Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The etiology and prevalence of gingival recession.

BACKGROUND Gingival recession in its localized or generalized form is an undesirable condition resulting in root exposure. The result often is not esthetic and may lead to sensitivity and root caries. Exposed root surfaces also are prone to abrasion. The purpose of this article is to describe the prevalence, etiology and factors associated with gingival recession. TYPES OF STUDIES REVIEWED The authors reviewed cross-sectional epidemiologic studies of gingival recession and found that they correlated the prevalence of recession to trauma, sex, malpositioned teeth, inflammation and tobacco consumption. The recent surveys they reviewed revealed that 88 percent of people 65 years of age and older and 50 percent of people 18 to 64 years of age have one or more sites with recession. The presence and extent of gingival recession also increased with age. RESULTS More than 50 percent of the population has one or more sites with gingival recession of 1 mm or more. The prevalence of gingival recession was found in patients with both good and poor oral hygiene. It has been proposed that recession is multifactorial, with one type being associated with anatomical factors and another type with physiological or pathological factors. Recession has been found more frequently on buccal surfaces than on other aspects of the teeth. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS Dentists should be knowledgeable about the etiology, prevalence and associating factors of gingival recession, as well as treatment options, so that appropriate treatment modalities can be offered to patients. Treatments for gingival recession include gingival grafting, guided tissue regeneration and orthodontic therapy. Such treatments typically result in esthetic improvement, elimination of sensitivity and a decreased risk of developing root caries.
The Effects of Isoflurane Pretreatment on Cerebral Blood Flow, Capillary Permeability, and Oxygen Consumption in Focal Cerebral Ischemia in Rats

BACKGROUND: We performed experiments to test whether isoflurane pretreatment produces vascular effects, especially at the levels of arterioles and capillaries affecting regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF), O2 supply and consumption, or capillary permeability in focal cerebral ischemia. Because inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) was implicated as one of the mechanisms of isoflurane preconditioning, the effect of iNOS inhibition on rCBF was also studied. METHODS: Twenty-four hours before middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion, rats were pretreated with 2% isoflurane for 30 minutes using an endotracheal tube and mechanical ventilation for the isoflurane preconditioned (IsoPC) group. For the group of iNOS inhibition, aminoguanidine 200 mg/kg was injected IP 30 minutes before isoflurane pretreatment. One hour after MCA occlusion, rCBF was measured using 14C-iodoantipyrine autoradiography. Alternate slices of the tissue were used to determine arteriolar and venular O2 saturation using cryo microspectrophotometry. Capillary permeability was determined by measuring the transfer coefficient (Ki) of 14C-&agr;-aminoisobutyric acid. Additional measurements of rCBF were performed at 3 hours after MCA occlusion. RESULTS: MCA occlusion decreased rCBF and O2 consumption and increased Ki in both the control and the IsoPC groups at 1 hour after MCA occlusion. In the ischemic cortex (IC), the rCBF and O2 consumption were significantly greater in the IsoPC group than in the control group (+40% and +41%, respectively), but they were similar in the contralateral cortex between the 2 groups. There was no difference in Ki between the groups in the IC or in the contralateral cortex. The increase of rCBF in the IC (+50%) was sustained in the IsoPC group at 3 hours after MCA occlusion. With iNOS inhibition, the increase of rCBF in the IC with isoflurane pretreatment became insignificant. CONCLUSIONS: Our data demonstrate that isoflurane pretreatment improved rCBF and increased the regional O2 supply and consumption in the focal ischemic area but did not affect capillary permeability during the early stage of focal cerebral ischemia. The isoflurane-induced increase in rCBF in the ischemic area became insignificant with inhibition of iNOS.
Evaluation of Hygienic Treatment of Biowastes by Anaerobic Digestion in Biogas Plants

Anaerobic digestion in biogas plants is one of the biological methods for safe handling of biowastes. We evaluated the fate of coliforms and pathogens in different biowaste and bioslurry samples. Bacteria were enumerated and identified by culture based microbiological methods and parasites were detected microscopically by formal-ether sedimentation technique. The mean loads of total and faecal coliforms were significantly decreased (P 0.05) of the size of the biogas plant. The result of this study revealed that the degree of sanitizing biowaste depends on digestion type and nature of biowaste.
Polysaccharide Matrices for Microbially Triggered Drug Delivery to the Colon

