Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Lesion Activity Assessment (LAA) in Conjunction With International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) for Occlusal Caries Diagnosis in Permanent Teeth.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical performance and to validate the Lesion Activity Assessment (LAA) in conjunction with the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) for occlusal caries diagnosis in permanent teeth. METHODS Patients with erupted or partially erupted third molars were recruited from the surgery clinic of the School of Dentistry of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. A calibrated examiner evaluated 49 teeth using the ICDAS-LAA criteria. The histologic criterion proposed by Ekstrand and others was used to validate severity at the thresholds D1 (outer half of the enamel), D2 (inner half of the enamel and outer third of the dentin), and D3 (inner or middle third of the dentin). Lesion activity was validated using 0.1% methyl red solution. RESULTS The method demonstrated good reliability (weighted kappa for severity=0.60; unweighted kappa for activity=0.61). The ICDAS presented a higher performance for lesion detection (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [Az]=0.79) using the threshold D3. At the thresholds D1 and D2, the results for Az were 0.57 and 0.74, respectively. Regarding the ICDAS-LAA, Az = 0.59. CONCLUSIONS Clinical protocols can use ICDAS for the severity diagnosis of occlusal caries, but the LAA performance was poor.
A co-design methodology for processor-centric embedded systems with hardware acceleration using FPGA

In this work a co-design flow for processor centric embedded systems with hardware acceleration using FPGAs is proposed. This flow helps to reduce design effort by raising abstraction level while not imposing the need for engineers to learn new languages and tools. The whole system is designed using well established high level modeling techniques, languages and tools from the software domain. That is, an OOP design approach expressed in UML and implemented in C++. Software coding effort is reduced since the C++ implementation not only provides a golden reference model, but may also be used as part of the final embedded software. Hardware coding effort is also reduced. The modular OOP design facilitates the engineer to find the exact methods that need to be accelerated by hardware using profiling tools, preventing useless translations to hardware. Moreover, the two-process structured VHDL design method used for hardware implementation has proven to reduce man-years, code lines and bugs in many major developments. A real-time image processing application for multiple robot localization is presented as a case study. The overall time improvement from the original software solution to the final hardware accelerated solution is 9.7×, with only 4% increase in area (143 extra slices). The embedded solution achieved following the proposed methodology runs 17% faster than in a standard PC, and it is a much smaller, cheaper and less power-consuming solution.
Potassium channels participate in gastric mucosal protection in rats with partial portal vein ligation

Glybenclamide, an adenosine triphosphate–dependent potassium (K+ATP) channel blocker, lowered portal pressure and attenuated the hyperdynamic splanchnic circulation in rats with partial portal vein ligation (PPVL). The purpose of this report was to confirm these observations and to test the hypothesis that glybenclamide could reduce acidified ethanol‐induced gastric mucosal injury in rats with PPVL. Gastric mucosal blood flow (hydrogen gas clearance), systemic blood pressure, and portal pressure were monitored in rats with PPVL or sham operation (SO). Intravenous glybenclamide (20 mg/kg) or vehicle was administered, followed by intragastric acidified ethanol (0.15 N HCl and 15% ethanol). The area of gastric mucosal lesions was assessed by image analysis. In contrast to published findings, there was no significant elevation of portal pressure after glybenclamide administration in rats with PPVL. Glybenclamide did not alter the gastric mucosal hyperemia in these rats. Glybenclamide significantly increased mucosal injury. The data are consistent with the hypothesis that K+ATP channels play a role in protecting the gastric mucosa in rats with PPVL.
TA3C: Teaching-Oriented Adaptive Wi-Fi Authorized Access Control Based on CSI

Wi-Fi has been widely deployed with the rapid development of wireless communication technique. Wi-Fi hotspots are popular in campus, making convenient wireless network access possible. However, during class teaching, in order to avoid students browsing the web based on Wi-Fi hotspots and distracting, we hope Wi-Fi hotspots adaptively shield network access to students in the classroom, while grant access to users outside the classroom. In this work, we prototype TA3C system, a teaching-oriented adaptive Wi-Fi authorized access control scheme, using Channel State Information (CSI) to locate instead of coarse-grained and temporally unstable Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI). CSI can distinguish multipath signals, stay stable in the same propagation environment, and show different characteristics in different propagation environments, based on which, we can distinguish outdoor and indoor environments, and identify user's location to decide whether to offer him wireless network access or not. Experiment results show that TA3C effectively achieve adaptive Wi-Fi authorized access control, which provides a guarantee for the quality of class teaching. Compared to traditional indoor localization techniques, TA3C does not need accurate location information but simply recognizes user's location indoors or outdoors, which means it does not need dedicated hardware, realizing the low-cost indoor localization technique.
The control of tricarboxylate-cycle oxidations in blowfly flight muscle. The oxidized and reduced nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide content of flight muscle and isolated mitochondria, the adenosine triphosphate and adenosine diphosphate content of mitochondria, and the energy status of the mitochond

