Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporal base intradural transpetrosal approach to the petoclival region: an appraisal of anatomy, operative technique and clinical experience

Background. Tumours in the petroclival region have been a challenge to neurosurgeons. We present a cohort of 24 patients with petroclival meningioma (PCM) and trigeminal schwannoma (TS) in the petroclival region with extension to the middle fossa which were removed with the temporal base intradural transpetrosal (TBIT) approach. Methods. To avoid damage to the important surrounding structures in the petrosal bone, a morphometric analysis in the TBIT approach was performed in 15 cadaveric heads, and the ‘safe area of intradural petrosectomy’ was identified in the TBIT approach. Subsequently, 14 patients with PCM and 10 patients with TS in the petroclival region were operated on with the TBIT approach. Results. There were no operative deaths in this cohort related to the surgery. Common complications included light hemiparesis in two patients (8.0%), new cranial nerve paresis in nine (37.5%), post-operative pneumonia in one (4.0%) and transient cerebrospinal fluid leak in one (4.0%). Total tumour resection was achieved in 20 patients (83.3%) and subtotal resection in 4 (16.7%). There was no tumour recurrence in all patients at follow-up with a mean duration of 37 months. Conclusions. Surgical strategy for PCM and TS in the petroclival region should be tailored to individual patients. The TBIT approach may improve the exposure of tumours in the petroclival region. A clear description of the ‘safe area of intradural petrosectomy’ appears to decrease the risk associated with petrosectomy procedure in the TBIT approach.
Principal Polynomial Analysis

This paper presents a new framework for manifold learning based on a sequence of principal polynomials that capture the possibly nonlinear nature of the data. The proposed Principal Polynomial Analysis (PPA) generalizes PCA by modeling the directions of maximal variance by means of curves, instead of straight lines. Contrarily to previous approaches, PPA reduces to performing simple univariate regressions, which makes it computationally feasible and robust. Moreover, PPA shows a number of interesting analytical properties. First, PPA is a volume-preserving map, which in turn guarantees the existence of the inverse. Second, such an inverse can be obtained in closed form. Invertibility is an important advantage over other learning methods, because it permits to understand the identified features in the input domain where the data has physical meaning. Moreover, it allows to evaluate the performance of dimensionality reduction in sensible (input-domain) units. Volume preservation also allows an easy computation of information theoretic quantities, such as the reduction in multi-information after the transform. Third, the analytical nature of PPA leads to a clear geometrical interpretation of the manifold: it allows the computation of Frenet-Serret frames (local features) and of generalized curvatures at any point of the space. And fourth, the analytical Jacobian allows the computation of the metric induced by the data, thus generalizing the Mahalanobis distance. These properties are demonstrated theoretically and illustrated experimentally. The performance of PPA is evaluated in dimensionality and redundancy reduction, in both synthetic and real datasets from the UCI repository.
Venlafaxine and mirtazapine: different mechanisms of antidepressant action, common opioid-mediated antinociceptive effects--a possible opioid involvement in severe depression?

The efficacy of each antidepressant available has been found equal to that of amitriptyline in double-blind studies as far as mild to moderate depression is involved. However, it seems that some antidepressants are more effective than others in the treatment of severe types of depression (i.e., delusional depression and refractory depression). Following studies regarding the antinociceptive mechanisms of various antidepressants, we speculate that the involvement of the opioid system in the antidepressants' mechanism of action may be necessary, in order to prove effective in the treatment of severe depression. Among the antidepressants of the newer generations, that involvement occurs only with venlafaxine (a presynaptic drug which blocks the synaptosomal uptake of noradrenaline and serotonin and, to a lesser degree, of dopamine) and with mirtazapine (a postsynaptic drug which enhances noradrenergic and 5-HT1A-mediated serotonergic neurotransmission via antagonism of central alpha-auto- and hetero-adrenoreceptors). When mice were tested with a hotplate analgesia meter, both venlafaxine and mirtazapine induced a dose-dependent, naloxone-reversible antinociceptive effect following ip administration. Summing up the various interactions of venlafaxine and mirtazapine with opioid, noradrenergic and serotonergic agonists and antagonists, we found that the antinociceptive effect of venlafaxine is influenced by opioid receptor subtypes (mu-, kappa1- kappa3- and delta-opioid receptor subtypes) combined with the alpha2-adrenergic receptor, whereas the antinociceptive effect of mirtazapine mainly involves mu- and kappa3-opioid mechanisms. This opioid profile of the two drugs may be one of the explanations to their efficacy in severe depression, unlike the SSRIs and other antidepressants which lack opioid activity.
Acute renal failure after high-dose antibiotic bone cement: case report and review of the literature

