Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LMA and ventriculo-peritoneal shunt surgery: is it the ideal airway?

Implication Statement Laryngeal mask airway (LMA) has the advantage of attenuating the hemodynamic response during its insertion and removal as compared with endotracheal intubation, and the associated increase in this response is shortlived. This is of particular importance in patients with elevated intracranial pressure. Although LMA use is encouraged for short neurosurgical procedures, it may not serve to be an ideal airway in ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt surgeries. A 46-year-old, 52 kg woman with central nervous system lymphoma and normal pressure hydrocephalus was posted for programmable VP shunt surgery. Propofol, fentanyl, and vecuronium were used for LMA insertion and lungs were ventilated with 450mL of tidal volume after confirming LMA position by auscultation and end tidal CO2 waveform with neck rotated to opposite side for surgery. However, during tunneling of subcutaneous tissue in the neck, a sudden reduction in tidal volume to 70 to 100mL was noted. Further, there was a loss of end tidal CO2 waveform and oxygen saturation dropped from 100% to 95%. Surgery was withheld and LMA was manipulated suspecting displacement from its position. This promptly restored tidal volume back to normal. Rest of the procedure was uneventful. LMA attenuates cardiovascular response as compared with endotracheal intubation and the response is shortlived. Further, LMA causes minimal coughing and results in smoother emergence from anesthesia. In neurosurgical patients, perturbations in blood pressure enhance cerebral hyperemia and cerebral edema by elevating intracranial pressure (ICP). Also, increases in ICP progressively compromise cerebral perfusion in patients with raised ICP. Agarwal and Shobhana have encouraged the use of LMA in short neurosurgical patients. However, our experience suggests that LMA is not an ideal device for securing the airway, particularly in VP shunt surgery. This is because, first, manipulation in the neck occurs while tunneling the ventricular catheter to the peritoneum. Second, as the head is not fixed, there is potential scope for head and neck movement, thereby increasing the chance of LMA displacement and subsequent complications. We, therefore, wish to highlight that LMA may not be ideal for securing the airway during VP shunt procedures as has been previously reported in the literature.
Advanced optical-label routing system supporting multicast, optical TTL, and multimedia applications

This paper reports on modern features of the optical-label switching (OLS) system in support of multicast, optical time-to-live (TTL), and video-streaming applications. We first propose and demonstrate optical-label switching core router architecture with multicast function. The multicast switching architecture provides reduced complexity and effective multicast contention resolution compared to conventional multicast-capable switching fabric. A proof-of-principle experiment successfully showed packet multicast forwarding with contention resolution. The all-optical TTL monitors the healthiness of the packet, and prevents degraded packets from traveling or looping further in the network. The experiment demonstrated successful packet discards based on optical signal-to-noise ratio degradation. Finally, we present an optical label switching edge router that supports aggregation, quality of service, and class of service, and we further demonstrate a video streaming application between Ethernet clients through the OLS edge routers and a core router. The modern features of OLS routers proposed and demonstrated in this paper indicate the viability of OLS technologies in future photonic Internet in support of modern applications.
A Companion Cell–Dominant and Developmentally Regulated H3K4 Demethylase Controls Flowering Time in Arabidopsis via the Repression of FLC Expression

Flowering time relies on the integration of intrinsic developmental cues and environmental signals. FLC and its downstream target FT are key players in the floral transition in Arabidopsis. Here, we characterized the expression pattern and function of JMJ18, a novel JmjC domain-containing histone H3K4 demethylase gene in Arabidopsis. JMJ18 was dominantly expressed in companion cells; its temporal expression pattern was negatively and positively correlated with that of FLC and FT, respectively, during vegetative development. Mutations in JMJ18 resulted in a weak late-flowering phenotype, while JMJ18 overexpressors exhibited an obvious early-flowering phenotype. JMJ18 displayed demethylase activity toward H3K4me3 and H3K4me2, and bound FLC chromatin directly. The levels of H3K4me3 and H3K4me2 in chromatins of FLC clade genes and the expression of FLC clade genes were reduced, whereas FT expression was induced and the protein expression of FT increased in JMJ18 overexpressor lines. The early-flowering phenotype caused by the overexpression of JMJ18 was mainly dependent on the functional FT. Our findings suggest that the companion cell–dominant and developmentally regulated JMJ18 binds directly to the FLC locus, reducing the level of H3K4 methylation in FLC chromatin and repressing the expression of FLC, thereby promoting the expression of FT in companion cells to stimulate flowering.
Gravitation-based model for information retrieval

