Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maternal High Fat Diet Alters Lung Development and Function in the Offspring.

The effects of maternal obesity on lung development have been recognized and speculation is that these diseases are not simply due to accelerated pulmonary decline with aging, but with a failure to achieve optimal lung development during early life. These studies tested the hypothesis that maternal obesity alters signaling pathways during the course of lung development that may affect life-long pulmonary health. Adult female mice were fed 60% fat (HFD) or 10% fat (CD) diets for 8 weeks prior to mating and through weaning. Pup lung tissues were collected at postnatal days (PN) 7, 21 and 90 (after receiving HFD or CD as adults). At PN7, body weights from HFD were greater than CD but lung weight to body weight ratios were lower. In lung tissues, NFkB-mediated inflammation was greater in HFD pups at PN21 and phospho-/total STAT3, phospho-/total VEGFR2, and total AKT protein levels were lower with maternal HFD and PTP1B levels were increased. Decreased PECAM levels were observed at PN21 and at PN90 in the pups exposed to maternal HFD. Morphometry indicated that the pups exposed to maternal or adult HFD had fewer alveoli and the effect was additive. Decreases in pulmonary resistance, elastance, and compliance were observed due to adult HFD diet and decreases in airway resistance and increases in inspiratory capacity due to maternal HFD. In conclusion, maternal HFD disrupts signaling pathways in the early developing lung and may contribute to deficiencies in lung function and increased susceptibility in adults.
Clinical and MRI correlates of cerebral palsy: the European Cerebral Palsy Study.

CONTEXT Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings have been reported for specific clinical cerebral palsy (CP) subgroups or lesion types but not in a large population of children with all CP subtypes. Further information about the causes of CP could help identify preventive strategies. OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlates of CP in a population sample and compare clinical findings with information available from MRI brain studies. DESIGN AND SETTING Cross-sectional, population-based investigative study conducted in 8 European study centers (North West London and North East London, England; Edinburgh, Scotland; Lisbon, Portugal; Dublin, Ireland; Stockholm, Sweden; Tübingen, Germany; and Helsinki, Finland). PARTICIPANTS Five hundred eighty-five children with CP were identified who had been born between 1996 and 1999; 431 children were clinically assessed and 351 had a brain MRI scan. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Standardized clinical examination results, parental questionnaire responses, MRI results, and obstetric, genetic, and metabolic data from medical records. RESULTS Important findings include the high rate of infections reported by mothers during pregnancy (n = 158 [39.5%]). In addition, 235 children (54%) were born at term while 47 children (10.9%) were very preterm (<28 weeks). A high rate of twins was found, with 51 children (12%) known to be from a multiple pregnancy. Clinically, 26.2% of children had hemiplegia, 34.4% had diplegia, 18.6% had quadriplegia, 14.4% had dyskinesia, 3.9% had ataxia, and 2.6% had other types of CP. Brain MRI scans showed that white-matter damage of immaturity, including periventricular leukomalacia (PVL), was the most common finding (42.5%), followed by basal ganglia lesions (12.8%), cortical/subcortical lesions (9.4%), malformations (9.1%), focal infarcts (7.4%), and miscellaneous lesions (7.1%). Only 11.7% of these children had normal MRI findings. There were good correlations between the MRI and clinical findings. CONCLUSIONS These MRI findings suggest that obstetric mishaps might have occurred in a small proportion of children with CP. A systematic approach to identifying and treating maternal infections needs to be developed. Multiple pregnancies should be monitored closely, and the causes of infant stroke need to be investigated further so preventive strategies can be formulated. All children with CP should have an MRI scan to provide information on the timing and extent of the lesion.
A Dual-Band Ring-Resonator Bandpass Filter Based on Two Pairs of Degenerate Modes

