Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incidence of Dysphagia and Serial Videofluoroscopic Swallow Study Findings After Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion: A Prospective Study

Study Design:Prospective study. Objective:To prospectively assess the incidence of dysphagia and to present the serial changes of each finding in the videofluoroscopic swallow study (VFSS) after anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). Summary of Background Data:The reported incidence of dysphagia after ACDF has varied widely, and the serial changes of dysphagia using VFSS have not been clearly determined yet. Methods:Data of 47 patients preoperatively and at 1 week and 1 month postoperatively were used for the analyses. The Bazaz dysphagia score and VFSS were checked preoperatively and at 1 week and 1 month postoperatively. The presence of aspiration or penetration, amount of vallecular and pyriform sinus residues, functional dysphagia scale, temporal parameters of oral transit time, pharyngeal transit time, and pharyngeal delay time (PDT) were evaluated from the VFSS data. Results:Incidences of dysphagia measured by the Bazaz dysphagia score were 83.0% at 1 week and 59.6% at 1 month after ACDF. Although the incidence of aspiration was 4.3% and the incidence of penetration was 36.2% at 1 week and 25.5% at 1 month after surgery, none of the patients had aspiration pneumonia. The number of patients with vallecular and pyriform sinus residues significantly increased after ACDF. Further, there were no statistically significant changes at all time points in terms of oral transit time, pharyngeal transit time, and pharyngeal delay time. Conclusions:Dysphagia is common until 1 month after ACDF. Although the incidence of aspiration or penetration in VFSS after ACDF was high, no patient had aspiration pneumonia, which may be because of the intact neurological swallowing mechanism. The typical pattern of dysphagia after ACDF included vallecular and pyriform sinuses filled with postswallow residue, which may result from soft tissue edema and weak constriction of pharyngeal muscles after ACDF.
I know what you are reading: recognition of document types using mobile eye tracking

Reading is a ubiquitous activity that many people even perform in transit, such as while on the bus or while walking. Tracking reading enables us to gain more insights about expertise level and potential knowledge of users -- towards a reading log tracking and improve knowledge acquisition. As a first step towards this vision, in this work we investigate whether different document types can be automatically detected from visual behaviour recorded using a mobile eye tracker. We present an initial recognition approach that com- bines special purpose eye movement features as well as machine learning for document type detection. We evaluate our approach in a user study with eight participants and five Japanese document types and achieve a recognition performance of 74% using user-independent training.
Multipoint affected sibpair linkage methods for localizing susceptibility genes of complex diseases

Recently, Liang et al. ([2001] Hum. Hered. 51:64–78) proposed a general multipoint linkage method for estimating the chromosomal position of a putative susceptibility locus. Their technique is computationally simple and does not require specification of penetrance or a mode of inheritance. In complex genetic diseases, covariate data may be available which reflect etiologic or locus heterogeneity. We developed approaches to incorporating covariates into the method of Liang et al. ([2001] Hum. Hered. 51:64–78) with particular attention to exploiting age‐at‐onset information. The results of simulation studies, and a worked data example using a family data set ascertained through probands with schizophrenia, suggest that utilizing covariate information can yield substantial efficiency gains in localizing susceptibility genes. Genet Epidemiol 24: 107–117, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Polypropylene Composites Unidirectionally Reinforced with Polyester Fibers

Polypropylene composites reinforced with continuous and unidirectional polyester fibers were prepared by the powder method. Three different polyester fibers with different mechanical properties were used. The composite mechanical properties showed a clear influence from the synergistic combination of the fiber properties and the material’s unidirectionality. The impregnation process based on a polypropylene powder cloud was studied, and a method to prepare composites was designed. In general, the powder method showed high compatibility leading to high-quality unidirectional composites.
Locating the warm-hot intergalactic medium in the simulated local universe

We present an analysis of mock spectral observation of warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) using a constrained simulation of the local universe. The simulated map of oxygen emission lines from local WHIM reproduces well the observed structures traced by galaxies in the real local universe. We further attempt to perform mock observations of outer parts of simulated Coma cluster and A3627 adopting the expected performance of DIOS (Diffuse Intergalactic Oxygen Surveyor), which is proposed as a dedicated soft X-ray mission to search for cosmic missing baryons. We find that WHIMs surrounding nearby clusters are detectable with a typical exposure time of a day, and thus constitute realistic and promising targets for DIOS. We also find that an X-ray emitting clump in front of Coma cluster, recently reported in the XMM-Newton observation, has a counterpart in the simulated local universe, and its observed spectrum can be well reproduced in the simulated local universe if the gas temperature is set to the observationally estimated value.
Renal function in the chinchilla.

