Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
' s personal copy Mathematical modeling and simulation of seated stability

Various methods have been used to quantify the kinematic variability or stability of the human spine. However, each of these methods evaluates dynamic behavior within the stable region of state space. In contrast, our goal was to determine the extent of the stable region. A 2D mathematical model was developed for a human sitting on an unstable seat apparatus (i.e., the ‘‘wobble chair’’). Forward dynamic simulations were used to compute trajectories based on the initial state. From these trajectories, a scalar field of trajectory divergence was calculated, specifically a finite time Lyapunov exponent (FTLE) field. Theoretically, ridges of local maxima within this field are expected to partition the state space into regions of qualitatively different behavior. We found that ridges formed at the boundary between regions of stability and failure (i.e., falling). The location of the basin of stability found using the FTLE field matched well with the basin of stability determined by an alternative method. In addition, an equilibrium manifold was found, which describes a set of equilibrium configurations that act as a low dimensional attractor in the controlled system. These simulations are a first step in developing a method to locate state space boundaries for torso stability. Identifying these boundaries may provide a framework for assessing factors that contribute to health risks associated with spinal injury and poor balance recovery (e.g., age, fatigue, load/weight, and distribution). Furthermore, an approach is presented that can be adapted to find state space boundaries in other biomechanical applications. & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
AI-Guided Virtual Lab for Autonomous Vehicle Test : Self-Play Reinforcement Learning Based Two-Player-Game

1 MOTIVATION Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) have shown great potential as a game-changer for the transportation system. The penetration rate of AVs in the US, however, still remains below 0.01% [1]. It is well believed that Human Vehicles (HVs) will keep dominating the road network for decades before AVs fully take over. Along the transformation process from HVs to AVs, AV-HV hybrid transportation mode will be more popular and of practical use. Recent research has shown that the stop-and-go wave in the HV platoon can be largely alleviated by introducing one AV into the system [5]. While AVs bring positive impacts on the HV system, instability, randomness, and unpredictability of HVs prevent the system from extensively embracing AVs. Thus, rigorous tests are required before AVs can actually hit the road. Compared with costly and liability related field tests, simulation tests are more economic and feasible, especially during the early stage of the AV development and deployment.
Long non-coding RNA profiling in LPS-induced intestinal inflammation model: New insight into pathogenesis

LPS can induce an inflammatory immune response in the intestine, and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) is involved in the process of inflammatory disease. However, the biological role of lncRNA in the intestinal inflammation of piglets remains unclear. In this study, the lncRNA expression profile of the ileal mucosa of piglets challenged by LPS was analysed using lncRNA sequencing. In total, 112 novel lncRNAs were predicted, of which 58 were up-regulated and 54 down-regulated following LPS challenge. Expression of 15 selected lncRNAs was validated by quantitative PCR. We further investigated the target genes of lncRNA that were enriched in the signalling pathways involved in the inflammatory immune response by utilising Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes analysis, with cell adhesion molecules and mTOR signalling pathway identified. In addition, the co-expression networks between the differentially expressed lncRNAs and the target mRNAs were constructed, with seven core lncRNAs identified, which also demonstrated that the relationship between lncRNAs and the target genes was highly correlated. Our study offers important information about the lncRNAs of the mucosal immune system in piglets and provides new insights into the inflammatory mechanism of LPS challenge, which might serve as a novel target to control intestinal inflammation.
Sensory Marketing : A Review and Introduction

From a research perspective, sensory marketing implies an understanding of sensation and perception as it applies to consumer behavior. Sensory marketing is an application of the understanding of sensation and perception to the field of marketing to consumer perception, cognition, emotion, learning, preference, choice, or evaluation. Sensation and perception are stages of processing of the senses. Sensation is when the stimulus impinges upon the receptor cells of a sensory organ it is biochemical (and neurological) in nature. Perception is the awareness or understanding of sensory information. This article is a brief review of sensory marketing studies. Based on the above perspective, this review presents an overview of research on sensory perception role in branding and marketing. The review also points out areas where little research has been done.
Circadian variability in airways characteristics: A spirometric study