This paper proposes GBM (gravitation-based model), a physical model for information retrieval inspired by Newton's theory of gravitation. A mapping is built in this model from concepts of information retrieval (documents, queries, relevance, etc) to those of physics (mass, distance, radius, attractive force, etc). This model actually provides a new perspective on IR problems. A family of effective term weighting functions can be derived from it, including the well-known BM25 formula. This model has some advantages over most existing ones: First, because it is directly based on basic physical laws, the derived formulas and algorithms can have their explicit physical interpretation. Second, the ranking formulas derived from this model satisfy more intuitive heuristics than most of existing ones, thus have the potential to behave empirically better and to be used safely on various settings. Finally, a new approach for structured document retrieval derived from this model is more reasonable and behaves better than existing ones.
Clinical Signs of Radiologic Pneumonia in Under-Five Hypokalemic Diarrheal Children Admitted to an Urban Hospital in Bangladesh

Background Clinical signs of pneumonia are often veiled in under-five diarrheal children presenting with hypokalemia, making clinical diagnosis of pneumonia very difficult in such population. However, there is no published report that describes the influences of hypokalemia on the clinical signs of pneumonia in diarrheal children. Our objective was to assess the influences of hypokalemia, and their outcome in such children. Methods We prospectively enrolled all under-five diarrheal children (n = 180) admitted to the Special Care Ward of the Dhaka Hospital of icddr,b from September-December 2007 with radiological pneumonia who also had their serum potassium estimated. We compared the clinical features and outcome of the diarrheal children having pneumonia with (cases = 55) and without hypokalemia (controls = 125). Results The case-fatality among the cases was 2 times higher compared to the controls, but the difference was not statistically significant (p = 0.202). In logistic regression analysis, after adjusting for potential confounders such as age of the patient, clinical dehydration, severe wasting, abnormally sleepy, lower chest wall in-drawing, nasal flaring and inability to drink on admission, under-five diarrheal children with pneumonia who presented with nutritional edema had 3 times more risk to have hypokalemia compared to those without nutritional edema (OR = 2.76, 95% CI = 1.01–7.51) and these hypokalemic children were 64% less likely to present with fast breathing (OR = 0.36, 95% CI = 0.17–0.74). Conclusion and significance The results of our analysis are simple but may have great public health implications and underscore the importance of diligent assessment for pneumonia in under-five diarrheal children having risk of hypokalemia as in children with nutritional edema even in absence of fast breathing, a useful sign of pneumonia. This may help for early initiation of first dose of parental antibiotics along with potassium supplementation before referral to tertiary hospitals by health workers to combat probability of deaths in such population especially in resource limited settings.
Metabolic activities of isolated akinetes of the cyanobacterium Nostoc spongiaeforme

