Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in asymptomatic adult patients in atertiary care hospital: A cross sectional study.

Helicobacter pylori is well recognized as major cause of gastro-intestinal diseases.The present cross - sectional study was done in the department of Medicine at G.S. V.M Medical College. A total of 208 adult patients attending out patient department for symptoms other than those of gastrointestinal disorders were screened to find out the prevalence of Helicobacter pylori using Stool antigen card test. Out of these 208 patients, 92 were found positive for Helicobacter pylori by the test, giving a prevalence of 44.23%. A detailed proforma was filled, regarding the age and sex of the patient, education and occupation of the head of the family, sanitary practices, dietary habits and tobacco chewing. The patients were also examined for pallor. Among a total of 143 males, 61 were found positive for Helicobacter pylori (42.7%) and among 65 females, 31 were found positive (47.7%). Age wise distribution showed maximum prevalence of Helicobacter pylori in the age group of 30-39 years (50.7%) and minimum in the age group of more than 70 years (20%). A higher prevalence of Helicobacter pylori was found among non-vegetarians (53.3%) and among patients having pallor (52%), though both were not significant. The study of socio-economic status showed a prevalence of 42.3% in lower middle, 44.9% in upper lower and 50% in upper middle socioeconomic groups. A prevalence of 51.7% was seen among subjects chewing tobacco.
ProPRAM: Exploiting the transparent logic resources in Non-Volatile Memory for Near Data Computing

Emerging highly-parallel and big data applications have renewed the research interest in Processing-in-Memory (PIM) architectures. However, moving powerful processing unit into the CMOS-incompatible DRAM chips is not cost-effective for large capacity memory. In this work, we observe that Non-Volatile Memory is often naturally incorporated with basic logics like Data Comparison Write or Flip-n-Write modules that are essential for cell SET/REST operation. In contrast to other conventional PIM or Near Data Computing (NDC) architectures, ProPRAM, as a typical Active NVM, abandons the design approach of moving accelerators or customized processors into memory devices, but begins with exploiting the existing resources inside the memory chips to accelerate the key non-compute-intensive functions for emerging big data applications. With slight hardware and architectural modification, we succeed to expose the transparent peripheral logics to the application layer through instruction set extension and exploit them for in-field bulk data processing with limited hardware cost. Compared to conventional CPU-centric systems, ProPRAM achieves an excellent optimization on energy-efficiency (15×) for important data-intensive micro-benchmarks and kernels.
Study on STAP Algorithm for Radar Target Detection in Heterogeneous Environments

In heterogeneous environments, due to the lack of the independently and identically distributed (IID) samples, the performance of traditional STAP is degraded severely. The maximum likelihood amplitude and phase estimation of a sinusoid (APES) algorithm can operate directly on data of range cell-under-test. However, this algorithm is based on space domain adaptive processing, which is insensitive to weak target, and mistaking the interference as the true target for the identical Doppler frequency. In this paper, an improved algorithm is proposed, which applies space-time two-dimension APES algorithm to estimate the target’s amplitude, then detecting the moving target according to the output signal-to-noise ration, overcoming the original algorithm’s shortcoming effectively. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the validity of this improved method.
Microfabricated silicon array of microneedles: prediction of its behaviour during insertion through the skin

Transdermal drug delivery is a novel alternative painless way to inject medicine and therapic agents through skin. Our study investigates an array of out-of-plane microneedles to pierce the permeability barrier without reaching the nerves in the deeper layers. To the best of our knowledge, the skin behavior during the insertion of a microneedle array through its different layers has not up to now been fully dealt with. In this paper, we assume skin to be similar to a stratified material, and approximate it as composed of three layers: the stratum corneum is described by a linear isotropic material model while a hyperelastic material model (Ogden) is used for the two deeper layers. The choice of the model is all the more important since we work at a microscopic scale. We prove that differences exist between the insertion of one microneedle and the insertion of an array of microneedles in terms of the skin deformation and value of the insertion force due to the interaction among microneedles. We simulate the insertion of a micro needles array using a finite element method and the results show a relation between the microneedle diameter, the array density and the microneedle length. Our arrays of microneedles are fabricated by deep reacting ion etching (DRIE) and coated by titanium out of biocompatibility concerns. In this paper, the dimensions of the microneedles are: 500 microns in length, 30-60 microns in inner channel diameter and 100-150 microns in outer diameter in order to be in agreement with our analytically analysis. Some experimental validations are given.
Reasoning about Cardinal Directions