ABSTRACT Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and Asthma patients exhibit exacerbation of symptoms in night hours and early morning. Temporal variability in airway caliber have been reported in past using peak expiratory flow rate which represents large airways caliber, while in COPD and Asthma, smaller airways are particularly affected. We studied circadian variability of airway caliber using Forced Expiratory Volume in the First Second (FEV1) and Mid Expiratory Flow rate. Methods: Male volunteers (18–26 years), having similar daily routine were recruited. Spirometry was performed at 5: 00, 8:00, 11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00 and 23:00 h. Data from 104 subjects was analyzed for diurnal variability parameters viz., amplitude percent mean and standard deviation percent of mean. For circadian rhythm Cosinor curve was fitted and rhythm characteristics in terms of MESOR, Amplitude and Acrophase were determined. Results: Repeated measures ANOVA revealed significant differences in spirometric parameters measured at different time points during the day. In general, spirometric parameters follow a sinusoidal pattern and exhibit minimum values during night hours and maximum values during day time. FEV1 Cosinor rhythm was significant in 31% of subjects (Zero amplitude test). The distribution of acrophase revealed interindividual differences in chronophenotypes. Variability was minimum for FEV1% and maximum for FEF75 suggesting dynamic interplay of airway geometry and neuro-chemical influences. Conclusion: The presence of different chronophenotypes in normal subjects suggests that the nocturnal asthma may also be a different phenotype. Availability of portable spirometers and home monitoring thus may be required for ascertaining chronophenotype and tailoring chronotherapeutic interventions.
[Effect of herbal cake-partitioned moxibustion on renal function and expression of renal connective tissue growth factor, integrin-linked kinase and bone morphogenetic protein-7 in chronic renal failure rabbits].

OBJECTIVE To observe the effect of herbal cake-partitioned moxibustion on renal function and expression of connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), integrin-linked kinase (ILK) and bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7) in chronic renal failure (CRF) rabbits, so as to reveal its mechanisms underlying improvement of CRF. METHODS Twenty-four male New Zealand rabbits were randomly divided into control, model, medication and herbal cake-partitioned moxibustion (moxibustion) groups (n=6 rabbits in each group). The CRF model was established by gavage of suspension of Adenine (150 mg·kg-1·d-1) for 21 days. Herbal cake-partitioned moxibustion was applied to "Mingmen"(GV4) and bilateral "Shenshu"(BL23), "Pishu"(BL20) and for 5 moxa-cones every time. Rabbits of the medication group was treated by gavage of Losartan Potassium (2.33 mg·kg-1·d-1). All the treatments were conducted once daily,12 times a course for consecutive 3 courses with a two-day rest after each course of treatment. Serum creatinine (Scr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and 24 h urine protein contents were detected by using an automatic biochemical analyzer. The expression levels of CTGF, ILK and BMP-7 proteins and mRNA in the kidney tissue were determined by Western blot and quantitative real time-PCR, separately. RESULTS Following modeling, Scr and BUN and 24 h urine protein contents were significantly increased in the model group in comparison with the control group (P<0.01). After the intervention, Scr and BUN contents were all significantly decreased in both the moxibustion and medication groups relevant to the model group (P<0.01), suggesting an improvement of the renal function. Compared with the control group, the expression levels of ILK and CTGF mRNAs and proteins were obviously up-regulated (P<0.01), and those of BMP-7 mRNA and protein significantly decreased in the model group (P<0.01). In comparison with the model group, the expression levels of ILK and CTGF mRNAs and proteins were significantly down-regulated in the two treatment groups (P<0.01, P<0.05), and those of BMP-7 mRNA and protein markedly increased in the two treatment groups (P<0.01). In comparison with the medication group, the expression level of ILK protein was significantly up-regulated (P<0.01) and BMP-7 protein was significantly down-regulated (P<0.01) in the moxibustion group. No significant differences were found between the medication and moxibustion groups in down-regulating the levels of Scr, BUN and 24 h urine protein and expression of ILK mRNA, CTGF mRNA and protein and BMP-7 mRNA(P>0.05). CONCLUSION Herbal cake-partitioned moxibustion can improve renal function in CRF rabbits, which may be related to its effects in suppressing the expression of ILK and CTGF, and in up-regulating the expression of BMP-7 in the kidney tissue.
Clinical features and pregnancy outcomes of women with abnormal cell-free fetal DNA test results.

