Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thermal ablation of spinal osteoid osteomas close to neural elements: technical considerations.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate experience with and determine the efficacy and safety of thermal ablation in the management of spinal osteoid osteomas close to neural elements. MATERIALS AND METHODS The records of all patients with osteoid osteomas of the spine managed with thermal ablation at two academic centers from 1993 to 2008 were reviewed. RESULTS Seventeen patients (13 male patients, four female patients; mean age, 25.9 years) had lesions in the lumbar (seven patients), thoracic (six patients), cervical (three patients), and sacral (one patient) regions of the spine. Two lesions were in the vertebral body, one was within the dens, and the others were in the posterior elements. The mean lesion diameter was 8.8 mm, and the mean distance between the lesion and the closest neural element was 4.3 mm. The lesions were managed with laser (13 lesions) or radiofrequency (four lesions) ablation. Special thermal protection techniques involving the epidural injection of gas or cooled fluid were used. Pain levels were assessed immediately before the procedure and on the day after the procedure. Long-term follow-up findings were available for 11 patients. No complications were encountered, and all patients reported relief of pain. The 11 patients who participated in long-term follow-up reported continued relief of pain. CONCLUSION Percutaneous thermal ablation can be used to manage spinal osteoid osteomas close to the neural elements. Special thermal protection techniques may add a margin of safety.
Wyner-Ziv Coding in the Real Field Based on BCH-DFT Codes

We show how real-number codes can be used to compress correlated sources and establish a new framework for distributed lossy source coding, in which we quantize compressed sources instead of compressing quantized sources. This change in the order of binning and quantization blocks makes it possible to model correlation between continuous-valued sources more realistically and compensate for the quantization error when the sources are completely correlated. We focus on the asymmetric case, i.e., lossy source coding with side information at the decoder, also known as Wyner-Ziv coding. The encoding and decoding procedures are described in detail for discrete Fourier transform (DFT) codes, both for syndrome- and parity-based approaches. We also extend the parity-based approach to the case where the transmission channel is noisy and perform distributed joint source-channel coding in this context. The proposed system is well suited for low-delay communications. Furthermore, the meansquared reconstruction error (MSE) is shown to be less than or close to the quantization error level, the ideal case in coding based on binary codes.
Maximum Likelihood Based Temporal Frame Selection

In this paper, we propose a maximum likelihood (ML) based frame selection approach. A fixed frame rate adopted in most state-of-the-art speech recognition systems can face some problems, such as accidentally meeting noisy frames, assigning the same importance to each frame, and pitch asynchronous representation. As an attempt to avoid those problems, our approach selects reliable frames from a fine resolution along the time axis in a phoneme recognition task, we show that significant improvements are achieved with the frame selection approach comparing to a system with a fixed frame rate
Voting Behavior and Information Aggregation in Elections with Private Information

The authors analyze two-candidate elections in which voters are uncertain about the realization of a state variable that affects the utility of all voters. They assume each voter has noisy private information about the state variable. The authors show that, in equilibrium, almost all voters ignore their private signal when voting. Nevertheless, elections fully aggregate information in the sense that the chosen candidate would not change if all private information were common knowledge.
Vascular endothelial growth factor expression in nasal polyps of aspirin-intolerant patients.

OBJECTIVE To study differences between aspirin-tolerant patients and aspirin-intolerant patients concerning vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression. Recent publications strongly suggest the involvement of VEGF and its receptors in the pathophysiologic process of nasal polyps. DESIGN We subjected 43 polyp specimens to semiquantitative immunohistochemical analysis. We quantified VEGF and its receptors (Flk, Flt, and neuropilin) in all samples. To gain insight into potential VEGF-mediated cellular responses, we determined proliferative (Ki67) and apoptotic (caspase 3) indices. PATIENTS Polyp samples were obtained from 22 aspirin-intolerant patients and from 21 aspirin-tolerant patients, and control specimens were obtained from 24 subjects with healthy nasal respiratory mucosa. SETTING Laboratory; Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Expression levels of VEGF, VEGF receptors. and proliferative and apoptotic indices. RESULTS We found higher expressed levels of VEGF and neuropilin and stronger proliferation in nasal polyps from aspirin-tolerant and aspirin-intolerant patients compared with controls. In polyps from aspirin-intolerant patients, VEGF was expressed at considerably higher levels compared with those from aspirin-tolerant subjects. Apoptotic activity remained unchanged in all 3 groups. CONCLUSIONS Nasal polyps from aspirin-tolerant and aspirin-intolerant patients are characterized by strong proliferation and high levels of VEGF and neuropilin expression. Nasal polyps from aspirin-intolerant patients show distinctly increased VEGF levels. The relevance of these findings for future therapeutic approaches is yet to be determined.
Vitamin D and Insulin resistance in gestational diabetes mellitus

