Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electrospun Poly(ester-Urethane)- and Poly(ester-Urethane-Urea) Fleeces as Promising Tissue Engineering Scaffolds for Adipose-Derived Stem Cells

An irreversible loss of subcutaneous adipose tissue in patients after tumor removal or deep dermal burns makes soft tissue engineering one of the most important challenges in biomedical research. The ideal scaffold for adipose tissue engineering has yet not been identified though biodegradable polymers gained an increasing interest during the last years. In the present study we synthesized two novel biodegradable polymers, poly(ε-caprolactone-co-urethane-co-urea) (PEUU) and poly[(L-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone)-co-(L-lysine ethyl ester diisocyanate)-block-oligo(ethylene glycol)-urethane] (PEU), containing different types of hydrolytically cleavable bondings. Solutions of the polymers at appropriate concentrations were used to fabricate fleeces by electrospinning. Ultrastructure, tensile properties, and degradation of the produced fleeces were evaluated. Adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) were seeded on fleeces and morphology, viability, proliferation and differentiation were assessed. The biomaterials show fine micro- and nanostructures composed of fibers with diameters of about 0.5 to 1.3 µm. PEUU fleeces were more elastic, which might be favourable in soft tissue engineering, and degraded significantly slower compared to PEU. ASCs were able to adhere, proliferate and differentiate on both scaffolds. Morphology of the cells was slightly better on PEUU than on PEU showing a more physiological appearance. ASCs differentiated into the adipogenic lineage. Gene analysis of differentiated ASCs showed typical expression of adipogenetic markers such as PPARgamma and FABP4. Based on these results, PEUU and PEU meshes show a promising potential as scaffold materials in adipose tissue engineering.
Transfusion requirements after cardiac surgery: the TRACS randomized controlled trial.

CONTEXT Perioperative red blood cell transfusion is commonly used to address anemia, an independent risk factor for morbidity and mortality after cardiac operations; however, evidence regarding optimal blood transfusion practice in patients undergoing cardiac surgery is lacking. OBJECTIVE To define whether a restrictive perioperative red blood cell transfusion strategy is as safe as a liberal strategy in patients undergoing elective cardiac surgery. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PATIENTS The Transfusion Requirements After Cardiac Surgery (TRACS) study, a prospective, randomized, controlled clinical noninferiority trial conducted between February 2009 and February 2010 in an intensive care unit at a university hospital cardiac surgery referral center in Brazil. Consecutive adult patients (n = 502) who underwent cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass were eligible; analysis was by intention-to-treat. INTERVENTION Patients were randomly assigned to a liberal strategy of blood transfusion (to maintain a hematocrit ≥30%) or to a restrictive strategy (hematocrit ≥24%). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Composite end point of 30-day all-cause mortality and severe morbidity (cardiogenic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome, or acute renal injury requiring dialysis or hemofiltration) occurring during the hospital stay. The noninferiority margin was predefined at -8% (ie, 8% minimal clinically important increase in occurrence of the composite end point). RESULTS Hemoglobin concentrations were maintained at a mean of 10.5 g/dL (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.4-10.6) in the liberal-strategy group and 9.1 g/dL (95% CI, 9.0-9.2) in the restrictive-strategy group (P < .001). A total of 198 of 253 patients (78%) in the liberal-strategy group and 118 of 249 (47%) in the restrictive-strategy group received a blood transfusion (P < .001). Occurrence of the primary end point was similar between groups (10% liberal vs 11% restrictive; between-group difference, 1% [95% CI, -6% to 4%]; P = .85). Independent of transfusion strategy, the number of transfused red blood cell units was an independent risk factor for clinical complications or death at 30 days (hazard ratio for each additional unit transfused, 1.2 [95% CI, 1.1-1.4]; P = .002). CONCLUSION Among patients undergoing cardiac surgery, the use of a restrictive perioperative transfusion strategy compared with a more liberal strategy resulted in noninferior rates of the combined outcome of 30-day all-cause mortality and severe morbidity. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01021631.
Body composition does not affect serum levels of cathelicidin LL-37 in elderly women with unipolar depression

