Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolution of idiopathic pleural effusion: a prospective, long-term follow-up study.

UNLABELLED The management of idiopathic pleural effusion remains controversial. Because the long-term evolution of this entity is not well known, two different approaches, aggressive and conservative, have been proposed. We conducted a 10-year study of the evolution of idiopathic pleural effusion. METHODS Between 1984 and 1994, we prospectively studied 40 consecutive patients (30 men and 10 women; mean [+/- SD] age, 53.8 +/- 19.4 years) with exudative pleural effusion undiagnosed after exhaustive evaluation. The pleural fluid adenosine deaminase level was below 43 IU/L in all; periodic chest radiographs and clinical evaluation were carried out in all patients for a mean of 62 months (range, 36 to 108 months). Further diagnostic procedures were performed whenever the effusion recurred or when indicated by the clinical picture. RESULTS Effusions resolved in a mean time of 5.6 months (range, 7 days to 48 months). Five patients (12.5%) had one or more relapses of their pleural effusion, and in a further 5 (12.5%), the effusion persisted unchanged for more than 1 month. In 32 cases (80%), no potential cause of the effusion was detected. The diagnoses in the remaining eight cases were asbestos pleural effusion in three, pulmonary adenocarcinoma in one, mesothelioma in one, congestive heart failure in one, liver cirrhosis in one, and rheumatoid arthritis in one. Tuberculosis was not detected in any of the cases, although 19 patients initially had positive tuberculin tests. CONCLUSIONS Most idiopathic pleural effusions follow a benign course. Our results support conservative treatment of patients with idiopathic pleural effusion. Antituberculous treatment does not appear to he warranted, regardless of tuberculin test results, if the pleural fluid adenosine deaminase level is not elevated.
In-line metrology for Cu pillar applications in interposer based packages for 2.5D integration

The vertical assembly between chip and interposer (2.5D) is mainly done by micro interconnects based on Cu pillars (diameter <50 μm, height <75 μm). These are typically manufactured via electroplating, which includes the sequential deposition of the Cu pillar itself and its solder cap (typically SnAg or Sn). In order to improve the yield of the subsequent assembly process as well as the overall reliability of these interconnects it is crucial to obtain information about their post process characteristics such as geometry (e.g. height and diameter, as well variations over the whole Si wafer), roughness, undercut, contamination level etc. Therefore it is important to introduce reliable metrology tools for wafer processing control. This study provides a detailed overview on important pillar characteristics and possible metrology solutions for their measurement, ranging from destructive failure analysis to promising in-line techniques. Furthermore, challenges and limits of the found solutions for various important pillar characteristics will be discussed. Derived from the provided overview on Cu pillar characteristics, this study will focus in detail on the measurement of the pillar sidewall loss and its roughness, the pillar undercut, the roughness of the insulator layer surrounding the pillar and the bottom critical dimension (CD). The sidewall parameters and the undercut of the pillar are difficult to characterize because of the geometrical arrangement and the associated inaccessibility by common measurement techniques (e.g. optical widefleld microscopy). The application of confocal microscopy with high resolution will be described in detail which enabled successful measurements of most of the described parameters (except undercut). The results will be discussed in terms of applicability for even smaller pillars (down to 25 μm) and in-line metrology capabilities.
Quantitative spread trading on crude oil and refined products markets

Quantitative trading in oil-based markets is investigated over 2003–2010, with a focus on WTI, Brent, heating oil and gas oil. A total of 861 spreads are considered. A novel optimal statistical arbitrage trading model is applied, with generalised stepwise procedures controlling for data snooping bias. Aggregating upward and downward mean-reversion, profitable strategies are identified with Sharpe ratios greater than 2 in many instances. For the top categories, average daily returns range from 0.07 to 0.55%, with trade lengths of 9–55 days. A collapse in the number of profitable trading strategies is seen in 2008. Robustness to varying transactions costs is examined.
Transcriptional Regulation of FasL Expression and Participation of sTNF-α in Response to Sertoli Cell Injury*

