Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study of Sub-basal and Anterior Stromal Nerves of Corneal Flap with Modified Gold Chloride Stain

The aim was to study the regeneration of corneal nerve fibers following creation of corneal flap. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nine white rabbits underwent creation of corneal flap only without the subsequent excimer laser photoablation, rabbits were scarified at 3 days, one week, two weeks and one month after the procedure. Demonstration of the corneal innervation was carried out with a modified gold chloride procedure. The tissue was dissected into 4-6 lamellae before dehydration and mounted on slides for observation and photography. RESULTS: At the 1 st week, both superficial , basal epithelial and sub-epithelial nerves were found at the hinge of the flap but the rest of the flap showed a major loss of epithelial, basal subepithelial and superficial stromal nerves. At 1 st month, A few new regenerating thin nerve fibres were found to emerge from the cut stromal nerve trunks. In addition,the anterior stromal nerve were thin with gradual restoration to its normal condition over time. At 6 th month, The Sub-basal plexi returns to its pre-operative shape. The nerves of flap stroma become well developed. CONCLUSION: The number of sub-basal and stromal nerve fiber bundles almost completely disappeared after creation of flap. Sub-basal and anterior stromal nerves were still less than normal after 6 months.
Anesthetic Considerations for a Child With Rare B3GALT6 Mutations: A Case Report

A rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the B3GALT6 gene on chromosome 1p36 results in deficiency of &bgr;-1,3-galactosyltransferase 6, an enzyme critical for glycosaminoglycan biosynthesis. Defects in this gene result in a phenotype that has features of both skeletal dysplasia and a connective tissue disorder. The anesthetic considerations for children with this disorder have not previously been described. We report a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to the perioperative care of a child with B3GALT6 mutations with severe phenotypic expression.
Outcome of Mesh Anchoring Using Stainless Steel Skin Staples Versus Polypropylene Suturing in Lichtenstein’s Tension Free Inguinal Hernia Repair

Correspondence: Dr. Shireen A. A. Ramzanali Damani 1* Department of Surgery Ward-26 Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre Karachi E mail: dr_shireenramzanali@yahoo.co.uk INTRODUCTION: The inguinal hernia is the most common hernia with the incidence of 27% and 3% in males and females respectively. Globally the inguinal hernia repair is the most commonly performed procedure accounting for about twenty million repairs per year. Lichtenstein was of the view that the excessive tension on the suture line leads to postoperative disabil ity l ike pain and high recurrence rate. A B S T R A C T
Understanding Unlicensed Drug Vendor Practices Related to Childhood Malaria in One Rural District of Uganda: An Exploratory Study

This study investigated unlicensed drug outlets' practices for the management of malaria in the rural district of Butaleja, Uganda. A qualitative design using semistructured interviews was used. Interviews were recorded, translated, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic analysis. A total of 75 vendors, representing 85% of the outlets in the study area, were interviewed. Most of the vendors were associated with a drug shop type of outfit. About three-quarters reported having completed some level of postsecondary education, but just one-tenth of the vendors had qualifications that made them eligible to apply for a license to operate a drug shop. While most outlets stocked at least one type of antimalarial, only about one-quarter stocked an artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT), one-quarter expressed a preference for ACTs, and less than one-tenth attested to firmly adhering to the national malaria treatment guidelines on dispensing ACTs as the first-line option. In contrast, nine out of 10 vendors stocked quinine and well over a third stocked antimalarials no longer recommended, such as chloroquine and sulphadoxine-pyrimethamine. Given the ongoing gap between the national malaria policy and unlicensed drug outlet practices, this study calls for greater engagement of unlicensed vendors to improve the management of childhood malaria.
The SAT Protein of Porcine Parvovirus Accelerates Viral Spreading through Induction of Irreversible Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress

ABSTRACT The SAT protein (SATp) of porcine parvovirus (PPV) accumulates in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), and SAT deletion induces the slow-spreading phenotype. The in vitro comparison of the wild-type Kresse strain and its SAT knockout (SAT−) mutant revealed that prolonged cell integrity and late viral release are responsible for the slower spreading of the SAT− virus. During PPV infection, regardless of the presence or absence of SATp, the expression of downstream ER stress response proteins (Xbp1 and CHOP) was induced. However, in the absence of SATp, significant differences in the quantity and the localization of CHOP were detected, suggesting a role of SATp in the induction of irreversible ER stress in infected cells. The involvement of the induction of irreversible ER stress in porcine testis (PT) cell necrosis and viral egress was confirmed by treatment of infected cells by ER stress-inducing chemicals (MG132, dithiothreitol, and thapsigargin), which accelerated the egress and spreading of both the wild-type and the SAT− viruses. UV stress induction had no beneficial effect on PPV infection, underscoring the specificity of ER stress pathways in the process. However, induction of CHOP and its nuclear translocation cannot alone be responsible for the biological effect of SAT, since nuclear CHOP could not complement the lack of SAT in a coexpression experiment. IMPORTANCE SATp is encoded by an alternative open reading frame of the PPV genome. Earlier we showed that SATp of the attenuated PPV NADL-2 strain accumulates in the ER and accelerates virus release and spreading. Our present work revealed that slow spreading is a general feature of SAT− PPVs and is the consequence of prolonged cell integrity. PPV infection induced ER stress in infected cells regardless of the presence of SATp, as demonstrated by the morphological changes of the ER and expression of the stress response proteins Xbp1 and CHOP. However, the presence of SATp made the ER stress more severe and accelerated cell death during infection, as shown by the higher rate of expression of CHOP and alteration of the localization of CHOP. The beneficial effect of irreversible ER stress on PPV spread was confirmed by treatment of infected cells with ER stress-inducing chemicals.
The Emotion Seen in a Face Can Be a Methodological Artifact: The Process of Elimination Hypothesis

The claim that certain facial expressions signal certain specific emotions has been supported by high observer agreement in labeling the emotion predicted for that expression. Our hypothesis was that, with a method common to the field, high observer agreement can be achieved through a process of elimination: As participants move from trial to trial and they encounter a type of expression not previously encountered in the experiment, they tend to eliminate labels they have already associated with expressions seen on previous trials; they then select among labels not previously used. Seven experiments (total N = 1,068) here showed that the amount of agreement can be altered through a process of elimination. One facial expression not previously theorized to signal any emotion was consensually labeled as disgusted (76%), annoyed (85%), playful (89%), and mischievous (96%). Three quite different facial expressions were labeled nonplussed (82%, 93%, and 82%). A prototypical sad expression was labeled disgusted (55%), and a prototypical fear expression was labeled surprised (55%). A facial expression was labeled with a made-up word (tolen; 53%). Similar results were obtained both in a context focused on demonstrating a process of elimination and in one similar to a commonly used method, with 4 target expressions embedded with other expressions in 24 randomly ordered trials.
Anatomical Characteristics of Stem and Leaf in Euphorbia hirta L.

The stem and leaf anatomical studies of Euphorbia hirta L. were conducted for finding identical traits. The fresh hand sections were stained with safranin and examined under light microscope. Cross section of the stem has a circular shape where epidermis was uniseriate and isodiametric. Cortex was distinctly formed with about 5-6 rows composed of chlorenchyma and found laticifers. Tracheary elements were resembled by vessels and trachieds. In most cases, some pith cells were filled laticifers at young stage and it has a distinct gap or central cavity at maturation stage. In leaf, the epidermis was uniseriate, regular, thin walled, usually similar in diameters and covered with thin cuticle layer. Multicellular uniseriate or gland-like trichomes occur in rugose hairs at epidermis. Mesophyll was differentiated into palisade and spongy layers, was composed of parenchyma cells. The palisade layer assembled with 2 rows of cells. The spongy layer thickness was different around the midrib region, compared with other parts, has 2-6 rows of cells. Laticifers were present at the middle part of the mesophyll. Xylem elements in midrib initiated perfectly and composed of many straight rows of mainly vessels where the phloem elements were abundant and occupied a good part of the vascular bundle as a semicircle shape. The stem and leaf anatomy of this species studied here showed laticifers in cortex zone and pith cells, and middle part of the mesophyll, respectively, was a taxonomic trait for this species.
The history and properties of ultrasonic inhomogeneous waves

This paper gives a historical survey of the development of the inhomogeneous wave theory, and its applications, in the field of ultrasonics. The references are listed predominantly chronologically and are as good as complete. Along the historical description, several scientific features of inhomogeneous waves are described. All topics of inhomogeneous wave research are taken into account, such as waves in viscoelastic solids and liquids, thermoviscous liquids and solids, and anisotropic viscoelastic materials. Also inhomogeneous waves having complex frequency are described. Furthermore, the formation of bounded beams by means of inhomogeneous waves is given and the diffraction of inhomogeneous waves on periodically corrugated surfaces. The experimental generation of inhomogeneous waves is considered as well.
Evaluation of the template‐based modeling in CASP12

