Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microendoscopic Decompressive Laminotomy for the Treatment of Lumbar Stenosis

OBJECTIVE By modifying existing microendoscopic discectomy techniques, we previously developed a novel surgical treatment of lumbar stenosis and validated its ability to achieve a thorough decompression in a cadaveric study. We now describe our clinical experience with this new, minimally invasive microendoscopic decompressive laminotomy (MEDL) technique. METHODS A MEDL was performed in 25 patients with classic features of lumbar stenosis. By use of a fluoroscopically guided percutaneous technique, the working portal was docked on the lamina with minimal soft-tissue injury. With the angle of the endoscope combined with an oblique entry, a bilateral bony and ligamentous decompression was achieved under the midline, thereby preserving the supraspinous–interspinous ligaments and contralateral musculature. A second group of 25 patients treated with open decompression was used for comparison. RESULTS Effective circumferential decompression was achieved in the majority of patients. The results for the MEDL group were as follows: operative time, 109 minutes per single level; blood loss, 68 ml; and postoperative stay, 42 hours. The results for the open-surgery group were as follows: operative time, 88 minutes; blood loss, 193 ml; and postoperative stay, 94 hours. The MEDL group needed significantly less narcotic medication after surgery. Overall, 16% of the MEDL patients reported resolution of their back pain, 68% improved symptomatically, and 16% remained unchanged. The outcome of the open group was very similar. CONCLUSION Compared with an equivalent open technique, MEDL appears to offer a similar short-term clinical outcome with a significant reduction in operative blood loss, postoperative stay, and use of narcotics. This lower surgical stress, decreased tissue trauma, and quicker recovery are particularly important in this elderly population of patients.
Ophthalmoscopy in examination of patients with vestibular disorders

A reciprocal antagonistic relationship between dopamine and acetylcholine neurotransmission in the basal ganglia has been discussed widely. We have found that physostigmine often worsens Parkinson disease and other extrapyramidal disorders characterized by bradykinesia, rigidity, and tremor. This effect is sometimes useful in the identification of early and relatively mild parkinsonian syndromes. In our experience, intravenous physostigmine and benztropine produce only minor and inconsistent effects in choreatic disorders [ 1, 21. Patients with generalized or focal dystonias have been similarly unresponsive. The adverse effect of physostigmine in our patient with Wilson disease suggests that striatal dopamine deficiency may play a role in producing his symptoms. Although cerebrospinal fluid homovanillic acid following oral probenicid loading was greatly reduced (less than 10 ng per milliliter), the patient has failed to improve after treatment with L-dopa. Treatment with D-penicillamine has recently begun.
Inositol 1,4,5-Triphosphate Drives Glutamatergic and Cholinergic Inhibition Selectively in Spiny Projection Neurons in the Striatum

The striatum is critically involved in the selection of appropriate actions in a constantly changing environment. The spiking activity of striatal spiny projection neurons (SPNs), driven by extrinsic glutamatergic inputs, is shaped by local GABAergic and cholinergic networks. For example, it is well established that different types of GABAergic interneurons, activated by extrinsic glutamatergic and local cholinergic inputs, mediate powerful feedforward inhibition of SPN activity. In this study, using mouse striatal slices, we show that glutamatergic and cholinergic inputs exert direct inhibitory regulation of SPN activity via activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. While pressure ejection of the group I mGluR (mGluR1/5) agonist DHPG [(S)-3,5-dihydroxyphenylglycine] equally engages both mGluR1 and mGluR5 subtypes, the mGluR-dependent component of IPSCs elicited by intrastriatal electrical stimulation is almost exclusively mediated by the mGluR1 subtype. Ca2+ release from intracellular stores specifically through inositol 1,4,5-triphospahte receptors (IP3Rs) and not ryanodine receptors (RyRs) mediates this form of inhibition by gating two types of Ca2+-activated K+ channels (i.e., small-conductance SK channels and large-conductance BK channels). Conversely, spike-evoked Ca2+ influx triggers Ca2+ release solely through RyRs to generate SK-dependent slow afterhyperpolarizations, demonstrating functional segregation of IP3Rs and RyRs. Finally, IP3-induced Ca2+ release is uniquely observed in SPNs and not in different types of interneurons in the striatum. These results demonstrate that IP3-mediated activation of SK and BK channels provides a robust mechanism for glutamatergic and cholinergic inputs to selectively suppress striatal output neuron activity.
CONSTITUTION, JUDICIARY AND PUBLIC POWERS STRUCTURE – FINNISH PERSPECTIVES

