Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vascular access through the intraosseous route in pediatric emergencies

Obtaining venous access in critically ill children is an essential procedure to restore blood volume and administer drugs during pediatric emergencies. The first option for vascular access is through a peripheral vein puncture. If this route cannot be used or if a prolonged period of access is necessary, then the intraosseous route is an effective option for rapid and safe venous access. The present work is a descriptive and exploratory literature review. The study's aim was to describe the techniques, professional responsibilities, and care related to obtaining venous access via the intraosseous route in pediatric emergencies. We selected 22 articles (published between 2000 and 2011) that were available in the Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences (LILACS) and MEDLINE databases and the SciELO electronic library, in addition to the current protocol of cardiopulmonary resuscitation from the American Heart Association (2010). After the literature search, data were pooled and grouped into the following categories of analysis: historical aspects and physiological principles; indications, benefits, and contraindications; professional assignments; technical principles; care during the access; and possible complications. The results of the present study revealed that the intraosseous route is considered the main secondary option for vascular access during the emergency response because the technique is quick and easily executed, presents several non-collapsible puncture sites, and enables the rapid and effective administration of drugs and fluid replacement.
NOODLE + + : a 3-dimensional Net-based Object-Oriented Development Model

Object-oriented analysis and design methodologies are considered as the most popular software development methods for the 1990s. A common drawback, however, is that they have been developed informally. There is no theoretical framework enabling us to define precisely the object-oriented concepts involved, to solve concurrency problems, and to verify the correctness of the implementation. We propose a 3-dimensional net structure behind object-oriented software development. This structure consolidates the concepts of classes, inheritance, overloading and message passing through a single model. Inheritance and overloading can be unified with message passing in a 3-dimensional representation, but are physically differentiable by occupying the vertical and horizontal planes, respectively, of the model. Furthermore, the formal model can be mapped to various object-oriented analysis and design notations. The theoretical framework can thus be adopted for systems validation and verification for existing methodologies. The liveness and consistencies of objects can be verified, and inheritance and interaction coupling can be identified and checked.
A FPGA implementation of an elliptic curve cryptosystem

This paper describes a FPGA implementation of an elliptic curve cryptosystem. Such systems are becoming increasingly popular as they provide the highest strength per bit of any cryptosystem commonly used today. The cryptosystem was built exploiting the wNAF representation of the private key as well as parallelism through the arithmetic units
Symbionts as Major Modulators of Insect Health: Lactic Acid Bacteria and Honeybees

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are well recognized beneficial host-associated members of the microbiota of humans and animals. Yet LAB-associations of invertebrates have been poorly characterized and their functions remain obscure. Here we show that honeybees possess an abundant, diverse and ancient LAB microbiota in their honey crop with beneficial effects for bee health, defending them against microbial threats. Our studies of LAB in all extant honeybee species plus related apid bees reveal one of the largest collections of novel species from the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium ever discovered within a single insect and suggest a long (>80 mya) history of association. Bee associated microbiotas highlight Lactobacillus kunkeei as the dominant LAB member. Those showing potent antimicrobial properties are acquired by callow honey bee workers from nestmates and maintained within the crop in biofilms, though beekeeping management practices can negatively impact this microbiota. Prophylactic practices that enhance LAB, or supplementary feeding of LAB, may serve in integrated approaches to sustainable pollinator service provision. We anticipate this microbiota will become central to studies on honeybee health, including colony collapse disorder, and act as an exemplar case of insect-microbe symbiosis.
Older adults’ physical exercise and health-related quality of life: The mediating role of physical self-concept

ABSTRACT Building on previous self-concept and current physical self-concept (PSC) theories, this paper presents empirical results demonstrating the triad relationship among physical exercise, PSC, and quality of life (QoL) in older adults. Specifically, the results show how PSC mediates the relationship between physical exercise and health-related quality of life (HQoL). A total of 152 older adults participated in this study, completing the Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire, Physical Self-Concept Scale for Older Adults, and 12-Item Short-Form Survey. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to test the mediating effects. Older adults’ physical exercise, PSC, and QoL were all correlated. The components of older adults’ PSC (strength, flexibility, and independent functioning) fully mediated the relationship between physical exercise and the physical as well as mental aspects of HQoL. This study thus suggests that PSC plays an important explanatory role in the effect of older adults’ physical exercise on their QoL. Health-care professionals may use various strategies to enhance older adults’ self-perception during physical exercise in order to promote their global well-being.
The Meckel syndrome- associated protein MKS1 functionally interacts with components of the BBSome and IFT complexes to mediate ciliary trafficking and hedgehog signaling