This study was designed to demonstrate the relationship between 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) levels and insulin resistance (IR) in normal pregnancy and in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The study included 103 pregnant women classified into two main groups: normal pregnant (n= 48) and GDM (n= 55). Further classification for each group was carried out based on 25(OH)D status (deficient, insufficient and sufficient). Serum were used for determination of fasting blood glucose (FBG), fasting insulin (FI), C-peptide, cholesterol, triacylglycerol (TAG), total Ca, 25(OH)D and parathyroid hormone (PTH). IR markers were calculated including glucose/insulin ratio (G/I), fasting insulin resistance index (FIRI), and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), Log HOMA-IR, HOMAA1-% B, and HOMA β cell. Results indicated significantly increased FBG, FI, C-peptide, FIRI, HOMA-IR, Log HOMA-IR and HOMA β cell, cholesterol and TAG in GDM compared to control group. Mean values of 25(OH)D did not show significant variations between the two groups. In control group, no significant correlations were obtained between 25(OH)D and any tested parameters, however, in GDM 25(OH)D showed significant correlations with FBG and Log HOMA-IR. Results also revealed increased prevalence of 25(OH)D deficiency among healthy pregnancy and GDM (~69 and 67%, respectively) groups. Furthermore, deficient GDM had significantly higher FBG, IR markers, cholesterol and TAG compared to matched deficient normal pregnancy. Improving 25(OH)D status had significantly normalizes IR and lipid parameters, indicating that 25(OH)D may be associated with elevated IR that accompany GDM. Key words: Gestational diabetes mellitus, vitamin D, insulin resistance, calcium homeostasis.
Non-perturbative effective interactions from fluxes

Motivated by possible implications on the problem of moduli stabilization and other phenomenological aspects, we study D-brane instanton effects in flux compactifications. We focus on a local model and compute non-perturbative interactions generated by gauge and stringy instantons in a = 1 quiver theory with gauge group U(N0) × U(N1) and matter in the bifundamentals. This model is engineered with fractional D3-branes at a 3/(2 × 2) singularity and its non-perturbative sectors are described by introducing fractional D-instantons. We find a rich variety of instanton-generated interactions, ranging from superpotentials and Beasley-Witten like multi-fermion terms to non-perturbative flux-induced instanton interactions.
The role of circulating 25 hydroxyvitamin D in asthma: a systematic review

Asthma is a major public health issue. The co‐occurrence of the high prevalence of asthma and vitamin D deficiency documented globally in recent decades has prompted several investigations into a possible association between the two conditions. The objective of this paper was to synthesize the evidence from studies that have measured the association between serum vitamin D and asthma incidence, prevalence, severity and exacerbations. A systematic search of the literature was performed in PubMed, and the available evidence was summarized both qualitatively and by meta‐analysis. Only English language, observational studies measuring serum levels of 25(OH)D as the exposure were included, as this is the most robust measure of vitamin D levels. The search identified 23 manuscripts: two case–control, 12 cohort and nine cross‐sectional studies. Collectively, the evidence suggests that higher serum levels of 25(OH)D are associated with a reduced risk of asthma exacerbations, but there was little evidence to suggest an association with asthma incidence, prevalence or severity. A significant amount of heterogeneity between study methodology and results restricted the scope for meta‐analysis. These results suggest that vitamin D supplementation may be effective for the prevention of asthma exacerbations, but the findings need to be confirmed by clinical trials.
Effects of long-term gait training using visual cues in an individual with Parkinson disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In an attempt to improve the gait of people with Parkinson disease (PD), researchers have examined the effect of visual cues placed on the floor. These studies typically have used a single session of training with such cues and have not examined the long-term carryover of such training. In the present study, therefore, gait was analyzed during uncued, cued, and retention phases, each lasting 1 month. SUBJECT A 78-year-old woman who had been diagnosed with PD 12 years previously (Hoehn and Yahr classification of disability, stage III) volunteered for the study. METHODS During the initial uncued gait phase, the subject was required to walk a distance of 10 m as many times as she could in 30 minutes, 3 times per week for 4 weeks. During the 4-week cued gait phase, visual cues were placed on the floor along the 10-m walkway. The cues were initially 110% of the uncued step length and were later increased to 120%. Following this cued gait phase, the subject's gait was recorded periodically for 1 month without cues available. Step length, gait speed, and 2-dimensional lower-limb kinematics were compared within and across the 3 experimental phases. Celeration lines were calculated for the initial uncued phase and then extrapolated across the cued training and uncued retention phases. Binomial tests were used to analyze the significance of changes from the initial phase of the experiment. RESULTS Step length (0.53-0.56 m) and gait speed (0.77-0.82 m x s(-1)) were essentially unchanged during uncued gait training after the first day; however, during the cued gait phase, gait speed improved, from 0.87 m x s(-1) to 1.13 m x s(-1), as step length was increased with visual cues. Improvements in step length (0.68 m) and gait speed (1.08 m x s(-1)) were still evident 1 month following the removal of the cues. Analyses of angle-angle diagrams and phase-plane portraits revealed that training with visual cues increased hip and knee range of motion and engendered more stable motor control of the lower limb. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In contrast to previous studies in which the benefits of visual cueing were relatively short-lived, in this study, 1 month of gait training with visual cues was successful in establishing a lasting improvement in gait speed and step length while increasing the stability of the underlying motor control system.
Lean and digitized innovation