Abstract Objectives: Antimicrobial peptides are components of the innate immune system. Cathelicidin LL-37 plays an important role in antimicrobial defense, exerts proinflammatory effect and strongly affects the immune system functioning. Our recent study revealed that serum concentration of LL-37 is increased in elderly women with depression. The aim of this study is to evaluate serum LL-37 levels in elderly women with depression and to compare them with non-depressed elderly women, matched for anthropometric and body composition parameters. Methods: Forty women with unipolar depression and 23 non-depressed women (age ≥60 years) were included into the study. Anthropometric measurements and biochemical analyzes were performed. Concentration of LL-37 in serum was assessed using ELISA method. Body composition was measured using two methods: bioimpedance analysis (BIA) and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Results: There was a statistically significant difference (p =.038) in serum LL-37 level between patients with depression (3.55 ± 6.57 ng/mL) and control subjects (2.01 ± 3.88 ng/mL). Apart from visceral adipose tissue mass (%) in the depression group, we found no associations between serum LL-37 and analyzed anthropometric or body composition parameters. Conclusions: Results of this study indicate that with the exception of visceral adipose tissue, LL-37 serum levels are not affected by anthropometric or body composition parameters. The association between visceral adipose tissue and LL-37 may indicate that visceral fat could be responsible for the increased LL-37 production.
Effects of Subtherapeutic Administration of Antimicrobial Agents to Beef Cattle on the Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance in Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter hyointestinalis

ABSTRACT The influence of antimicrobial agents on the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in Campylobacter isolates recovered from 300 beef cattle maintained in an experimental feedlot was monitored over a 315-day period (11 sample times). Groups of calves were assigned to one of the following antimicrobial treatments: chlortetracycline and sulfamethazine (CS), chlortetracycline alone (Ct), virginiamycin, monensin, tylosin phosphate, and no antimicrobial agent (i.e., control treatment). In total, 3,283 fecal samples were processed for campylobacters over the course of the experiment. Of the 2,052 bacterial isolates recovered, 92% were Campylobacter (1,518 were Campylobacter hyointestinalis and 380 were C. jejuni). None of the antimicrobial treatments decreased the isolation frequency of C. jejuni relative to the control treatment. In contrast, C. hyointestinalis was isolated less frequently from animals treated with CS and to a lesser extent from animals treated with Ct. The majority (≥94%) of C. jejuni isolates were sensitive to ampicillin, erythromycin, and ciprofloxacin, but more isolates with resistance to tetracycline were recovered from animals fed Ct. All of the 1,500 isolates of C. hyointestinalis examined were sensitive to ciprofloxacin. In contrast, 11%, 10%, and 1% of these isolates were resistant to tetracycline, erythromycin, and ampicillin, respectively. The number of animals from which C. hyointestinalis isolates with resistance to erythromycin and tetracycline were recovered differed among the antimicrobial treatments. Only Ct administration increased the carriage rates of erythromycin-resistant isolates of C. hyointestinalis, and the inclusion of CS in the diet increased the number of animals from which tetracycline-resistant isolates were recovered. The majority of C. hyointestinalis isolates with resistance to tetracycline were obtained from cohorts within a single pen, and most of these isolates were recovered from cattle during feeding of a forage-based diet as opposed to a grain-based diet. The findings of this study show that the subtherapeutic administration of tetracycline, alone and in combination with sulfamethazine, to feedlot cattle can select for the carriage of resistant strains of Campylobacter species. Considering the widespread use of in-feed antimicrobial agents and the high frequency of beef cattle that shed campylobacters, the development of AMR should be monitored as part of an on-going surveillance program.
MUSIC-based approaches for hybrid millimeter-wave channel estimation

Millimeter wave communication (mmWC) over E-band-frequencies between 30 and 300 GHz- is a promising volunteer for 5G indoor/outdoor communication systems with an ultra high data rates thanks to the large bandwidth. To subdue the channel propagation characteristics in this frequency band, high dimensional antenna arrays need to be deployed at both the base station (BS) and mobile sets (MS). Due to large number of antennas at transceiver, mmW systems avoid to employ ADC or RF chain in each branch of MIMO system because of power constraints. Thus Such systems leverage to the hybrid analog/digital precoding/combining architecture for downlink single user deployment instead of strict digital process. Large array at both BS and MS inside of analog beamforming requires developed channel estimation. This paper propose a new algorithm to estimate the mmW channel by exploiting the sparse nature of the channel and finding the subspace of received signal vectors based on MUSIC. By combining the multiple measurement vector (MMV) concept and MISIC, a modified approach tries to recover support of an unknown channel matric accurately even under the defective-rank condition. Simulation results indicate MUSIC-based approaches offer lower estimation error and higher sum rates compared with conventional MMV solutions.
The prevalence of pleural plaques and/or pulmonary changes among construction workers in Okayama, Japan.