The importance of primary cilia in human health is underscored by the link between ciliary dysfunction and a group of primarily recessive genetic disorders with overlapping clinical features, now known as ciliopathies. Many of the proteins encoded by ciliopathy-associated genes are components of a handful of multi-protein complexes important for the transport of cargo to the basal body and/or into the cilium. A key question is whether different complexes cooperate in cilia formation, and whether they participate in cilium assembly in conjunction with intraflagellar transport (IFT) proteins. To examine how ciliopathy protein complexes might function together, we have analyzed double mutants of an allele of the Meckel syndrome (MKS) complex protein MKS1 and the BBSome protein BBS4. We find that Mks1; Bbs4 double mutant mouse embryos exhibit exacerbated defects in Hedgehog (Hh) dependent patterning compared to either single mutant, and die by E14.5. Cells from double mutant embryos exhibit a defect in the trafficking of ARL13B, a ciliary membrane protein, resulting in disrupted ciliary structure and signaling. We also examined the relationship between the MKS complex and IFT proteins by analyzing double mutant between Mks1 and a hypomorphic allele of the IFTB component Ift172. Despite each single mutant surviving until around birth, Mks1; Ift172avc1 double mutants die at mid-gestation, and exhibit a dramatic failure of cilia formation. We also find that Mks1 interacts genetically with an allele of Dync2h1, the IFT retrograde motor. Thus, we have demonstrated that the MKS transition zone complex cooperates with the BBSome to mediate trafficking of specific trans-membrane receptors to the cilium. Moreover, the genetic interaction of Mks1 with components of IFT machinery suggests that the transition zone complex facilitates IFT to promote cilium assembly and structure.
A COMPARISON OF LEVOMETHADYL ACETATE , BUPRENORPHINE , AND METHADONE FOR OPIOID DEPENDENCE

A BSTRACT Background Opioid dependence is a chronic, relapsing disorder with important public health implications. Methods In a 17-week randomized study of 220 patients, we compared levomethadyl acetate (75 to 115 mg), buprenorphine (16 to 32 mg), and high-dose (60 to 100 mg) and low-dose (20 mg) methadone as treatments for opioid dependence. Levomethadyl acetate and buprenorphine were administered three times a week. Methadone was administered daily. Doses were individualized except in the group assigned to low-dose methadone. Patients with poor responses to treatment were switched to methadone. Results There were 55 patients in each group; 51 percent completed the trial. The mean (±SE) number of days that a patient remained in the study was significantly higher for those receiving levomethadyl acetate (89±6), buprenorphine (96±4), and highdose methadone (105±4) than for those receiving low-dose methadone (70±4, P<0.001). Continued participation in the study was also significantly more frequent among patients receiving high-dose methadone than among those receiving levomethadyl acetate (P=0.02). The percentage of patients with 12 or more consecutive opioid-negative urine specimens was 36 percent in the levomethadyl acetate group, 26 percent in the buprenorphine group, 28 percent in the high-dose methadone group, and 8 percent in the low-dose methadone group (P=0.005). At the time of their last report, patients reported on a scale of 0 to 100 that their drug problem had a mean severity of 35 with levomethadyl acetate, 34 with buprenorphine, 38 with high-dose methadone, and 53 with low-dose methadone (P=0.002). Conclusions As compared with low-dose methadone, levomethadyl acetate, buprenorphine, and highdose methadone substantially reduce the use of illicit opioids. (N Engl J Med 2000;343:1290-7.)
Relationship between topotecan systemic exposure and tumor response in human neuroblastoma xenografts.

BACKGROUND Topotecan is a topoisomerase I inhibitor with activity against xenografts of childhood solid tumors and established clinical activity against neuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. We have studied the relationship between systemic exposure to and the antitumor activity of topotecan lactone (the active form of the drug) in the xenograft models. Furthermore, we determined whether the responses seen in these models occur at systemic exposure levels that are tolerable in children. METHODS Neuroblastoma xenografts derived from the tumors of six different patients were established subcutaneously in immune-deprived mice. Topotecan was administered by intravenous bolus injection 5 days a week for 2 consecutive weeks, repeated every 21 days for three cycles. The minimum daily doses that induced complete responses (CRs) and partial responses (PRs) were determined. Topotecan lactone pharmacokinetic studies were performed in both tumor-bearing and nontumor-bearing mice. RESULTS The minimum doses associated with CRs and PRs in four of the six neuroblastoma xenografts were 0.61 and 0.36 mg/kg body weight, respectively. The topotecan lactone single-day systemic exposures associated with these doses were 88 and 52 ng x hr/mL, respectively. There was an approximately sixfold difference in topotecan lactone systemic exposure (290 ng x hr/mL versus 52 ng x hr/mL) associated with achieving CRs in the least-sensitive and most-sensitive tumors, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Neuroblastoma xenografts are highly sensitive to topotecan therapy, and responses in mice are achieved at systemic exposures similar to those that are clinically effective and tolerable in children. These results support the concept of deriving preclinical data relating systemic exposure to antitumor activity in xenograft models. Such data may be valuable in making informed decisions regarding the clinical development of new agents.
Defect detection in food ingredients using Multilayer Perceptron Neural Network