This papers analyses the main contents of the Finland Constitution and the Judiciary. Finland Constitution is the basis of all legislation . It exercises of government power, and it details the fundamental rules, values and principles of Finnish democracy. According to the Constitution, judicial power lies with independent courts of law. The courts are independent: they are bound only by the law in force. Finnish procedural law has been both internationalized and constitutionalized since the 1990s and the result of court proceedings plays a more significant role for the parties
An Analog Equalizer and Baseline-Wander Cancellerfor 100/1000Base-TX Transceiver

A frequency-domain equalizer with a mixed-signal adaptive control loop and a novel baseline wander (BLW) canceller are proposed.The equalizer is independent of channel-modeling accuracy,and its control loop is intrinsically stable.An AGC function is incorporated into the equalizer without an extra AGC circuit.The proposed BLW canceller uses a peak detector to monitor the BLW and full feedback method to accomplish BLW canceling.High canceling accuracy and robust performance are achieved.The circuits are tested in 0. 25μm CMOS technology.Better performance and smaller silicon area are achieved compared with results in the literature.
The EU's Convergence Dilemma

Abstract As economic stagnation continues to mark the EU in the fifth year of the euro zone crisis, political support for integration is waning. The European Parliament elections of 2014 returned a hitherto unparalleled number of Eurosceptic MEPs, with EU-critical parties becoming the largest ones in several Member States. Much of this Euroscepticism is driven by economic polarisation between core and peripheral countries. While an increasing number of voters in the northwestern creditor countries resent having to foot the bill for what they consider economic mismanagement in the periphery, voters in peripheral countries increasingly rebel against what they deem to be an economically catastrophic Diktat from Germany and its allies. Continued political support for European integration will hinge on successful income convergence in the EU but the current dilemma is that such policies might not be politically feasible. Periods of rapid convergence would seem to suggest that success depends on two main policy strategies. First, a monetary policy that promotes credit for productive purposes, leaves inflation control to other instruments, and employs selective credit rationing to prevent asset booms. Second, a vertical industrial policy prioritising selected industrial sectors. The first policy conflicts with the present framework of euro zone monetary policy, but that framework was only installed in the first place because many peripheral countries were desperately in search of an external constraint on domestic distributional conflict. Industrial policies, in turn, require a sufficient degree of state autonomy from business elites in order to be effective, but it is highly questionable whether most states in the EU possess such autonomy. Though there are, as yet hesitant, signs of a reorientation of both monetary and cohesion policy in the EU, the question of the institutional and political preconditions for their successful implementation has been largely neglected.
Optimal Distributed Generation Allocation and Sizing in Distribution Systems via Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Distributed generation (DG) has been utilized in some electric power networks. Power loss reduction, environmental friendliness, voltage improvement, postponement of system upgrading, and increasing reliability are some advantages of DG-unit application. This paper presents a new optimization approach that employs an artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm to determine the optimal DG-unit's size, power factor, and location in order to minimize the total system real power loss. The ABC algorithm is a new metaheuristic, population-based optimization technique inspired by the intelligent foraging behavior of the honeybee swarm. To reveal the validity of the ABC algorithm, sample radial distribution feeder systems are examined with different test cases. Furthermore, the results obtained by the proposed ABC algorithm are compared with those attained via other methods. The outcomes verify that the ABC algorithm is efficient, robust, and capable of handling mixed integer nonlinear optimization problems. The ABC algorithm has only two parameters to be tuned. Therefore, the updating of the two parameters towards the most effective values has a higher likelihood of success than in other competing metaheuristic methods.
Low-Distortion MMSE Speech Enhancement Estimator Based on Laplacian Prior