Intact akinetes (spores) of the cyanobacterium Nostoc spongiaeforme can be isolated free of vegetative cells and heterocysts. The akinetes remain viable for at least 2 weeks in distilled water. They do not germinate in water but do so readily when transferred subsequently to cyanobacterial growth medium. Isolated, nongerminating akinetes incorporated 35S from Na235SO4 into protein and lipid. Similar incorporation was observed when akinetes were isolated from old cultures (containing primarily akinetes) which were labeled with Na235SO4 for 4 to 5 h before isolation. The metabolic activities of isolated akinetes were therefore not a factitious response to the isolation procedure. Autoradiographs of radioactive akinetes showed that 35S was incorporated by virtually all akinetes, rather than by a small subpopulation of active cells. Akinetes consumed O2 in the dark and, in a dichlorophenyl dimethylurea-sensitive reaction, evolved O2 in the light. We conclude that akinetes are metabolically active under conditions in which germination does not occur.
Mucosal IL‐8 and TGF‐β recruit blood monocytes: evidence for cross‐talk between the lamina propria stroma and myeloid cells

The lamina propria of the gastrointestinal mucosa contains the largest population of mononuclear phagocytes in the body, yet little is known about the cellular mechanisms that regulate mononuclear cell recruitment to noninflamed and inflamed intestinal mucosa. Here, we show that intestinal macrophages do not proliferate. We also show that a substantial proportion of intestinal macrophages express chemokine receptors for interleukin (IL)‐8 and transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β), and a smaller proportion expresses receptors for N‐formylmethionyl‐leucyl‐phenylalanine and C5a, but, surprisingly, they do not migrate to the corresponding ligands. In contrast, autologous blood monocytes, which express the same receptors, do migrate to the ligands. Blood monocytes also migrate to conditioned medium (CM) derived from lamina propria extracellular matrix, which we show contains IL‐8 and TGF‐β that are produced by epithelial cells and lamina propria mast cells. This migration is specific to IL‐8 and TGF‐β, as preincubation of the stroma‐CM with antibodies to IL‐8 and TGF‐β significantly blocked monocyte chemotaxis to the stromal products. Together, these findings indicate that blood monocytes are the exclusive source of macrophages in the intestinal mucosa and underscore the central role of newly recruited blood monocytes in maintaining the macrophage population in noninflamed mucosa and in serving as the exclusive source of macrophages in inflamed mucosa.
Sexual Arousal Disorders in Women

Arousal disorders with impaired arousal response can be defined as genital, subjective or combined arousal disorder. The prevalence varies and is increased with increasing age, especially at the time of menopause. Arousal disorders are often comorbid with desire disorder or orgasm and pain disorders. In the evaluation, a thorough sexological history as well as medical and gynaecological history and examination should be carried out. Treatment should be based on type of arousal disorder and clinical findings.
Chronic Care and Addictions Treatment: A Feasibility Study on the Implementation of Posttreatment Continuing Recovery Monitoring

Abstract In the treatment of drug addiction, as with other chronic conditions, the effects of treatment are significant but not long lasting after discharge unless continuing monitoring is provided. Efforts to help patients sustain positive treatment outcomes are generally directed to community support. Postdischarge checkups can help patients evaluate their behavior and recovery-related issues—similar to a person with diabetes reporting on blood sugar levels and diet and exercise patterns. The challenge for providers is to raise awareness of the importance of continuing recovery monitoring and the responsibility of the treatment program to build a more seamless continuum of care for patients who have completed a primary treatment episode. This article reviews a pilot project of the Department of Alcohol & Drug Services of Santa Clara County, California that tested the feasibility of implementing a continuing recovery monitoring (CRM) service using post-discharge telephone check-ups for volunteer patients (N = 32) who completed treatment. The aims of the study were to (a) develop a model for continuing recovery monitoring, (b) gather data on the model's utility including identifying organizational and logistical challenges and, (c) describe several changes needed in the system of care to add CRM. The study showed that the model of continuing recovery monitoring is a feasible way to extend a system's existing continuum of care.
Hydroquinone Dioxygenase from Pseudomonas fluorescens ACB: a Novel Member of the Family of Nonheme-Iron(II)-Dependent Dioxygenases

