Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental and numerical investigations of bone drilling for the indication of bone quality during orthopaedic surgery

Bone drilling is an essential part of many orthopaedic surgical procedures, including those for internal fixation and for attaching prosthetics. Drilling into bone is a fundamental skill that can be both very simple, such as drilling through long bones, or very difficult, such as drilling through the vertebral pedicles where incorrectly drilled holes can result in nerve damage, vascular damage or fractured pedicles. Also large forces experienced during bone drilling may promote crack formation and can result in drill overrun, causing considerable damage to surrounding tissues. Therefore, it is important to understand the effect of bone material quality on the bone drilling forces to select favourable drilling conditions, and improve orthopaedic procedures. [Continues. ]
Political Homophily in Independence Movements: Analyzing and Classifying Social Media Users by National Identity

Social media and data mining are increasingly being used to analyze political and societal issues. Here, we undertake the classification of social media users as supporting or opposing ongoing independence movements in their territories. Independence movements occur in territories whose citizens have conflicting national identities; users with opposing national identities will then support or oppose the sense of being part of an independent nation that differs from the officially recognized country. We describe a methodology that relies on users’ self-reported location to build large-scale datasets for three territories—Catalonia, the Basque Country, and Scotland. An analysis of these datasets shows that homophily plays an important role in determining who people connect with, as users predominantly choose to follow and interact with others from the same national identity. We show that a classifier relying on users’ follow networks can achieve accurate, language-independent classification performances ranging from 85% to 97% for the three territories.
Gemcitabine treatment causes resistance and malignancy of pancreatic cancer stem-like cells via induction of lncRNA HOTAIR

Gemcitabine is the first-line chemotherapeutic agent for advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas, despite the high risk of chemoresistance as a major disadvantage. In the past few years, significant advances have been made in the field of pancreatic cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) and their critical roles in drug resistance, invasion and metastasis, which are tightly regulated by long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). The present study demonstrated that HOX antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is not different between the pancreatic cancer cell line PANC-1 and its enriched CSC sub-population. However, after gemcitabine treatment, the expression levels of HOTAIR in CSCs were induced, but not in PANC-1 cells. HOTAIR induced by gemcitabine failed to cause chemoresistance, but promoted the clonogenicity, proliferation and migration of the cells. By introducing HOTAIR using lentivirus, chemoresistance was induced and the self-renewal capacity, proliferation and migration were significantly promoted. By contrast, HOTAIR knockdown in PANC-1 CSCs treated with or without gemcitabine decreased the cell proliferation, altered the cell cycle progression and induced apoptosis, demonstrating its critical roles in regulating the malignant character of PANC-1 CSCs. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that HOTAIR may be induced by gemcitabine and acts as a tumor promoter by inhibiting the chemosensitivity, and promoting the self-renewal capacity, proliferation and migration of PANC-1 CSCs, which supports its potential application as a novel therapeutic approach for pancreatic cancer.
FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF POLY(UREA-FORMALDEHYDE) MICROCAPSULES FILLED WITH CITRONELLA OIL

These days microencapsulation is finding extensive applications in number of commercial fields.Here we report fabrication & consequent characterization of Poly urea-formaldeyde (UF) microcapsules filled with citronella oil as core material.The chemical structure of the microcapsule was inferred from the FTIR studies.Thermal studies were undertaken to compare the thermal profiles of the fabricated microcapsules with that of poly(U-F) resin.This strongly corroborates the formation of microcapsules filled with citronella oil.Finally SEM studies confirm the formation of microcapsules with entirely different size & morphology compared to that of UF resin and core materials were observed as yolk.
Reconstructing the Timing and Dispersion Routes of HIV-1 Subtype B Epidemics in The Caribbean and Central America: A Phylogenetic Story