LA. JAM& Renal junction in the chinchilla. Am. J. Physiol. 229(6): 1706-1713. 1970. -Micropuncture and other techniques were used to study renal function in the Chinchilla lanigej*, a species of rodent able to produce a highly concentrated urine. Urine osmolality ranged from 2,350 to 7,599 mOsm after water deprivation and decreased to a mean of 130 mOsm after water loading. Mean GFR was 3.38 J+ 1.02 SE ml/min or 0.70 ml/min per 100 g body weight. Free water clearance averaged 6.9% of the GFR and did not decline appreciably during saline diuresis. Micropuncture was performed in 22 animals infused at 0.2 ml/min. In 41 end-accessible proximal tubules mean single nephron glomerular filtration rate (SGFR) was 45.5 + 3,8 SE nl/min. Mean tubule fluid-to-plasma ratio (TF/P) f o inulin was 2.71 + . 16~~, TF/P Osm was 1.03 * . 006, TF/P Na was 1.04 + -02, and TF/P K was 1.18 & . 038. In 14 distal tubules mean SGFR was 57.7 & 8. I nl/min, mean TF/P inulin was 9.25 =t 1.27, TF/P Osm was 0.72 + . 046, TF/P Na was 0.50 h . 04, and TF/P K was 1.77~ . 162. In a separate study, fluid from the distal tubule was persistently hypotonic throughout its entire length. (Mean TF/P Osm was 0.52 =t ,031, n = 27.) Gl omeruli were labeled in 10 kidneys by the injection of India ink in vivo. Mean glomerular count per kidney was 48,0 18 A 554 SE.
A current view of the epigenome in mouse primordial germ cells

Primordial germ cells (PGCs) are undifferentiated germ line cells in embryos that emerge at early stages of embryonic development, and then differentiate into eggs or sperm in gonads to give rise to individuals of successive generations. During germ cell development, several dynamic changes in epigenetic modifications including DNA methylation and histone modifications occur, and these changes are thought to be reprogramming processes that are required for germ cells to confer totipotency to the zygote. Initially, the epigenetic status of particular gene loci in PGCs was studied, but more recently, genome‐wide studies have provided more comprehensive views of the PGC epigenome. Mouse PGCs undergo global DNA demethylation that starts shortly after PGC specification in early embryos. Although the functional importance of global DNA demethylation is not fully understood, demethylation of imprinted genes is crucial for erasure of methylation‐based imprinting, and demethylation of PGC‐specific genes is crucial for proper transcriptional regulation. PGCs also have unique patterns of histone modification, such as hypomethylation of H3K9 and hypermethylation of H3K27, and experimental evidence suggests that the unique epigenetic modifications of histones are important to the proper development of PGCs. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 81: 160–170, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Light‐ and Touch‐Point Localization using Flexible Large Area Organic Photodiodes and Elastomer Waveguides

photovoltaicdevicesareclosetobeingcommercialized.However,introducing organic photodiodes to the sensor market showsmuch less progress. Organic photodiodes can be easily producedin large areas on ﬂexible substrates and lucrative applications forsuch sensors will have to be found.Matrices of organic photodiodes combine high sensitivity andspatialresolutionwithlargeareaproduction,
An integer programming framework for optimizing shared memory use on GPUs