Matrix tablets were prepared using xanthan gum (XG) and guar gum (GG) in varying proportions, and the suitability of the prepared tablets was evaluated for colon specific drug delivery. Indomethacin was used as a model drug. The ability of the prepared matrices to retard drug release in the upper gastrointestinal tract (GIT) and to undergo enzymatic hydrolysis by the colonic bacteria was evaluated. For this, drug release studies were carried out in the presence of rat cecal content. Further cecal content of rats with induced enzymatic activity were used. To ascertain the role of bacterial flora in carrying out the hydrolysis of the tablet, cecal content of rats treated with antibiotics were used in the dissolution media. Presence of XG in combination with GG in the tablets could retard drug release in the conditions of the upper GIT. However, the presence of GG and starch made these matrices microbially degradable. Guar gum alone as a drug release‐retarding excipient in the matrices does not achieve the desired retardation. Presence of XG in the tablets not only retards the initial drug release from the tablets, but due to high swelling, makes them more vulnerable to digestion by the microbial enzymes in the colon.
Guidelines for follow up after resection of colorectal cancer

Follow up after colorectal resection is a surgical tradition, which has become a routine part of clinical practice consuming considerable amounts of scarce resources and for which there is precious little evidence of benefit to the patient. Colorectal cancer is a common condition and is the third most common cancer in the UK. The main treatment for this disease is surgical excision. Each consultant colorectal surgeon sees an average of 50 new patients with colorectal cancer each year and probably sees them in an outpatient clinic between one and four times per year. The cost of this type of follow up is uncertain but a recent survey in the United States showed the cost of five years’ follow up varied from $900 to $27 000 per patient.1 As there are over 30 000 new cases of colorectal cancer per annum in England and Wales the use of NHS resources for this group of patients alone is likely to run into tens of millions of pounds per annum. 1. Although there is no evidence that intensive follow up for the detection of recurrent disease improves survival, it is reasonable to offer liver imaging to asymptomatic patients under the age of 70 in order to detect operable liver metastases once during the first two years after resection. (Recommendation Grade:A) 2. Although there is no evidence that colonoscopic follow up improves survival, it does produce a yield of treatable tumours. It is recommended that a “clean” colon is examined by colonoscopy five years after surgery and thereafter at five yearly intervals up to the age of 70 years. (Recommendation Grade:B) 3. In the absence of randomised trials, the only realistic argument for routine follow up is patient support and audit. Audit should be focused on outcome measures. There are approximately 30 000 new cases of …
Pathogenic, diagnostic and vaccine potential of leptospiral outer membrane proteins (OMPs)

Abstract Pathogenic Leptospira species are important human and animal pathogen that causes leptospirosis, with more than half a million cases reported annually but little is known regarding the true incidence of leptospirosis due to the limitations in diagnosis. Proteins embedded in the outer membrane are found to be prime drug targets due to its key role as receptors for cellular communication and gatekeepers for iron and substrate transport across cell membranes. The major key issues to be addressed to overcome the disease burden of leptospirosis are: need to identify the genes that turn on in vivo; development of rapid diagnostic methods to facilitate the early diagnosis and to develop a universal vaccine. Recent whole genome sequencing of Leptospira species and development of in silico analysis tools have led to the identification of a large number of leptospiral virulence genes, metabolic pathways and surface protein secretion systems that represent potential new targets for the development of anti-leptospiral drug, vaccine and diagnostic strategies. This review surveys the different types of outer membrane proteins (OMPs) of Leptospira and combines all the novel features of OMPs reported till date and put forth some views for future research.
rEVIEW one-dimensional dynamical Modeling of Earthquakes: A review

Studies of the power-law relations of seismicity and earthquake source parameters based on the one-dimensional (1-D) Burridge-Knopoff's (BK) dynamical lattice model, especially those studies conducted by Taiwan's scientists, are reviewed in this article. In general, velocity- and/or state-dependent friction is considered to control faulting. A uniform distribution of breaking strengths (i.e., the static friction strength) is taken into account in some studies, and inhomogeneous distributions in others. The scaling relations in these studies include: Omori's law, the magnitude-frequency or energy-frequency relation, the relation between source duration time and seismic moment, the relation between rupture length and seismic moment, the fre- quency-length relation, and the source power spectra. The main parameters of the one-dimensional (1-D) Burridge-Knopoff's (BK) dynamical lattice model include: the decreasing rate (r) of dynamic friction strength with sliding velocity; the type and degree of heterogeneous distribution of the breaking strengths, the stiffness ratio (i.e., the ratio between the stiffness of the coil spring connecting two mass elements and that of the leaf spring linking a mass element and the moving plate); the frictional drop ratio of the minimum dynamic friction strength to the breaking strength; and the maximum breaking strength. For some authors, the distribution of the breaking strengths was considered to be a fractal function. Hence, the fractal dimension of such a distribution is also a significant parameter. Comparison between observed scaling laws and simulation results shows that the 1-D BK dynamical lattice model acceptably approaches fault dynamics.
Ontogeny of critical swimming speed of wild-caught and laboratory-reared red drum Sciaenops ocellatus larvae