The Caribbean and Central America are among the regions with highest HIV-1B prevalence worldwide. Despite of this high virus burden, little is known about the timing and the migration patterns of HIV-1B in these regions. Migration is one of the major processes shaping the genetic structure of virus populations. Thus, reconstruction of epidemiological network may contribute to understand HIV-1B evolution and reduce virus prevalence. We have investigated the spatio-temporal dynamics of the HIV-1B epidemic in The Caribbean and Central America using 1,610 HIV-1B partial pol sequences from 13 Caribbean and 5 Central American countries. Timing of HIV-1B introduction and virus evolutionary rates, as well as the spatial genetic structure of the HIV-1B populations and the virus migration patterns were inferred. Results revealed that in The Caribbean and Central America most of the HIV-1B variability was generated since the 80 s. At odds with previous data suggesting that Haiti was the origin of the epidemic in The Caribbean, our reconstruction indicated that the virus could have been disseminated from Puerto Rico and Antigua. These two countries connected two distinguishable migration areas corresponding to the (mainly Spanish-colonized) Easter and (mainly British-colonized) Western islands, which indicates that virus migration patterns are determined by geographical barriers and by the movement of human populations among culturally related countries. Similar factors shaped the migration of HIV-1B in Central America. The HIV-1B population was significantly structured according to the country of origin, and the genetic diversity in each country was associated with the virus prevalence in both regions, which suggests that virus populations evolve mainly through genetic drift. Thus, our work contributes to the understanding of HIV-1B evolution and dispersion pattern in the Americas, and its relationship with the geography of the area and the movements of human populations.
A Holistic Approach to Bedside Teaching from the Views of Main Users

Introduction: Clinical education concerns with acquiring lots of skills and competencies that enable health professionals to function properly and provide services effectively. The aim of this study was to evaluate a holistic examination on bedside teaching from the views of its main users. Materials and methods: This is a cross sectional study on 70 teachers (clinical and nursing), 70 students (medical and nursing), 400 patients in Jahrom University of Medical Sciences. Data gathering tool was a three-part questionnaire in which the first part was assigned to demographic data, the second part was 10 five-part questions aiming at investigating bedside teaching quality for teachers, students, and patients. Reliability was 0.83, 0.78, and 0.89 respectively. Results: The results showed that teachers evaluated bedside teaching in three areas of communication skills (50.4), proper clinical examination (44.4), and developing professional skills (44.4) more than other fields. Sharing some in common, the students also had a higher average in acquisition of professional skills (83.3) enhancing knowledge of students (82.3) and obtaining a suitable model of communication (72.3). The patients also considered factors such as high selfesteem, feeling of satisfaction (3.83), humanized health care (3.83), and transfer of information to both teachers and students (3.83) higher than other factors. Conclusion: According to the results, it is necessary to appropriately train teachers to meet these standards, and while justifying students to implement this method and its benefits, patients’ satisfaction, enhancing health care, and effective clinical governance should be provided.
Measuring Trait Emotional Intelligence

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the construct of emotional intelligence (EI), focusing on the conceptual distinction between trait EI (or emotional self-efficacy) and ability EI (or cognitive-emotional ability). The former encompasses emotion-related behavioral dispositions and self-perceived abilities measured via self-report, whereas the latter concerns actual emotion-related cognitive abilities and must be measured via maximum-performance tests. Salient measures of both types of EI are succinctly reviewed. It is argued that in terms of measurement most success has been achieved in relation to trait EI rather than ability EI. The overarching message of the chapter is that progress in the field is contingent on recognizing the fundamental differences between the two EI constructs.
Understanding the Role of Individual Perception on Mobile Payment : Moderating or Mediating

As mobile payment is rapidly introduced and popularized around the world, user intention is of vital importance to service providers to win customers for such new technology. Our research focuses on understanding the role of individual perception on the relationship between individual innovativeness and user intention. In our paper individual perception includes three aspects: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived risk. We empirically examine both moderating model and mediating model and find that different aspects of individual perception play different roles between individual innovativeness and user intention. The result shows that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are mediators while perceived risk is a moderator. More surprisingly, we also find that social influence has a positive effect on the individual innovativeness.
Ph-Dependent Inhibition of Voltage-Gated H+ Currents in Rat Alveolar Epithelial Cells by Zn2+ and Other Divalent Cations

