a secreted glycoprotein belonging to a family of olfactomedin domain-containing proteins. It is involved in the regulation of neural crest production in chicken and promotes neuronal differentiation in Xenopus. Here, we investigate the functions of Olfm1 in zebrafish eye development. Overexpression of full-length Olfm1, and especially its BMY form lacking the olfactomedin domain, increased the thickness of the optic nerve and produced a more extended projection field in the optic tectum compared with control embryos. In contrast, injection of olfm1–morpholino oligonucleotide (Olfm1–MO) reduced the eye size, inhibited optic nerve extension, and increased the number of apoptotic cells in the retinal ganglion cell and inner nuclear layers. Overexpression of full-length Olfm1 increased the lateral separation of the expression domains of eye-field markers, rx3 and six3. The Olfm1–MO had the opposite effect. These data suggest that zebrafish Olfm1 may play roles in the early eye determination, differentiation, optic nerve extension, and branching of the retinal ganglion cell axon terminals, with the N-terminal region of Olfm1 being critical for these effects. Injection of RNA encoding WIF-1, a secreted inhibitor of Wnt signaling, caused changes in the expression pattern of rx3 similar to those observed after Olfm1–MO injection. Simultaneous overexpression of WIF-1 and Olfm1 abolished the WIF-1 effect. Physical interaction of WIF-1 and Olfm1 was demonstrated by coimmunoprecipitation experiments. We concluded that Olfm1 serves as a modulator of Wnt signaling.
DecoyFinder: an easy-to-use python GUI application for building target-specific decoy sets

UNLABELLED Decoys are molecules that are presumed to be inactive against a target (i.e. will not likely bind to the target) and are used to validate the performance of molecular docking or a virtual screening workflow. The Directory of Useful Decoys database (http://dud.docking.org/) provides a free directory of decoys for use in virtual screening, though it only contains a limited set of decoys for 40 targets.To overcome this limitation, we have developed an application called DecoyFinder that selects, for a given collection of active ligands of a target, a set of decoys from a database of compounds. Decoys are selected if they are similar to active ligands according to five physical descriptors (molecular weight, number of rotational bonds, total hydrogen bond donors, total hydrogen bond acceptors and the octanol-water partition coefficient) without being chemically similar to any of the active ligands used as an input (according to the Tanimoto coefficient between MACCS fingerprints). To the best of our knowledge, DecoyFinder is the first application designed to build target-specific decoy sets. AVAILABILITY A complete description of the software is included on the application home page. A validation of DecoyFinder on 10 DUD targets is provided as Supplementary Table S1. DecoyFinder is freely available at http://URVnutrigenomica-CTNS.github. com/DecoyFinder.
Functional Evaluation of the Shoulder Following Latissimus Dorsi Muscle Transfer

The dynamic muscle function of the shoulder in 26 patients (10 males, 16 females) who underwent a pedicled or free vascularized latissimus dorsi muscle transfer between 1985 and 1991 (mean follow-up, 4.4 yr) was studied. Instrumented muscle testing was performed on the Kinetic Communicator machine (Kin Com) and the Baltimore Therapeutic Equipment (BTE) work simulator. The female unilateral pedicle group (n = 13) showed a significant difference between operated and nonoperated shoulders for both peak torque (power) and work (endurance) measurements of shoulder adduction and extension on the Kin Com (mean ratios operated/nonoperated shoulders, 55% to 69%). They also showed significant differences for work performance on three of four BTE tests (mean ratios, 77% to 84%). The male free vascularized group (n = 10) similarly showed a significant deficit of both peak torque and work for shoulder extension and adduction on the Kin Com (mean ratios, 74% to 84%); however, they showed no deficit on the BTE tests. In conclusion, dynamic muscle tests demonstrate a deficit of muscle power and endurance of shoulder extension and adduction following latissimus dorsi muscle transfer.
seMeja API Design Based on CRUD+N Concept

seMeja is an ongoing research to develop a desktop system for university environment. To support the development of this system, an Application Programming Interface (API) is needed to provide access to online university services such as course notes, course schedules and course registration interface. This paper proposes a research to create and design the API for seMeja named seMejaAPI. The primary goal for this API is to allow programmers to quickly develop applications that can interact with university online system that support the API. The API needs to be versatile enough to encapsulate the variations of online university services and yet easy enough to be used by an application programmer. The design of the API is based on the four operations of Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD). In addition to these four basic concepts, the concept of 'Notify' has been added to support the registration for push-style notifications. These principles are then combined with an existing university-based ontology. This ontology defines the various objects used in a university environment. Two prototypes were then developed and tested to demonstrate an implementation of a portion of the API, along with a small working application.
The Term Structure of Mortality-Contingent Claims: Some Canadian Evidence

From a financial economic perspective, a single premium immediate life annuity (SPIA) can be viewed as defaultable coupon bearing bond that ceases payment upon death of the annuitant. The interest rate and hazard process are independent, the recovery rate is zero, and eventual default is certain. Motivated by this analogy, this paper models the evolution of the term structure of mortality-contingent claims using a two factor Longstaff-Schwartz (1992) specification. We calibrate this model to a unique Canadian database containing a cross sectional time series of SPIA quotes from 1985 2001. Our methodology differs from other Money’s Worth studies, by letting the data imply the insurance loadings as well as mortality parameters. We ask the market to determine mortality expectations, which we then track over a 16-year time period. Aside from the methodological contribution, our main results are that (i) market implied mortality (hazard) rates have been declining over the last 16 years, and (ii) the profitability (mark-up, or loading) for life annuities is on the order of 2% 3% relative to the riskfree return in Canada, and (iii) the implied hazard rates fluctuate substantially, which we interpret as evidence that immediate annuity quotes do not instantaneously adjust to changes in the yield curve. These results have direct implications for the valuation of long-term options on mortalitycontingent claims, which are embedded in many insurance savings products. JEL Classification: D91, G11
Implications of Surface and Bulk Properties of Abutment Implants and Their Degradation in the Health of Periodontal Tissue

The aim of the current review was to investigate the implications of the surface and bulk properties of abutment implants and their degradation in relation to periodontal health. The success of dental implants is no longer a challenge for dentistry. The scientific literature presents several types of implants that are specific for each case. However, in cases of prosthetics components, such as abutments, further research is needed to improve the materials used to avoid bacterial adhesion and enhance contact with epithelial cells. The implanted surfaces of the abutments are composed of chemical elements that may degrade under different temperatures or be damaged by the forces applied onto them. This study showed that the resulting release of such chemical elements could cause inflammation in the periodontal tissue. At the same time, the surface characteristics can be altered, thus favoring biofilm development and further increasing the inflammation. Finally, if not treated, this inflammation can cause the loss of the implant.
Cross-Sectional Growth References and Implications for the Development of an International Growth Standard for School-Aged Children and Adolescents

Normative data are needed to create a reference that indicates optimal development of weight in relation to height and age, particularly in the face of the unfolding obesity epidemic. The body-mass index (BMI) has some serious limitations: it is a relatively poor predictor of current and future fatness. Currently, however, there are few available alternatives, with the possible exception of waist circumference or skinfolds. The use of cross-sectional references to construct a BMI-reference curve is problematic when there are period and cohort effects. Ideally, a reference would be based on longitudinal data in populations with little underweight, overweight, and obesity. In the meantime cross-sectional data in appropriate populations could be used to construct BMI percentiles linking BMI values at age 5 to those at age 18 (or 21) that would correspond with adult BMI values reflecting optimal health (e.g., that would correspond to adult BMI values between 21 and 23 kg/m2).