Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
FEM modeling of vertically integrated nanogenerators in compression and flexion modes

This paper analyzes the working principle and structure strength of vertically integrated piezoelectric nanowires into active devices for sensing or energy harvesting applications. Finite element method simulations have been used to evaluate the performances of the devices working in flexion and compression modes under varying input pressure. The geometric influence on the energy generation is also analyzed.
Expression of autocrine motility factor mRNA is a poor prognostic factor in high‐grade astrocytoma

It has been reported that tumor infiltration is correlated with the expression of autocrine motility factor (AMF) and its receptor 78 kDa glycoprotein (gp78). The purpose of the present study was to detect AMF and gp78 mRNA expression levels and their localization in high‐grade astrocytomas (glioblastoma and anaplastic astrocytoma) and to determine whether AMF and gp78 are important prognostic factors. A total of 32 formalin‐fixed and paraffin‐embedded glioblastomas and 23 formalin‐fixed and paraffin‐embedded anaplastic astrocytomas was used. The expressions of AMF and gp78 mRNA were detected using the highly sensitive in situ hybridization method. The expression of AMF mRNA was detected in 27 of 32 glioblastomas (84.4%) and 11 of 23 anaplastic astrocytomas (47.8%). The positivity of AMF mRNA was significantly higher in glioblastomas than in anaplastic astrocytomas (P = 0.0094), but gp78 mRNA was detected in most cases and no statistical significance was observed. The overall survival of patients with AMF expression was significantly shorter than patients without AMF expression (P = 0.0175). In anaplastic astrocytomas, the overall survival of patients with AMF expression was also significantly shorter than in patients without AMF expression (P = 0.0058). This study demonstrated that AMF is a poor prognostic factor in high‐grade astrocytomas.
The importance of monocytes and macrophages in HIV pathogenesis, treatment, and cure

Monocytes and macrophages play critical roles in HIV transmission, viral spread early in infection, and as a reservoir of virus throughout infection. There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the biology of monocyte subsets and macrophages and their role in HIV pathogenesis, partly fuelled by efforts to understand difficulties in achieving HIV eradication. This article examines the importance of monocyte subsets and tissue macrophages in HIV pathogenesis. Additionally, we will review the role of monocytes and macrophages in the development of serious non-AIDS events including cardiovascular disease and neurocognitive impairment, their significance in viral persistence, and how these cells represent an important obstacle to achieving HIV eradication.
Reconstruction following radical maxillectomy with flaps supplied by the subscapular artery.

The authors present their experience of 27 cases with repairs of defects following radical maxillectomies with free flaps. A total of 28 flaps were used (five latissimus dorsi, six scapula, 16 combination flaps of scapula and latissimus dorsi and one combination of scapula, latissimus dorsi and serratus anterior flap). Only one scapula flap was completely lost and in three cases where a combination of scapula and latissimus dorsi flap was used, partial necrosis of one component occurred. The authors first choice for reconstruction is a scapula bone flap raised on the angular artery combined with the latissimus dorsi flap. The combination of flaps with a long pedicle and of the bony and muscular components provides the surgeon with the option of customizing the flap to meet individual patient needs. For intraoral closure the authors prefer the latissimus dorsi muscle which rarely requires secondary procedures for prosthesis placement following epithelialization and atrophy. The main disadvantage of the flap is the difficulty of two teams working simultaneously, thus increasing the average operating time. All postoperative corrections and prosthetic rehabilitation should be postponed for at least 2 months following surgery because of postoperative swelling.
The Anatomy of the Sarcoplasmic Reticulum in Vertebrate Skeletal Muscle: Its Implications for Excitation Contraction Coupling