In this paper, a class of dual-band ring-resonator bandpass filters is proposed based on a single ring resonator. As its most distinctive feature, two pairs of first- and second-order degenerate resonant modes in a ring resonator are simultaneously excited, resulting in a compact dual-mode dual-band bandpass filter with two transmission poles in both passbands. Firstly, two capacitors or parallel-coupled lines are placed at two nonorthogonally excited positions along a ring resonator in order to excite the two first-order degenerate modes and create multiple transmission zeros. Next, a set of perturbations is introduced on the ring to excite the two second-order degenerate modes. In our design, two excitation positions are first placed with between 45°- and 135°-separation on a ring. Simulations show that, with a proper arrangement of the excitation angle, two transmission poles in the first passband can be excited and more transmission zeros can be generated. Four and eight open-circuited stubs are loaded symmetrically along the ring, resulting in synchronous excitation of two poles in the second passband. Of the two designed filters with 135°- and 45°-separation, the one with 45° exhibits much better out-of-band performance with three additional transmission zeros at frequencies lower than the first passband, between the two passbands and higher than the second passband. Finally, two filter prototypes are fabricated and their measured results are found to be in good agreement with theory.
Monte Carlo simulations of patient dose perturbations in rotational-type radiotherapy due to a transverse magnetic field: a tomotherapy investigation.

PURPOSE Several groups are exploring the integration of magnetic resonance (MR) image guidance with radiotherapy to reduce tumor position uncertainty during photon radiotherapy. The therapeutic gain from reducing tumor position uncertainty using intrafraction MR imaging during radiotherapy could be partially offset if the negative effects of magnetic field-induced dose perturbations are not appreciated or accounted for. The authors hypothesize that a more rotationally symmetric modality such as helical tomotherapy will permit a systematic mediation of these dose perturbations. This investigation offers a unique look at the dose perturbations due to homogeneous transverse magnetic field during the delivery of Tomotherapy(®) Treatment System plans under varying degrees of rotational beamlet symmetry. METHODS The authors accurately reproduced treatment plan beamlet and patient configurations using the Monte Carlo code geant4. This code has a thoroughly benchmarked electromagnetic particle transport physics package well-suited for the radiotherapy energy regime. The three approved clinical treatment plans for this study were for a prostate, head and neck, and lung treatment. The dose heterogeneity index metric was used to quantify the effect of the dose perturbations to the target volumes. RESULTS The authors demonstrate the ability to reproduce the clinical dose-volume histograms (DVH) to within 4% dose agreement at each DVH point for the target volumes and most planning structures, and therefore, are able to confidently examine the effects of transverse magnetic fields on the plans. The authors investigated field strengths of 0.35, 0.7, 1, 1.5, and 3 T. Changes to the dose heterogeneity index of 0.1% were seen in the prostate and head and neck case, reflecting negligible dose perturbations to the target volumes, a change from 5.5% to 20.1% was observed with the lung case. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that the effect of external magnetic fields can be mitigated by exploiting a more rotationally symmetric treatment modality.
DEBLURRING BY AUGMENTED LANGRANGIAN WITH BM 3 D FRAME PRIOR

Spatially adaptive nonlocal patch-wise estimation is one of the most promising recent directions in image processing. Within this framework, a number of Block Matching 3-D filtering (BM3D) algorithms have been developed for different imaging problems [1], [2], [3]. In this paper we present the analysis/synthesis frames for BM3D image modeling and use them to develop novel recursive deblurring algorithm based on the augmented Lagrangian technique. In simulation experiments we demonstrate that proposed algorithm essentially outperforms current stateof-the-art methods.
Developmental expression of two members of a new class of transcription factors: I. Expression of aryl hydrocarbon receptor in the C57BL/6N mouse embryo

The aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) is a ligand‐activated transcription factor with a basic region/helix‐loop‐helix (bHLH) motif. AhR has been sequenced and the functional domains defined and there is information on the formation of complexes with other peptides and interactions with DNA, although these areas continue to be investigated. AhR mediates many biological effects such as developmental toxicity, including induction of cleft palate and hydronephrosis. This regulatory protein is expressed in embryonic liver and has been immunohistochemically localized in cells of human and mouse secondary palate. The expression of AhR in embryonic tissues and its ability to disrupt development suggests a significant role for this protein in development. The present study examines the pattern of AhR expression in the C57BL/6N mouse embryo from gestation days (GD) 10–16, using in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical analysis. AhR mRNA was localized with 35S‐RNA antisense riboprobe (cAh1 probe, 1.8 Kb amino terminal DNA). AhR protein was localized with purified monoclonal antibody (RPT‐9) raised against the N‐terminal peptide sequence. AhR mRNA and protein were expressed in GD 10–13 neuroepithelium, and as development progressed the levels in brain decreased. GD 10–12 embryos also showed AhR in branchial arches, heart, somites, and liver. AhR protein and mRNA in heart were highest at GD 10–11 and decreased with age. In liver, AhR mRNA and protein levels increased and nuclear localization became more pronounced with gestational age. In GD 14–16 embryos levels in liver and adrenal were highest, but AhR was present in ectoderm, bone, and muscle. AhR expression was specific for both cell type, organ/tissue, and developmental stage, suggesting that this novel ligand‐activated transcriptional regulator may be important in normal embryonic development. © 1995 wiley‐Liss, Inc. This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.
Order estimation in affine state-space neural networks

The problem of order evaluation for an affine state-space neural network or equivalently the estimation of the number of neurons to be inserted in the hidden layer in a recurrent neural network is here addressed. The proposed method is based on a singular value decomposition applied to an oblique subspace projection given as the projection of the row space of future outputs into the past inputs-outputs row space, along the future inputs row space.
A Method for Rough Relational Database Transformed into Relational Database

It is decomposed the data of rough relational database and transformed into relational database according to the characteristic of rough relational database and relational database and in virtue of multiplication principle and Descartes of basic operation of relational algebra. Then deleted redundant data and optimized RDB. Finally, it is designed translation arithmetic and applied in soil example, then proved the arithmetic validity.
Weight change therapy as a potential treatment for end-stage ovarian carcinoma

Patient: Female, 41 Final Diagnosis: Ovarian carcinoma Symptoms: Ascites • hepatomegaly • weight loss Medication: — Clinical Procedure: — Specialty: Oncology Objective: Unusual or unexpected effect of treatment Background: The aim of this case report is to present the results of treatment of end-stage ovarian carcinoma in a 41-year-old women using weight loss therapy. Case Report: We describe the case of a female aged 41 years with epithelial invasive ovarian cancer of III–IV stage, T3N2M1. Concurrent diseases were: abdominal carcinomatosis; hepatomegaly; ascites; condition after laparocentesis and skin-abdominal fistula; condition after 6 courses of neo-adjuvant polychemotherapy; hypertension II stage, risk factor of 3–4; dyslipidemia; and metabolic syndrome. A weight loss method based on a very-low-calorie diet and physical activity was used. Body weight was reduced from 74 kg to 53 due to loss of adipose tissue after 6 months of therapy. At the same time, the percentages of water and muscle tissue were increased significantly. While overweight was reducing, clinical, laboratory, and instrumental results were improving. As a result of the weight loss therapy, about ≈100 mm-sized ovarian cancer was transformed into smaller-sized ovarian cysts. Conclusions: An analgesic effect was also achieved without use of narcotic or non-narcotic analgesics. These cyto-reversible processes were documented by laboratory and instrumental data. The mechanisms behind these differences remain to be elucidated. Future research with a larger study cohort and longer follow-up is needed to further investigate the role of caloric restriction diet in cancer cell changes in ovarian cancer.
Safety of dental extractions in patients on dual antiplatelet therapy – a meta-analysis