The Fas/FasL signaling pathway has previously been demonstrated to be critical for triggering germ cell apoptosis in response to mono-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (MEHP)-induced Sertoli cell injury. Although Sertoli cells ubiquitously express the FasL protein, MEHP-induced germ cell apoptosis appears to tightly correlate with increased levels of Sertoli cell FasL. Here we characterize the transcriptional regulation of the murine FasL gene in Sertoli cells after MEHP exposure. A serial deletion strategy for 1.5 kb of the 5′-upstream activating sequence of the FasL promoter was used to determine transcriptional activity in response to MEHP. Luciferase activity of the FasL promoter in the rat Sertoli cell line ASC-17D revealed that two regions, -500 to -324 and -1250 to -1000, were necessary to drive the inducible transcription of FasL. Sequence analysis of these two regions revealed two cis-regulatory elements, NF-κB and Sp-1. By site-directed mutagenesis, electrophoretic mobility shift and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays, it was confirmed that MEHP-induced FasL expression is enhanced through the transcriptional regulation of both NF-κB and Sp-1. Experiments performed both in vitro and in vivo revealed that MEHP exposure results in an increased production of sTNF-α and that sTNF-α-mediated NF-κB activation causes robust increases in FasL levels in both the ASC-17D Sertoli cell line and in primary rat Sertoli cell/germ cell co-cultures. In the seminiferous epithelium, Sertoli cells express TNFR1, whereas germ cells produce TNF-α. Therefore, sTNF-α released by germ cells after MEHP-induced Sertoli cell injury acts upon Sertoli cell TNFR1 and activates NF-κB and Sp-1 that consequently causes a robust induction of FasL expression. These novel findings point to a potential “feed-forward” signaling mechanism by which germ cells prompt Sertoli cells to trigger their apoptotic elimination.
From Complex Object Exploration to Complex Crowdsourcing.

Forming and exploring complex objects is at the heart of a variety of emerging web applications. Historically, existing work on complex objects has been developed in two separate areas: composite item retrieval and team formation. At the same time, emerging applications that harness the wisdom of crowd workers, such as, document editing by workers, sentence translation by fans (or fan-subbing), innovative design, citizen science or journalism, represent complex crowdsourcing, in which an object may represent a complex task formed by a set of sub-tasks or a team of workers who work together to solve the task. The goal of this tutorial is to bridge the gap between composite item retrieval and team formation and define new research directions for complex crowdsourcing applications
Natural Antisense RNAs in the Nervous System

Natural antisense RNAs are endogenous molecules that are complementary to RNA transcripts of already established function. They were discovered first in prokaryotes in which they are now recognised as an important component of molecular mechanisms involved in the regulation of gene expression. Recently, through the cumulative efforts of molecular biologists and bioinformaticians, natural antisense RNAs have been demonstrated in significant numbers in eukaryotic systems also. Probably the most exciting outcome of these studies is that natural antisense RNAs are particularly prevalent in the nervous system. Here we discuss the major known types of natural antisense RNAs in eukaryotic systems and focus on their potential roles in the regulation of gene expression in the brain.
Effect of endogenous estradiol levels on bone resorption and bone mineral density in healthy postmenopausal women: a prospective study

Objective To investigate the effect of endogenous estrogens on bone mineral density (BMD) and bone markers in postmenopausal women over 24 months. Methods Fifty out of 99 postmenopausal women seen previously were re-assessed after 24 months. Levels of BMD, bone markers, serum estradiol (E2) and total testosterone were determined. Results BMD decreased in the femoral neck (∼2%) (p < 0.008), but remained stable in the other skeletal areas; E2 and serum Crosslaps (sCTX) decreased by 34% (p < 0.001) and 21% (p < 0.003), respectively. Women aged ≤ 65 years exhibited decreased BMD only in the femoral neck (2%, p < 0.01), without changes in bone markers. Women aged > 65 years exhibited a decrease in sCTX levels and stable BMD values at all skeletal sites. E2 levels decreased similarly in both groups (∼35%). Women with baseline E2 levels ≥ 10 pg/ml showed stable BMD in spite of their E2 levels decreasing by 42% (p < 0.001); sCTX decreased by 21% (p < 0.01). Women with baseline E2 levels < 10 pg/ml showed a 2% decrease (p < 0.001) in femoral neck BMD and a 19% decrease (p < 0.002) in E2 levels, without changes in bone markers. Conclusion Although endogenous E2 decreased to around 7 pg/ml in these menopausal women, this level would seem to be sufficient to maintain BMD in almost all skeletal areas, and to be more effective in older women.
Time Lag of Secondary ESD in Millimeter-Size Spark Gaps