Abstract The sarcoplasmic reticulum in situ is an intricate tubular network that surrounds the contractile material in striated muscle cells. Its topographical relationship to other intracellular components, especially the myofibrils, is rather rigidly mainiained by a cytoskeleton which enmeshes Z line material and sarcoplasmic reticulum and, ultimately, is anchored at the plasmalemma. As a result, the two main components of the sarcoplasmic reticulum, the junctional SR and the free SR, retain their typical location in the A band region and in the I band region, respectively. The junctional SR, which is thought to be the site for calcium storage and release for contraction, is, thus, always well within one micron of the regulatory proteins associated with the actin filaments. The junctional SR, a synonym for terminal cisterna applying to both skeletal and cardiac muscle, is generally held to be involved in the translation of the action potential into calcium release, mainly because of the close topographic apposition between the junctional SR and the plasmalemma, especially in skeletal muscle. This attractive structure-function correlation is challenged by the observation that in bird cardiac muscle 80% of the junctional SR is spacially far removed from plasmalemma, the site of electrical activity. This anomalous topography is not in conflict with the notion that translation of the action potential into calcium release may be accomplished by a diffusible transmitter substance, e.g. calcium. Any hypothesis dealing with this problem must ac count for the anatomy of the bird heart.
Is Smoking a Modifiable Risk Factor for Developing Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Background - India has very high rates of tuberculosis and smoked tobacco use among adults. Efforts to control both tobacco use and tuberculosis in India need to be addressed. Our objective is to examine the role of smoking as a risk factor for the development of pulmonary tuberculosis. Methods - A total of 613 TB patients frequency matched with 1226 controls were interviewed by using a structured questionnaire. The associations between cigarette smoking and risk of TB were estimated by computing odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) from logistic regression model. Patients' smoking behavior and patterns of smoking cessation were followed after TB diagnosis. Results - The proportion of cigarette smoking was 54.6% in TB cases, which was significantly higher than that in controls (45.1%) with adjusted OR of 1.93(95% CI: 1.51-2.48) Conclusion - Cigarette smoking was associated with lifetime TB infection and the association was most evident among the heaviest smokers (> 1 pack per day, > 30 pack years). Interventions of smoking cessation are recommended to be included in the current TB control practice.
Interpretation of DGA for transformer fault diagnosis with complementary SaE-ELM and arctangent transform

This paper presents a novel approach for power transformer incipient fault diagnosis through the analysis of dissolved gas in oil. The proposed approach is implemented for improving the diagnosis accuracy by dissolved gas analysis (DGA) of power transformer based on the combined use of a multi-classification algorithm self-adaptive evolutionary extreme learning machine (SaE-ELM) and a simple arctangent transform (AT). On the one hand, the SaE-ELM algorithm has the ability to approximate any nonlinear functions with its structure parameters, i.e. hidden node biases and output weights, optimized self-sufficiently. On the other hand, the AT can alter the data structure of the experiment data, which will enhance the generalization capability for SaE-ELM as well as other machine learning algorithms. Thus, the combination of SaEELM and AT can complement each other and improve the diagnosis accuracy from the aspect of both algorithm and data structure. The performances of the proposed approach are compared with that derived from ANN, SVM, and ELM methods, respectively. Experimental results with both published and power utility provided data indicate that the developed approach can significantly improve the accuracies for power transformer fault diagnosis.
Bioactive materials in conservative dentistry

Bioactive materials have been used in every field of dentistry and medicine. These materials are broadly used in the field of conservative dentistry for regeneration, repair and reconstruction. These materials are available in different form and composition that acts directly on vital tissue inducing its healing and repair. These materials directly function because of induction of various growth factors and different cells. Thus, this article describes various bioactive materials, the form in which they are available and its uses.
Two signals in the human rod visual system: A model based on electrophysiological data

Abstract In the human rod visual system, self-cancellation of flicker signals is observed at high rod intensity levels near 15 Hz, both perceptually and in the electroretinogram (ERG). This and other evidence suggests that two rod signals are transmitted through the human retina with different speeds of transmission. Here we report a series of flicker ERG recordings from a normal observer and an observer who lacks cone vision. From these results, we propose a quantitative model of the two rod signals, which assumes (1) that the amplitude of the slow signal grows linearly with log intensity but then saturates at ~1 scot, td; (2) that the amplitude of the fast signal grows linearly with intensity; (3) that there is a difference in time delay of ~33 ms between two rod signals of the same polarity (or of ~67 ms if the signals are of inverted polarity); and (4) that the time delay of both signals declines linearly with log intensity (by ~10 ms per log scot. td). These simple assumptions provide a remarkably good account of the experimental data. Our results and model are relevant to current anatomical theories of the mammalian rod visual system. We speculate that the slower signal in the human ERG may reflect the transmission of the rod response via the rod bipolars and the An amacrine cells, while the faster signal may reflect its transmission via the rod-cone gap junctions and the cone bipolars. There are, however, several objections to this simple correspondence.
Evolutionary crossroads in developmental biology: the tunicates

The tunicates, or urochordates, constitute a large group of marine animals whose recent common ancestry with vertebrates is reflected in the tadpole-like larvae of most tunicates. Their diversity and key phylogenetic position are enhanced, from a research viewpoint, by anatomically simple and transparent embryos, compact rapidly evolving genomes, and the availability of powerful experimental and computational tools with which to study these organisms. Tunicates are thus a powerful system for exploring chordate evolution and how extreme variation in genome sequence and gene regulatory network architecture is compatible with the preservation of an ancestral chordate body plan.
[Motivation in brief psychotherapy: a 30 patients study, valued in a psychiatric day-hospital].