THIS PAPER is about the complexity of reasoning about cardinal directions in 2D space. By cardinal directions, we mean North, South, East, West and the intermediate directions Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest. To make things more concrete, consider the problem of picture description as presented by Chang and Jungert [2]: Figure 1 is a symbolic picture representing four cities, e.g. Paris (P ), Cologne (C ), Brussels (B ), and The Hague (H ). In terms of the language of 2D strings described by Chang and Jungert [2], the information about the locations of the four cities might be represented by the following 2D string:
Automated diagnosis of cardiac abnormalities using heart sounds

Listening to the heart sounds is a common practice in identifying cardiac malfunctions. Since this method has many limitations, tools that aid physicians in their diagnosis of heart diseases are very useful. This paper presents a software tool to predict cardiac abnormalities which can be identified using heart sounds. Both heart sound information and symptoms are used in disease prediction. First audio inputs at four clinically important locations on the chest are acquired using an electronic stethoscope and entered to a database with symptoms for each patient. After de-noising, prominent features and statistical parameters needed for disease detection are extracted from the heart sound samples using several algorithms. Then the disease classification is performed to find out possible disease and murmur types. The software tool reported in this paper is capable of identifying normal heart sounds and abnormal heart sounds with possible kind of disease and murmurs presented there. Hence, it helps doctors to detect diseases early and can be integrated as a standard module of electronic stethoscope software.
A model for the radiative forcing during ACE-Asia derived from CIRPAS Twin Otter and R/V Ronald H. Brown data and comparison with observations

[1] Vertical profiles of aerosol size, composition, and hygroscopic behavior from Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) Twin Otter and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration R/V Ronald H. Brown observations are used to construct a generic optical model of the Asian Pacific Regional Aerosol Characterization Experiment (ACE-Asia) aerosol. The model accounts for sulfate, black carbon, organic carbon, sea salt, and mineral dust. The effects of relative humidity and mixing assumptions (internal versus external, coating of dust by pollutants) are explicitly accounted for. The aerosol model is integrated with a Monte Carlo radiative transfer model to compute direct radiative forcing in the solar spectrum. The predicted regional average surface aerosol forcing efficiency (change in clear-sky radiative flux per unit aerosol optical depth at 500 nm) during the ACE-Asia intensive period is −65 Wm−2 for pure dust and −60 Wm−2 for pure pollution aerosol (clear skies). A three-dimensional atmospheric chemical transport model (Chemical Weather Forecast System (CFORS)) is used with the radiative transfer model to derive regional radiative forcing during ACE-Asia in clear and cloudy skies. Net regional solar direct radiative forcing during the 5–15 April 2001 dust storm period is −3 Wm−2 at the top of the atmosphere and −17 W m−2 at the surface for the region from 20°N to 50°N and 100°E to 150°E when the effects of clouds on the direct forcing are included. The model fluxes and forcing efficiencies are found to be in good agreement with surface radiometric observations made aboard the R.H. Brown. Mean cloud conditions are found to moderate the top of atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing by a factor of ∼3 compared to clear-sky calculations, but atmospheric absorption by aerosol is not strongly affected by clouds in this study. The regional aerosol effect at the TOA (“climate forcing”) of −3 Wm−2 is comparable in magnitude, but of opposite sign, to present-day anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing. The forcing observed during ACE-Asia is similar in character to that seen during other major field experiments downwind of industrial and biomass black carbon sources (e.g., the Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX)), insofar as the primary effect of aerosol is to redistribute solar heating from the surface to the atmosphere.
Hurricane Intensity and Eyewall Replacement