Purpose - This paper presents a method that integrates digitization into the traditional Lean Six Sigma model for innovation processes. The method aims to adding value to the customers, improve effectiveness, eliminate waste, minimizing operating costs, and reducing time-to-market through the redesign of the innovation processes and their automation. Design/methodology/approach - The method described as the 6Ds (Define, Discover, Design, Develop, Digitize, and Deploy) is original and not presented before. Findings - This paper reports a certain number of cases where the approach has been very successful in helping all along the entire innovation processes. Research limitations/implications - The method has been demonstrated effective in a certain number of cases involving product innovation. It seems particularly important to extend its applications also to innovation in processes, organization, and business models. Originality/value - This paper presents an innovative method and a certain number of successful implementation of the Lean and Digitize approach to innovation.
Visual stimuli activate auditory cortex in deaf subjects: evidence from MEG

Studies using fMRI have demonstrated that visual stimuli activate auditory cortex in deaf subjects. Given the low temporal resolution of fMRI, it is uncertain whether this activation is associated with initial stimulus processing. Here, we used MEG in deaf and hearing subjects to evaluate whether auditory cortex, devoid of its normal input, comes to serve the visual modality early in the course of stimulus processing. In line with previous findings, visual activity was observed in the auditory cortex of deaf, but not hearing, subjects. This activity occurred within 100–400 ms of stimulus presentation and was primarily over the right hemisphere. These results add to the mounting evidence that removal of one sensory modality in humans leads to neural reorganization of the remaining modalities.
Maximum feedback and dark matter profiles of dwarf galaxies

The observed rotation curves of dark matter-dominated dwarf galaxies indicate low-density cores, contrary to the predictions of CDM models. A possible solution of this problem involves stellar feedback. A strong baryonic wind driven by vigorous star formation can remove a large fraction of the gas, causing the dark matter to expand. Using both numerical and analytical techniques, we explore the maximum effect of the feedback with an instantaneous removal of the gaseous disc. The energy input depends on the compactness of the disc, hence the specific angular momentum of the disc. For the plausible cosmological parameters and a wide range of the disc angular momenta, the feedback is insufficient to destroy the central halo cusp, while the inner density is lowered only by a modest factor of 2 to 6. Any realistic modelling of the feedback would have even lesser impact on dark matter. We find that no star formation effect can resolve the problems of CDM cusps.
Agreement Among Subjective, Objective, and Collateral Measures of Insomnia in Postwithdrawal Recovering Alcoholics

The level of agreement among objective, subjective, and collateral assessments of insomnia was examined in 56 recovering alcoholics. Participants underwent a multimodal sleep assessment protocol consisting of sleep logs, actigraph recordings, questionnaires, and collateral reports of insomnia severity. All sleep measures confirmed moderate to severe insomnia in the study sample. Over 1 week of simultaneous sleep log and actigraph recording, the average disagreement between methods ranged from 16 min for sleep onset latency to 1 hr for wake time after sleep onset. Interrater agreement for the severity of insomnia symptoms using the Sleep Impairment Index was poor for subject-clinician, subject-collateral, and collateral-clinician rating pairs (intraclass correlation coefficients < .35). In general, recovering alcoholics' self-reported sleep reflected a greater severity of insomnia symptoms than did the actigraph and collateral measures. Given that such high levels of disagreement can occur in individual participants, researchers are advised to use a combination of sleep measures to assess insomnia in this population.
An efficient similarity search algorithm for web video