Selection of healthy raw ingredient and similarly rejection of defective ones in an automatic and non-destructive way is becoming an essential job in food industry. In this paper, binary classification of raw food ingredients is presented using x-ray images of pistachio nuts. The objective is to develop an in-line defect detection system capable of detection and classification of raw food ingredients without any damage. A method is devised for detection and segmentation of each independent ingredient from the large x-ray image. For quality assessment, six textures properties from the images are calculated on global level, in addition to sixteen features, extracted by calculating the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrices (GLCMs) at angles of 0, 45, 90 and 135 respectively. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is used as classifier. Results are calculated using extracted features and presented in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. Later, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used in order to achieve discrimination among features. Results are calculated again using features obtained after PCA. Texture features with PCA out-performed previous outcomes, producing excellent classification results while achieving higher accuracy in comparison to similar approaches.
Robust adaptive nonlinear H∞ control for robot manipulators

This paper provides a solution to the tracking problem of a robotic system in terms of a solution to a certain Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMIs), and in the presence of both exogenous disturbance and model uncertainties. Although this problem has been investigated extensively and numerous results are now available, the contribution of this paper is in its unique approach which consists of transforming the nonlinear underlying problem into a linear one, and thus achieving a simple and elegant solution by means of a linear Hinfin control theory.
Bulk emission of scalars by a rotating black hole

We study in detail the scalar-field Hawking radiation emitted into the bulk by a higher-dimensional, rotating black hole. We numerically compute the angular eigenvalues, and solve the radial equation of motion in order to find transmission factors. The latter are found to be enhanced by the angular momentum of the black hole, and to exhibit the well-known effect of superradiance. The corresponding power spectra for scalar fields show an enhancement with the number of dimensions, as in the non-rotating case. On the other hand, the proportion of the total (i.e., bulk+brane) power that is emitted into the bulk decreases monotonically with the angular momentum. We compute the total mass loss rate of the black hole for a variety of black-hole angular momenta and bulk dimensions, and find that, in all cases, the bulk emission remains significantly smaller than the brane emission. The angular-momentum loss rate is also computed and found to have a smaller value in the bulk than on the brane.
Design issues of a cooperative cache with no coherence problems

In this paper, we examine some of the important problems observed in the design of cooperative caches. Solutions to the coherence, load-balancing and fault-tolerance problems are presented. These solutions have been implemented as a part of PAFS, a parallel/distributed file system, and its performance has been compared to the one achieved by xFS. Using the comparison results, we have observed that the proposed ideas not only solve the main problems of cooperative caches, but also increase the overall system performance. Although the solutions presented in this paper were targeted to a parallel machine, reasonable good results have also been obtained for networks of workstations.
Clinical Features and Extraintestinal Manifestations of Crohn Disease in Children

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features and extraintestinal manifestations (EIMs) of Crohn disease (CD) in Korean pediatric patients. Methods The medical records of 73 children diagnosed with CD were retrospectively reviewed. Data regarding baseline demographic and clinical characteristics, including CD phenotype at diagnosis based on the Montreal classification, and clinical features and course of EIMs were investigated. Results Fifty-two (71.2%) of the patients were males. The mean age of the patients was 12.5 years. The mean follow-up period was 3.4 years. The disease location was ileal in 3 (4.1%) of the patients, colonic in 13 (17.8%), ileocolonic in 56 (76.7%). The clinical behavior was inflammatory in 62 (84.9%) of the patients, stricturing in 8 (11.0%), and penetrating in 3 (4.1%). Perianal abscesses or fistulas were found in 37 (50.7%) of the patients. EIMs observed during the study period were anal skin tag in 25 patients (34.2%), hypertransaminasemia in 20 (27.4%), peripheral arthritis in 2 (2.7%), erythema nodosum in 2 (2.7%), vulvitis in 1 (1.4%), uveitis in 1 (1.4%), and pulmonary thromboembolism in 1 (1.4%). Conclusion Perianal diseases and manifestations were present in more than half of Korean pediatric CD patients at diagnosis. Inspection of the anus should be mandatory in Korean children with suspicious CD, as perianal fistulas, abscesses, and anal skin tags may be the first clue to the diagnosis of CD.
Adaptive operating system design using reflection

Flexibility to adapt to different applications is a key requirement of modern operating systems. We have explored the use of meta-objects and reflection as a means to write adaptable system software. The paper discusses the Apertos operating system, that uses these techniques. It outlines how meta-objects help to support flexibility and how we have implemented the concepts, and gives some performance figures.
The Analysis of Global Illumination Rendering Based on BRDF