Abstract High-dose antibiotic-loaded bone cement (ALBC) spacers are commonly used to treat prosthetic joint infections following total hip and knee arthroplasties. This methodology can provide high local antibiotic concentrations while minimizing systemic exposure and toxicity. The occurrence of acute kidney injury (AKI) is rarely reported. Available literature suggests that the rate may be higher than previously thought. We report a case of significant systemic tobramycin absorption with concomitant acute renal failure in a 69-year-old female following the implantation of a high-dose ALBC spacer containing both tobramycin and vancomycin. The tobramycin level 24 h post-surgery was 5.8 mcg/mL. Due to concomitant renal failure, antibiotic clearance was poor and resulted in prolonged exposure to elevated aminoglycoside levels. Recovery of renal function occurred, but clinicians should be vigilant in considering the potential impact ALBC spacers can have on post-operative renal function if antibiotic elution is higher than expected.
A Novel Contrast Enhancement Technique on Palm Bone Images

Contrast enhancement plays a fundamental role in image processing. Many histogram-based techniques are widely used for contrast enhancement of given images, due to their simple function and effectiveness. However, the conventional histogram equalization (HE) methods result in excessive contrast enhancement, which causes natural looking and satisfactory results for a variety of low contrast images. To solve such problems, a novel multi-histogram equalization technique is proposed to enhance the contrast of the palm bone X-ray radiographs in this paper. For images, the mean-variance analysis method is employed to partition the histogram of the original grey scale image into multiple sub-histograms. These histograms are independently equalized. By using this mean-variance partition method, a proposed multi-histogram equalization technique is employed to achieve the contrast enhancement of the palm bone X-ray radiographs. Experimental results show that the multi-histogram equalization technique achieves a lower average absolute mean brightness error (AMBE) value. The multi-histogram equalization technique simultaneously preserved the mean brightness and enhanced the local contrast of the original image.
Data Acquisition through Joint Compressive Sensing and Principal Component Analysis

In this paper we look at the problem of accurately reconstructing distributed signals through the collection of a small number of samples at a data gathering point. The techniques that we exploit to do so are Compressive Sensing (CS) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA is used to find transformations that sparsify the signal, which are required for CS to retrieve, with good approximation, the original signal from a small number of samples. Our approach dynamically adapts to non-stationary real world signals through the online estimation of their correlation properties in space and time; these are then exploited by PCA to derive the transformations for CS. The approach is tunable and robust, independent of the specific routing protocol in use and able to substantially outperform standard data collection schemes. The effectiveness of our recovery algorithm, in terms of number of transmissions in the network vs reconstruction error, is demonstrated for synthetic as well as for real world signals which we gathered from an actual wireless sensor network (WSN) deployment. We stress that our solution is not limited to WSNs, but can be readily applied to other types of network infrastructures that require the online approximation of large and distributed data sets.
Hovering control of vectored thrust aerial vehicles

In this paper, a vectored thrust aerial vehicle( VTAV) that has three ducted fans is considered. Since ducted fans are powerful and effective in providing lift, they are suitable for thrusters of UAVs, but modeling their aerodynamic effects such as ram drag is very difficult. The VTAV has one ducted fan fixed to its body and two ducted fans that can be tilted in order to make rotational moments, which makes the system dynamics even more complicated. This paper focuses on giving a precise dynamical model that includes aerodynamic effects of ducted fans. Then it presents a hovering controller based on the dynamical model developed. Since the horizontal dynamics are under actuated, a switching control approach is introduced to realize a stabilizing controller. Numerical simulations prove the validity of the approach.
Changes in spinal curvature and proprioception of schoolboys carrying different weights of backpack

Despite evidence linking backpack carriage and back pain, previous studies to examine the effects of backpack carriage have focused on changes in physical performance rather than the direct effects on the spine itself. Spinal curvature and proprioception (in terms of spinal repositioning consistency) of 15 schoolboys during normal upright stance without a backpack and while carrying a specially adapted backpack loaded at 10, 15 and 20% of their bodyweight were measured and compared using repeated measures ANOVA. A significant flattening of the lumbar lordosis and the upper thoracic kyphosis was found with increasing backpack load, as well as a significant decrease in the thoraco-lumbar and lumbar repositioning consistencies. Carriage of a loaded backpack causes immediate changes in spinal curvature and appears to have a direct effect on the repositioning consistency. Further investigation of the changes in spinal curvature and repositioning consistency over time with prolonged backpack carriage is warranted. Daily carriage of a school backpack on the musculoskeletal health of children and adolescents has become an area of concern due to the association between backpack carriage and back pain. Data regarding the direct effect of backpack carriage on the spine in children are limited.
Enabling Gesture-based Interactions with Objects