Introduction Safety of dental extractions in patients on chronic antiplatelet therapy either with only acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) or clopidogrel or with both combined has been a matter of debate, with no clearly conclusive studies published. Aim To perform a meta-analysis of published observational studies in order to study the effect of single and double antiplatelet therapy in comparison to controls on the occurrence of immediate local bleeding complications during dental extractions. Material and methods PubMed/Scopus/Embase database search revealed 22 papers (13 original and 9 review), 3 of which were finally included in the meta-analysis. Phrases searched: dual[All Fields] AND antiplatelet[All Fields] AND (“therapy”[Subheading] OR “therapy”[All Fields] OR “therapeutics”[MeSH Terms] OR “therapeutics”[All Fields]) AND (“tooth extraction”[MeSH Terms] OR (“tooth”[All Fields] AND “extraction”[All Fields]) OR “tooth extraction”[All Fields]). Results The overall event incidence (bleeding complication after extraction) in the entire population was 1.59% (42 events in 2637 patients). As compared to the control group, the use of double antiplatelet therapy DAPT was associated with on odd ratio OR of 40.23 (95% CI: 4.37–370.36) increase in risk of bleeding events occurrence (p = 0.0011). Significant heterogeneity was observed (p < 0.001; I 2 of 76.7%). Conclusions Dental extractions following strict procedural protocols in patients on double antiplatelet therapy with clopidogrel and ASA are associated with an additional risk of immediate local bleeding complications.
Performance evaluation of modified hierarchical ring by exploiting link utilization and memory access locality

In multiprocessor systems, the interconnection network design is critical for overall system performance. In this paper, we show the modified hierarchical ring network, called as Torus ring, and deeply evaluate the performance of the Torus ring. The Torus ring has an advantage over the hierarchical ring when the destination of network packet is the adjacent local ring, especially to the backward direction, by exploiting the memory access locality. Further, the performance gain of the Torus ring is expected to increase, due to the spatial locality of the applications and the efficient utilization of link bandwidth. In the simulation results, the overall execution time of Torus ring is reduced, up to 4.5% with moderate ring utilization ratios, compared to the hierarchical ring
On the Distribution of Positioning Errors in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Simulative Comparison of Optimization Algorithms

Recent advances in the technology of wireless electronic devices have made possible to build ad-hoc wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using inexpensive nodes consisting of low power processors, a modest amount of memory, and simple wireless transceivers. Over the last years, many novel applications have been envisaged for distributed WSNs in the area of monitoring, communication, and control. One of the key enabling and indispensable services in WSNs is localization (i.e., positioning), given that the availability of nodes' location may represent the fundamental support for various protocols (e.g., routing) and applications (e.g., habitat monitoring). In the depicted context, the present contribution reports our recent research advances along two main directions: i) first of all, we provide a comparative analysis of various optimization algorithms that can be used for atomic location estimation, which include: triangulation, steepest descent, non-linear least squares, conjugate gradient, and an enhanced version of the Steepest Descent (ESD) that is introduced in this paper, and ii) then, we provide a statistical characterization of location errors, by showing that the distribution of error positions can be well approximated by the family of Pearson distributions. In particular, we will show that i) the ESD algorithm may be competitive with the other algorithms in terms of estimation accuracy and numerical complexity, and ii) the knowledge of location error distribution may be efficiently used to speed-up the analysis of iterative-based positioning algorithms by avoiding the need of simulating the whole location discovery algorithm and allowing simulation at the atomic level only.
A lethal ovitrap‐based mass trapping scheme for dengue control in Australia: II. Impact on populations of the mosquito Aedes aegypti

