Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atypical Continuous Keratitis in a Case of Rheumatoid Arthritis Accompanying Severe Scleritis

Purpose: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often presents with ocular complications: typically dry eye, peripheral corneal ulcer, and scleritis. We report for the first time a case of severe scleritis with RA, accompanying atypical continuous keratitis, which apparently differs from typical peripheral ulcerative keratitis (PUK). Methods: Observational case report. Results: A 68-year-old woman with RA presented at our hospital complaining of worsening arthritis accompanying ocular injection and discharge. On examination, nodular scleritis and peripheral corneal infiltration were noted. In addition to administering topical steroid and antibiotics, cyclosporine and an oral steroid were added because of the patient's worsening scleritis. Despite gradual improvement of the scleritis, the efficacy of the additional treatments was limited. Four months after initial treatment, the patient presented with uveitis, thought to be caused by a herpetic virus. Antivirus treatment was effective for the uveitis, but atypical continuous keratitis suddenly appeared. The keratitis was located from 4-o'clock to 10-o'clock positions continuously in the midperipheral cornea and apparently differed from herpetic keratitis or PUK as typically seen in RA cases. Immune reaction was suspected, and the keratitis improved within 2 weeks. After that, the introduction of an anti–tumor necrosis factor &agr; drug (infliximab) completely resolved the severe scleritis and there was no recurrence of ocular inflammation. Conclusion: As is shown in this case, RA can present with atypical continuous keratitis, thought to be a manifestation of an immunologic reaction other than PUK. In addition, although immunosuppressants are often used for the treatment of RA with scleritis, the efficacy is limited. Infliximab may be a useful treatment for treatment-resistant scleritis.
Biomechanical analysis of a weight-relief maneuver in C5 and C6 quadriplegia.

OBJECTIVE To determine the kinematics and kinetics of performing a weight-relief maneuver in persons with C5 and C6 quadriplegia. STUDY DESIGN A three-dimensional kinematic and kinetic analysis was performed on the upward phase of a weight-relief maneuver with the use of a motion analysis system, two force platforms, and an instrumented seat. Electromyography (EMG) data were collected from the upper pectoralis, anterior deltoid, latissimus dorsi, and biceps brachii muscles of the right upper limb. SETTING Biomechanics laboratory. SUBJECTS Seven persons with C5 and C6 quadriplegia (ASIA A and B) with "flickers" (grade 1/5) or less in wrist flexor and triceps brachii muscles. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Angular displacements and associated moments of the shoulder, elbow, and wrist, kinematic variables describing the position and displacement of the trunk and upper limbs, and EMG data. RESULTS Subjects lifted from a forward flexed posture with their arms adducted against their trunks. During the course of lifting, they flexed their shoulders and wrists and extended their elbows. They generated peak mean (+/- SE) shoulder and elbow flexor moments of . 65 (+/-.04) and . 41 (+/-.06) N x m x kg(-1), respectively. Shoulder adductor moments increased over the course of the lift. The median (and interquartile range) mean EMG activity in the upper pectoralis and the anterior deltoid muscles were 63% (35%-76%) and 44% (36%-49%) of EMG obtained during maximal voluntary contractions, respectively. CONCLUSION Persons with quadriplegia with paralysis of the triceps brachii muscles lift themselves by generating active shoulder flexor and adductor moments. They also rely on wrist flexor moments that are generated by the stretch of the wrist flexor muscles.
Evaluating the Neolithic Expansion at Both Shores of the Mediterranean Sea