General purpose computing using GPUs is becoming increasingly popular, because of GPU's extremely favorable performance/price ratio. Besides application development using CUDA, automatic code generation for GPUs is also receiving attention. Like standard processors, GPUs also have a memory hierarchy, which must be carefully optimized for in order to achieve efficient execution. Specifically, modern NVIDIA GPUs have a very small programmable cache, referred to as shared memory, accesses to which are nearly 100 to 150 times faster than accesses to the regular device memory. An automatically generated or hand-written CUDA program can explicitly control what variables and array sections are allocated on the shared memory at any point during the execution. This, however, leads to a difficult optimization problem. In this paper, we formulate and solve the shared memory allocation problem as an integer programming problem. We present a global (intraprocedural) framework which can model structured control flow, and is not restricted to a single loop nest. We consider allocation of scalars, arrays, and array sections on shared memory. We also briefly show how our framework can suggest useful loop transformations to further improve performance. Our experiments using several non-scientific application show that our integer programming framework outperforms a recently published heuristic method, and our loop transformations also improve performance for many applications.
Multi-view CCA-based acoustic features for phonetic recognition across speakers and domains

Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and kernel CCA can be used for unsupervised learning of acoustic features when a second view (e.g., articulatory measurements) is available for some training data, and such projections have been used to improve phonetic frame classification. Here we study the behavior of CCA-based acoustic features on the task of phonetic recognition, and investigate to what extent they are speaker-independent or domain-independent. The acoustic features are learned using data drawn from the University of Wisconsin X-ray Microbeam Database (XRMB). The features are evaluated within and across speakers on XRMB data, as well as on out-of-domain TIMIT and MOCHA-TIMIT data. Experimental results show consistent improvement with the learned acoustic features over baseline MFCCs and PCA projections. In both speaker-dependent and cross-speaker experiments, phonetic error rates are improved by 4-9% absolute (10-23% relative) using CCA-based features over baseline MFCCs. In cross-domain phonetic recognition (training on XRMB and testing on MOCHA or TIMIT), the learned projections provide smaller improvements.
Molecular characteristics of bap-positive Staphylococcus aureus strains from dairy cow mastitis

The biofilm-associated protein (Bap) of Staphylococcus aureus is a high molecular weight cell-wall-anchored protein involved in biofilm formation, first described in bovine mastitis strains from Spain. So far, studies regarding Bap were mainly based on the Spanish strain V329 and its mutants, but no information on the genetic variability of bap-positive Staph. aureus strains is yet available in the literature. The present study investigated the molecular characteristics of 8 bap-positive Staph. aureus strains from subclinical bovine mastitis, isolated in 5 herds; somatic cell counts (SCC) of milk samples were also registered. Strains were characterised using MLST, SPA typing and microarray and the results were compared with V329. All isolates from this study and V329 were assigned to ST126, t605, but some molecular differences were observed. Only herd A and B strains harboured the genes for β-lactams resistance; the leukocidin D/E gene, a type I site-specific deoxyribonuclease subunit, 3rd locus gene and serin-protease A and B were carried by all strains, but not by V329, while serin-protease E was absent in V329 and in another isolate. Four isolates and V329 harboured the fibronectin-binding protein B gene. SCC showed the highest value in the milk sample affected by the only strain carrying all the virulence factors considered. Potential large variability of virulence was evidenced among V329 and all bap-positive Staph. aureus strains considered: the carriage of fnb could enhance the accumulation of biofilm, but the lack of lukD/E and splA, B or E might decrease the invasiveness of strain.
Genotyping Mycobacterium bovis from cattle in the Central Pampas of Argentina: temporal and regional trends

Mycobacterium bovis is the causative agent of bovine tuberculosis (TB), a disease that affects approximately 5% of Argentinean cattle. Among the molecular methods for genotyping, the most convenient are spoligotyping and variable number of tandem repeats (VNTR). A total of 378 samples from bovines with visible lesions consistent with TB were collected at slaughterhouses in three provinces, yielding 265 M. bovis spoligotyped isolates, which were distributed into 35 spoligotypes. In addition, 197 isolates were also typed by the VNTR method and 54 combined VNTR types were detected. There were 24 clusters and 27 orphan types. When both typing methods were combined, 98 spoligotypes and VNTR types were observed with 27 clusters and 71 orphan types. By performing a meta-analysis with previous spoligotyping results, we identified regional and temporal trends in the population structure of M. bovis. For SB0140, the most predominant spoligotype in Argentina, the prevalence percentage remained high during different periods, varying from 25.5-57.8% (1994-2011). By contrast, the second and third most prevalent spoligotypes exhibited important fluctuations. This study shows that there has been an expansion in ancestral lineages as demonstrated by spoligotyping. However, exact tandem repeat typing suggests dynamic changes in the clonal population of this microorganism.
Model-Based Architecture Robustness Analysis for Software-Intensive Autonomous Systems