The most well-known conventional speech enhancement algorithms introduce unwanted artifact noise and speech distortion to the enhanced signal. Reducing the effects of such issues require more robust linear and non-linear estimators. This paper proposes new optimum linear and non-linear Laplacian distribution-based estimators. The proposed estimators are derived based on a minimum mean squared error (MMSE) sense to minimize the distortion in different conditions of the underlying speech. Thus, artifact noise is reduced without compromising the noise reduction process. The analytical solutions of the Laplacian distribution-based estimators, linear bilateral Laplacian gain estimator (LBLG), and non-linear bilateral Laplacian gain estimator (NBLG), are presented. The proposed estimators are implemented in three steps. First, the observation signal is decorrelated through a real transform domain to obtain its transform coefficients. Second, the proposed estimators are applied to estimate the clean speech signal from the noisy signal in the decorrelated domain. Finally, the inverse of the real transform is applied to obtain the original speech signal in the time domain. Two conditions in these estimators account for interference events between the speech signal and noise coefficients in the decorrelated domain. Moreover, a mathematical aspect of mean square error of LBLG is evaluated, which presents a significant improvement over other methods. Furthermore, a comprehensive description of the whole variations of the LBLG and NBLG gains characteristics is presented. A comparative evaluation is performed with effective quality metrics, segmental signal-to-noise ratio and perceptual evaluation of speech quality, to demonstrate the advantage and effectiveness of the proposed estimators. The performance of the proposed estimators outperformed other methods, which are the traditional MMSE approach, perceptually motivated Bayesian estimator, dual gain Wiener estimator, and dual MMSE estimator in terms of different objective measurements.
Mode division multiplexing using chip-scale silicon coupled vertical gratings

Mode division multiplexing of modes in a silicon waveguide supporting three optical modes is demonstrated in the silicon on insulator platform. Cross-talk suppression of 17dB and 12dB are obtained for the zeroth and second order modes respectively. The extinction bandwidth is observed to increase with the mode order indicating a stronger cross coupling coefficient as the mode order is increased. The extinction ratio is also observed to increase from 5 dB to 15dB and >25dB as the mode order is increased, implying an increasing cross coupling coefficient.
Fast and Reliable Method of Searching Power System Marginal States

In order to maintain power system security at the appropriate level and low cost, it is essential to accurately assess steady-state stability limits and power flow feasibility boundaries, i.e., power system marginal states (MS). This paper is devoted to a robust realization of the MS model based on nonlinear programming in a given direction of power change. Considering peculiar properties of this model has allowed proposing a simple, robust and computationally efficient method of the MS search that uses only standard blocks of the load flow solution and can be easily realized in the existing load flow programs. The technique developed on this basis allows considering errors of power change forecast quite easily. Tests on IEEE and Russian systems showed effectiveness of the proposed methods.
Testing the Lag Structure of Assets' Realized Volatility Dynamics

A (conservative) test is constructed to investigate the optimal lag structure for forecasting realized volatility dynamics. The testing procedure relies on the recent theoretical results that show the ability of the adaptive least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (adaptive lasso) to combine efficient parameter estimation, variable selection, and valid inference for time series processes. In an application to several constituents of the SP (ii) in many cases the relevant information for prediction is included in the first 22 lags, corroborating previous results concerning the accuracy and the difficulty of outperforming out-of-sample the heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) model; and (iii) some common features of the optimal lag structure can be identified across assets belonging to the same market segment or showing a similar beta with respect to the market index.
Bias Dependence of Total-Dose Effects in Bulk FinFETs

The total ionizing dose response of triple-well FinFETs is investigated for various bias conditions. Experimental results show that irradiation with the transistor in the OFF state with the drain terminal high is the worst-case bias configuration. TCAD simulations are used to analyze the buildup of trapped charge in the trench isolation oxide and its impact on the increase in leakage current and subthreshold-slope degradation. The electric field distribution along the STI/fin boundary exerts a strong influence on the trapped charge in the isolation oxide, which induces a parasitic leakage current path at total ionizing doses of less than 200 krad(SiO2).
Hierarchical Deep Recurrent Architecture for Video Understanding