During the Neolithic, human populations underwent cultural and technological developments that led to an agricultural revolution. Although the population genetics and evolution of European Neolithic populations have been extensively studied, little is known regarding the Neolithic expansion in North Africa with respect to Europe. One could expect that the different environmental and geological conditions at both shores of the Mediterranean Sea could have led to contrasting expansions. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared the Neolithic expansion in Europe and North Africa accounting for possible migration between them through the Strait of Gibraltar. We analyzed the entire X chromosome of 580 individuals from 20 populations spatially distributed along the North of Africa and Europe. Next, we applied approximate Bayesian computation based on extensive spatially explicit computer simulations to select among alternative scenarios of migration through the Strait of Gibraltar and to estimate population genetics parameters in both expansions. Our results suggest that, despite being more technologically advanced, Neolithic populations did not expand faster than Paleolithic populations, which could be interpreted as a consequence of a more sedentary lifestyle. We detected reciprocal Neolithic migration between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar. Counterintuitively, we found that the studied Neolithic expansions presented similar levels of carrying capacity and migration, and occurred at comparable speeds, suggesting a similar demic process of substitution of hunter-gatherer populations. Altogether, the Neolithic expansion through both Mediterranean shores was not so different, perhaps because these populations shared similar technical abilities and lifestyle patterns.
The effect of smoking on osseointegrated dental implants. Part II: Peri-implant bone loss.

PURPOSE The detrimental effect of cigarette smoking on implant survival has been previously demonstrated. The purpose of this study was to retrospectively investigate the effect of smoking on marginal bone loss around endosseous dental implants. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sample consisted of 767 Brånemark implants placed in 235 patients between 1979 and 1999. Bone level changes were determined using periapical radiographs taken at annual recall visits for 1 to 20 years following prosthesis insertion. Nonparametric tests and multiple linear regression were used to determine the influence of various factors on peri-implant bone loss during the first year of clinical loading and for all subsequent years. RESULTS The mean annual bone loss was 0.178 mm +/- 0.401 during the first year of clinical loading and 0.066 mm +/- 0.227 per year thereafter. A positive smoking history was associated with a higher rate of peri-implant bone loss, and the majority of implant failures were observed in this group of patients. Smoking at the time of stage 1 surgery did not appear to predispose implants to more marginal bone loss. CONCLUSION Cigarette smoking should not be an absolute contraindication for implant therapy; rather, long-term heavy smokers must be informed that they are at a slightly higher risk of late implant failure and are susceptible to more marginal bone loss over the long-term, irrespective of their smoking status at the time of implant placement.
Beyond R&D activities: the determinants of firms’ absorptive capacity explaining the access to scientific institutes in low–medium-tech contexts

A firm's search strategy is to use innovation inputs from external sources such as suppliers, clients, competitors, universities and research transfer offices (RTOs) to complement their in-house knowledge. Thus, a firm needs to be capable of identifying and valuing the potential value of certain external knowledge, i.e. absorptive capacity. Most of the studies regarding search patterns are reduced mostly to medium–high- and high-tech industries in which only the level of investment in R&D activities as determinant of a firm's search strategy is considered. In addition, when the flows of external knowledge arise from firm–university interactions, the evidence is still inconclusive, specifically for SMEs and low–medium-tech environments. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to explore the pattern of a firm's search strategy through its absorptive capacity to acquire external flows of knowledge from universities and RTOs. The paper draws especially on the role of non-R&D innovation activities in low–medium-tech sectors. Seven hundred and forty three innovative firms from the Spanish Ministry of Industry are analysed. Results suggest that human resources and other non-R&D activities are the core drivers explaining the cooperation agreements to access external knowledge from universities and RTOs. Surprisingly, R&D expenditures do not contribute to the explanation. This paper presents important implications for policy-makers beyond the classic R&D policies.
Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education