Increasing numbers of everyday objects in libraries, stores and warehouses are instrumented with passive RFID tags, resulting in a ripe opportunity for gesture-based interactions with people. By a simple act of picking up and gesturing with an RFID-tagged object, users can send their opinions and sentiments about that object to the cloud. Prior work in RFID-based gesture tracking relies on multiple bulky and expensive antennas and readers to function, which incurs unacceptable infrastructure costs for large-scale ubiquitous deployment (over an entire warehouse or mall, for example) thus hindering practical adoption. In this paper, we propose Pantomime, the first RFID-based gesture recognition system that uses just a single antenna per geographical area of coverage. Our key insight is to replace the conventional multiple antenna single tag tracking framework with an equivalent multiple tag single antenna system. Through a novel tag coordination protocol and a lightweight tracking algorithm, Pantomime enables accurate gesture tracking that works for objects tagged with just two RFID tags. We implement a real-time prototype of Pantomime with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) RFID readers and antennas. Extensive evaluations and real-world case studies in a classroom and a retail store demonstrate that Pantomime achieves comparable gesture tracking accuracy (87%) to state-of-the-art multi-antenna schemes (88%) at a minimal deployment cost.
The Construction and Evaluation of Word Space Models

Semantic similarity is a key issue in many computational tasks. This paper goes into the development and evaluation of two common ways of automatically calculating the semantic similarity between two words. On the one hand, such methods may depend on a manually constructed thesaurus like (Euro)WordNet. Their performance is often evaluated on the basis of a very restricted set of human similarity ratings. On the other hand, corpus-based methods rely on the distribution of two words in a corpus to determine their similarity. Their performance is generally quantified through a comparison with the judgements of the first type of approach. This paper introduces a new Gold Standard of more than 5,000 human intra-category similarity judgements. We show that corpus-based methods often outperform (Euro)WordNet on this data set, and that the use of the latter as a Gold Standard for the former, is thus often far from ideal.
A Light-weight Code Cache Design for Dynamic Binary Translation

Interpretation and basic block translation (BBT) are two typical strategies for cold code emulation in a dynamic binary translation (DBT) system. More and more DBT systems employ BBT as the generated native code runs more efficient than the interpretation routines. We observe that BBT’s high efficiency is based on those special hardware assists. With certain simple hardware techniques, interpretation could outperform BBT. In our pervious work, we proposed a hardware interpreted code cache (Pcache) mechanism to speedup interpretation by saving the decoded instruction information during interpretation. This light-weight code cache design could be extended to assist the hotspots translation, thus further reduce the DBT systems’ overhead. We add the translation entry into the Pcache design thus saving most decoding operations during translation. We use eight SPEC 2000 integer benchmarks on our DBT simulator. Results show that the modified Pcache design causes a speedup of 1.94 according to the referenced DBT with basic interpretation and the interpretation based DBT system assisted by the modified Pcache performs more efficiently than the DBT system which employs BBT for the cold code.
Efficient Enzymatic Glycosylation of Peptides and Oligosaccharides from GalNAc and UTP

Carbohydrates play a major role in a variety of biological processes, and synthetic glycoconjuguates are increasingly used to study the different roles of glycans in vivo and in vitro. Several approaches have been developed for their production, ranging from pure chemical to pure enzymatic methods. Large-scale production using only chemical methods is difficult being both long and inefficient because of multiple protection/deprotection steps. Enzymatic synthesis of glycoconjugates is advantageous being fast and gives generally good yields. However, whenever Leloir-type glycosyltransferases are used, large amounts of sugar nucleotides are required. In addition, most of these enzymes are inhibited by the free nucleotide reaction product (Scheme 1).
3D Generalization Lenses for Interactive Focus + Context Visualization of Virtual City Models

Focus + context visualization facilitates the exploration of complex information spaces. This paper proposes 3D generalization lenses, a new visualization technique for virtual 3D city models that combines different levels of structural abstraction. In an automatic preprocessing step, we derive a generalized representation of a given city model. At runtime, this representation is combined with a full-detail representation within a single view based on one or more 3D lenses of arbitrary shape. Focus areas within lens volumes are shown in full detail while excluding less important details of the surrounding area. Our technique supports simultaneous use of multiple lenses associated with different abstraction levels, can handle overlapping and nested lenses, and provides interactive lens modification.
Random Chromosome Segregation without Meiotic Arrest in Both Male and Female Meiocytes of a dmc1 Mutant of Arabidopsis