INTRODUCTION The most important predictive factor for a successful outcome in Brief Psychotherapy is the motivation of patients to the treatment itself. Against the scarcity of literature on the subject, so far limited to offer standardized tools to assess motivation, applied mainly to education and work's areas, in spite of a possible application in psychotherapy, it was considered necessary to develop a questionnaire ad hoc. MATERIALS AND METHODS It was therefore created a pattern of motivational diagnosis of the problem based on a sequence of questions and answers, which would make possible the classification of each case and then that could lead to the use of a specific method. It is the result of the attempt to create an orderly pattern and that it would be easy to use and then be analyzed. The questionnaire consists of twenty one questions and requires that the patient answers with a "yes" or a "no" to each applicant. It was administered to thirty patients who came from the psychiatric day hospital. The questionnaire was used as a "not standardized thread" in which, through groups of questions, are addressed some central cores: the spontaneous activity, motivation controlled from the outside, motivation directed to an activity that leads to results, motivation to and activity for a purpose, expectations of self-efficacy, the presence/absence of resistance and finally the area of the will. The purpose of this work is to show, bringing a contribution in agreement with the few studies on the subject, how motivation is a key parameter for predicting the effectiveness of a psychotherapy, in this case, Brief Psychotherapy. CONCLUSIONS The study clearly shows how the motivation is the most important positive predictor in the preliminary assessment of a Brief Psychotherapy: results in treatment are most likely to be rapid and favorable if patients are motivated to change andif they are engaged with the therapist.
Regulation of Hox gene expression and posterior development by the Xenopus caudal homologue Xcad3

The caudal gene codes for a homeodomain transcription factor that is required for normal posterior development in Drosophila. In this study the biological activities of the Xenopus caudal (Cdx) family member Xcad3 are examined. A series of domain‐swapping experiments demonstrate that the N‐terminus of Xcad3 is necessary for it to activate Hox gene expression and that this function can be replaced by the activation domain from the viral protein VP16. In addition, experiments using an Xcad3 repressor mutant (XcadEn‐R), which potently blocks the activity of wild‐type Xcad3, are reported. Overexpression of XcadEn‐R in embryos inhibits the activation of the same subset of Hox genes that are activated by wild‐type Xcad3 and leads to a dramatic disruption of posterior development. We show that Xcad3 is an immediate early target of the FGF signalling pathway and that Xcad3 posteriorizes anterior neural tissue in a similar way to FGF. Furthermore, Xcad3 is required for the activation of Hox genes by FGFs. These data provide strong evidence that Xcad3 is required for normal posterior development and that it regulates the expression of the Hox genes downstream of FGF signalling.
Severity of withdrawal symptoms as a predictor of outcome of an attempt to quit smoking

SYNOPSIS In 227 smokers' clinic clients who managed at least one week of abstinence, ratings of withdrawal symptoms were used to predict subsequent return to smoking. Depression, time spent with urges to smoke, and difficulty not smoking during the first week of abstinence were significantly associated with lapse back to smoking during the second week. Depression and difficulty not smoking during the second week significantly predicted smoking status during the third week. No withdrawal symptoms during the third week were associated with a return to smoking during the fourth week. The predictive power of withdrawal symptoms was over and above that of smoke intake and dependence. The findings provide some support for the view that reduction of withdrawal symptoms may be a worthwhile target in programmes for helping smokers to quit.
The impact of the system state on energy‐efficient transmission of multiple users' flows on the uplink

This work investigates an energy‐efficient link transmission adapted by the system state, ie, the instantaneous total number of a dynamically varying setting of mobile terminals that arrive as independent elastic flows at the Session Layer and are served by Round‐Robin discipline on the uplink. We focus on realistic scenarios of classes of mobile terminals with different constant power profiles and different radio conditions. The analysis shows that state‐dependent link adaptation significantly improves energy efficiency on the long term in comparison to state‐oblivious energy‐efficient link adaptation schemes that have been thoroughly investigated in the literature, offering, at the same time, substantially lower mean latency for transferring files on the uplink. The reason for this important improvement in performance is that the probability of an empty system pool increases faster with the arrival rate under the state‐dependent transmission. Therefore, an active user waiting to be served sees with higher probability no other customers in the queue.
New Methods and Modifications of Glaucoma Filtration Surgery

