Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Letter: sublingual dosing of tacrolimus in transplant patients―interesting concept to overcome first pass effects. Authors' reply

1. Solari S, Cancino A, Wolff R, et al. Sublingual tacrolimus administration provides similar drug exposure to per-oral route employing lower doses in liver transplantation: a pilot study. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 2017;45:1225-1231. 2. Federico S, Carrano R, Sabbatini M, et al. Sublingual administration improves systemic exposure of tacrolimus in kidney transplant recipients: comparisonwith oral administration. Eur J Clin Invest. 2016;46:651-657.
A Numerical Study of the Probe Method

The goal of this work is the numerical realization of the probe method suggested by Ikehata for the detection of an obstacle D in inverse scattering. The main idea of the method is to use probes in the form of point source $\Phi(\cdot,z)$ with source point z to define an indicator function $\hat{I}(z)$ which can be reconstructed from Cauchy data or far field data. The indicator function $\hat{I}(z)$ can be shown to blow off when the source point z tends to the boundary $\partial D$, and this behavior can be used to find D. To study the feasibility of the probe method we will use two equivalent formulations of the indicator function. We will carry out the numerical realization of the functional and show reconstructions of a sound-soft obstacle.
On the New Barrier Function and Specialized Algorithms for a Class of Semidefinite Programs

Semidefinite programs (SDPs) arising from the Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov (KYP) lemma are frequently encountered in systems robustness analysis, filter design, and other control/signal processing related applications. These programs possess a special structure that can be exploited to construct specialized algorithms that substantially outperform general-purpose SDP solvers. In this paper, a new interior path-following algorithm that utilizes this structure is proposed. The main idea behind the algorithm is a new barrier function for these specially structured SDPs. Convergence of the new algorithm is shown and a measure of the accuracy of suboptimal solutions produced by the algorithm is provided. The algorithm is tested in numerical experiments and the results indicate that the new algorithm is indeed favorable against general-purpose SDP solvers in many circumstances.
Linear Systems Subject to Input Saturation and Time Delay: Finite-Gain $L{\lowercasep}$-Stabilization

This paper deals with finite-gain stabilization of linear systems by static feedbacks which are bounded and time-delayed. For neutrally stable continuous-time linear systems, we provide a saturated linear feedback law ensuring finite-gain stability with respect to every $L^p$-norm, $p \in [1, \infty]$, with an arbitrary small bound on the control and large (constant) delay. Moreover, we provide upper bounds for the corresponding $L^p$-gains which are delay-independent.
High Order Terms for Condition Estimation of Univariate Polynomials

The established expressions for the condition numbers of a root of a polynomial assume that the perturbations in its coefficients are small, such that only the lowest order terms in a Taylor series need be considered. This restriction to the lowest order terms is considered in this paper, and it is shown that there exists a well-defined class of polynomial for which it is not valid. In particular, if a root $x_{0}$ of a polynomial $p(x)$ is close to but distinct from its neighboring roots $x_{i},i=1,\dots,r$, it is shown that it is necessary to consider higher order terms in the Taylor series. These additional terms imply that a closed form expression for the condition number of $x_{0}$ cannot be obtained, and numerical methods must therefore be employed. In this paper, a high order Taylor series is used to compute the region in the complex plane in which the perturbed root $x_{0} + \delta x_{0}$ lies, and this enables the variation of the condition number of $x_{0}$ with the distances to its neighboring roots to be established. It is shown that this extra information, which cannot be obtained if only the lowest order terms are used, is significant.
Clinically Relevant Assessment of the Variability of Glycemic Response and Its Affect on Surgical Site Infection Rates

Purpose: Despite growing interest in perioperative glycemic control, little data existdefining the optimal value(s) to use to define appropriate glycemic management and the impact on the incidence of surgical site infection (SSI). The aim of this study was to assess variation in glycemic response and risk of SSI and hospital stay as defined by themaximum, minimum, and area under the curve for perioperative glucose in patients undergoing colectomy. We specifically used standard of care obtained glucose levels to reflect limitations of observations typically used to assess quality of care. Methods: All patients undergoing colectomy from 7/2007 to 6/2008 were assessed for the maximum and minimum levels of standard of care glucose levels, as well as area under the curve (AUC) for elevated glucose perioperatively. These were assessed for patients with and without SSI (SSI vs nSSI). Results: 183 consecutive patients were evaluated (22 diabetics). The incidence of SSI for the entire population was 17/183 (9.3%) without significant difference between the groups with respect to mean blood glucose level (SSI-136; nSSI-136). However, the SSI group had a higher maximum glucose level (SSI-194; nSSI 162; p 110 mg/dl (SSI-59%; nSSI-62%) or glucose > 150 mg/dl (SSI 6%; nSSI 18%). Conclusions: The data demonstrate that patients with SSI have wider fluctuations inglycemic response compared to non-SSI when standard of care serum glucose levels wasreviewed. Therefore, quality program monitoring of glucose impact on SSI should focus on both maximum and minimum levels during the perioperative period to better define process improvement in colectomy patients.
Trial watch