Inhibition by polyvalent cations is a defining characteristic of voltage-gated proton channels. The mechanism of this inhibition was studied in rat alveolar epithelial cells using tight-seal voltage clamp techniques. Metal concentrations were corrected for measured binding to buffers. Externally applied ZnCl2 reduced the H+ current, shifted the voltage-activation curve toward positive potentials, and slowed the turn-on of H+ current upon depolarization more than could be accounted for by a simple voltage shift, with minimal effects on the closing rate. The effects of Zn2+ were inconsistent with classical voltage-dependent block in which Zn2+ binds within the membrane voltage field. Instead, Zn2+ binds to superficial sites on the channel and modulates gating. The effects of extracellular Zn2+ were strongly pHo dependent but were insensitive to pHi, suggesting that protons and Zn2+ compete for external sites on H+ channels. The apparent potency of Zn2+ in slowing activation was ∼10× greater at pHo 7 than at pHo 6, and ∼100× greater at pHo 6 than at pHo 5. The pHo dependence suggests that Zn2+, not ZnOH+, is the active species. Evidently, the Zn2+ receptor is formed by multiple groups, protonation of any of which inhibits Zn2+ binding. The external receptor bound H+ and Zn2+ with pK a 6.2–6.6 and pK M 6.5, as described by several models. Zn2+ effects on the proton chord conductance–voltage (g H–V) relationship indicated higher affinities, pK a 7 and pK M 8. CdCl2 had similar effects as ZnCl2 and competed with H+, but had lower affinity. Zn2+ applied internally via the pipette solution or to inside-out patches had comparatively small effects, but at high concentrations reduced H+ currents and slowed channel closing. Thus, external and internal zinc-binding sites are different. The external Zn2+ receptor may be the same modulatory protonation site(s) at which pHo regulates H+ channel gating.
A Heavily Giant Calcified Hydatid Cyst of the Liver with Thoracic Involvement ; The Role of Imaging in Prompt Diagnosis

Hydatid disease a common disease in the tropics is caused as a result of infection by tapeworm. The disease is widely spread due to close association with sheeps and dogs. This disease affects different parts of the body with liver and kidney being the commonly affected parts. We present to you a 42-year old man with Hydatid diasease with history of abdominal mass occupying his entire right upper abdominal quadrant with associated pain. Imaging modalities such as Ultrasound and Computed Tomography (CT) scan played a vital role in diagnosing this disease.
Assessing the Effectiveness and Cost-Benefit of Test-and-Vaccinate Policy for Supplementary Vaccination against Rubella with Limited Doses

Elevating herd immunity level against rubella is essential to prevent congenital rubella syndrome (CRS). Insufficient vaccination coverage left susceptible pockets among adults in Japan, and the outbreak of rubella from 2012 to 2013 resulted in 45 observed CRS cases. Given a limited stock of rubella-containing vaccine (RCV) available, the Japanese government recommended healthcare providers to prioritize vaccination to those confirmed with low level of immunity, or to those likely to transmit to pregnant women. Although a test-and-vaccinate policy could potentially help reduce the use of the limited stockpile of vaccines, by selectively elevating herd immunity, the cost of serological testing is generally high and comparable to the vaccine itself. Here, we aimed to examine whether random vaccination would be more cost-beneficial than the test-and-vaccinate strategy. A mathematical model was employed to evaluate the vaccination policy implemented in 2012–2013, quantifying the benefit-to-cost ratio to achieve herd immunity. The modelling exercise demonstrated that, while the test-and-vaccinate strategy can efficiently achieve herd immunity when stockpiles of RCV are limited, random vaccination would be a more cost-beneficial strategy. As long as the herd immunity acts as the goal of vaccination, our findings apply to future supplementary immunization strategy.
Finite element modeling of manufacturing irregularities of porous materials