This paper introduces the system we developed for the Youtube-8M Video Understanding Challenge, in which a large-scale benchmark dataset was used for multi-label video classification. The proposed framework contains hierarchical deep architecture, including the frame-level sequence modeling part and the video-level classification part. In the frame-level sequence modelling part, we explore a set of methods including Pooling-LSTM (PLSTM), Hierarchical-LSTM (HLSTM), Random-LSTM (RLSTM) in order to address the problem of large amount of frames in a video. We also introduce two attention pooling methods, single attention pooling (ATT) and multiply attention pooling (Multi-ATT) so that we can pay more attention to the informative frames in a video and ignore the useless frames. In the video-level classification part, two methods are proposed to increase the classification performance, i.e. Hierarchical-Mixture-of-Experts (HMoE) and Classifier Chains (CC). Our final submission is an ensemble consisting of 18 sub-models. In terms of the official evaluation metric Global Average Precision (GAP) at 20, our best submission achieves 0.84346 on the public 50% of test dataset and 0.84333 on the private 50% of test data.
Trilateral Tradeoff of Sensing, Transmission, and Contention Times in a Multiuser Split-Phase CR Networks

One of the key studies in the cognitive radio networks is maximizing some important metrics such as transmission/energy efficiencies or throughput with respect to network parameters such as sensing and transmission time. There is always a tradeoff between sensing time and transmission time. While longer sensing times results in higher detection accuracy, it loses transmission opportunities and hence decreases transmission efficiency. Many works have been done to find the best transmission and sensing time to maximize the efficiencies such as transmission and energy, but the interference and hence the probability of collision was not defined and formulated correctly. In this paper, we consider the trilateral tradeoff between sensing, transmission, and contention times. To do this, the interference between primary user (PU) and secondary user (SU) is formulated. We consider interference due to both imperfect sensing and PU-return. Furthermore, the interference among SUs has been also formulated. These metrics are used in defining transmission efficiency and probability of collision as a constraint.
盐酸埃克替尼一线治疗晚期肺腺癌的临床疗效观察

背景与目的 分子靶向治疗药物盐酸埃克替尼治疗复治晚期非小细胞肺癌具有较好的疗效和安全性。 本文观察盐酸埃克替尼一线治疗晚期肺腺癌的近期疗效和毒副反应。 方法 对2011年8月-2012年11月间收治的56例初治晚期肺腺癌患者，口服盐酸埃克替尼125 mg，每日3次，评价近期疗效和不良反应。 结果 56例肺腺癌患者的客观有效率为46. 4%（26/56），疾病控制率为78. 6%（44/56）。 20例患者进行了EGFR基因突变检测，18例患者EGFR基因突变阳性，EGFR突变阳性患者的客观有效率为66. 7%（12/18），疾病控制率为94. 4%（17/18）。 不吸烟、EGFR基因突变阳性和出现皮疹的患者客观有效率高于吸烟、EGFR基因野生型和突变情况未知、未出现皮疹的患者（P < 0.05）。 治疗相关毒副反应主要为轻度皮疹（28.5%）和腹泻（12%）。 结论 盐酸埃克替尼一线治疗晚期肺腺癌疗效肯定，不良反应轻微，对于EGFR突变阳性患者有效率更高。
Elliptical–Spiral Photonic Crystal Fibers With Wideband High Birefringence, Large Nonlinearity, and Low Dispersion

We design a novel elliptical-spiral soft-glass photonic crystal fiber (PCF) achieving simultaneous wideband high birefringence, large nonlinearity, and low chromatic dispersion. Through the optimization of the arrangement and diameter of circular air holes, the designed elliptical-spiral PCF offers high birefringence up to 0.05554, large nonlinearity up to 3089/3079 W-1 ·km-1, and low chromatic dispersion of (-95.45, 0)/(-372.6, 153.2) ps/nm/km for X/Y-polarization within a wavelength range of 1000-1800 nm.
Tumor-generated nitric oxide as an antagonist of photodynamic therapy