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) have first been characterized for their capacity to detect conserved microbial components like lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and double-stranded RNA, resulting in the elicitation of potent (innate) immune responses against invading pathogens. More recently, TLRs have also been shown to promote the activation of the cognate immune system against cancer cells. Today, only three TLR agonists are approved by FDA for use in humans: the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL) and imiquimod. BCG (an attenuated strain of Mycobacterium bovis) is mainly used as a vaccine against tuberculosis, but also for the immunotherapy of in situ bladder carcinoma. MPL (derived from the LPS of Salmonella minnesota) is included in the formulation of Cervarix®, a vaccine against human papillomavirus-16 and -18. Imiquimod (a synthetic imidazoquinoline) is routinely employed for actinic keratosis, superficial basal cell carcinoma, and external genital warts (condylomata acuminata). In this Trial Watch, we will summarize the results of recently completed clinical trials and discuss the progress of ongoing studies that have evaluated/are evaluating FDA-approved TLR agonists as off-label medications for cancer therapy.
Tooth implant supported Prosthesis: A Literature review

Background: Implants are connected to the natural teeth in the management of partially edentulous patients. The use of this concept has been a subject of discussion as some authors have recommended it while others stress on the potential complications associated with splinting implants to natural teeth. Purpose: The purpose of this article was to systematically review the literature regarding the rationale, difference in the biomechanical behavior of the implant and the natural teeth, nature of connection, potential complications associated with splinting of implants and teeth, and guidelines to be followed. Materials and Methods: Various databases like PubMed, Ebscohost, Science Direct were searched between 1980 to December 2011 to retrieve articles regarding the implant natural teeth connection. A manual search for the references from the retrieved articles was also completed. The articles published only in English, randomized clinical trials, prospective and retrospective clinical studies, laboratory and computer generated research were included. Abstracts, opinion articles, technique articles and questionnaire based studies were excluded. Results: The biomechanical impact of mismatch in the mobility pattern of natural teeth and implants has been controversial. Various complications associated with tooth implant supported prosthesis has been reported with intrusion and implant overloading being the cause of concern. Marginal bone loss associated with overload around the implant has been reported and found to be within acceptable levels. The reports also suggested no significant differences between various types of connections utilized and to use the non rigid connections with caution. Conclusion: Whenever possible implant supported prostheses should be the treatment of choice. However, certain clinical situations demand connecting teeth to implants. Clinical Relevance to Interdisciplinary Dentistry The difference in the biomechanical behaviour between osseointegrated implants and teeth and the efficacy of the different modes of connection that have been employed are explored. Evidence based decisions could be made concerning utility of connecting teeth to implants
Bifurcation Analysis of a Mathematical Model for Malaria Transmission

We present an ordinary differential equation mathematical model for the spread of malaria in human and mosquito populations. Susceptible humans can be infected when they are bitten by an infectious mosquito. They then progress through the exposed, infectious, and recovered classes, before reentering the susceptible class. Susceptible mosquitoes can become infected when they bite infectious or recovered humans, and once infected they move through the exposed and infectious classes. Both species follow a logistic population model, with humans having immigration and disease‐induced death. We define a reproductive number, $R_0$, for the number of secondary cases that one infected individual will cause through the duration of the infectious period. We find that the disease‐free equilibrium is locally asymptotically stable when $R_0 1$. We prove the existence of at least one endemic equilibrium point for all $R_0 > 1$. In the absence of disease‐induced death, we prove that the tran.
Output Stabilization via Nonlinear Luenberger Observers