ABSTRACT Hydroquinone 1,2-dioxygenase (HQDO), an enzyme involved in the catabolism of 4-hydroxyacetophenone in Pseudomonas fluorescens ACB, was purified to apparent homogeneity. Ligandation with 4-hydroxybenzoate prevented the enzyme from irreversible inactivation. HQDO was activated by iron(II) ions and catalyzed the ring fission of a wide range of hydroquinones to the corresponding 4-hydroxymuconic semialdehydes. HQDO was inactivated by 2,2′-dipyridyl, o-phenanthroline, and hydrogen peroxide and inhibited by phenolic compounds. The inhibition with 4-hydroxybenzoate (K i = 14 μM) was competitive with hydroquinone. Online size-exclusion chromatography-mass spectrometry revealed that HQDO is an α2β2 heterotetramer of 112.4 kDa, which is composed of an α-subunit of 17.8 kDa and a β-subunit of 38.3 kDa. Each β-subunit binds one molecule of 4-hydroxybenzoate and one iron(II) ion. N-terminal sequencing and peptide mapping and sequencing based on matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization—two-stage time of flight analysis established that the HQDO subunits are encoded by neighboring open reading frames (hapC and hapD) of a gene cluster, implicated to be involved in 4-hydroxyacetophenone degradation. HQDO is a novel member of the family of nonheme-iron(II)-dependent dioxygenases. The enzyme shows insignificant sequence identity with known dioxygenases.
Wolf Subspecies: Reply to Weckworth et al. and Fredrickson et al.

Colleagues disagree with statements in our discussion (Cronin et al. 2015) regarding subspecies taxonomy of wolves (Canis lupus) in southeast Alaska (Weckworth et al. 2015) and the southwest United States (Fredrickson et al. 2015). Following the presentation of results of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) variation in several populations of wolves in North America, we discussed other genetic data and stated that the results " do not support a subspecies designation of wolves in southeast Alaska " (C. l. ligoni) and that designation of a Mexican wolf (C. l. baileyi) subspecies " is of questionable validity. " Fredrickson et al. and Weckworth et al. provide information and insights that support the Mexican wolf subspecies designation and the southeast Alaska subspecies designation, respectively. We and they discuss the same data, so this is essentially a " lumper-splitter " (e.g., Mayr 1982, p. 240) disagreement over subspecies, and whether a degree of genetic differentiation, or strict phylogenetic independence , is needed for subspecies designation. Because subspecies and taxonomy in general, may not be the focus of many readers of the Journal of Heredity who work in agriculture, medicine, and conservation , we provide insights from the literature to explain the concepts relevant to our thinking on this topic. This is important because of the potential for misconceptions of classic principles and literature of evolutionary biology (Karl et al. 2012). It is important to first recognize that the contrasting views of Cronin et al., Weckworth et al., and Fredrickson et al. (and references therein) exemplify the long-standing uncertainty and lack of consensus on animal subspecies in general. This has been the case since the classic critique of subspecies by Wilson and Brown (1953), who were convinced that the subspecies concept was " the most critical and disorderly area of modern systematic theory…, " and that " …the subspecies trinomial … in its assumed function as a formal means of registering geographic variation within the species it tends to be both illusory and superfluous. " Consider these insights on subspecies by other prominent evolutionary biologists: Mayr (1970): " This concept of the subspecies is fallacious. Species are not composites of uniform subtypes-subspecies-but consist of an almost infinite number of local populations, each in turn (in sexual species) consisting of genetically different individuals. The better the geographic variation of a species is known, the more difficult it becomes to delimit subspecies and the more obvious it …
Who Said That? The Crossmodal Matching Identity for Inferring Unfamiliar Faces from Voices