Throughout the history of surgical treatment of glaucoma, glaucoma filtering surgery has been an evolutionary endeavor. Numerous methods of subconjunctival drainage have been attempted over the years with varying levels of success and complication rates. The first major step toward the modern glaucoma filtration surgery began with the introduction of a scleral flap formation in the report of Cairns in 1968. This was one of the initial steps toward the modern trabeculectomy, a term credited to Sugar in 1957. This small variation in technique subsequently led to improved outcomes and lower complication rates compared with earlier filtration procedures. Today, trabeculectomy has become the gold standard of glaucoma incisional procedures. The effectiveness of this surgery has proven equivalent to medical and laser therapy for open angle glaucoma after 5 years of treatment (Collaborative Initial Glaucoma Treatment Study). It has been effective at lowering the intraocular pressure (IOP) of glaucomatous eyes with some studies reporting a 25% IOP lowering advantage over newer surgical treatment modalities. Despite its success, the standard trabeculectomy is not without risk. It is a procedure with several short and long-term complications. Intraoperative complications can include hemorrhage, choroidal effusion, or vitreous loss. Early postoperative complications include hypotony with or without flat anterior chamber or maculopathy, hyphema, ‘‘snuff out’’ syndrome, and dellen. Late postoperative complications can include bleb leaks, endophthalmitis, and cataracts. In addition to these complications,
A multi-phase adaptively guided multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition for travelling salesman problem

In this paper, a multi-phase strategy for dynamic resource allocation is proposed for some special optimization problems where the evolutionary process cannot be explicitly divided into two phases, under the decomposition-based multiobjective evolutionary optimization framework. Based on the evolutionary status, a switching mechanism is adopted to adaptively use either convergence or diversity information in the external archive, to guide the evolutionary search in the working population. The proposed algorithm is compared with six well-known multiobjective evolutionary algorithms on multiobjective travelling salesman problem (MOTSP). Experimental results show that our proposed algorithm performs better than other compared algorithms.
Impaired Automatic Arm Movements in Obstetric Brachial Plexus Palsy Suggest a Central Disorder

The authors aimed to find evidence for a central component of the impairment of movement of the affected arm in children with obstetric brachial plexus palsy. The authors performed a cross-sectional study in 19 children (median age 5 years) with obstetric brachial plexus palsy who were able to voluntarily abduct their affected arm beyond 90 degrees. They were asked to perform 4 tasks designed to provoke automatic arm movements to maintain balance. The authors assumed automatic motor programming to be impaired when 2 of 3 investigators agreed using video recordings that the affected arm did not abduct beyond 90 degrees while the unaffected arm did. Children abducted the affected arm less often than the healthy one (generalized binary logistic model of all 4 tasks, P = .001). The deficit during automatic arm abduction was not observed during voluntary movements and therefore cannot be explained by a peripheral deficit, suggesting a central component.
ε‐sarcoglycan mutations found in combination with other dystonia gene mutations

Myoclonus‐dystonia is a movement disorder associated with mutations in the ε‐sarcoglycan gene (SGCE) in most families and in the DRD2 and DYT1 genes in two single families. In both of the latter families, we also found a mutation of SGCE. The molecular mechanisms through which the detected mutations may contribute to myoclonus‐dystonia remain to be determined.
International trends in incidence of cervical cancer: II. Squamous‐cell carcinoma

Time trends in the incidence of squamous‐cell carcinomas of the cervix during the period 1973–1991 were examined using data provided by 60 population‐based cancer registries from 32 defined populations in 25 countries. Three components of the incidence trend were studied: age, calendar period of diagnosis and birth cohort. Cumulative incidence rates per 1,000 person‐years for 2 groups, age ranges 25–49 and 50–74 years, were calculated from the model that best described the incidence data. A significant decline in incidence was noted in the American populations (except for US Hispanic), Australia, the non‐Maori women of New Zealand, northern and western Europe (except Italy and Spain, where the rates remain stable) and Asian populations (except Malay women of Singapore, who have stable rates). These trends were of similar magnitude for the whole age range studied (25–74 years). An increasing trend, mainly restricted to younger women, was found for Slovakia, Jewish women born in Israel and the United Kingdom. In Slovenia, the increasing trend was observed for all age groups. The predominant pattern shown by cancer registries in developed countries is of a reduction in the incidence of squamous cervical cancer. This could be, at least partially, attributed to the widespread practice of screening for cervical lesions. The major exception to the pattern is observed in the United Kingdom, though the increasing incidence in young women has changed to a decrease in recent years. There are only a few series covering a long period of time in developing countries, but there is little evidence for a major impact of screening. Int. J. Cancer 86:429–435, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Competency-Based Postgraduate Medical Education: Past, Present and Future

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, competency-based medical education (CBME) has become a dominant approach to postgraduate medical education in many countries. CBME has a history dating back half a century and is rooted in general educational approaches such as outcome-based education and mastery learning. Despite controversies around the terminology and the CBME approach, important national medical regulatory bodies in Canada, the United States, and other countries have embraced CBME. CBME can be characterized as having two distinct features: a focus on specific domains of competence, and a relative independence of time in training, making it an individualized approach that is particularly applicable in workplace training. It is not the length of training that determines a person’s readiness for unsupervised practice, but the attained competence or competencies. This shift in focus makes CBME different from traditional training. In this contribution, definitions of CBME and related concepts are detailed.