The representation of a large number of students born outside the United States among the ranks of doctorate recipients from U.S. universities is one of the most significant transformations in U.S. graduate education and the international market for highly-trained workers in science and engineering in the last quarter century. Students from outside the U.S. accounted for 51% of PhD recipients in science and engineering fields in 2003, up from 27% in 1973. In the physical sciences, engineering and economics the representation of foreign students among PhD recipients is yet more striking; among doctorate recipients in 2003, those from outside the U.S. accounted for 50% of degrees in the physical sciences, 67% in engineering and 68% in economics. Our analysis highlights the important role of changes in demand among foreign born in explaining the growth and distribution of doctorates awarded in science and engineering. Expansion in undergraduate degree receipt in many countries has a direct effect on the demand for advanced training in the U.S. Changes in the supply side of the U.S. graduate education market may also differentially affect the representation of foreign students in U.S. universities. Supply shocks such as increases in federal support for the sciences will have relatively large effects on the representation in the U.S. of doctorate students from countries where demand is relatively elastic. Understanding the determinants -- and consequences -- of changes over time in the representation of foreign born students among doctorate recipients from U.S. universities informs the design of policies affecting the science and engineering workforce.
Silicon-Based Technology for Integrated Waveguides and mm-Wave Systems

IC processing is used to develop technology for silicon-filled millimeter-wave-integrated waveguides. The frontend process defines critical waveguide sections and enables integration of dedicated components, such as RF capacitors and resistors. Wafer gluing is used to strengthen the mechanical support and deep reactive-ion etching forms the waveguide bulk with smooth and nearly vertical sidewalls. Aluminum metallization covers the etched sidewalls, fully enclosing the waveguides in metal from all sides. Waveguides are fabricated with a rectangular cross section of 560 μm × 280 μm. The measured insertion loss is only 0.12 dB/mm at 105 GHz. The optimized planar transition, the components of a beam-forming network, and a slotted waveguide antenna array are fabricated as further technology demonstrators. The broadside radiation of the antenna array has a beam steering of 63° using a frequency bandwidth of 17 GHz, and a half-power beamwidth of 3.9° at 94.5 GHz with a side-lobe level of -13 dB. All demonstrators exhibit close matching to the simulated designs, a result of the high resolution of the lithography process that allows fine control of the critical waveguide dimensions and the formation of efficient signal transitions.
Some organizational issues of technology roadmapping experienced in Hungary

Technology roadmapping (TRM) is a technique for exploring the evolution of markets, products, technologies, and their linkages. During our Hungarian TRM-applications we found important a clear business need; senior level ownership; effective communication; information and knowledge sharing; spending considerable time at the beginning; preferring less frequent but longer workshops than more frequent shorter ones; involving all related functions, active participation of senior managers; having a TRM-champion inside the company; a case-study-based training to teach TRM; and calling TRM a different name at the beginning.
Organisational innovativeness in Estonian biotechnology organisations

Purpose – The biotechnology sector provides business‐to‐business service and continuous innovation is an imperative for biotechnology organisations in order to survive. The aim of this paper is to outline the elements in Estonian biotechnology organisations that inhibit them from becoming more innovative, and based on that, suggest how managers can increase their organisational innovativeness (OI). Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on single‐respondent structured interviews that were carried out in 15 biotechnology organisations in Estonia. The questions were divided into five categories: strategic orientation to innovation, processes related to resource allocation, processes related to work organisation, behaviour related to innovation initiation and behaviour related to innovation implementation. For each category OI the score was calculated and analysed.Findings – The study hypothesised that OI is about half of its potential and the lowest scores were expected to emerge in the resource al.
Intra-Industry Momentum: The Case of Reits

Real estate investment trusts (REITs) provide a good setting to examine intra-industry momentum. The industry is relatively homogenous and well defined, and the industry experienced structural changes that allow us to test alternative explanations for the observed momentum effect. Specifically, we test predictions that relate to investor overconfidence (based on Daniel, Hirshleifer and Subrahmanyam (1998)) and the speed of information diffusion (based on Hong and Stein (1999)). The first predicts a stronger momentum effect in REITs during the post-1990 period than during the pre-1990 period due to more valuation uncertainty in the post-1990 period. The second predicts a more pronounced momentum effect in REITs during the pre-1990 period than during the post-1990 period due to the higher speed of information diffusion in the post-1990 period. Our findings tend to support the first prediction. Specifically, while we do not find a momentum effect in REITs during the pre-1990 period, we find a strong and prevalent momentum effect in REITs in the post-1990 period.
Enhanced activity of combination of tobramycin and piperacillin for eradication of sessile biofilm cells of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