This paper proposes a method for matching unfamiliar person's face to unfamiliar voice. The idea behind this is crossmodal perception of human including many illusions such as the McGurk effect, ventriloquist illusion, and so on. Especially, we focus on recent psychological evidence suggesting human can do matching between unfamiliar faces and unfamiliar voices to some extent. The aim of this paper is to mimic this ability on a computer. In order to realize the matching of an unfamiliar person's face to an unfamiliar voice, a dataset of pairs of facial images and corresponding voices are used as knowledge. It means that the unfamiliar voice is matched to the closest known speaker model. Since the database contains corresponding facial image, the system can estimate a closest known face from the unfamiliar voice. Finally each unfamiliar face is matched to the estimated known face and the final recognition result is obtained. To this end, we first implement a speaker recognition system based on Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients as the speech feature and Gaussian mixtures models as the classifier. We also use a two-dimensional HMM-based face recognizer and propose a statistical integration of audio/visual recognition results. To show the possibility of the proposed system, unfamiliar speaker recognition experiments are carried out using 60 sentences from the ATR-503 sentences uttered by 20 university students.
Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity

Why is terrorist activity more prevalent in democracies than in nondemocracies? I argue that the main motivation for terrorist attacks in democracies is intergroup dynamics, with terrorist groups of various ideologies competing with one another for limited political influence. I conduct a cross-national, longitudinal analysis of 119 countries for the period 1975–97, using political competition as the key independent variable and the number of transnational terrorist incidents originating in the country as the dependent variable. I find preliminary support for the hypothesis that intergroup competition, motivated by the competition of the political regime, explains an increase in terrorist incidents originating in a state. Evidence also reveals a positive relationship between political competition and the number of terrorist groups that emerge within a state and a positive relationship between the density of domestic interest group participation and terrorist activity. Officials should consider intergroup .
Tracking Protection in Firefox For Privacy and Performance

We present Tracking Protection in the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Tracking Protection is a new privacy technology to mitigate invasive tracking of users' online activity by blocking requests to tracking domains. We evaluate our approach and demonstrate a 67.5% reduction in the number of HTTP cookies set during a crawl of the Alexa top 200 news sites. Since Firefox does not download and render content from tracking domains, Tracking Protection also enjoys performance benefits of a 44% median reduction in page load time and 39% reduction in data usage in the Alexa top 200 news sites.
Single-Inductor Dual-Output Buck–Boost Power Factor Correction Converter

A single-inductor dual-output (SIDO) buck-boost power factor correction (PFC) converter operating in critical conduction mode is proposed in this paper. By multiplexing a single inductor, each output of the SIDO buck-boost converter can be regulated independently. Compared with a conventional two-stage multiple-output converter, the SIDO buck-boost PFC converter benefits from significant overall cost saving, small size, and light weight. Moreover, the efficiency of the SIDO buck-boost PFC converter can be improved due to single-stage power conversion. The control strategy and characteristics of the proposed converter are analyzed. The efficiency, power factor, total harmonic distortion, and output accuracy are verified using the experimental results.
Some Code Smells Have a Significant but Small Effect on Faults

We investigate the relationship between faults and five of Fowler et al.'s least-studied smells in code: Data Clumps, Switch Statements, Speculative Generality, Message Chains, and Middle Man. We developed a tool to detect these five smells in three open-source systems: Eclipse, ArgoUML, and Apache Commons. We collected fault data from the change and fault repositories of each system. We built Negative Binomial regression models to analyse the relationships between smells and faults and report the McFadden effect size of those relationships. Our results suggest that Switch Statements had no effect on faults in any of the three systems; Message Chains increased faults in two systems; Message Chains which occurred in larger files reduced faults; Data Clumps reduced faults in Apache and Eclipse but increased faults in ArgoUML; Middle Man reduced faults only in ArgoUML, and Speculative Generality reduced faults only in Eclipse. File size alone affects faults in some systems but not in all systems. Where smells did significantly affect faults, the size of that effect was small (always under 10 percent). Our findings suggest that some smells do indicate fault-prone code in some circumstances but that the effect that these smells have on faults is small. Our findings also show that smells have different effects on different systems. We conclude that arbitrary refactoring is unlikely to significantly reduce fault-proneness and in some cases may increase fault-proneness.