The amount of online video is increasing tremendously nowadays. For the convenience of information retrieval, video similarity search has become an important research issue in content-based video retrieval. There is still no satisfying scalable fast similarity search method for large database. In order to solve two challenging problems: similarity measure and fast search, a novel efficient video similarity search algorithm is proposed in this paper. A compact video image signature was computed according to the statistics of spatial-temporal distribution of video frame sequences. The video similarity is measured based on the calculation of the number of similar video components. For the scalable computing requirement, a novel efficient search method based on clustering index table was presented by index clustering. The experimental results from the query tests in large database show this method is highly efficient and effective for similar video search.
Pathophysiology of Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

The physiopathology of fatty liver and metabolic syndrome are influenced by diet, life style and inflammation, which have a major impact on the severity of the clinicopathologic outcome of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. A short comprehensive review is provided on current knowledge of the pathophysiological interplay among major circulating effectors/mediators of fatty liver, such as circulating lipids, mediators released by adipose, muscle and liver tissues and pancreatic and gut hormones in relation to diet, exercise and inflammation.
Gut-Liver Axis and Sensing Microbes

‘Detoxification’ of gut-derived toxins and microbial products from gut-derived microbes is a major role of the liver. While the full repertoire of gut-derived microbial products that reach the liver in health and disease is yet to be explored, the levels of bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a component of Gram-negative bacteria, is increased in the portal and/or systemic circulation in several types of chronic liver diseases. Increased gut permeability and LPS play a role in alcoholic liver disease where alcohol impairs the gut epithelial integrity through alterations in tight junction proteins. In addition, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is also associated with increased serum LPS levels and activation of the pro-inflammatory cascade plays a central role in disease progression. Microbial danger signals are recognized by pattern recognition receptors such as the Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Increasing evidence suggests that TLR4-mediated signaling via the MyD88-dependent or MyD88-independent pathways may play different roles in liver diseases associated with increased LPS exposure of the liver as a result of gut permeability. For example, we showed that in alcoholic liver disease, the MyD88-independent, IRF3-dependent TLR4 cascade plays a role in steatosis and inflammation. Our recent data demonstrate that chronic alcohol exposure in the liver leads to sensitization of Kupffer cells to LPS via a mechanism involving upregulation of microRNA-155 in Kupffer cells. Thus, understanding the cell-specific recognition and intracellular signaling events in sensing gut-derived microbes will help to achieve an optimal balance in the gut-liver axis and ameliorate liver diseases.
Trends in microdisk laser design and optical modelling

Research into microcavity lasers demonstrates new achievements both in the technology and in the associated physical effects and applications. Melting and cooling of the disk edge boosts the Q-factors due to improved surface smoothness. Optimal shaping of pumped area lowers the threshold power. Photonic molecules made of several microdisks as "photonic atoms" show lasing at several closely spaced frequencies. Microdisks with single quantum dots as an active area are considered as most promising systems for realisation of single photon emitters necessary for quantum computing. These new effects and devices can be simulated with accurate numerical techniques developed recently for the cold-cavity modelling that are able to bring new vision of the physics of lasing.
Correlates of cognitive status of old patients with isolated systolic hypertension: the Syst‐Eur Vascular Dementia Project

Objective To assess cognitive functions and their correlates for a dementia-free cohort of old patients with isolated systolic hypertension. Design Cross-sectional data from the randomization period of the European Trial in Elderly with Systolic Hypertension (Syst-Eur Vascular Dementia Project). Setting Sixteen European countries and Israel. Participants We studied 2252 patients aged 60–100 years (mean 70). Main outcome measures Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Spearman correlation of MMSE scores to demographic data or blood pressure. Results The MMSE was successfully completed for 1474 women and 751 men. The baseline blood pressure averaged 173 ± 10/86 ± 6 mmHg (means ± SD). Median age at which education of patients at school had stopped was 15 years. Men and women who consumed alcohol (28%) had median intakes of 8 and 3 g/day, respectively. The median MMSE score was 29 (range 15–30). The maximum score of 30 was attained by 609 (30%) subjects. Fifty-nine (3%) patients had a MMSE score of 23 or less. The MMSE score decreased with advancing age (r = −0.21, P < 0.001). Both for men and for women, it was positively correlated to the level of education (r = 0.30 and r = 0.32, P < 0.001). For women after adjustment for age and the level of education, the score was correlated negatively to systolic blood pressure (r = −0.07, P < 0.05) but positively to intake of alcohol (r = 0.06, P < 0.05). Conclusion In a cohort of elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension, baseline cognitive function measured in terms of the MMSE score was high, probably due to selective recruitment of patients who were not clinically demented. Blood pressure was a weak contributor to cognitive status compared with age and level of education. Baseline cognitive function of women was negatively and independently correlated to systolic blood pressure.