BACKGROUND Since asbestos has been widely used in Japanese building materials since 1960s, a large number of Japanese construction workers may be exposed to asbestos occupationally. METHODS Among 2951 construction workers in Okayama, Japan, the prevalence of asbestos-induced pleural or pulmonary changes was examined by screening chest x-rays; these findings were confirmed by computed tomography (CT) scanning of the chest. RESULTS Among 2951 construction workers, 168 (5.7%) were found to have significant findings for pleural plaque or pulmonary changes on chest x-ray. Seventy-four had both pleural plaque and asbestosis, 85 pleural plaques alone, and 9 asbestosis alone. In 11 subjects, pleural plaques were suggested by chest x-ray, but neither pleural plaque nor asbestosis was demonstrated by chest CT. Honeycombing as one of the characteristic findings of asbestosis was found in 29 subjects. Others showed subpleural spots or curvilinear shadow, which suggested the early stage of asbestosis. The occupations of these workers were carpenters (64), plasterers (27), and concrete board cutters (14). About 30% of the workers with these findings were aware that they were handling asbestos in activities such as installation of asbestos boards, and/or asbestos spraying. CONCLUSIONS As the incidence of malignant mesothelioma and primary lung cancer associated with asbestos exposure are high, screening by chest CT is necessary for detecting asbestos-induced pulmonary and/or pleural lesions. Education for protection such as telling about the presence of asbestos in building materials is also necessary.
Semi-supervised learning and optimization for hypergraph matching

Graph and hypergraph matching are important problems in computer vision. They are successfully used in many applications requiring 2D or 3D feature matching, such as 3D reconstruction and object recognition. While graph matching is limited to using pairwise relationships, hypergraph matching permits the use of relationships between sets of features of any order. Consequently, it carries the promise to make matching more robust to changes in scale, deformations and outliers. In this paper we make two contributions. First, we present a first semi-supervised algorithm for learning the parameters that control the hypergraph matching model and demonstrate experimentally that it significantly improves the performance of current state-of-the-art methods. Second, we propose a novel efficient hypergraph matching algorithm, which outperforms the state-of-the-art, and, when used in combination with other higher-order matching algorithms, it consistently improves their performance.
Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas in cirrhosis are hypervascular in comparison with those in normal livers

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas (ICCs) are usually adenocarcinomas with fibrotic and hypovascular stroma. Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas in cirrhosis and precirrhotic liver (ICC‐cirrhosis) are increasingly being diagnosed, and can display hypervascluar enhancement resembling a hepatocellular carcinoma on dynamic imaging.
Study on the cell size effect of steady state thermal performance of metallic honeycomb sandwich panels

In this paper, numerical study is performed to reveal the influences of the cell size on the steady state thermal performance of hexagonal metallic honeycomb sandwich panel, by using the semi-empirical Swann and Pittman formula and the Finite Element Method (FEM), respectively. Based on the same material volume of honeycomb core, two types of hexagonal honeycomb core, i.e., size variation of core cell with a constant core height and height variation of core with a constant side length of hexagonal cell, are considered to establish the panel's thermal analysis model, which including the conduction and radiation coupling. Comparisons between the temperature distribution results from both methods show that FEM can reveal the size effect of the honeycomb cell on the thermal performances of sandwich panel while the Swann and Pittman formula can not. At the same time, numerical results show that for the core with constant height, the panel thermal performance analyzed by FEM has a tendency of being close to the results obtained from Swann and Pittman formula as the core cell size decreases; whereas, if the hexagonal cell with constant side length is concerned, the greater the core height, the worse the thermal conductive performance of sandwich panel. Besides, analyses based on both methods also show that the temperature distribution of the lower surface of panel becomes gradually uniform when the wall thickness of hexagonal cell decreases.
Equivalence checking of static affine programs using widening to handle recurrences

Designers often apply manual or semi-automatic loop and data transformations on array- and loop-intensive programs to improve performance. It is crucial that such transformations preserve the functionality of the program. This article presents an automatic method for constructing equivalence proofs for the class of static affine programs. The equivalence checking is performed on a dependence graph abstraction and uses a new approach based on widening to find the proper induction hypotheses for reasoning about recurrences. Unlike transitive-closure-based approaches, this widening approach can also handle nonuniform recurrences. The implementation is publicly available and is the first of its kind to fully support commutative operations.
Building Kinematic and Dynamic Models of Articulated Objects with Multi-Modal Interactive Perception

Interactive perception methods exploit the correlation be-tween robot actions and changes in the sensor signals to extract task-relevant information from the sensor stream. These interactions can have effects in one or multiple sensor modalities. In this work we propose an interactive perception sys-tem to build kinematic and dynamic models of articulated objects from multi-modal sensor streams. Our system leverages two properties of the multi-modal signals: 1) consequences of actions are frequently best perceived in the combined multi-modal sensor-action stream, and 2) properties perceived in one modality may depend on properties perceived in other modalities. To fully exploit these properties we propose a perceptual architecture based on two main components: a set of (possibly recursive) estimation processes and an interconnection mechanism between them. The processes extract patterns of information from the multi-modal sensor-action stream by enriching it with prior knowledge; the interconnection mechanism leverages their inter-dependencies by using estimations of one process as measurements, priors or forward models of other processes. We show experimentally that our system integrates and balances between different modalities according to their uncertainty in order to overcome limitations of uni-modal perception.
Effects of Long-Term Elevated CO2 on Rhizosphere and Bulk Soil Bacterial Community Structure in Pinus sylvestriformis Seedlings Fields