2015) Abstract. Well-ordered porous materials are very promising in orthopedics since they allow tailoring the mechanical properties. Finite element (FE) analysis is commonly used to evaluate the mechanical behavior of well-ordered porous materials. However, FE results generally differ importantly from experimental data. In the present article, three types of manufacturing irregularities were characterized on an additive manufactured porous titanium sample having a simple cubic unit-cell: strut diameter variation, strut inclination and fractured struts. These were included in a beam FE model. Results were compared with experimental data in terms of the apparent elastic modulus (Eap) and apparent yield strength (SY,ap). The combination of manufacturing irregularities that yielded the closest results to experimental data was determined. The idealized FE model resulted in an Eap one order of magnitude larger than experimental data and a SY,ap almost twice the experimental values. The strut inclination and fractured struts showed the strongest effects on Eap and SY,ap, respectively. Combining the three manufacturing irregularities produced the closest results to experimental data. The model also performed well when applied to samples having different structural dimensions. We recommend including the three proposed manufacturing irregularities in the FE models to predict the mechanical behavior of such porous
Can Retinal Ganglion Cell Dipoles Seed Iso-Orientation Domains in the Visual Cortex?

It has been argued that the emergence of roughly periodic orientation preference maps (OPMs) in the primary visual cortex (V1) of carnivores and primates can be explained by a so-called statistical connectivity model. This model assumes that input to V1 neurons is dominated by feed-forward projections originating from a small set of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs). The typical spacing between adjacent cortical orientation columns preferring the same orientation then arises via Moiré-Interference between hexagonal ON/OFF RGC mosaics. While this Moiré-Interference critically depends on long-range hexagonal order within the RGC mosaics, a recent statistical analysis of RGC receptive field positions found no evidence for such long-range positional order. Hexagonal order may be only one of several ways to obtain spatially repetitive OPMs in the statistical connectivity model. Here, we investigate a more general requirement on the spatial structure of RGC mosaics that can seed the emergence of spatially repetitive cortical OPMs, namely that angular correlations between so-called RGC dipoles exhibit a spatial structure similar to that of OPM autocorrelation functions. Both in cat beta cell mosaics as well as primate parasol receptive field mosaics we find that RGC dipole angles are spatially uncorrelated. To help assess the level of these correlations, we introduce a novel point process that generates mosaics with realistic nearest neighbor statistics and a tunable degree of spatial correlations of dipole angles. Using this process, we show that given the size of available data sets, the presence of even weak angular correlations in the data is very unlikely. We conclude that the layout of ON/OFF ganglion cell mosaics lacks the spatial structure necessary to seed iso-orientation domains in the primary visual cortex.
Validation of the Essen Stroke Risk Score in different subtypes of ischemic stroke

Abstract Objective: Predictive scores are important tools for stratifying patients based on their risk of future vascular events and for selecting preventive therapies. The aim of this study is to validate the Essen Stroke Risk Score (ESRS) for stratifying stroke recurrence in different subtypes of non-atrial fibrillation ischemic stroke in a large Chinese cohort. Methods: Data were derived from the Blood pressure and clinical Outcome in Stroke Survivors registry, which includes a cohort of 2204 stroke patients. All patients were further classified according to the TOAST (Trial of Org 10 172 in Acute Stroke Treatment) criteria. We stratified one-year cumulative rates for stroke and composite vascular events using the ESRS. The predictive power of the ESRS was assessed using the area under the receiver–operator curves (AUC). Results: Among 1699 patients included in the study, the AUC of ESRS was 0.58 (95% CI: 0.52–0.64) for recurrent stroke, whereas 0.59 (95% CI: 0.53–0.64) for composite vascular events at 1 year. In patients with large-artery atherosclerosis (LAA) subtype of stroke, the AUC of ESRS was both 0.61 (95% CI: 0.54–0.68) for recurrent stroke and composite vascular events. However, no significant AUC was observed in patients with small-artery occlusion subtype of stroke. Conclusions: In patients with LAA subtype of non-atrial fibrillation stroke, the ESRS has moderate accuracy in stratifying the risk of both recurrent strokes and major vascular events within the first year. However, the ESRS couldn’t accurately stratify the risk of recurrent strokes in patients with small-artery atherosclerosis subtype of non-atrial fibrillation stroke.
Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Cardiac Development [ 1 ]