1. A study is presented of the mitochondrial NADH content during controlled (state 4) and active (state 3) pyruvate oxidation by blowfly flight-muscle mitochondria. The results confirm and extend those of an earlier study (Hansford, 1972), which indicated an increased reduction in state 3. Nicotinamide nucleotide is normally highly oxidized during state 4; however, there can be substantial reduction in the presence of carnitine or high concentrations of proline, or on lengthy incubation in the presence of either of the systems used to generate intramitochondrial tricarboxylate-cycle intermediate. 2. Omission of phosphate leads to substantial reduction and this can be reversed by adding phosphate or acetate. 3. Estimations of NAD-+ and NADH in fly thoraces show a marked increase in NADH on flight, tending to corroborate the results of mitochondrial experiments and testifying to the importance of dehydrogenase activation in this tissue. 4. Determination of intramitochondrial adenine nucleotides reveals a total of 4-5 nmol/mg of protein, and an ADP content of less than 0.1 nmol/mg during state 4 oxidation of pyruvate and proline. ATP content is found to increase slowly during state 4 and this is attributed to the net phosphorylation of AMP. 5. The uncoupling agent carbonyl cyanide p=trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone leads to hydrolysis of some, but not all, of the mitochondrial ATP. Studies of mitochondrial ATPase (adenosine triphosphatase), measured by external pH change, show that it is inactive unless the mitochondria are allowed to respire for several minutes in state 4 in the presence of phosphate before the addition of carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone. It is suggested that phosphate uptake is essential for maximal ATPase activity. 6. Studies of the fluorescence of the fluorochrome 8-anilino-1-naphthalensulphonic acid suggest that the energy status of the mitochondrion is high during state 4-pyruvate oxidattion, and decrease slightly in state 3. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Detection and IgG subclass analysis of antibodies to factor VIII in multitransfused haemophiliacs and healthy individuals

Summary. Using a binding assay to immobilized factor VIII (F VIII) (ELISA) we measured the amount of IgG with binding capacity to FVIII, in the plasma of patients with an inhibitor to F VIII, in multitransfused haemophiliacs without inhibitor and in a control group of blood donors. It was shown that the amount of IgG bound to VIII was elevated in patients with an inhibitor although a weak correlation could be established between the inhibitor titre (BU) and the amount of bound IgG. In all haemophiliacs without inhibitor, IgG bound to F VIII were present. Although the mean value of IgG bound to F VIII was significantly lower than the amount detected in patients with F VIII inhibitors, a group of patients developed an equal amount of IgG recognizing the F VIII molecules to the amount of IgG measured in inhibitor patients. These results indicate that the presence of an inhibitor is not related to the amount of specific IgG bound to F VIII but more likely to the position of epitopes recognized by specific IgG. The presence of IgG bound to F VIII was detected in 92% of control blood donors and an inhibitor to F VIII ranging from 0.5 to 1.3 BU mL‐1 in 17% of them. The isotypes of bound immunoglobins were identified in patients and controls: IgG4 subclass was predominant only in patients with an inhibitor and usually associated with antibodies of one or more of the other subclasses. In noninhibitor patients, very few had antibodies of IgG4 subclass with binding capacity to F VIII. These results raised the question of the clinical significance of these antibodies in multitransfused patients. The study indicates that binding assay is a complementary test to be used in multitransfused patients but cannot be used instead of the coagulation tests for detection of inhibitors.
Gender Discrimination in the Tunisian Labor Market: The Youth Crisis

This paper combines micro-level and macro-level approaches into a unified empirical design to understand the gender gap in Tunisian labor market participation. We use a multilevel propensity score matching analysis in order to reduce selection bias by accounting for the random effects across areas in a hierarchical data structure. Our empirical evidence suggests that despite the admirable progresses in women’s rights and human capital in Tunisia, labor force participation rates are still higher for men than for women. This discrepancy between men and women in their labor market force participation generates a per capita income loss of 20 per cent.
FINANCIAL EXPERTS ON THE BOARD: DOES IT MATTER FOR THE PROFITABILITY AND RISK OF THE U.K. BANKING INDUSTRY?