Critical swimming speed (Ucrit) provides a useful estimate of maximum swimming per- formance for fish larvae that can be used to assess transport and migratory potential. We measured Ucrit of red drum Sciaenops ocellatus larvae through its ontogeny and compared the swimming per- formance of laboratory-reared larvae to that of wild-caught individuals. Ucrit increased with ontogeny (size), even though variability in Ucrit at any ontogenetic state was large. Ucrit for wild-caught larvae increased from 9.7 to 22.2 cm s -1 over the range of 8.3 to 16.3 mm TL and from 1.1 to 20.5 cm s -1 over the range of 3.0 to 19.1 mm TL for reared larvae. The ontogenetic increase in critical swimming speed occurred in 2 phases — an early phase of rapid improvement and a later phase of slower improve- ment. This sharp change in the trajectory of swimming performance coincided with important changes in ecology, morphology, and hydrodynamics. During the early phase, larvae were pelagic, their growth was highly allometric, especially in the caudal region, and they swam in the inertial hydrodynamic regime. The onset of the later phase coincided with settlement into seagrass beds, iso- metric growth, and inertial effects on locomotion. Wild larvae generally exhibited greater values of Ucrit than reared larvae of a comparable size, but the difference was not statistically significant. The results of this comparison imply that research on reared larvae may provide naturalistic results for swimming performance and that hatchery-produced larvae may perform certain behaviours well when released into the wild.
Chattering-Free Simulation of Hybrid Dynamical Systems with the Functional Mock-Up Interface 2.0

The numerical simulation of non-smooth hybrid systems exhibiting chattering behavior requires high computational costs. In the worst case, the simulation appears to come to a halt, since infinitely many discrete transitions would need to be simulated. In this paper we present an FMI-based framework and prototypical implementation for robust and reliable detection and elimination “On the Fly” of chattering behavior in run-time simulation of non-smooth hybrid systems. The main benefit of the developed framework is that it establishes solvability requirements and theorems for simulating hybrid systems while performing the chattering path avoidance internally in the master algorithm of the interface. This increases the efficiency of the chattering-free simulation as no enumeration of modes is required during the chattering detection and elimination process. The developed FMI-based framework can generate a chattering-free simulation for any generic chattering Functional Mockup Unit (FMU) conforming to the FMI standard v2.0 Specification for model exchange.
Face verification based on convolutional neural network and deep learning

This paper presents the new face verification algorithm based on deep convolutional neural network. The algorithm produces face feature vectors, distance between these vectors allows to determine whether images from the same class. Comparative experimental results are given for LFW test database and modern face recognition algorithms. ROC-curve and equal error rate are used to determine the accuracy of compared algorithms. Testing was carried out under the “image restricted” verification paradigm. With unsupervised learning, the algorithm can't have any access to the data class labels, the statistics of these labels, or the means of generating these labels. Proposed face verification algorithm is more accurate than other modern algorithms.
Effective potentials in nonlinear polycrystals and quadrature formulae

This study presents a family of estimates for effective potentials in nonlinear polycrystals. Noting that these potentials are given as averages, several quadrature formulae are investigated to express these integrals of nonlinear functions of local fields in terms of the moments of these fields. Two of these quadrature formulae reduce to known schemes, including a recent proposition (Ponte Castañeda 2015 Proc. R. Soc. A 471, 20150665 (doi:10.1098/rspa.2015.0665)) obtained by completely different means. Other formulae are also reviewed that make use of statistical information on the fields beyond their first and second moments. These quadrature formulae are applied to the estimation of effective potentials in polycrystals governed by two potentials, by means of a reduced-order model proposed by the authors (non-uniform transformation field analysis). It is shown how the quadrature formulae improve on the tangent second-order approximation in porous crystals at high stress triaxiality. It is found that, in order to retrieve a satisfactory accuracy for highly nonlinear porous crystals under high stress triaxiality, a quadrature formula of higher order is required.
Algorithmic independence of initial condition and dynamical law in thermodynamics and causal inference

We postulate a principle stating that the initial condition of a physical system is typically algorithmically independent of the dynamical law. We discuss the implications of this principle and argue that they link thermodynamics and causal inference. On the one hand, they entail behavior that is similar to the usual arrow of time. On the other hand, they motivate a statistical asymmetry between cause and effect that has recently been postulated in the field of causal inference, namely, that the probability distribution P cause contains no information about the conditional distribution P effect ∣ cause and vice versa, while P effect may contain information about P cause ∣ effect .
Testable Switched-Capacitor Filters

A Design for Test methodology for S-C filters is presented, based on an architecture using some additional circuitry and providing extra capabilities for both off-and on-line test. The approach uses a comparison mechanism to indicate whether or not two copies of a filter element (a biquad, for instance) have a similar response during their actual operation. The design and implementation of an integrated filter is included to assess the potential usefulness of this new approach.
A programmable wireless platform for biomedical signal acquisition