Background This study was performed to examine the factors affecting attitudes regarding prenatal diagnosis and clinical treatment by analyzing the clinical data of women with positive noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) results. Methods We collected clinical data for women with positive NIPT results. The women received prenatal genetic consultation. The women with true positive results received prenatal genetic counseling again, and decided whether to continue or terminate their pregnancy. Results A total of 228 women received positive NIPT results. The prenatal diagnosis was accepted in 174 cases (76.3%), and 124 women were confirmed to have true positive NIPT results. The positive predictive values (PPV) of T21/T18/T13 and fetal sex chromosome aneuploidy were 88.4% and 42.9%, respectively. All (99/99, 100%) of the women with T21/T18/T13 terminated their pregnancies, while 25.0% (6/24) of women with fetal SCA continued their pregnancies. An NIPT result of Chr(9) microduplication was obtained in one woman, which was confirmed by chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA). Conclusions NIPT exhibited good detection accuracy for T21/T18/T13, and also contributed to identifying fetal SCA and substructural chromosomal abnormalities. With a positive NIPT result, the attitudes of pregnant women regarding prenatal diagnosis and clinical treatment are related to the severity of disease, cognitive ability, and the level of prenatal genetic counseling.
Potential for limited reinforcing and abuse-related subjective effects of intranasal oxytocin

Background: There has been growing interest in using oxytocin as a pharmacotherapy for psychiatric disorders, including substance use disorder. Limited data exist regarding oxytocin’s reinforcing efficacy, which is a necessary consideration for novel pharmacotherapies, especially in substance-using populations. Aims: This study aimed to determine the potential reinforcing effects of intranasally administered oxytocin by assessing behavioral economic demand and subjective effects. Methods: Healthy adults (n = 23) participated in a double-blind, repeated-measures, laboratory study wherein they received intranasal oxytocin (40 IU) or placebo in a randomized order across two sessions. Participants completed drug purchasing tasks at the conclusion of both sessions. Throughout both sessions, subjective and physiological effects were assessed. Results: Demand-curve analysis of purchasing tasks revealed greater median purchasing for oxytocin relative to placebo. Physiological and subjective effects did not significantly differ between oxytocin and placebo. However, a nonsignificant trend was observed for moderately greater drug liking for oxytocin relative to placebo. There was a significant, positive correlation between the difference in drug liking (between oxytocin and placebo) and the difference in lowest-price purchasing (between oxytocin and placebo). Conclusions: These data suggest the potential for limited reinforcing and abuse-related subjective effects of intranasal oxytocin. Given the small sample, the greater drug liking of oxytocin compared to placebo, and the positive relation between demand and drug liking, it is possible that oxytocin may produce reinforcing effects in some participants. Therefore, additional studies of oxytocin reinforcement are warranted.
Objective assessment of cleft lip and palate speech intelligibility using articulation and hypernasality measures.