An in vitro chemostat system in which Pseudomonas aeruginosa can be cultivated at a slow growth rate and under iron limitation conditions was used to study the susceptibilities of sessile bacteria of mucoid and nonmucoid P. aeruginosa strains to tobramycin and piperacillin. Planktonic cells of both mucoid and nonmucoid P. aeruginosa strains were susceptible to tobramycin and piperacillin. None of the cells was found to be viable after 2 h of exposure to 200 micrograms of piperacillin plus 10 micrograms of tobramycin per ml. Young sessile bacteria were slightly more resistant to piperacillin or tobramycin than the planktonic cells were. However, eradication of young sessile bacteria could be achieved with a combination of piperacillin and tobramycin. None of these young biofilm bacteria were found to be viable after a 2-h exposure to 200 micrograms of piperacillin plus 10 micrograms of tobramycin per ml. Old sessile bacteria were very resistant to these antibiotics. Eradication of old sessile bacteria could not be achieved with either tobramycin (200 micrograms/ml) or piperacillin (200 micrograms/ml) alone. Combination of higher concentrations of tobramycin with piperacillin resulted in an enhancement of killing of the old sessile bacteria. Exposure of old sessile bacteria to 200 micrograms of piperacillin plus 100 micrograms of tobramycin per ml resulted in the reduction of the viable count to approximately 0.02%. The data suggest that the eradication of biofilm-associated infections is best carried out as early as possible. Enhanced activities against the sessile bacteria were achieved when higher concentrations of aminoglycosides were combined with beta-lactam antibiotics.
A regional approach to tourism education and training in Oceania: Progress and prospects

Since tourism is a global phenomenon, related training and education initiatives should incorporate co-operative arrangements at an international level. This applies to both educational provision and to the sourcing of students. The training and education systems prevalent within the Oceania region are outlined and prospects for co-operation are proposed. Despite the recent introduction of some co-operative initiatives for Asia Pacific as a whole, few have addressed the Oceania region specifically, despite its strong historical and commercial ties. A number of co-operative arrangements are proposed for the recognition of prior learning, educate the educator programmes and student exchanges.
A Pheromone-Guided Mobile Robot that Behaves like a Silkworm Moth with Living Antennae as Pheromone Sensors

In this paper, the pheromone-oriented behavior of moths will be demonstrated by synthesis with biosensors and a small mobile robot that is controlled by recurrent neural networks. Since antennae on a silkworm moth are very sensitive as compared to conventional arti ficial gas sensors, they can be used as living gas sensors that detect pheromone molecules. A simple recurrent artificial neural network was used to control pheromone-tracing behavior in the manner of a living male silkworm moth. This neural network generates mothlike behavior while interacting with the environment. The turning behav ior, in particular, is a suitable tactic for small intelligence when a robot misses pheromone molecules. Our neural network is so simple that it can be very easily used as the controlling devices for micro- robots, which have a small amount of space for intelligence. Our robot is a hybrid system that combines living organisms and artificial machines, and is therefore a new type of robot. This approach has the advantage of a real-world experiment with biosensors instead of computer simulation. The difference between the real world and the simulation conditions yields a discrepancy in results. An additional discrepancy is generated by the sensor model. Therefore, real-world experiments with living antennae may provide a fascinating interface between computer simulation and neuroethology.
Diversity of benzimidazole-resistance alleles in populations of small ruminant parasites