The article describes results of numerical evaluation of CASP12 models submitted on targets for which structural templates could be identified and for which servers produced models of relatively high accuracy. The emphasis is on analysis of details of models, and how well the models compete with experimental structures. Performance of contributing research groups is measured in terms of backbone accuracy, all‐atom local geometry, and the ability to estimate local errors in models. Separate analyses for all participating groups and automatic servers were carried out. Compared with the last CASP, two years ago, there have been significant improvements in a number of areas, particularly the accuracy of protein backbone atoms, accuracy of sequence alignment between models and available structures, increased accuracy over that which can be obtained from simple copying of a closest template, and accuracy of modeling of sub‐structures not present in the closest template. These advancements are likely associated with more effective strategies to build non‐template regions of the targets ab initio, better algorithms to combine information from multiple templates, enhanced refinement methods, and better methods for estimating model accuracy.
Autoclave foaming of chemically modified polylactide

Polylactide has emerged as one of the most promising biopolymers due to its good mechanical properties, as reflected by the continual increase in its production volume per year. However, one of the main drawbacks of polylactide is its low melt strength, which is disadvantageous in terms of foaming. To overcome this issue, in this study, several chemical modifiers that induce crosslinking, chain extension or grafting were incorporated by reactive extrusion, which greatly affected the foaming process by increasing the molecular weight and thereby the melt properties of polylactide. By means of gel permeation chromatography, an increase in the molecular weight was observed in the modified polylactides. Elongational viscosity measurements indicate a dramatic viscosity increase for polylactide modified with a multifunctional epoxide and an organic peroxide. With pressure-induced batch foaming, almost all modifications, with the exception of styrene maleic anhydride, led to a decrease in foam density compared to the neat polylactide.
FreeNavi: Landmark-Based Mapless Indoor Navigation Based on WiFi Fingerprints

Although a number of indoor navigation approaches have been proposed, most either require prior knowledge on floor plans, or relying on extra sensors or images, to provide accurate indoor localization and navigation. This paper presents FreeNavi, a landmark-based indoor navigation algorithm that leverages only WiFi signals to direct users in sophisticated indoor environments without prior device deployment or floor plans. FreeNavi takes advantage of human intelligence as an important input to locate and navigate users based on landmarks. With WiFi fingerprints collected at landmarks and walking traces collected in a crowdsourced manner, FreeNavi is able to create a virtual map connecting landmarks with each other. During navigation, FreeNavi produces human understandable directions based on landmarks in the virtual map. Evaluation result shows that FreeNavi can build mostly correct maps and provide efficient directions to users despite relying only on WiFi signals.
Spatial image polynomial decomposition with application to video classification

Abstract. This paper addresses the use of orthogonal polynomial basis transform in video classification due to its multiple advantages, especially for multiscale and multiresolution analysis similar to the wavelet transform. In our approach, we benefit from these advantages to reduce the resolution of the video by using a multiscale/multiresolution decomposition to define a new algorithm that decomposes a color image into geometry and texture component by projecting the image on a bivariate polynomial basis and considering the geometry component as the partial reconstruction and the texture component as the remaining part, and finally to model the features (like motion and texture) extracted from reduced image sequences by projecting them into a bivariate polynomial basis in order to construct a hybrid polynomial motion texture video descriptor. To evaluate our approach, we consider two visual recognition tasks, namely the classification of dynamic textures and recognition of human actions. The experimental section shows that the proposed approach achieves a perfect recognition rate in the Weizmann database and highest accuracy in the Dyntex++ database compared to existing methods.
The Triple Challenges of Low and Middle-Income Countries

While low and middle-income countries have been struggling with communicable diseases for many years, they are now stuck with noncommunicable diseases and road traffic accidents putting them in triple burden. In recent years, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, mental illnesses, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and cancers have become an emerging pandemic in low and middle-income countries (1). According to the estimates of the World Health Organization, by 2020, non-communicable diseases will account for 80 percent of the global burden of disease and 70 percent of deathsthe majority of the burden and death being in low and middle-income countries (2,3). The transition from communicable diseases to noncommunicable diseases and road traffic accidents in low and middle-income countries is being catalyzed by the ongoing economic development, urbanization and changing lifestyles (4). Unless these conditions are curbed timely, they will have deleterious impact on the already stressed healthcare and hamper the struggling economic development (5). As treatment of non-communicable diseases and injuries is very expensive, prevention programs should be the way forward to keep citizens healthy and productive. On the background of limited health infrastructure and meagre health workforce in low and middle-income countries, mid and low-level health workers should serve as backbone for the promotion and prevention services of non-communicable diseases and injuries (6). Although the use of low and midlevel health workers in the prevention of noncommunicable diseases has been proven effective in high income countries, studies revealed that their effectiveness in delivering primary prevention and control in low and middle-income countries is limited (7,8). As this limited effectiveness in low and middle-income countries could be because of poor implementation, proper system creation should be emphasized to yield better results. The current issue, the first regular issue for the year 2018, contains an editorial, nine original articles, four case reports and a letter to the editor. The editorial, four of the original articles, two of the case reports and the letter to the editor researched on non-communicable diseases. The other articles and case reports focus on various topics. I invite readers to go through these articles and appreciate or utilize the contents. I also encourage readers to forward comments and suggestions to the editor or the corresponding authors.
Smart Cyber-Physical Systems: Beyond Usable Security to Security Ergonomics by Design