When designing dependable cyber-physical systems, software architects must plan for defects and environmentally caused failures. Determining the right degree of redundancy is a complex task which requires balancing failure potential reduction, additional coordination effort, increased costs, weight, and power consumption. An efficient fail-operational design requires software-based measures increasing the robustness by enabling the system to self-adaptively deactivate non-essential functionality. Environmental influences, as well as reconfigurations affecting architecture-level design decisions need to be an integral part of the early system design. Recent reliability engineering approaches are not suitable for early design phases as they either do not incorporate a comprehensive system view, or require detailed implementation-specific information. In my research, I analyze the architectural implications of software-based robustness-increasing measures. I strive to assist the architecture design using model-based simulation of robustness and reliability properties based on architecture-level descriptions of the system. The described approach builds upon an established architecture quality analysis framework and leverages existing prediction capabilities for system reliability and self-adaptation.
Age and CD161 Expression Contribute to Inter-Individual Variation in Interleukin-23 Response in CD8+ Memory Human T Cells

The interleukin-23 (IL-23) pathway plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of multiple chronic inflammatory disorders, however, inter-individual variability in IL-23-induced signal transduction in circulating human lymphocytes has not been well-defined. In this study, we observed marked, reproducible inter-individual differences in IL-23 responsiveness (measured by STAT3 phosphorylation) in peripheral blood CD8+CD45RO+ memory T and CD3+CD56+ NKT cells. Age, but not gender, was a significant (Pearson’s correlation coefficient, r = −0.37, p = 0.001) source of variability observed in CD8+CD45RO+ memory T cells, with IL-23 responsiveness gradually decreasing with increasing age. Relative to cells from individuals demonstrating low responsiveness to IL-23 stimulation, CD8+CD45RO+ memory T cells from individuals demonstrating high responsiveness to IL-23 stimulation showed increased gene expression for IL-23 receptor (IL-23R), RORC (RORγt) and CD161 (KLRB1), whereas RORA (RORα) and STAT3 expression were equivalent. Similar to CD4+ memory T cells, IL-23 responsiveness is confined to the CD161+ subset in CD8+CD45RO+ memory T cells, suggesting a similar CD161+ precursor as has been reported for CD4+ Th17 cells. We observed a very strong positive correlation between IL-23 responsiveness and the fraction of CD161+, CD8+CD45RO+ memory T cells (r = 0.80, p<0.001). Moreover, the fraction of CD161+, CD8+CD45RO+ memory T cells gradually decreases with aging (r = −0.34, p = 0.05). Our data define the inter-individual differences in IL-23 responsiveness in peripheral blood lymphocytes from the general population. Variable expression of CD161, IL-23R and RORC affects IL-23 responsiveness and contributes to the inter-individual susceptibility to IL-23-mediated defenses and inflammatory processes.
Datalog-based framework for efficient query answering over fuzzy ontologies

Ontologies are set to play a key role in many domains, especially in the context of the Semantic Web. Ontology languages are based on crisp logic and thus cannot handle imprecision. Fuzzy extensions of ontology languages become unuseful if they cannot be processed by applications. In fact, despite their inference capabilities over complex TBoxes, description logic reasoners have a high ABox reasoning complexity. That is, to retrieve the instances of a given concept, we need to run the reasoning algorithm for each individual in the ABox. In Datalog systems, query answers are computed in one pass: bottom-up or top-down. Motivated by this concern, we propose in this paper a Datalog based framework, named OntoFlex, for efficient query answering over fuzzy ontologies. The framework implements the FSAQL query language over Flora-2 and XSB Datalog systems and proposes a correct mapping of fuzzy RDFS and fuzzy OWL2EL into crisp Datalog programs.
Regulation of Gene Expression by PrrA in Rhodobacter sphaeroides 2.4.1: Role of Polyamines and DNA Topology

