Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Percutaneous transmitral balloon commissurotomy using a single balloon with arteriovenous loop stabilisation: an alternative when there is no Inoue balloon

Summary Background The Inoue balloon technique is the standard technique for mitral valve balloon commissurotomy at this stage. However, the hardware for this technique is expensive and may not always be available in resource-limited settings. Objectives This article reports our experience with percutaneous transmitral balloon commissurotomy using a single balloon (Nucleus) with arteriovenous loop stabilisation. Methods Eleven young patients, aged 12–26 years and weighing 23–48 kg, underwent transmitral balloon commissurotomy using the described technique at our centre from April to May 2014. Results Mean fluoroscopy time was 22.6 ± 6.4 min (18.5– 30.0). Mean transmitral gradient decreased from 24.1 ± 5.9 (16–35) to 6.6 ± 3.8 (3–14) mmHg, as measured on transoesophageal echocardiography. Mean mitral valve area increased from 0.69 ± 0.13 cm2 (range 0.5–0.9) before dilation to 1.44 ± 0.25 cm2 (1.1–1.9) after dilation (p < 0.001). Mean estimated pulmonary artery systolic pressure decreased from 110.0 ± 35 mmHg (75–170) before dilation to 28.0 ± 14.4 mmHg (range 10–60) after dilation. Conclusion Our modified Nucleus balloon technique for mitral valve dilation in young patients with mitral stenosis is effective and safe. The technique differs from other over-thewire techniques in that it avoids placing stiff wire in the left ventricle. It also offers better balloon stability and control owing to the arteriovenous loop. This technique may be easier for use by paediatric interventionists who might not be familiar with the Inoue balloon technique.
Micromechanical Structure-Property Relationships for the Damage Analysis of Impact-Loaded Sustainable Concrete

In this study, quantitative microstructure-property relationships are mainly used to characterize the damage due to high-strain-rate impact loading and the mechanical behavior of concretes prepared by substituting natural aggregate (gravel) with recycled aggregates having different rigidities (blue brick and rubber). Based on the results obtained, a possible mechanism for microstructural damage in concrete is proposed. It is concluded that the aggregate causes a change in the initial interfacial transition zone (ITZ) condition, and it is this altered ITZ condition that has a major effect on overall mix behavior. The analysis also indicates that there is almost a linear correlation between the roughness values (Ra) of the region near the paste–aggregate interface and the dissipated surface fracture energy values of the specimens. Moreover, three-dimensional topographic images of the specimens constructed using a vertical nanotech scanning interferometer show that the paste region of the gravel specimen has the smoothest profile due to the relatively strong hydrated paste.
Evaluation of the ThinPrep Pap Test in Clinical Practice

OBJECTIVE To compare the cytologic diagnoses and specimen adequacy of the ThinPrep Pap Test with historical data within a distinct patient population to assess test performance and its impact on clinical practice. STUDY DESIGN A total of 16,314 ThinPrep Pap tests were processed and evaluated at Fletcher Allen Health Care over a seven-month period. A subset of 8,574 tests from a selected provider group (cohort) was compared to the historical conventional cervical cytologic smear data from the cohort population for both cytologic diagnoses and specimen adequacy. The cohort consisted of 12 practice groups, including 60 physicians and providers, utilizing the ThinPrep Pap Test as their primary cervical cancer screening sampling technique. Cytologic diagnoses and specimen adequacy were classified using the Bethesda system. RESULTS Using a three-tiered diagnostic system similar to the Cytyc clinical trials (within normal limits [WNL], atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance [ASCUS]/atypical glandular cells of undetermined significance [AGUS] and low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion and higher [LSIL]+), the ThinPrep method increased the percentage of cases that could be definitively diagnosed as WNL by 1.71%, lowered the percentage of ambiguous or borderline cases diagnosed as ASCUS/AGUS by 26.59% and increased the percentage of cases diagnostic of LSIL+ by 52.15% in the cohort population. Further subdivision by the Bethesda classification showed that the identification of infectious agents increased 25.51% and the detection of high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion/carcinoma increased 55.14%. Concurrently, cases reported as benign cellular changes (reactive/reparative) decreased 23.1%, and the percentage of cases reported as unsatisfactory/"limited by . " was reduced 52.71%. Histologic correlation of cases reported as squamous intraepithelial lesion revealed that the percentage of patients with subsequent benign biopsies was reduced by 31.7% utilizing the ThinPrep technique. Further, the percentage of ThinPrep patients with histologically confirmed cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 1 and CIN 2/3 increased by 16.3% and 9.3%, respectively. CONCLUSION Implementation of the ThinPrep Pap Test resulted in statistically significant improvements in both diagnostic yield and specimen adequacy, as seen by others in clinical trials. Comparison of results to historical data within a cohort population reinforced earlier data and lent further support to the claim that the ThinPrep Pap Test is "significantly more effective" than the conventional smear in clinical practice.
Investigation into the Effect of Atmospheric Particulate Matter (PM2.5 and PM10) Concentrations on GPS Signals