The effect of long-term elevated CO2 (as open top chambers) on rhizosphere and bulk bacterial community structure in Pinus sylvestriformis seedlings field was investigated in July, August, and September. The bacterial communities were processed by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of bacterial 16S rDNA fragments amplified by PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) from DNA extracted directly from soil. DGGE profiles from rhizosphere samples showed large changes in rhizosphere bacterial community under elevated CO2 compared to ambient except for that in September. For bulk samples, bacterial community structure changed when exposed to elevated CO2 in three months. With the exception of bulk samples in August, a similitude of bacterial communities structures existed between different elevated CO2 concentrations by analyzing UPGMA dendrogram based on Jaccard’s coefficient.
Long-term nutrient enrichment decouples predator and prey production

Increased nutrient mobilization by human activities represents one of the greatest threats to global ecosystems, but its effects on ecosystem productivity can differ depending on food web structure. When this structure facilitates efficient energy transfers to higher trophic levels, evidence from previous large-scale enrichments suggests that nutrients can stimulate the production of multiple trophic levels. Here we report results from a 5-year continuous nutrient enrichment of a forested stream that increased primary consumer production, but not predator production. Because of strong positive correlations between predator and prey production (evidence of highly efficient trophic transfers) under reference conditions, we originally predicted that nutrient enrichment would stimulate energy flow to higher trophic levels. However, enrichment decoupled this strong positive correlation and produced a nonlinear relationship between predator and prey production. By increasing the dominance of large-bodied predator-resistant prey, nutrient enrichment truncated energy flow to predators and reduced food web efficiency. This unexpected decline in food web efficiency indicates that nutrient enrichment, a ubiquitous threat to aquatic ecosystems, may have unforeseen and unpredictable effects on ecosystem structure and productivity.
Changing video game graphic styles using neural algorithms

Recently, procedural content generation (PCG) has attracted positive attentions from gamers and applied for various content types such as maps, items and so on. Deep neural networks have been reported that they have potential to learn styles of artistic images. In this study, we propose to apply convolutional neural networks to change artistic styles of video game graphics. It's expected to change original games into different styles (modern, old-fashioned, scientific, and so on) given the input images. We applied the neural styling algorithm to the game images from Hedgewars, an open-source turn-based strategy game. Our results show that styles of video games can be changed from an input styling image.
Revenue and Stability of a Mechanism for Efficient Allocation of a Divisible Good

A class of efficient mechanisms for allocating a divisible good is studied, which is more general than simple mechanisms discovered independently by Maheswaran and Başar and by us. Strategic buyers play a game by submitting one-dimensional bids, or signals, to the seller. The seller allocates the good in proportion to the bids and charges the buyers nonuniform prices according to the mechanism. Under some mild conditions on the valuation functions of the buyers, there is a unique Nash equilibrium point (NEP) and the allocation at the NEP is efficient. The prices charged to the buyers at the NEP are bounded above by, and can be made arbitrarily close to, the uniform market clearing price for price-taking buyers. The efficient NEP is globally stable. The work is motivated by the problem of rate allocation on the links of a communication network.
Surface Shape Measurement Using Extended Photometric Stereo

Photometric stereo is a widely-used non-contact optical technology for surface shape measurement in industry. However, it is subject two limitations: (1) all light directions used should be known; (2) reflection on the surface to be measured should obey the Lambertian model. In this paper, an extended photometric stereo is proposed to overcome these limitations. Firstly, initial light directions are estimated in terms of normals of those points on the silhouette; secondly, an iterative process is established to refine alternately both the normals and all light directions, with specular pixels removed; at last, the final surface shape is worked out by integrating the normals. Experimental results show the considerable feasibility of this algorithm.
The development of fetal hearing

The developmental origins of the ability to hear have been the subject of much debate and speculation. Since time immemorial, there has been much anecdotal evidence that the fetus responds to sound. In contrast, until the late 19th Century, scientific evidence and opinion held that the newborn was deaf and only developed the ability to hear in the first weeks after birth. At the beginning of the 20th Century the prevailing scientific and clinical view changed and it was accepted that the newborn was able to hear at birth. This led to much speculation about, and limited experimental study of, when the individual first started to hear. Detailed study of the ontogency of auditory abilities had to wait until the 1980’s when scientific opinion regarding the abilities of the newborn changed and the ultrasound technology with which to observe the fetus in utero became widely available. Research thus commenced in earnest to investigate the response of the fetus to sound. Despite this increased interest in fetal hearing, experimental studies have concentrated upon the responsiveness to sound in late pregnancy and not on the developmental origine of auditory abilities. It is the aim of this review to examine the ontogenesis of hearing in the fetus.