Observations made during the historic 2005 hurricane season document a case of “eyewall replacement. ” Clouds outside the hurricane eyewall coalesce to form a new eyewall at a greater radius from the storm center, and the old eyewall dies. The winds in the new eyewall are initially weaker than those in the original eyewall, but as the new eyewall contracts, the storm reintensifies. Understanding this replacement mechanism is vital to forecasting variations in hurricane intensity. Processes in the “moat” region between the new and old eyewall have been particularly unclear. Aircraft data now show that the moat becomes dynamically similar to the eye and thus is converted into a region inimical to survival of the inner eyewall. We suggest that targeting aircraft to key parts of the storm to gain crucial input to high-resolution numerical models can lead to improvements in forecasting hurricane intensity.
The Construction and Characterization of Nano-FHA Bioceramic Coating on Titanium Surface

This research was aimed at the construction and characterization of nano-FHA bioceramic coating on titanium surface. Nano-FHA coating was constructed on the surface of commercially pure titanium by sol-gel route. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electromicroscope (SEM) and dissolution test was employed to characterize the obtained coating. In vitro cellular responses of osteoblasts to the coating were also evaluated by MTT assay, ALP assay and SEM observation. Conventional HA coatings and commercially pure titanium (cpTi) were taken as control. Results show the nano-FHA bioceramic coating has good crystallization and homogeneous, nano-scale surface morphology. The dissolution rate of the coating is favorable. The in vitro osteoblasts culture exhibits satisfactory bioactivity.
An Effective Encoding Scheme for Spatial RDF Data

The RDF data model has recently been extended to support representation and querying of spatial information (i.e., locations and geometries), which is associated with RDF entities. Still, there are limited efforts towards extending RDF stores to efficiently support spatial queries, such as range selections (e.g., find entities within a given range) and spatial joins (e.g., find pairs of entities whose locations are close to each other). In this paper, we propose an extension for RDF stores that supports efficient spatial data management. Our contributions include an effective encoding scheme for entities having spatial locations, the introduction of on-the-fly spatial filters and spatial join algorithms, and several optimizations that minimize the overhead of geometry and dictionary accesses. We implemented the proposed techniques as an extension to the opensource RDF-3X engine and we experimentally evaluated them using real RDF knowledge bases. The results show that our system offers robust performance for spatial queries, while introducing little overhead to the original query engine.
Net inflammatory capacity of human septic shock plasma evaluated by a monocyte-based target cell assay: identification of interleukin-10 as a major functional deactivator of human monocytes [published erratum appears in J Exp Med 1996 Nov 1;184(5):2075]