The Global Positioning System (GPS) has been widely used in navigation, surveying, geophysical and geodynamic studies, machine guidance, etc. High-precision GPS applications such as geodetic surveying need millimeter and centimeter level accuracy. Since GPS signals are affected by atmospheric effects, methods of correcting or eliminating ionospheric and tropospheric bias are needed in GPS data processing. Relative positioning can be used to mitigate the atmospheric effect, but its efficiency depends on the baseline lengths. Air pollution is a serious problem globally, especially in developing countries that causes health problems to humans and damage to the ecosystem. Respirable suspended particles are coarse particles with a diameter of 10 micrometers or less, also known as PM10. Moreover, fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less are known as PM2.5. GPS signals travel through the atmosphere before arriving at receivers on the Earth’s surface, and the research question posed in this paper is: are GPS signals affected by the increased concentration of the PM2.5/PM10 particles? There is no standard model of the effect of PM2.5/PM10 particles on GPS signals in GPS data processing, although an approximate generic model of non-gaseous atmospheric constituents (<1 mm) can be found in the literature. This paper investigates the effect of the concentration of PM2.5/PM10 particles on GPS signals and validates the aforementioned approximate model with a carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR)-based empirical method. Both the approximate model and the empirical results show that the atmospheric PM2.5/PM10 particles and their concentrations have a negligible effect on GPS signals and the effect is comparable with the noise level of GPS measurements.
Draft Genome Sequences of Novel Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, and Sediminibacterium Species Strains from a Freshwater Ecosystem

ABSTRACT Freshwater ecosystems represent 0.01% of the water on Earth, but they support 6% of global biodiversity that is still mostly uncharacterized. Here, we describe the genome sequences of three strains belonging to novel species in the Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, and Sediminibacterium genera recovered from a water sample of Lake Garda, Italy.
Gene co-expression analysis for functional classification and gene–disease predictions

Abstract Gene co-expression networks can be used to associate genes of unknown function with biological processes, to prioritize candidate disease genes or to discern transcriptional regulatory programmes. With recent advances in transcriptomics and next-generation sequencing, co-expression networks constructed from RNA sequencing data also enable the inference of functions and disease associations for non-coding genes and splice variants. Although gene co-expression networks typically do not provide information about causality, emerging methods for differential co-expression analysis are enabling the identification of regulatory genes underlying various phenotypes. Here, we introduce and guide researchers through a (differential) co-expression analysis. We provide an overview of methods and tools used to create and analyse co-expression networks constructed from gene expression data, and we explain how these can be used to identify genes with a regulatory role in disease. Furthermore, we discuss the integration of other data types with co-expression networks and offer future perspectives of co-expression analysis.
Supporting QoS in IEEE 802.11e wireless LANs

In the emerging IEEE 802.11e MAC protocol, the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) is proposed to support prioritized QoS; however, it cannot guarantee strict QoS required by real-time services such as voice and video without proper network control mechanisms. To overcome this deficiency, we first build an analytical model to derive an average delay estimate for the traffic of different priorities in the unsaturated 802.11e WLAN, showing that the QoS requirements of the real-time traffic can be satisfied if the input traffic is properly regulated. Then, we propose two effective call admission control schemes and a rate control scheme that relies on the average delay estimates and the channel busyness ratio, an index that can accurately represent the network status. The key idea is, when accepting a new real-time flow, the admission control algorithm considers its effect on the channel utilization and the delay experienced by existing real-time flows, ensuring that the channel is not overloaded and the delay requirements are not violated. At the same time, the rate control algorithm allows the best effort traffic to fully use the residual bandwidth left by the real-time traffic, thereby achieving high channel utilization
Analysis of Solar Energy Aggregation Under Various Billing Mechanisms

Ongoing reductions in the cost of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are driving increased installations by residential households. Various incentive programs such as feed-in tariff, net metering, net purchase, and sale that allow the prosumers to sell their generated electricity to the grid are also powering this trend. In this paper, we investigate sharing of PV systems among a community of households, who can also benefit further by pooling their production. Using cooperative game theory, we find conditions under which such sharing decreases their net total cost. We also develop allocation rules such that the joint net electricity consumption cost is allocated to the participants. These cost allocations are based on the cost causation principle. The allocations also satisfy the standalone cost principle and promote PV solar aggregation. We also perform a comparative analytical study on the benefit of sharing under the mechanisms favorable for sharing, namely net metering, and net purchase and sale. The results are illustrated in a case study using real consumption data from a residential community in Austin, TX, USA.
Inclusion of biological knowledge in a Bayesian shrinkage model for joint estimation of SNP effects