In yeast, the DMC1 gene is required for interhomolog recombination, which is an essential step for bivalent formation and the correct partition of chromosomes during meiosis I. By using a reverse genetics approach, we were able to identify a T-DNA insertion in AtDMC1, the Arabidopsis homolog of DMC1. Homozygotes for the AtDMC1 insertion failed to express AtDMC1, and their residual fertility was 1.5% that of the wild type. Complete fertility was restored in mutant plants when a wild-type copy of the AtDMC1 gene was reintroduced. Cytogenetical analysis points to a correlation of the sterility phenotype with severely disturbed chromosome behavior during both male and female meiosis. In this study, our data demonstrate that AtDMC1 function is crucial for meiosis in Arabidopsis. However, meiosis can be completed in the Arabidopsis dmc1 mutant, which is not the case for mouse or some yeast mutants.
Absorption force of the capillaries of the visceral pleura in determination of the intrapleural pressure.

A method is described for the measurement of the net absorption pressure of the capillaries at the level of the visceral pleura. This pressure was found to be about 15 mm Hg and due to the difference between the plasma colloid osmotic pressure and the hydrostatic pressure in the pulmonary capillaries; such a difference does not exist in the parietal pleura. The hydrostatic pressure of the pulmonary capillaries estimated by this method has the same value as that observed by cardiac catheterization. From the results and theoretical considerations it appears that the negative intrapleural pressure is the result of the net absorption pressure of the visceral pleura. This force is higher than the elastic retraction force of the lung and therefore it holds the visceral and the parietal pleura together.
On the Security Analysis of Lee, Hwang & Lee (2004) and Song & Kim (2000) Key Exchange / Agreement Protocols

We revisit the password-based group key exchange protocol due to Lee et al. (2004), which carries a claimed proof of security in the Bresson et al. model under the intractability of the Decisional Diffie–Hellman problem (DDH) and Computational Diffie–Hellman (CDH) problem. We reveal a previously unpublished flaw in the protocol and its proof, whereby we demonstrate that the protocol violates the definition of security in the model. To provide a better insight into the protocol and proof failures, we present a fixed protocol. We hope our analysis will enable similar mistakes to be avoided in the future. We also revisit protocol 4 of Song and Kim (2000), and reveal a previously unpublished flaw in the protocol (i.e., a reflection attack).
Physical and Mechanical Characteristics of Porous SS316L for Biomedical Implant

Porous materials with open and interconnected pores are very interesting for biomedical applications as it provides a good base for the formation of bone ingrowth naturally. Besides, it also allows for body fluid transportation through the interconnected network. Therefore, in this work, foam replication method has been used to produce porous SS316L. The SS316L slurries were prepared by ball milling and mechanical stirring method. The polyurethane (PU) foam has been used as a sacrificial template. Sintering process was carried in a high vacuum furnace at 1200°C, 1250°C and 1300°C. The overall results show that increasing the sintering temperature from 1200°C to 1300°C and the using of different slurry mixing methods did not significantly affect the physical and mechanical properties of the porous SS316L produced. The density, porosity percentage and compression strength found for this porous SS316L were in the range of 1.35g/cm3-3g/cm3, 62% - 83%, and 30.6MPa-79MPa respectively. The SEM images also show that the microstructure of this porous SS316L mostly consisted of open and interconnected pores. Therefore, these results are very promising for biomedical implant application.
Spectroscopy of the optical counterpart to Ser X‐1

We present William Herschel Telescope (WHT) and Very Large Telescope (VLT) spectroscopy of MM Ser, the optical counterpart to Ser X-1. We deblend the red spectra of the two close stars identified by Wachter and show that the brighter of the two is responsible for the Ha and He I emission, hence confirming that this is the true counterpart of the X-ray source. We also identify several He II and N III lines in the blue spectrum. The isolated emission lines are all remarkably narrow, with FWHM 200-300 km s -1 . The Bowen blend has structure suggesting that the individual components are also narrow. These narrow lines could be from the disc if the binary inclination is quite low, or they could come from a more localized region such as the heated face of the companion star. Several interstellar lines are detected and indicate that the reddening is moderate, and consistent with the neutral hydrogen column density inferred in X-rays.