The present paper addresses the problem of the existence of an (output) feedback law that asymptotically steers to zero prescribed outputs, while keeping all state variables bounded, for any initial conditions in a given compact set. The problem can be viewed as an extension of the classical problem of semiglobally stabilizing the trajectories of a controlled system to a compact set. The problem also encompasses a version of the classical problem of output regulation. Under only a weak minimum phase assumption, it is shown that there exists a controller solving the problem at hand. The paper is deliberately focused on theoretical results regarding the existence of such a controller. Practical aspects involving the design and the implementation of the controller are left to a forthcoming work.
The [barred L]ojasiewicz Inequality for Nonsmooth Subanalytic Functions with Applications to Subgradient Dynamical Systems

Given a real-analytic function $f:\mathbb{R}^{n} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}$ and a critical point $a \in \mathbb{R}^{n}$, the Łojasiewicz inequality asserts that there exists $\theta\in\lbrack\frac{1}{2},1)$ such that the function $|f-f(a)|^{\theta}\,\Vert\nabla f\Vert^{-1}$ remains bounded around $a$. In this paper, we extend the above result to a wide class of nonsmooth functions (that possibly admit the value $+\infty$), by establishing an analogous inequality in which the derivative $\nabla f(x)$ can be replaced by any element $x^{\ast}$ of the subdifferential $\partial f(x)$ of $f$. Like its smooth version, this result provides new insights into the convergence aspects of subgradient-type dynamical systems. Provided that the function $f$ is sufficiently regular (for instance, convex or lower-$C^{2}$), the bounded trajectories of the corresponding subgradient dynamical system can be shown to be of finite length. Explicit estimates of the rate of convergence are also derived.
Getting on in the BBC: a case study of older workers

National (and international) trends in the employment of older workers show a decline in the economic participation of older people, and especially older men, since the 1970s, and general evidence of age discrimination in the workplace. This case study of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) examines statistical patterns in the fortunes of staff aged 50 years and over in a company with good reason to buck the trends. The BBC is a large, publicly-funded, equal opportunities employer endeavouring to reflect a diverse nation in its staff composition. The research is in two parts. First, we carried out a comparison at five-year intervals of the age profile of the Corporation and observed trends in official retirement at age 60 and the employment of staff working beyond retirement age, from 1978 to 1993. Secondly, an age-related analysis of departures, recruitment and part-time working was undertaken for a 12-month period, from 1992 to 1993. The research revealed the increasing marginalisation of older workers at the BBC. This accelerated during a period of substantial contraction in the latter part of the 15-year study period and led to an age profile far younger than in other public sectors such as Local Government. Pressures to become ‘lean and efficient’ appeared to have been at the expense of older workers, who were unprotected in the workplace.
A Model for Viral Genome Packing

A method is developed to simulate the process of double‐stranded (ds) DNA packing in viral capsids. The dsDNA is modeled as a discrete single‐stranded homopolymer with an all‐elastic potential that is parameterized only by the experimentally measured rise per base pair (bp) and the persistence length of free dsDNA in physiological conditions. No properties from experiments on packaged viral DNA are used in the model, and thus the model does not presuppose any energies or conformations in the viral capsid. While the elastic DNA model is general and may be successfully applied to a wide range of coarse graining (up to about 20bp per monomer), a resolution of 6bp per monomer is chosen for the viral packing problem. The model is simple enough at this resolution to simulate the entire packaging process of viruses as large as bacteriophage λ (with a genome length of 48,502bp). The packing protocol developed here allows for multiple simulations of independent packing events, and the results show that there is su.
The Noncentral Chi-square Distribution in Misspecified Structural Equation Models: Finite Sample Results from a Monte Carlo Simulation

The noncentral chi-square distribution plays a key role in structural equation modeling (SEM). The likelihood ratio test statistic that accompanies virtually all SEMs asymptotically follows a noncentral chi-square under certain assumptions relating to misspecification and multivariate distribution. Many scholars use the noncentral chi-square distribution in the construction of fit indices, such as Steiger and Lind's (1980) Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) or the family of baseline fit indices (e.g., RNI, CFI), and for the computation of statistical power for model hypothesis testing. Despite this wide use, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which the test statistic follows a noncentral chi-square in applied research. Our study examines several hypotheses about the suitability of the noncentral chi-square distribution for the usual SEM test statistic under conditions commonly encountered in practice. We designed Monte Carlo computer simulation experiments to empirically test these research hypotheses. Our experimental conditions included seven sample sizes ranging from 50 to 1000, and three distinct model types, each with five specifications ranging from a correct model to the severely misspecified uncorrelated baseline model. In general, we found that for models with small to moderate misspecification, the noncentral chi-square distribution is well approximated when the sample size is large (e.g., greater than 200), but there was evidence of bias in both mean and variance in smaller samples. A key finding was that the test statistics for the uncorrelated variable baseline model did not follow the noncentral chi-square distribution for any model type across any sample size. We discuss the implications of our findings for the SEM fit indices and power estimation procedures that are based on the noncentral chi-square distribution as well as potential directions for future research.
Neglected Aspects of Self-Theory: Motivation, Interpersonal Aspects, Culture, Escape, and Existential Value