We have developed a functional assay to study the inflammatory capacity of plasma collected from patients with severe gram-negative septic shock. In this assay, elutriation-purified, cryo-preserved human monocytes from one healthy donor are combined with plasma from patients with severe persistent septic shock for 5 h. Subsequently, the plasma is removed, medium added, and procoagulant activity (PCA) and secretion of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin 6 (IL-6) measured after 18-h incubation. Plasma from 10 patients (6 died) infected with Neisseria meningitidis previously shown to contain high levels of native lipopolysaccharide (LPS) (median 2,700 pg/ml), TNF- alpha, IL-6, IL-8, and complement activation products, had a low net spontaneous inflammatory capacity on the monocytes. The median levels of PCA, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 were 5, 0, and 4%, respectively, of the monocyte activities induced by normal plasma boosted with purified N. meningitidis (Nm)-LPS (2,500 pg/ml; net LPS-boosted capacity, 100%). The levels of PCA, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 obtained with plasma from shock patients were not different from those induced by plasma from 10 meningococcal patients without shock or with plasma from healthy persons. Boosting shock plasma with 2,500 pg/ml Nm-LPS had little effect on the monocyte activities since the median values of PCA, TNF- alpha, and IL-6 revealed a minimal increase from 5, 0, and 4% to 9, 2, and 6%, respectively. The shock plasmas revealed a strong LPS- inhibitory capacity that was largely absent in plasmas from 10 meningococcal patients without shock since the median levels of PCA, TNF-alpha, and IL-6 increased from 5, 0, and 0% to 135, 51, and 73%, respectively, after boosting with 2,500 pg/ml Nm-LPS. The LPS- inhibitory capacity was closely associated with the levels of IL-10. The median levels of IL-10 were 19,000 pg/ml in nine shock patients vs. 22 pg/ml in nine nonshock patients with systemic meningococcal disease. Removal of native IL-10 by immunoprecipitation restored the capacity of plasmas to induce monocyte activation either by native LPS or by boosting with Nm-LPS. IL-4 and TGF-beta were not detected in shock plasmas. In 24 patients with detectable meningococcal LPS ( > 10 pg/ml, 0.1 endotoxin units/ml), the levels of IL-10 were correlated to the levels of LPS (r = 0.79, P < 0.001). IL-10 declined from initiation of antibiotic therapy and paralleled the levels of native LPS. Decreasing levels of IL-10 in serially collected shock plasmas were directly related to increasing monocyte responsiveness after Nm-LPS boosting. These results suggest that IL-10 plays a major role in containing activation of monocytes and possibly other LPS-responsive cells during overwhelming meningococcemia.
Coffee Acutely Increases Sympathetic Nerve Activity and Blood Pressure Independently of Caffeine Content: Role of Habitual Versus Nonhabitual Drinking

Background—Coffee is the most abundantly consumed stimulant worldwide. However, its cardiovascular safety remains controversial. Possible health hazards have been related to its main ingredient, caffeine. Activation of the sympathetic nervous system by coffee may enhance cardiovascular risk; however, it is unclear whether this effect of coffee is related to caffeine or other substance(s) also contained in decaffeinated coffee. Methods and Results—In 15 healthy volunteers (6 habitual and 9 nonhabitual coffee drinkers) arterial blood pressure (BP), heart rate, and muscle sympathetic nervous activity (MSA) were continuously recorded before and after drinking a triple espresso or a decaffeinated triple espresso or after intravenous administration of caffeine (250 mg) or placebo (saline) in the same subjects. There was a significant time × condition interaction for the intravenous caffeine and placebo conditions for MSA, with caffeine showing a significant increase in MSA at 60 minutes (53.2±14.1% total activity) and the placebo group showing no effect. A similar significant time effect was found for coffee drinking (54.1±22.5% total activity). Habitual and nonhabitual coffee drinkers demonstrated similar changes in MSA and BP after intravenous caffeine, whereas coffee drinking increased BP in nonhabitual drinkers only, despite comparable increases of MSA and plasma caffeine levels. Nonhabitual coffee drinkers showed similar activation of MSA and BP after caffeine infusion, coffee, or decaffeinated coffee. Conclusions—Acutely, coffee and caffeine induced comparable increases in MSA and BP in nonhabitual coffee drinkers, whereas habitual coffee drinkers exhibited lack of BP increase despite MSA activation to coffee. Because decaffeinated coffee also increases BP and MSA in nonhabitual drinkers, ingredients other than caffeine must be responsible for cardiovascular activation.
Secondary transport of the critically ill and injured adult

There is significant interest in the secondary transport of the critically ill and injured. High profile cases entailing the long distance transfer of patients have highlighted the lack of availability of critical care beds and appropriate systems for transferring this patient group. These and other issues have culminated in the release of Comprehensive Critical Care by the Department of Health in 2000. It has been shown that a large number of critical care transfers originate in the emergency department. The transportation of patients has not traditionally been part of the core curriculum of emergency medicine specialists in the UK. It is imperative that clinicians have an understanding of the issues surrounding transportation of the critically ill and injured. This should include appreciation of the local and regional organisational frameworks implemented for this patient group. This review describes the core issues relevant to emergency medicine relating to the transportation of the critically ill and injured.
Performance Analysis of Cooperative Communication Protocols