This study relates to the delay of secondary electrostatic discharges (ESDs). The first motivation for this study is the fact that the delay value is a required input parameter for the simulation of the secondary ESD. The second motivation is that this delay is one limiting factor for the usage of spark gaps as protection devices. The objective is to determine the delay for different intended and unintended spark gap structures as this time delay will influence the peak current and rise time of the secondary ESD across these gaps. The intended application is ESD protection in consumer products, for that reason 0.5-3 mm gap distances and voltages up to 14 kV are considered at different humidity levels. Very long time lags are observed for clean sphere-to-sphere gaps requiring average field strengths >200 kV/cm to achieve a breakdown in a few nanoseconds in dry air. Humidity is shown to strongly reduce the time lag. However, if printed circuit board (PCB) spark gap geometries are considered the time lags are much smaller. Similar shorter lag times have been found in geometries that resemble more unintentional breakdown locations in a product.
Perception and Response among Women Undergoing Transvaginal Ultrasonography

The present study aimed to assess the perception and response among women undergoing Transvaginal Ultrasonography (TVUS). Design: Descriptive design was used. Setting: This study was carried out at the TVUS center affiliating with the obstetrics and gynecology center in Mansoura University Hospital, Egypt; from February to July 2017. Subjects: 145 women selected by purposive sampling selected according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Tools: A Structured Interviewing Questionnaire Schedule, Spielberger State -Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) For Pain. Results: The mean age of the women was 28.79 years. It was observed pre-the scanning that 85.5% of women didn’t know what is TVUS and 84.8% felt anxious regarding the scanning procedure. Also, 85.5% of the women perceived the scanning as an embarrassing event and 53.1% of them found the transvaginal sonography unacceptable. While during the scanning, the results showed that 81.4% among the women were experiencing pain sensation, especially during the insertion and rotation of the probe. Moreover, Most of the women had negative verbal and nonverbal response where 62.1% among them refused to be followed by TVUS and 86.2% covered eyes with hands. Additionally, all the studied women were felt tense and anxious during the examination by TVUS but it varied from mild anxiety (15.2%), moderate (77.2%) and severe (7.6%). Conclusion: The study concluded that the majority of the women was felt anxious regarding having the transvaginal sonography procedure and perceived the scanning as an embarrassing event. Also, most of them were having negative verbal and nonverbal response as well as the feeling pain, tension and anxiety during the scanning. Recommendations: Implement an orientation program by the nurses for the women undergoing transvaginal sonography procedure to minimize the anxiety and embarrassment feeling.
Two techniques for the efficient numerical calculation of the Green's functions for planar shielded circuits and antennas

In this paper we present new contributions to the computation of the Green's functions arising in the analysis of multilayered shielded printed circuits and antennas. First the quasistatic term of the spectral domain Green's functions is extracted so that the convergence of the reminder dynamic modal series is enhanced. Moreover, it is shown that by extracting a second-order quasi-static term the convergence is further improved. In regard to the quasi-static terms, they are computed in the spatial domain by numerically evaluating the associated spatial images series. Then a new and efficient technique is developed for the summation of the slowly convergent modal series. The technique can be viewed as the application of the integration by parts technique to discrete sequences and greatly accelerates the convergence rate of the series involved. It is shown that the new algorithm is numerically very robust and leads to a drastic reduction in the computational effort and time usually required for the numerical evaluation of the shielded Green's functions.
Assessment of the developmental totipotency of neural cells in the cerebral cortex of mouse embryo by nuclear transfer