In this article, I explore the relation among board‐level financial expertise, profitability, and risk with panel data from the U.K. banking industry. The empirical findings document that collectively, financial experts have a positive influence on the performance of banks; contribute to higher risks, especially for large banks; and improve the stock performance of banks. Moreover, the results highlight that board‐level qualified accountants have no statistical effect on profitability, whereas financial and banking professors, as well as financial experts from other industries, have a positive effect. Such findings imply that these two groups of professional financial experts may more easily adopt group‐level profit enhancements. Robustness checks confirm the results for all types of banking institutions, except those with strong real estate portfolios. Finally, certain commercial and/or policy implications of the results are reported.
Sox21 inhibits glioma progression in vivo by forming complexes with Sox2 and stimulating aberrant differentiation

Sox2 is a transcription factor in neural stem cells and keeps the cells immature and proliferative. Sox2 is expressed in primary human glioma such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), primary glioma cells and glioma cell lines and is implicated in signaling pathways in glioma connected to malignancy. Sox21, the counteracting partner of Sox2, has the same expression pattern as Sox2 in glioma but in general induces opposite effects. In this study, Sox21 was overexpressed by using a tetracycline‐regulated expression system (tet‐on) in glioma cells. The glioma cells were injected subcutaneously into immunodeficient mice. The control tumors were highly proliferative, contained microvascular proliferation and large necrotic areas typical of human GBM. Induction of Sox21 in the tumor cells resulted in a significant smaller tumor size, and the effect correlated with the onset of treatment, where earlier treatment gave smaller tumors. Mice injected with glioma cells orthotopically into the brain survived significantly longer when Sox21 expression was induced. Tumors originating from glioma cells with an induced expression of Sox21 exhibited an increased formation of Sox2:Sox21 complexes and an upregulation of S100β, CNPase and Tuj1. Sox21 appears to decrease the stem‐like cell properties of the tumor cells and initiate aberrant differentiation of glioma cells in vivo. Taken together our results indicate that Sox21 can function as a tumor suppressor during gliomagenesis mediated by a shift in the balance between Sox2 and Sox21. The wide distribution of Sox2 and Sox21 in GBM makes the Sox2/Sox21 axis a very interesting target for novel therapy of gliomas.
Ontology Driven Software Engineering: A Review of Challenges and Opportunities

Ontologies are formal representations of knowledge about a given domain. Based on them, it is possible to create more expressive knowledge bases that can be shared, extended and reused in different scenarios. In software engineering, ontologies can contribute in many different ways to improve the models, methods, techniques and processes of software development. Nevertheless, the use and benefits of ontologies and Semantic Web technologies in Software Engineering is spread across several articles and books available in the literature. In this context, this paper aims at compiling and presenting the research findings and potential benefits when applying ontologies to address three major challenges in software engineering: (1) difficulty in communicating and sharing information; (2) effective management of software development phases; and (3) development techniques and environments to support the production of semantic software through an interdisciplinary approach. We believe that the review of the literature and discussions presented in this work can contribute to disseminate best practices of using ontologies in software development as well as to give directions about this field of research, its challenges and opportunities.
Safety, Quality, and the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program

The Institute of Medicine 1999 publication, To Err is Human, focused attention on preventable provider errors in surgery, and prompted numerous new national initiatives to improve patient safety. It is uncertain whether these initiatives have actually improved patient safety, mainly because of the lack of a quantitative metric for the assessment of patient safety in surgery. A 15-year experience with the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, which originated in the Veteran's Administration in 1991 and was recently made available to the private sector, prompts the surgical community to place patient safety in surgery within a much larger conceptual framework than that of the Institute of Medicine report, and provides a quantitative metric for the assessment of patient safety initiatives. This conceptual framework defines patient safety in surgery as safety from all adverse outcomes (not only preventable errors and sentinel events); regards safety as an integral part of quality of surgical care; recognizes that adverse outcomes, and hence patient safety, are primarily determined by quality of systems of care; and uses comparative risk-adjusted outcome data as a metric for the identification of system problems and for the assessment and improvement of patient safety from adverse outcomes.
Progression of Surgical Hair Restoration Techniques

Background: Early surgical hair restoration (SHR) techniques were fraught with limitations. Major advancements and refinements have taken place yielding minimally invasive, relatively scar-free, and natural-looking hair transplantations. Objective: Our aim was to review the origins and advancements of SHR and to discuss future directions for the field. Methods: Searches were performed using: Pubmed, Scopus, and the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery’s Hair Transplant Forum International for articles related to SHR. Reference sections of articles obtained were reviewed. Relevant textbooks obtained were reviewed. Results and Conclusion: SHR techniques originated as macro-level graft transplantations and excision of scalp tissue. They progressed toward micro-level graft transplantations performed with extreme caution and precision. However, all SHR techniques are limited by their reliance on existing donor hair to fill balding areas. Further advancements in hair follicle cell cloning and regeneration of growth may offer a solution to this overarching limitation.
Does the Olympic Agenda 2020 Have the Power to Create a New Olympic Heritage? An Analysis for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Bid