With the rapid growth of multimedia services, future generations of cellular communications require higher data rates and a more reliable transmission link while keeping satisfactory quality of service. In this respect, multiple input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems have been considered as an efficient approach to address these demands by offering significant multiplexing and diversity gains over single antenna systems without increasing requirements on radio resources such as bandwidth and power. Although MIMO systems can unfold their huge benefit in cellular base stations, they may face limitations when it comes to their deployment in mobile handsets. To overcome this drawback, in cellular networks, relays (fixed or mobile terminals) can cooperate to improve the overall system performance. For example, once the transmission from a base station with multiple antennas is received by multiple nodes (fixed relays and/or mobiles); they can exchange information to enhance the quality of intended signals while suppressing interference. On the other hand, when a mobile user wants to communicate with the base station, but the link in between is too weak, and then the other nearby mobile users cooperates and shares their antennas to assist the direct communication. With this approach, the benefits of MIMO systems can be attained in a distributed fashion. Furthermore, cooperative communications can efficiently combat the severity of fading and shadowing effects through the assistance of relays. It has been shown that using relays the capacity and coverage of cellular networks can be extended without increasing the mobile transmit power or demanding for an extra bandwidth. This paper is based on cooperative communications in wireless networks. We focus on Bit error rate (BER) performance analysis of cooperative communications with either an amplify-and-forward (AF) or decode-and-forward (DF) cooperation protocol using Matlab. We consider the single and multi relay scenario in these simulations.
A novel anti-HIV immunotherapy to cure HIV.

Combined antiretroviral therapy (ART) has saved millions of lives but does not ‘cure’ HIV infection. The virus persists latently as proviral DNA integrated in long-lived CD4þ T cells in immunologically and pharmacologically privileged viral sanctuaries. This latent ‘viral reservoir’ is the major hurdle in curing HIVinfected individuals [1], as it recrudesces after cessation of ART. It has been estimated that ART alone will not deplete the viral reservoir in infected individuals in their life time [2]; therefore, life-long ART is required to prevent virus reactivation and development of AIDS. As the virus continues to replicate at undetectable levels, and there are toxic side effects of ART, these patients are predisposed to accelerated aging, development of several non-AIDS related cancers and comorbidities such as cardiovascular disease.
How does Behavior Change the Brain? Multiple Methods to Answer Old Questions1

Abstract Clearly the brain controls behavior but can behavior also “control” the brain? On an evolutionary time scale, selective ecological pressures shape the sensory and motor capacities as well as the body and behavior. Correspondingly, in development, behavior acts in concert with the environment to cause structural changes in the brain lasting a lifetime. Surprisingly, in “real time” social behavior can also cause changes, typically reversible, in the brain in adult animals. Changes caused by behavioral interactions can be dramatic, and in many instances, these interactions are directly related to reproductive behavior. Understanding how behavior sculpts the brain in the course of behavioral interactions is a major challenge. Analyzing such changes requires a model system allowing control of the biological and behavioral environment of many animals simultaneously yet allowing access to physiological, cellular and molecular processes being regulated. The mouthbrooding cichlid Haplochromis (Astatotilapia) burtoni (Günther) from Lake Tanganyika lends itself to the study of social influences on the brain. It has complex, though easily observable individual and social behaviors regulated by two distinct classes of males, those with territories and those without. Many features of the animals are shaped by social encounters including the maturation of juveniles, the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis, the growth rate, the basal stress level among others. How does social information effect change in the brain and body? Animals must attend to the social scene to identify their chances. Learning how social information is transduced into cellular changes in this species should help understand how this happens in other social animals.