Securing cyber-physical systems is hard. They are complex infrastructures comprising multiple technological artefacts, designers, operators and users. Existing research has established the security challenges in such systems as well as the role of usable security to support humans in effective security decisions and actions. In this paper we focus on smart cyber-physical systems, such as those based on the Internet of Things (IoT). Such smart systems aim to intelligently automate a variety of functions, with the goal of hiding that complexity from the user. Furthermore, the interactions of the user with such systems are more often implicit than explicit, for instance, a pedestrian with wearables walking through a smart city environment will most likely interact with the smart environment implicitly through a variety of inferred preferences based on previously provided or automatically collected data. The key question that we explore is that of empowering software engineers to pragmatically take into account how users make informed security choices about their data and information in such a pervasive environment. We discuss a range of existing frameworks considering the impact of automation on user behaviours and argue for the need of a shift—from usability to security ergonomics as a key requirement when designing and implementing security features in smart cyber-physical environments. Of course, the considerations apply more broadly than security but, in this paper, we focus only on security as a key concern.
Immunity, microbiota & immune-related disorders in German shepherd dogs

In an epidemiological study based on insurance data we described a breed-specific pattern of diseases in German Shepherd dogs (GSD) and confirmed that this breed is predisposed to immune-related disorders. A prospective study was performed in order to further investigate immunological changes in the GSD using a large number of dogs, 30 bitches and their litters, from the same kennel under well controlled natural conditions. Changes in fecal and serum immunoglobulins were followed from birth to young adult age and possible relationships between these parameters in dams and their offspring were identified. We also described the composition of gut microbiome in dogs and how it changes in different life stages including pregnancy, lactation and growth. The levels of serum IgE, serum IgA and fecal IgA increased from seven weeks of age and were then stabilized at one year of age, there was no relationship in immunoglobulin concentrations between bitches and their 7 weeks old puppies. Dogs with high fecal IgA had a better vaccine response indicating a favorable systemic immune status. We found profound differences in the gut microbiome between mothers and young dogs. Litter mates had a more similar fecal microbiome compared to unrelated dogs. The 7 weeks old puppies were no more similar to the mothers than to unrelated bitches at partum. However, the fecal microbiome of the puppies were significantly more similar to their mothers than to unrelated bitches at 7 weeks postpartum. We observed a change in the relative abundance of different bacteria during lactation, and an increase of diversity from pregnancy to end of lactation. We also found that the diversity of fecal microbiome was affected by living environment but we were unable to demonstrate an effect of pre- and postnatal exposure to the chosen strain of probiotics. Our results provide information to an area within canine microbiology and immunology which is not studied before -this is the first study to describe the gut microbiome as well as immunoglobulins (and their relation to each other) in pregnant and lactating bitches and their offspring. This information is a needed foundation for further research on the relationship between the microbiome at an early age and immune function later in life and of value for the evaluation of interventions.
A Comparison of Finite Control Set and Continuous Control Set Model Predictive Control Schemes for Speed Control of Induction Motors

This paper presents a comparative study of two predictive speed control schemes for induction machine (IM) in terms of their design and performance. The first control scheme is finite control set-model predictive control (FCS-MPC) with modulation control and the second control scheme is continuous control set-model predictive control (CCS-MPC) with space vector-pulse width modulation. The two schemes adopt the cascaded control approach, which consists of an inner MPC loop for torque control and outer MPC loop for speed control using two individual cost functions. The outer MPC produces the required torque to drive the IM at the reference speed while the reference torque is taken as the input of the inner MPC, which in turn generates control signals for the inverter. The control states of the two MPCs are constrained with the maximum limits of the drive system. The state feedback is achieved with a standard Kalman filter, which estimates the nonmeasured load torque. For a fair comparison, both approaches are applied to the same IM at the same operational circumstances. The control approaches are implemented and validated in an experimental environment using the same sampling frequency on the same test bench (3.7 kW IM drive). The behavior of the control approaches is assessed by applying reference and disturbance steps to the system in different operational modes. Comparison of the predictive schemes leads to the conclusion that the both MPC approaches achieve similar performances. However, the CCS-MPC scheme has a smaller current ripple and is of low computational complexity. The computing duration is not very different for the three tested schemes. CCS-MPC can cope with a less powerful DSP than for FCS.