Nitric oxide (NO) is a multifunctional free radical molecule produced naturally by nitric oxide synthase (NOS) enzymes. Many tumors exploit NO for survival and growth signaling, and also to thwart the effects of therapeutic treatments, including PDT. The anti-PDT effects of NO were discovered using animal tumor models, but the mechanisms involved are still not fully understood. Recent in vitro studies on breast and prostate cancer cells have shown that inducible NOS (iNOS) along with NO is dramatically upregulated after an ALA-PDT-like challenge. Cells were more resistant to apoptosis after a photochallenge and survivors grew, migrated, and invaded more rapidly, iNOS/NO playing a key role in all these effects. This perspective briefly reviews what is currently known about NO’s negative effects on PDT and some of the signaling mechanisms involved. It also provides insights into how these effects may be attenuated by pharmacologic use of iNOS inhibitors.
Types and Frequencies of Sequencing Errors in Methyl-Filtered and High C0t Maize Genome Survey Sequences1[w]

The Maize Genome Sequencing Consortium has deposited into GenBank more than 850,000 maize (Zea mays) genome survey sequences (GSSs) generated via two gene enrichment strategies, methylation filtration and high-C0t (HC) fractionation. These GSSs are a valuable resource for generating genome assemblies and the discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms and nearly identical paralogs. Based on the rate of mismatches between 183 GSSs (105 methylation filtration + 78 HC) and 10 control genes, the rate of sequencing errors in these GSSs is 2.3 × 10−3. As expected many of these errors were derived from insufficient vector trimming and base-calling errors. Surprisingly, however, some errors were due to cloning artifacts. These G•C to A•T transitions are restricted to HC clones; over 40% of HC clones contain at least one such artifact. Because it is not possible to distinguish the cloning artifacts from biologically relevant polymorphisms, HC sequences should be used with caution for the discovery of single nucleotide polymorphisms or paramorphisms. The average rate of sequencing errors was reduced 6-fold (to 3.6 × 10−4) by applying more stringent trimming parameters. This trimming resulted in the loss of only 11% of the bases (15,469/144,968). Due to redundancy among GSSs this more stringent trimming reduced coverage of promoters, exons, and introns by only 0%, 1%, and 4%, respectively. Hence, at the cost of a very modest loss of gene coverage, the quality of these maize GSSs can approach Bermuda standards, even prior to assembly.
Comparison between a hybrid multilevel converter employing half-bridge modules and a hybrid multilevel converter employing H-Bridge modules

The Hybrid Cascaded Half-Bridge (HC½B) converter is a multilevel circuit topology that is able to replace a Hybrid Cascaded H-Bridge (HCHB) converter regarding voltage vector generation, modularity and other features. However, there is not a complete correspondence between the converters since they present different operation principles. This work presents a comparison between the (HC½B) and the (HCHB). The converters are analyzed in their four-level versions, but the results are valid for other configurations. The comparison comprehends the power semiconductors, the generated voltages, the isolated dc supplies and the dc-link capacitors. It is shown that the main differences are with the dc link capacitors. Thus, these are analyzed in detail and a modeling procedure to design and compare them is proposed.
Weak ELF Magnetic Field Effects on Hippocampal Rhythmic Slow Activity

Several investigations have revealed that electrical activity within the central nervous system (CNS) can be affected by exposure to weak extremely-low-frequency (ELF) magnetic fields. Many of these studies have implicated CNS structures exhibiting endogenous oscillation and synchrony as optimal sites for field coupling. A particularly well characterized structure in this regard is the rat hippocampus. Under urethane anesthesia, synchronous bursting among hippocampal pyramidal neurons produces a large-amplitude quasi-sinusoidal field potential oscillation, termed "rhythmic slow activity" (RSA) or "theta. " Using this in vivo model, we investigated the effect of exposure to an externally applied sinusoidal magnetic field (16.0 Hz; 28.9 microT(rms)) on RSA. During a 60-min exposure interval, the probability of RSA decaying to a less coherent mode of oscillation, termed "large irregular-amplitude activity" (LIA), was increased significantly. Moreover, this instability persisted for up to 90 min postexposure. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that endogenous CNS oscillators are uniquely susceptible to field-mediated perturbation and suggest that the sensitivity of these networks to such fields may be far greater than had previously been assumed. This sensitivity may reflect nonlinearities inherent to these networks which permit amplification of endogenous fields mediating the initiation and propagation of neuronal synchrony.