When neural cells were collected from the entire cerebral cortex of developing mouse fetuses (15.5–17.5 days postcoitum) and their nuclei were transferred into enucleated oocytes, 5.5% of the reconstructed oocytes developed into normal offspring. This success rate was the highest among all previous mouse cloning experiments that used somatic cells. Forty-four percent of live embryos at 10.5 days postcoitum were morphologically normal when premature and early-postmitotic neural cells from the ventricular side of the cortex were used. In contrast, the majority (95%) of embryos were morphologically abnormal (including structural abnormalities in the neural tube) when postmitotic-differentiated neurons from the pial side of the cortex were used for cloning. Whereas 4.3% of embryos cloned with ventricular-side cells developed into healthy offspring, only 0.5% of those cloned with differentiated neurons in the pial side did so. These facts seem to suggest that the nuclei of neural cells in advanced stages of differentiation had lost their developmental totipotency. The underlying mechanism for this developmental limitation could be somatic DNA rearrangements in differentiating neural cells.
CPW-Fed Stair-Shaped Slot Antennas With Circular Polarization

The design is described of a coplanar-waveguide (CPW)-fed circularly polarized slot antenna. The slot antenna and the feeding structure are fabricated on the same plane of the substrate so that circuit process and position alignment could be simplified. By etching a longitudinal slot at a middle point of a stair-shaped slot and tuning geometrical parameters, two orthogonal electric fields with quadrature phase difference excite a circularly-polarized wave. A bandwidth of 31.2% (2.30-3.15 GHz) is achieved with an axial ratio < 3 dB and reflection coefficient < -10 dB. Details of the design procedure for the proposed antenna are described, and the results of the antenna performance are presented and discussed.
Continuous insulin infusion (CSII) or modern type of multiple daily injections (MDI) in diabetic children and adolescents a critical review on a controversial issue.

OBJECTIVE There is a common opinion that CSII is superior to MDI. CSII offers the most physiological insulin substitution. METHOD Review of recent publications (Cochrane criteria), on modern multiple daily injections (MDI) based on insulin analogues, modern self-control and education. RESULTS There is a lack of randomised controlled studies comparing CSII with modern MDI in children and adolescents. In some studies CSII seems to give a slight decrease of HbA1c, a slightly better quality of life, perhaps less hypoglycemia. However, serious hypoglycemia, sometimes fatal, occurs, DKA seems to increase, weight gain and local infections at injection sites may occur and CSII is more expensive than MDI. CONCLUSION CSII is a useful tool. It is reasonable to use it when there are appropriate indications. CSII does not solve all problems but has to be combined with other important parts of diabetes treatment.
Artificial light pollution: Shifting spectral wavelengths to mitigate physiological and health consequences in a nocturnal marsupial mammal.