This paper presents a programmable wireless platform for biomedical signal acquisition application. The platform includes 8-channel programmable low-noise frontend circuits, a 12-bit SAR ADC, a digital control and processing unit (DCPU), and a RF transceiver. The number of the readout channels in the platform can be programmable according to the requirements of the applications. And the platform can support a maximum number of 64 readout channels with 8 pieces of low-noise frontend circuits. The platform circuits were implemented in a 0. 18μm CMOS technology. The low-noise frontend shows an input-referred noise of 1. 6μVrms integrated across 1-200Hz with 18. 4μA current consumption per channel. The SAR ADC exhibits an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 10.2bit with 450μA power consumption at the maximum conversion rate up to 1Msps.
Performance-Shaping Factors Affecting Older Adults’ Hospital-to-Home Transition Success: A Systems Approach

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Facilitating older adults' successful hospital-to-home transitions remains a persistent challenge. To address this challenge, we applied a systems lens to identify and understand the performance-shaping factors (PSFs) related older adults' hospital-to-home transition success. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This study was a secondary analysis of semi-structured interviews from older adults (N = 31) recently discharged from a hospital and their informal caregivers (N = 13). We used a Human Factors Engineering approach to guide qualitative thematic analysis to develop four themes concerning the system conditions shaping hospital-to-home transition success. RESULTS The four themes concerning PSFs were: (a) the hospital-to-home transition was a complex multiphase process-the process unfolded over several months and required substantial, persistent investment/effort; (b) there were unmet needs for specialized tools-information and resources provided at hospital discharge were not aligned with requirements for transition success; (c) alignment of self-care routines with transition needs-pre-hospitalization routines could be supportive/disruptive and could deteriorate/be re-established; and (d) changing levels of work demand and capacity during the transition-demand often exceeded capacity leading to work overload. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS Our findings highlight that the transition is not an episodic event, but rather a longitudinal process extending beyond the days just after hospital discharge. Transition interventions to improve older adults' hospital-to-home transitions need to account for this complex multiphase process. Future interventions must be developed to support older adults and informal caregivers in navigating the establishment and re-establishment of routines and managing work demands and capacity during the transition process.
Male partners of women with pelvic infection should be traced

EDITOR,--Minerva asks “Should the male partners of women with pelvic infections be referred for contact tracing? ” and concludes that, although the concept “may seem a good idea,” it is impractical.1 We believe that, however difficult, it must be tackled. The evidence is unquestionable. Kinghorn et al showed that, of 34 male contacts of women with acute salpingitis, 30 had urethritis.2 They concluded that male contacts should be routinely investigated irrespective …
Radiographic Outcomes of Upper Cervical Fusion for Pediatric Patients Younger Than 10 Years

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate radiographic outcomes after posterior spinal fusion (PSF) for pediatric patients younger than 10 years with upper cervical disorders. Methods: Thirteen patients (mean age at surgery, 5.9 years; range, 1 to 9 years) who underwent PSF with a minimum of 2 years of follow-up (mean, 5.8 years) were included. Diagnoses were atlanto-axial instability due to congenital disorders for 11 patients and atlanto-axial rotatory fixation for 2 patients. The fusion area was occipito-cervical for 7 patients and C1/2 for 6 patients. PSF was performed using rigid screw-rod constructs for 6 patients and conventional techniques for 7 patients. Ten patients required halo immobilization after surgery. Fusion status, perioperative complications, radiographic alignment, and range of motion (ROM) from C2 to C7 were evaluated. Results: Twelve patients successfully achieved bony fusion (fusion rate, 92%), but complications occurred in 5 patients. Regarding radiographic measures (preoperative/postoperative/final follow-up), the mean atlanto-dental interval was significantly reduced (8.0 mm/2.7 mm/3.5 mm) and the C2-7 ROM was increased (from 49.4 degrees to 66.0 degrees) at the final follow-up (both comparisons, p<0.05). Sagittal alignment was unchanged. Conclusion: Use of rigid screw-rod instrumentation in the upper cervical spine with careful radiological evaluation is amenable for pediatric patients younger than 10 years. However, conventional procedures such as wiring fixation with rigid external immobilization are still alternative options for preventing serious neurological and vascular complications.
Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model parameters identification based on fuzzy c-regression model clustering algorithm and particle swarm optimization

A methodology for identification of the parameters of the local linear Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models using weighted recursive least square is presented in this paper. The weighted recursive least square (WRLS) is sensitive to initialization which leads to no converge. In order to overcome this problem, particle swarm optimization is employed to optimize the initial states of WRLS. This new approach combines the advantages of fuzzy c-regression model clustering algorithm and particle swarm optimization. Validation results involving simulation of the identification of nonlinear systems have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.