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) lacks candidates willing to host the Olympic Games (OG) and has reacted to this situation by introducing the Olympic Agenda 2020 (OA)—a reform process making the OG more attractive for potential hosts. This study analyzes whether the OA plays a crucial role for the future of the OG. We, therefore, examined the official IOC documents and feasibility studies of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games (WOG) bidders and conducted qualitative interviews with experts in the field (n = 15). The results reveal that the 2026 WOG hosts plan to reduce the budgets for the organization and the infrastructure costs in the host regions. As a consequence, the number and nature of the sites and venues as well as the distances between them will increase. This means that the future Olympic heritage (OH) may lay less in iconic buildings but rather focus on the attempt to fulfil the city’s long-term strategies. Our analyses extend the literature by: (1) analysing the OA in view of future OG, (2) comparing experiences from past OG with those of current bidders, (3) integrating expert knowledge thanks to qualitative interviews and, finally, (4) considering new heritage concepts.
Administration of Capsiate, a Non-Pungent Capsaicin Analog, Promotes Energy Metabolism and Suppresses Body Fat Accumulation in Mice

We investigated the effects of a single oral administration of capsiate, which is found in the fruits of a nonpungent cultivar of pepper, CH-19 Sweet, and has the same structure as capsaicin except for replacement of NH by O in the alkyl chain, on the thermogenesis and fat accumulation in mice. The oxygen consumption and serum adrenalin concentration were higher in both the capsaicin (10 mg/kg-body weight) and capsiate (10 mg/kg-body weight) groups than those in the control group. We also examined the effects of 2 weeks of administration of capsaicin and capsiate on body fat accumulation. Every day for 2 weeks administration of capsiate (10, 50 mg/kg-body weight/day) markedly suppressed body fat accumulation as well as capsaicin (10 mg/kg-body weight/day). These results suggest that capsiate promotes energy metabolism and suppresses body fat accumulation as does capsaicin.
Effects of dietary copper supplementation on production performance and plasma biochemical parameters in broiler chickens

1. A study was conducted to estimate the effect of copper (Cu) supplementation on growth performance and biochemical profiles of blood and meat in broiler chickens. 2. A total of 240 d-old broiler chicks (Vencobb-100) were randomly divided into 12 groups, each of 20 chicks (4 treatments × 3 replicates). 3. The basal diet (T1) contained 215 g kg−1 crude protein (CP), 12·76 MJ kg−1 ME, 32 g kg−1 total calcium and 5 g kg−1 total phosphorus. T2, T3 and T4 were formulated to contain an additional 75, 150 and 250 mg Cu kg−1 diet, respectively. Copper sulphate pentahydrate (CuSO4, 5H2O) was used as the source of Cu. 4. Significant reductions in plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride, and an elevated concentration of HDL-cholesterol, were observed in the chickens fed with 250 mg Cu kg−1 (T4) of feed at the 3rd and 6th week of the experiment. Total cholesterol in meat decreased significantly in the birds fed with dietary Cu at 250 mg kg−1 (T4) of feed. 5. Growth performance was measured in terms of live weight gain, cumulative feed intake and feed conversion ratio at the end of d 21 and d 42 of the experiment, and the result was found to be commercially beneficial for the chickens receiving 150 mg Cu kg−1 (T3) of diet. The concentration of Cu in breast muscle and liver increased significantly at the end of experiment. 6. From this study it can be concluded that supplementation with dietary Cu may be beneficial for production performance and plasma biochemical characteristics of broiler chickens.
Role of cell cohesion in Myxococcus xanthus fruiting body formation

Dsp mutants of Myxococcus xanthus have a complex phenotype with abnormal cell cohesion, social motility, and development. All three defects are the result of a single mutation in the dsp locus, a region of DNA about 14 kilobases long. Cohesion appears to play a central role in social motility, since nonsocial mutants exhibit weak agglutination or, in the case of Dsp cells, no agglutination (L. J. Shimkets, J. Bacteriol. 166:837-841, 1986). However, Dsp cells can be agglutinated by cohesive strains of M. xanthus. This provided the opportunity to examine the role of cohesion during development by comparing the developmental phenotype of Dsp cells with that of Dsp cells mixed with cohesive strains. Dsp mutants were unable to complete any of the developmental behaviors: aggregation, fruiting body formation, developmental autolysis, and sporulation. Contact with cohesive strains seemed to restore some developmental characteristics to the Dsp cells. When allowed to develop with wild-type cells, Dsp cells accumulated in fruiting bodies and underwent developmental autolysis, but did not form a significant portion of the spore population. Igl mutants, which may be similar to the previously described frizzy mutants, are cohesive strains that are unable to form fruiting bodies. Mixing Igl cells with Dsp cells under developmental conditions resulted in fruiting body formation, although the Dsp cells were unable to form significant levels of myxospores. In spite of their inability to sporulate under developmental conditions, Dsp mutants did not appear to be defective in the sporulation process. In fact, they formed normal levels of myxospores in response to the chemical inducer glycerol.