The focus of sustainable lighting tends to be on reduced CO2 emissions and cost savings, but not on the wider environmental effects. Ironically, the introduction of energy-efficient lighting, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs), may be having a great impact on the health of wildlife. These white LEDs are generated with a high content of short-wavelength 'blue' light. While light of any kind can suppress melatonin and the physiological processes it regulates, these short wavelengths are potent suppressors of melatonin. Here, we manipulated the spectral composition of LED lights and tested their capacity to mitigate the physiological and health consequences associated with their use. We experimentally investigated the impact of white LEDs (peak wavelength 448 nm; mean irradiance 2.87 W/m2 ), long-wavelength shifted amber LEDs (peak wavelength 605 nm; mean irradiance 2.00 W/m2 ), and no lighting (irradiance from sky glow < 0.37 × 10-3 W/m2 ), on melatonin production, lipid peroxidation, and circulating antioxidant capacity in the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii). Night-time melatonin and oxidative status were determined at baseline and again following 10 weeks exposure to light treatments. White LED exposed wallabies had significantly suppressed nocturnal melatonin compared to no light and amber LED exposed wallabies, while there was no difference in lipid peroxidation. Antioxidant capacity declined from baseline to week 10 under all treatments. These results provide further evidence that short-wavelength light at night is a potent suppressor of nocturnal melatonin. Importantly, we also illustrate that shifting the spectral output to longer wavelengths could mitigate these negative physiological impacts.
Macromolecular leakage beneath full cast crowns: A two-year in vitro investigation.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM Most microleakage studies have used low molecular weight dyes or isotopes rather than clinically relevant materials such as lipopolysaccharides (LPSs) or cell wall materials that have been shown to provoke inflammatory reactions in the dental pulp. PURPOSE This investigation evaluated the leakage (diffusion) of fluorescently labeled LPS and dextran beneath cast-gold crowns luted with 3 cements. MATERIAL AND METHODS Thirty extracted molars were prepared for crowns. Ten crowns with access ports (facial or lingual) were cast in gold and luted with zinc phosphate, glass ionomer, and an adhesive resin cement onto their preparations. Teeth and crowns with filters inserted into the ports were immersed in a solution of labeled macromolecules (TRITC-LPS, FITC-dextran) and evaluated for leakage every month for 24 months. Filters were retrieved and analyzed with fluorescent microscopy. RESULTS All filters retrieved from crowns luted with zinc phosphate, glass ionomer, and adhesive resin cements demonstrated no detectable leakage and were negative for both FITC-dextran and TRITC-LPS for all evaluation periods. CONCLUSION For the 24 months of this investigation, zinc phosphate, Ketac-Cem, and C&B-Metabond were equally effective at preventing leakage of detectable molecular concentrations of LPS and dextran to the level of the access ports.
Lymphatic microsurgery for the treatment of lymphedema

One of the main problems of microsurgery for lymphedema consists of the discrepancy between the excellent technical possibilities and the subsequently insufficient reduction of the lymphoedematous tissue fibrosis and sclerosis. Appropriate treatment based on pathologic study and surgical outcome have not been adequately documented. Over the past 25 years, more than 1000 patients with peripheral lymphedema have been treated with microsurgical techniques. Derivative lymphatic micro‐vascular procedures has today its most exemplary application in multiple lymphatic‐venous anastomoses (LVA). For those cases where a venous disease is associated to more or less latent or manifest lymphostatic pathology of such severity to contraindicate a lymphatic‐venous shunt, reconstructive lymphatic microsurgery techniques have been developed (autologous venous grafts or lymphatic‐venous‐Iymphatic‐plasty ‐ LVLA). Objective assessment was undertaken by water volumetry and lymphoscintigraphy. Subjective improvement was noted in 87% of patients. Objectively, volume changes showed a significant improvement in 83%, with an average reduction of 67% of the excess volume. Of those patients followed‐up, 85% have been able to discontinue the use of conservative measures, with an average follow‐up of more than 7 years and average reduction in excess volume of 69%. There was a 87% reduction in the incidence of cellulitis after microsurgery. Microsurgical lymphatic‐venous anastomoses have a place in the treatment of peripheral lymphedema and should be the therapy of choice in patients who are not sufficiently responsive to nonsurgical treatment. Improved results can be expected with operations performed earlier at the very first stages of lymphedema. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. Microsurgery 26: 65–69, 2006.
Controlling the birth of terahertz radiation ticked with attosecond pulses

We perform a joint measurement of terahertz waves and high-order harmonics generated from Argon atoms driven by a fundamental laser pulse and its second harmonic. By correlating their dependence on the phase-delay of the two pulses, we determine the generation of THz waves in tens of attoseconds precision. Compared with simulations and models, we find that the laser-assisted soft-collision of the electron wave packet with the atomic core plays a key role. It is demonstrated that the rescattering process, being indispensable in HHG processes, dominant THz wave generation as well but in a more elaborate way. The new finding might be helpful for the full characterization of the rescattering dynamics.