With the aim of improving detection of novel single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in genetic association studies, we propose a method of including prior biological information in a Bayesian shrinkage model that jointly estimates SNP effects. We assume that the SNP effects follow a normal distribution centered at zero with variance controlled by a shrinkage hyperparameter. We use biological information to define the amount of shrinkage applied on the SNP effects distribution, so that the effects of SNPs with more biological support are less shrunk toward zero, thus being more likely detected. The performance of the method was tested in a simulation study (1,000 datasets, 500 subjects with ∼200 SNPs in 10 linkage disequilibrium (LD) blocks) using a continuous and a binary outcome. It was further tested in an empirical example on body mass index (continuous) and overweight (binary) in a dataset of 1,829 subjects and 2,614 SNPs from 30 blocks. Biological knowledge was retrieved using the bioinformatics tool Dintor, which queried various databases. The joint Bayesian model with inclusion of prior information outperformed the standard analysis: in the simulation study, the mean ranking of the true LD block was 2.8 for the Bayesian model versus 3.6 for the standard analysis of individual SNPs; in the empirical example, the mean ranking of the six true blocks was 8.5 versus 9.3 in the standard analysis. These results suggest that our method is more powerful than the standard analysis. We expect its performance to improve further as more biological information about SNPs becomes available.
Fabrication, characteristics and electrical model of an ionic polymer metal-carbon nanotube composite

We develop an ionic polymer metal-carbon nanotube composite (IPMCC) actuator composed of a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)/Nafion membrane sandwiched between two hybrid electrodes, composed of palladium, platinum and MWCNTs. The surface morphology and cross-sectional structure of the metal-carbon nanotube hybrid electrode were observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM investigation indicated that the MWCNT layer can adhere very well with the platinum–palladium metal electrode, fill the cracks in the metal surface, and prevent the oxidation of nanoscale platinum particles. These observations show that the surface resistance of the total electrode is retained and the stability of electrode property is maintained. The displacement, blocking force and nonlinear current versus voltage (V–I) characteristics were measured. Compared with an ionic polymer metal composite (IPMC), the IPMCC shows a more stable displacement and blocking force under 1, 1.2 and 2 V at 0.1 Hz, and 2.34–3.29 times higher effective air-operating time under 3 V at 0.1 Hz. It can be observed from the V–I characteristics that the change in shape becomes significant at amplitudes higher than 1.2 V. An equivalent circuit is used to model the nonlinear behavior of the IPMCC, in which the leakage current was taken into account and analyzed. The values of the components in the circuit are estimated and electrical behavior is simulated by using the Pspice software. Compared with the model with no consideration of the leakage current, the simulations obtained by the model considering leakage current showed better agreement with the experimental results. The impressive leakage current (20 mA), which is successfully simulated by the proposed model with the nonlinear circuit, is shown to play an important role in the total current.
Focused ion beam processing for transmission electron microscopy of composite/adhesive interfaces

Although most transmission electron microscope (TEM) investigations were carried out using conventional ultramicrotomy, they were limited to the tooth/adhesive resin interface and were difficult to accomplish for the resin-composite interface. Some of these limitations have been overcome with the introduction of focused ion beam (FIB) milling. Therefore, the objective of the study was to compare different composites/adhesive interfaces using FIB/TEM technique. Cylindrical cavities were prepared in extracted human molar teeth. The restored cavities were divided into four groups: (1) One-step self-etch Scotchbond Universal (SBU; 3M ESPE, USA), (2) all-in-one Xeno-V+ adhesive (X5P; DENTSPLY, Germany), (3) two-step etch-and-rinse Prime and Bond NT (PNT; DENTSPLY, Germany) that were restored with Filtek Supreme Ultra Universal composite (3M ESPE, USA), and (4) teeth restored with the two-step self-etch Filtek Silorane adhesive (SSA; 3M ESPE, USA) that were restored with its corresponding Filtek Silorane composite (3M ESPE, USA). All specimens were cross-sectioned and subjected to FIB preparation followed by composite/adhesive interfacial TEM examination. The TEM findings were variable and ranged from concentrated clusters of nanoparticles to phase separation of adhesive components and large osmotic blisters. The osmotic blisters in all-in-one adhesives appeared to be influenced by the presence of water and the solvent’s vapor pressure in the cavity. In conclusion, FIB/TEM is a powerful tool allowing the study of biomaterials interaction in situ. The absence of residual water in the adhesives may reduce osmotic blistering that, in turn, may improve the reactivity of the resin monomers, as well as interfacial bonding.
Changes in thin‐layer susceptors during microwave heating