The Bi-directional Re¿ectance Distribution Function (BRDF) describes the appearance of a material by its interaction with light at a surface point. When the materials in scene are invariant, a linear transformation occurs in the transmission change from lighting to outgoing radiance, which makes a real-time global illumination rendering achieved. However, such linear transformation does not hold when materials change. This paper presents a real-time rendering algorithm for scenes with editable materials under direct and indirect illumination. All materials in scenes are represented as various linear combinations of the BRDF base, from which, all outgoing radiance luminance of each combination are pre-computed. When it renders, linear combines the pre-computed data by the coefficient resulted from different materials projection on the base, the nonlinear problem is converted to a linear one, and the final effects of global illumination rendering in real-time can be achieved.
On-line EM reinforcement learning

In this article, we propose a new reinforcement learning (RL) method for a system having continuous state and action spaces. Our RL method has an architecture like the actor-critic model. The critic tries to approximate the Q-function, which is the expected future return for the current state-action pair. The actor tries to approximate a stochastic soft-max policy defined by the Q-function. The soft-max policy is more likely to select an action that has a higher Q-function value. The online EM algorithm is used to train the critic and the actor. We apply this method to two control problems. Computer simulations show that our method is able to acquire fairly good control in the two tasks after a few learning trials.
Effect of hydrocolloids and emulsifiers on the shelf‐life of composite cassava‐maize‐wheat bread after storage

Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of hydrocolloids and/or emulsifiers on the shelf‐life of composite cassava‐maize‐wheat (ratio 40:10:50) reference bread during storage. Added hydrocolloids were carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and high methoxyl pectin (HM pectin) at a 3% level (w/w) and/or the emulsifiers diacetyl tartaric acid esters of monoglycerides (DATEM), lecithin (LC), and monoglycerides (MG) at a 0.3% level (w/w). After 4 days of storage, composite breads with MG had comparatively lower crumb moisture while crumb density was similar in all breads. The reference bread crumb firmness was 33.4 N, which was reduced with an addition of DATEM (23.0 N), MG (29.8 N), CMC (24.6 N) or HM pectin (22.4 N). However, the CMC/DATEM, CMC/LC, and HM pectin/DATEM combinations further reduced crumb firmness to <20.0 N. The melting peak temperature was increased from 52 C to between 53.0 C and 57.0 C with added hydrocolloids and/or emulsifiers. The melting enthalpy of the retrograded amylopectin was lower in composite bread with hydrocolloids and emulsifiers, 6.7–11.0 J/g compared to 20.0 J/g for the reference bread. These results show that emulsifiers in combination with hydrocolloids can improve the quality and extend the shelf‐life of composite cassava‐maize‐wheat breads.
Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury Triggers Rapid Necrotic Death of Immature Neurons in the Hippocampus

Abstract Traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes cell death predominantly in the cerebral cortex, but there is additional secondary cell death in the hippocampus. We previously found that most of the dying cells in the mouse hippocampus are newborn immature granular neurons in amouse model of lateral controlled cortical impact (CCI) injury with amoderate level of impact. It is not known how long this selective cell death in the hippocampal dentate gyrus lasts, and how it is induced. Using Fluoro-Jade B and immunohistochemistry, we show that most of the neuron death in the hippocampus occurs within 24hours after TBI and that cell death continues at low level for at least another 2 weeks in this lateral CCI model. Most of the dying immature granular neurons did not exhibit morphologic characteristics of apoptosis, and only a small subpopulation of the dying cells was positive for apoptotic markers. In contrast, most of the dying cells coexpressed the receptor-interacting protein 1, a marker of necrosis, suggesting that immature neurons mainly died of necrosis. These results indicate that moderate TBI mainly triggers rapid necroticdeath of immature neurons in the hippocampus in a mouse CCI model.
Operant conditioning methodologies to investigate infant learning

ABSTRACT This article describes operant conditioning methodologies that have been essential to furthering our understanding of infant learning processes. We discuss diverse procedures and assessments that have yielded useful information about prenatal, postnatal, neonatal, and infant learning, as well as preferences for various auditory, visual, kinesthetic, and tactile stimulation. In addition, the applicability of contingency-based operant procedures such as high-amplitude nonnutritive sucking, synchronized face-to-face reinforcement, conjugate reinforcement and discrimination training procedures for studying infant perception, memory, vocal conditioning, social referencing, attachment, and fears is presented. Also, methodologies such as yoked-control procedures that distinguish between the reinforcement contingencies effects and the eliciting effects of social stimuli like Motherese speech and adult vocal imitation are described as ways to further refine functional analyses of infant learning. Overall, we provide a framework toward establishing operant conditioning methodologies as essential research tools for understanding infant learning phenomena.