The resistance of gastro-intestinal nematodes of small ruminants (sheep and goat) to benzimidazole anthelmintic drugs seems to be linked primarily to a single mutation in the isotype 1 b-tubulin gene. This study was carried out to investigate the origin and diversity of benzimidazole-resistance alleles in trichostrongylid nematodes. We sequenced a 550 bp fragment of the isotype 1 b-tubulin gene from several benzimidazole-resistant Teladorsagia circumcincta populations isolated from dairy goat farms in the central and south-western France. We also sequenced the same b-tubulin fragment from Trichostrongylus colubriformis and Haemonchus contortus populations in south-western France. We found eight benzimidazole-resistance alleles in all T. circumcincta populations studied, six in H. contortus populations, and only one in T. colubriformis populations. In most cases, only one benzimidazole-resistance allele was present in T. circumcincta and H. contortus populations, but two alleles were found in a fewer number of them. Some T. circumcincta populations shared the same benzimidazole-resistance allele whereas some others had a specific benzimidazole-resistance allele. Similar findings were obtained for H. contortus. As no parasites are introduced once the flock of dairy goat farms has been constituted, these data indicate for the three studied species that rare pre-existing benzimidazole-resistance alleles already present before the isolation of populations had been selected. On the other hand, the fact that some benzimidazole-resistance alleles were specific to one population of T. circumcincta or H. contortus, seems to be in agreement with the hypothesis of the selection of spontaneous mutations. Thus, the origin of benzimidazole-resistance alleles in trichostrongylid nematodes seems to involve primarily the selection of rare alleles and possibly of spontaneous mutations. q 2002 Australian Society for Parasitology Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
La dynamique des cours boursiers: une étude empirique sur quatre marchés européens

In this paper, we investigate the properties of weekly stock market returns indexes. Four series are examined (Germany, France, United Kingdom and Switzerland). Non linear dependances are found for these markets. The QGARCH class of models describes the returns quite well. Residuals are i.i. d. but not gaussian.
The effect of fundamental frequency on the intelligibility of speech with flattened intonation contours.

PURPOSE To examine the effect of fundamental frequency (F0) on the intelligibility of speech with flattened F0 contours in noise. METHOD Participants listened to sentences produced by 2 female talkers in white noise. The listening conditions included the unmodified original sentences and sentences with resynthesized F0 that reflected the average low F0, the median F0, and the average high F0 of each talker's productions. RESULTS The sentences with flattened F0 contours yielded poorer intelligibility than the unmodified ones, but the sentences with flattened F0 did not produce equivalent performance. The sentences with F0 contours flattened at the average low F0 yielded better performance than sentences at the median F0. The sentences with F0 flattened at the average high F0 yielded poorer performance than the sentences flattened at the median F0. CONCLUSIONS F0 height accounted for only a small amount of the drop in speech understanding in speech with a flattened F0 in healthy talkers. Although this study used healthy talkers, the findings suggest that clinicians should focus on having clients produce speech with naturally varying F0; F0 height is a secondary factor in the drop in intelligibility seen in monotone speech for female talkers.
On the Importance of Consistency in Training Deep Neural Networks

We explain that the difficulties of training deep neural networks come from a syndrome of three consistency issues. This paper describes our efforts in their analysis and treatment. The first issue is the training speed inconsistency in different layers. We propose to address it with an intuitive, simple-to-implement, low footprint second-order method. The second issue is the scale inconsistency between the layer inputs and the layer residuals. We explain how second-order information provides favorable convenience in removing this roadblock. The third and most challenging issue is the inconsistency in residual propagation. Based on the fundamental theorem of linear algebra, we provide a mathematical characterization of the famous vanishing gradient problem. Thus, an important design principle for future optimization and neural network design is derived. We conclude this paper with the construction of a novel contractive neural network.
Comparative Review of Image Denoising and Segmentation Approaches For Detection of Tumor in Brain Images

A group of defective cells that grow inside or around the brain referred as Barin Tumor. The number of Brain Tumor cases around the World is increasing day by day. So, it is significant to detect it at anearly stage. Segmentation of brain images holds thesignificant part for detection of Tumor brain.