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Spectral Analysis of the Discrete Helmholtz Operator Preconditioned with a Shifted Laplacian

Shifted Laplace preconditioners have attracted considerable attention as a technique to speed up convergence of iterative solution methods for the Helmholtz equation. In this paper we present a comprehensive spectral analysis of the Helmholtz operator preconditioned with a shifted Laplacian. Our analysis is valid under general conditions. The propagating medium can be heterogeneous, and the analysis also holds for different types of damping, including a radiation condition for the boundary of the computational domain. By combining the results of the spectral analysis of the preconditioned Helmholtz operator with an upper bound on the GMRES-residual norm we are able to provide an optimal value for the shift, and to explain the meshdependency of the convergence of GMRES preconditioned with a shifted Laplacian. We illustrate our results with a seismic test problem.
Algebraic Characterizations for Positive Realness of Descriptor Systems

In this paper, algebraic characterizations for the positive realness of descriptor systems are studied. It is shown that the positive realness of descriptor systems can be determined by solving a linear matrix inequality, and hence the celebrated positive real lemma for standard state space systems is extended to descriptor systems. In addition, the lossless positive realness of both standard state space systems and descriptor systems is characterized explicitly based on the controllable staircase forms of standard state space systems and the generalized controllable staircase forms of descriptor systems, respectively.
Locating Servers for Reliability and Affine Embeddings

Consider the problem of locating servers in a network for the purpose of storing data, performing an application, etc., so that at least one server will be available to clients even if up to $k$ component failures occur throughout the network. Letting $G = (V,E)$ be the graph with vertex set $V$ and edge set $E$ representing the topology of the network, and letting $L \subseteq V$ be a set of potential locations for the servers, a fundamental problem is to determine a minimum-size set $S \subseteq L$ such that the network remains connected to $S$ even if up to $k$ component failures occur throughout the network. We say that such a set $S$ is $k$-fault-tolerant. In this paper we present an algebraic characterization of $k$-fault-tolerant sets in terms of affine embeddings of $G$ in $k$-dimensional Euclidean space. Employing this characterization, we present a polynomial-time Monte Carlo algorithm for computing a minimum-size $k$-fault-tolerant subset $S$ of $L$. In fact, we solve the following more general problem for directed networks: given a digraph $G = (V,E)$ (an undirected graph is equivalent to a symmetric digraph) and a subset $L \subseteq V$, we find a $k$-fault-tolerant subset $S$ of $L$ having minimum cost, where a unary integer cost $c(v)$ is associated with locating a server at vertex $v \in V$.
Vigilância pós-alta das infecções de sítio cirúrgico em crianças e adolescentes em um hospital universitário de Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil

As infeccoes hospitalares sao as principais complicacoes na pratica cirurgica e, dentre estas, as infeccoes de sitio cirurgico sao as mais frequentes. Apesar dessas infeccoes poderem se manifestar apos a alta, no Brasil, a maioria dos servicos nao faz vigilância pos-alta. Para avaliar a importância dessa vigilância e o perfil das infeccoes em criancas e adolescentes, acompanhou-se uma coorte de 730 pacientes cirurgicos de um hospital universitario de Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil, de 1999 a 2001. Calculou-se a incidencia acumulada, aplicou-se o teste t de Student na comparacao de medias e o metodo de Kaplan-Meier na analise do tempo de ocorrencia das infeccoes; considerou-se significativo o valor p < 0,05. Foram diagnosticadas 87 infeccoes de sitio cirurgico na coorte estudada, sendo 37% apos a alta hospitalar. A taxa de incidencia de infeccoes de sitio cirurgico foi de 11,9%; mas seria apenas de 7,5% sem o controle pos-alta. Verificou-se no grupo dos pacientes com infeccoes identificadas apos a alta uma media de aparecimento das infeccoes de 11,3 ± 6,4 dias; que os tempos de permanencia pre e pos-operatorios foram significativamente menores em relacao aos pacientes com infeccoes intra-hospitalares. O estudo indica que a vigilância pos-alta e importante para se conhecer a real incidencia das infeccoes de sitio cirurgico.