The dielectric and morphological changes of susceptors during heating in a microwave oven were studied. It was found that during the course of heating, cracks and holes were formed in the susceptors' surface and the degree of crystallinity of the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film used was reduced, thus reducing the heat stability and heating capability of the susceptors.
The Impact of the Serotonin on the Cause and Treatment of Cancer

This review article goes through many researches based on the effectiveness of the neurotransmitter serotonin on cancer cells and also the impact of SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) drugs on the cause of certain types of cancers. Serotonin has been shown to be a mutagenic factor for a wide range of normal and tumor cells. Serotonin exhibits a growth stimulatory effect in aggressive cancers and carcinoids usually through 5HT1 and 5-HT2 receptors. In contrast, low doses of serotonin can inhibit tumor growth via the decrease of blood supply to the tumor, suggesting that the role of serotonin on tumor growth is concentration-dependent. Serum serotonin level was found to be suitable for prognosis evaluation of urothelial carcinoma in the urinary bladder, adenocarcinoma of the prostate and renal cell carcinoma.The mechanism that connect serotonin with tumor evolution seem to be related to the serotonin impact on tumor associated macrophages.
Comparison of Computerized and Standard Cognitive Test in Thai Memory Clinic

ABSTRACT Background: Computer-based Thai Cognitive Test or Computer-based Thai Mental State Examination (cTMSE) was developed aiming to help doctors to easily get the accurate results of TMSE in a routine, busy outpatient clinics. The purpose of this study was to compare the evaluation process in terms of feasibility, duration of the test, participants/administrator preference, and the results of cognitive test between cTMSE and the standard Thai Mental State Examination (sTMSE). Methods: Twenty-two elderly participants (>60 years old) who were not demented and 22 patients with mild-to-moderate dementia were included in the study. All participants would be asked to have TMSE by standard method (sTMSE) and computer-based method (cTMSE), at least 2 weeks and up to 2 months apart. Scores and duration of the test were compared using dependent paired t-test. Agreement of the tests between two methods and Kappa statistics were analyzed. Results: Paired t-test showed no significant difference in scores between the two methods (mean sTMSE vs. cTMSE: 22.84 vs. 22.62, 95% confidence interval [CI]: [−0.465] to 0.987, P = 0.524). Percent of agreement between the two methods was 92.5%, with the Kappa of 0.85 (P < 0.001). Duration of the test by sTMSE was slightly shorter than the cTMSE (7.31 min vs. 7.97 min, 95% CI: [−1.159] to [−0.175], P = 0.09). Overall, participants liked being tested by cTMSE more than sTMSE. Conclusion: Computer-based TMSE was feasible to use and accurate for screening in aging adults and for cognitive evaluation in patients with mild-to-moderate dementia.
Automatic Document Image Binarization using Bayesian Optimization

Document image binarization is often a challenging task due to various forms of degradation. Although there exist several binarization techniques in literature, the binarized image is typically sensitive to control parameter settings of the employed technique. This paper presents an automatic document image binarization algorithm to segment the text from heavily degraded document images. The proposed technique uses a two band-pass filtering approach for background noise removal, and Bayesian optimization for automatic hyperparameter selection for optimal results. The effectiveness of the proposed binarization technique is empirically demonstrated on the Document Image Binarization Competition (DIBCO) and the Handwritten Document Image Binarization Competition (H-DIBCO) datasets.
Strain rate sensitivity and mechanical anisotropy of selective laser melted 17-4 PH stainless steel

Quasi-static and dynamic tensile testing was performed upon machined tensile specimens fabricated from bulk primitives produced by the consolidation of water atomized, 17-4 precipitation hardened stainless steel powder by layer-based, selective laser melting. Such mechanical evaluation was performed by a screw-driven uniaxial tension testing machine and a split-Hopkinson tensile bar apparatus. Strain rates evaluated include 10, 10 and 10 s. Prior to tensile testing, specimens underwent additional thermal processing in accordance with industry standards. Evaluations of the solution heat treatment and peak-age conditions were made alongside similarly prepared, but traditionally processed specimens meeting the same material standard for chemistry (drawn rod). Tensile strength across all strain rates is higher for these selective laser melted (SLM) specimens as a result of microstructure refinement through rapid melt, solidification and cooling during processing. Ultimate tensile and yield strengths increase with increasing strain rate and show no preferential direction relative to the building direction. Elongation anisotropy is observed as a consequence of directional porosity stemming from pores limited to within individual layers. Specimens loaded normal to the SLM building plane commonly rupture at small elongation because of this mechanical fibering from the selective laser melting process.