ABSTRACT In the present study, we show in vitro binding of PrrA, a global regulator in Rhodobacter sphaeroides 2.4. 1, to the PrrA site 2, within the RSP3361 locus. Specific binding, as shown by competition experiments, requires the phosphorylation of PrrA. The binding affinity of PrrA for site 2 was found to increase 4- to 10-fold when spermidine was added to the binding reaction. The presence of extracellular concentrations of spermidine in growing cultures of R. sphaeroides gave rise to a twofold increase in the expression of the photosynthesis genes pucB and pufB, as well as the RSP3361 gene, under aerobic growth conditions, as shown by the use of lacZ transcriptional fusions, and led to the production of light-harvesting spectral complexes. In addition, we show that negative supercoiling positively regulates the expression of the RSP3361 gene, as well as pucB. We show the importance of supercoiling through an evaluation of the regulation of gene expression in situ by supercoiling, in the case of the former gene, as well as using the DNA gyrase inhibitor novobiocin. We propose that polyamines and DNA supercoiling act synergistically to regulate expression of the RSP3361 gene, partly by affecting the affinity of PrrA binding to the PrrA site 2 within the RSP3361 gene.
What Are Mathematical Models of Behavior Models of ?

The form of the question suggests an answer (and a very short paper). But behavior, even in its most narrow scientiiic sense let alone in its ordinary, everyday meaning, is a grossly misleading answer. If for no other reason, it is inadequate because the social and behavioral sciences fail in any serious scientific sense to treat the whole range of human behavior and its concomitant emotional states, but more significantly, it is inadequate because our models pertain only to a restricted class of the best formulated areas of these sciences and, even there, they are only partially effective. Models of behavior are our goal, not a claim of accomplishment. So the question is not trivial. This does not mean that it is especiaIly subtle: any specialist can answer it readily for himself, although he may agree that it can be vexing to formulate it in a way that communicates satisfactorily to his less mathematical colleagues. To a degree, the somewhat forbidding and demanding nature of mathematical discourse raises a barrier;
Creep-Fatigue Crack Growth Using Digital Image Correlation

Creep-fatigue crack growth tests are cyclic tests that have a hold period at the maximum load. This hold period, or dwell, is the period during the test when the time-dependent mechanisms operate. The length of the dwell period has been shown to affect the fatigue crack growth rate. During the hold period, crack tip blunting (due to creep deformation) and crack extension can be measured using 2-D digital image correlation (DIC). DIC requires a random speckle pattern on the flat surface being investigated. The speckle pattern is a unique pattern and, as the surface is strained, locations on the pattern will move to new positions relative to a previous strained condition. The images are compared and an algorithm calculates the strain. The camera can be positioned to view the crack tip and measure crack extension and crack opening displacement (COD). This provides a means by which the crack tip creep deformation can be determined during the hold period, providing valuable information regarding the crack tip kinetics and crack driving force. This paper will evaluate this technique for creep-fatigue crack growth measurements and provide preliminary data for a Ni-base alloy.
Compressive Strain at the Onset of Densification of Cellular Solids

The onset of densification of cellular solids represents the start of the cell wall interactions, which enhance the compressive resistance of a cellular solid. Currently, there exists ambiguity in the definition and uncertainty in the determination of the compressive strain, from which the densification regime starts. The onset strain of densification and the densification strain are defined and distinguished in the present study. Several commonly used methods to determine the onset strain of densification are examined. It is shown that the method based on the energy absorption efficiency curve gives unique and consistent results. Two types of energy absorption efficiency curves are identified. Further justifications of the use of the energy absorption efficiency method are provided for various types of cellular solids.
Surface Structure of NiTi Alloy Passivated by Autoclaving

Sterilization of the NiTi alloy in boiling water or steam causes passivation, which results in an amorphous 3.5 nm thick TiO2 layer on the surface. Between the surface and the matrix a transition layer of Ni2O3 and NiO was observed, using the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Differences in sterilization conditions affect the amount of metallic nickel on the surface.