In Cairns, Australia, the impacts on Aedes aegypti L. (Diptera: Culicidae) populations of two types of ‘lure & kill’ (L&K) lethal ovitraps (LOs), the standard lethal ovitrap (SLO) and the biodegradable lethal ovitrap (BLO) were measured during three mass‐trapping interventions. To assess the efficacy of the SLO, two interventions (one dry season and one wet season) were conducted in three discrete areas, each lasting 4 weeks, with the following treatments: (i) SLOs (>200 traps, ∼4/premise), BG‐sentinel traps (BGSs; ∼15, 1/premise) and larval control (container reduction and methoprene treatment) and (ii) larval control alone, and (iii) untreated control. Female Ae. aegypti populations were monitored for 4 weeks pre‐ and post‐treatment in all three areas using BGSs and sticky ovitraps (SOs) or non‐lethal regular ovitraps (ROs). In the dry season, 206 SLOs and 15 BGSs set at 54 and 15 houses, respectively, caught and killed an estimated 419 and 73 female Ae. aegypti, respectively. No significant decrease in collection size of female Ae. aegypti could be attributed to the treatments. In the wet season, 243 SLOs and 15 BGSs killed ∼993 and 119 female Ae. aegypti, respectively. The mean number of female Ae. aegypti collected after 4 weeks with SOs and BGSs was significantly less than the control (LSD post‐hoc test). The third mass‐trapping intervention was conducted using the BLO during the wet season in Cairns. For this trial, three treatment areas were each provided with BLOs (>500, ∼4/premise) plus larval control, and an untreated control area was designated. Adult female Ae. aegypti were collected for 4 weeks pre‐ and post‐treatment using 15 BGSs and 20 SOs. During this period, 53.2% of BLOs contained a total of 6654 Ae. aegypti eggs. Over the intervention period, collections of Ae. aegypti in the treatment areas were significantly less than in the control area for BGSs but not SOs. An influx of relatively large numbers of young females may have confounded the measurement of changes in populations of older females in these studies. This is an important issue, with implications for assessing delayed action control measures, such as LOs and parasites/pathogens that aim to change mosquito age structure. Finally, the high public acceptability of SLOs and BLOs, coupled with significant impacts on female Ae. aegypti populations in two of the three interventions reported here, suggest that mass trapping with SLOs and BLOs can be an effective component of a dengue control strategy.
Contagion in the Interbank Network: An Epidemiological Approach

This paper analyses the importance of individual bank-specific factors on financial stability. First, we use a novel method to model the spreading of the contagion in the interbank network by implementing an epidemiologic model. Actual data on European banks is exploited with simulated scale-free networks. The average contagion affected 70% and 40% of European banks’ total assets in 2007 and in 2010, respectively. Country-level results suggest that French, British, German and Spanish banks are the most contagious ones, whereas banks from Ireland, Greece and Portugal induce only limited negative effects. Secondly, cross-sectional panel estimations are performed to disentangle the leading indicators influencing the level of contagion. Bank clustering, large incoming interbank loans and bank reputation are more prominent explanatory variables than the size or leverage. Finally, central banks’ interventions reduce contagion only slightly.
Parallel line-based structure from motion by using omnidirectional camera in textureless scene

In this paper, we propose a reconstruction method for a 3D structure using sequential omnidirectional images in an artificial environment. The proposed method is fundamentally categorized into the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique. The conventional point-based SfM using a standard camera is, however, likely to fail to recover a 3D structure in an artificial and textureless environment such as a corridor. To tackle this problem, the proposed technique uses an omnidirectional camera and line-based SfM. Line features, such as a borderline of a wall and a floor or a window frame, are easy to discern in an artificial environment comparing point features, even in a textureless scene. In addition, an omnidirectional camera can track features for a long period because of its wide field-of-view. Extracted line features in an artificial environment are often mutually parallel. Parallel lines provide valuable constraints for camera movement estimation. Directions and locations of lines are estimated simultaneously with 3D camera movements. A 3D model of the environment is constructed from measurement results of lines and edge points. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Identification of secondary path in ANC using diagonal recurrent neural networks with EKF algorithm

This paper presents theoretical and experimental modeling of secondary path of an active noise control system in free space by using recurrent neural networks. A learning algorithm for diagonal recurrent neural networks is developed based on extended Kalman filter and is referred to as diagonal recurrent extended Kalman filter algorithm. The neural network structure and its algorithm are applied to handle nonlinearity of the secondary path. To put the neural identification task within the context of ANC, a new control algorithm based on DREKF is also presented. The real-time experiment, however, is performed only for identification task. Experimental results using a floating point DSP show that the number of neurons in neural network can be reduced by introducing the diagonal recurrent elements, without deteriorating the identification system performance.