A variety of developmental defects occur as a result of prenatal exposure to alcohol (ethanol) in utero. In humans [5], those defects are collectively classified as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome [6] (FAS) representing the more severe defects. FAS is defined by preand post-natal growth retardation [7], minor facial abnormalities, and deficiencies in the central nervous system [8] (CNS). In addition to those defects, prenatal exposure to alcohol impacts cardiogenesis, the developmental stage of heart formation.
Bone Formation Effect of the RGD-bioconjugated Mussel Adhesive Proteins Composite Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose Hydrogel Based Nano Hydroxyapatite and Collagen Membrane in Rabbits

Injectable RGD-bioconjugated Mussel Adhesive Proteins (RGD-MAPs) composite hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) hydrogels provide local periodontal tissue for bone filling in periodontal surgery. Previously we developed a novel type of injectable self-supported hydrogel (2 mg/ml of RGD-MAPs/HPMC) based porcine nano hydroxyapatite (MPH) for dental graft, which could good handling property, biodegradation or biocompatibility with the hydrogel disassembly and provided efficient cell adhesion activity and no inflammatory responses. Herein, the aim of this work was to evaluate bone formation following implantation of MPH and collagen membrane in rabbit calvarial defects. Eight male New Zealand rabbits were used and four circular calvarial defects were created on each animal. Defects were filled with different graft materials: 1) collagen membrane, 2) collagen membrane with MPH, 3) collagen membrane with bovine bone hydroxyapatite (BBH), and 4) control. The animals were sacrificed after 2 and 8 weeks of healing periods for histologic analysis. Both sites receiving MPH and BBH showed statistically increased augmented volume and new bone formation (p < 0.05). However, there was no statistical difference in new bone formation between the MPH, BBH and collagen membrane group at all healing periods. Within the limits of this study, collagen membrane with MPH was an effective material for bone formation and space maintaining in rabbit calvarial defects.
Povrchové úpravy polyesteru v plazmatu

This thesis is focused on a material surface modification, especially on polyester. This ma-terial was described in the theoretical part. Currently, the plasma surface modification pos-sibilities of polyester are discussed. The goals of experimental work were surface modifica-tion of polyester in various gases (air, Ar+air, Ar+N2, Ar+C4F8). The surface changes were characterized by following physical methods: AFM (atomic force microscopy), XPS (x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and the contact angle measurement (sessile drop method). The material changes were studied in time. In this case, the changes were observed and dis-cussed.
Laboratory and Field Evaluation of Multiple Compound Attractants to Culex pipiens pallens

Abstract Efforts to develop mosquito attractants using vertebrate host volatiles have been well made under laboratory conditions but their attractiveness to mosquitoes in the wild still needs to be evaluated. In the present study, we evaluated the attraction of female Culex pipiens pallens Coquillett (Diptera: Culicidae) to 11 individual chemical compounds found in vertebrate host odors, and to synthetic blends, consisting of different combinations of the compounds. These tests were conducted under laboratory and field conditions using a Y-tube olfactometer and odorbaited traps, respectively. When delivered at concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 10.0 μg/kg, 9 of the 11 compounds were attractive to female mosquitoes under laboratory conditions. We developed 47 synthetic blends composed of the 6 most attractive compounds (propionic acid, hexanal, myristic acid, benzaldehyde, 1-octen-3-ol, and geranyl acetone) and 18 of them were significantly attractive to mosquitoes in the olfactometer. Most of the attractive blends contained two to four attractive compounds. In the field, 5 of the 18 blends captured significantly more mosquitoes than did control traps. The findings demonstrate that female mosquitoes can be attracted by single chemical compounds as well as some of their synthetic blends. The effectiveness of synthetic blends depended on specific combinations of several compounds, rather than simply increasing the number of attractive compounds in the blends. Synthetic blends may have potential for use in odor-baited traps for mosquito surveillance.