Assessment of intelligibility is required to characterize the overall speech production capability and to measure the speech outcome of different interventions for individuals with cleft lip and palate (CLP). Researchers have found that articulation error and hypernasality have a significant effect on the degradation of CLP speech intelligibility. Motivated by this finding, the present work proposes an objective measure of sentence-level intelligibility by combining the information of articulation deficits and hypernasality. These two speech disorders represent different aspects of CLP speech. Hence, it is expected that the composite measure based on them may utilize complementary clinical information. The objective scores of articulation and hypernasality are used as features to train a regression model, and the output of the model is considered as the predicted intelligibility score. The Spearman's correlation coefficient based analysis shows a significant correlation between the predicted and perceptual intelligibility scores (ρ = 0.77, p < 0.001).
Emerging organ-assist technology in cardiac procurement: a viewpoint

Cardiac failure is a major global killer. Orthotopic heart transplantation is the resource-intensive surgical treatment of choice for end-stage cardiac failure. Its main and worsening limitation is paucity of donors. This is a sobering reality that calls for donor organ stewardship and ultimately disruptive technological solutions in order to reduce the worldwide waiting lists for orthotopic heart transplantation. We have noted the increasing complexity of allocation and managing of finite resources in procurement (known as retrieval in the UK) of donor hearts. The three donation factors impacting on the outcomes of orthotopic heart transplantation are, in no particular order, donor age, donor cardiovascular history (especially stroke as the cause of death) and cold ischaemia time. Most of the cadaveric donors have suffered brain death (Donor Brain Death [DBD]), whilst options on donors from cardiac death (Donor Cardiac Death [DCD]) have already been popularized in the last decade. With the aforementioned predicament in mind, we offer a viewpoint on an emerging relevant technology known as organ care systems (OCS). These have for some time been used to optimise the donation of abdominal organs, especially liver and kidney. In liver procurement for example, the OCS scavenges harmful particles. It follows that the OCS concept could be applied to orthotopic heart transplantation. At least two systems, one from a New England manufacturer in the US that is already in clinical use and another Swedish system with reported porcine success that is pending human application (Personal Communication), are currently being used in Europe. The primary advertised advantage of an OCS is the almost
Malignancies in Patients with Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody-associated Vasculitis: A Population-based Cohort Study

Objective. Patients with ANCA-associated vasculitides (AAV) exhibit higher rates of malignancy than the general population. We assessed whether the cancer risk is increased in a well-characterized population-based cohort of AAV in southern Sweden, followed for a median time of 8 years. Methods. With case record review, the outcomes and malignancy development in a cohort of 195 patients with AAV [granulomatosis with polyangiitis (GPA), microscopic polyangiitis, and eosinophilic GPA] diagnosed between 1997 and 2010 were assessed. The patients were followed until death or December 31, 2015. The age- and sex-standardized incidence ratios (SIR) were estimated using the Swedish population data as a reference. Results. During the observation period of about 1500 person-years, we found 60 cancers in 52 of the 195 patients. SIR (95% CI) was 2.8 (2.1–3.6) for cancers at all sites, 1.8 (1.3–2.5) for all cancers excluding squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 12.9 (8.4–18.8) for SCC, 4.3 (1.4–10.0) for bladder cancer, and 7.0 (1.4–20.5) for pancreatic cancer. Cumulative doses of cyclophosphamide (CYC) < 10 g were not associated with higher incidence of cancers other than SCC (SIR 1.63, 95% CI 0.8–2.9). Conclusion. In contrast to previous publications assessing malignancy risk in patients with AAV, we show in this population-based cohort of patients a persistent increased risk for overall malignancy, bladder cancer, and pancreatic cancer as well as a markedly increased risk for SCC. There was no increase in incidence of cancers other than SCC for those treated with < 10 g CYC.
The relation between adolescents' body mass index and bone age.

INTRODUCTION adolescents' health and nutritional status is demonstrated in the quality of their growth and development. Bone age (BA) is the skeletal development index, which reflects an individual's maturation and is considered as the best expression of human development. Poor nutritional conditions, which extend for long periods, may influence bone development, causing a delay in BA, in relation to chronological age (CA). The aim of this study is evaluating the relation between adolescents' body mass index and bone age. METHODS cross-sectional study carried out with 172 adolescents. The variables evaluated were body mass index (BMI), CA, BA and maturational stage. The BA was determined by taking digital carpal radiographs. RESULTS the majority of the adolescents presented an adequate nutritional state (73.9%), 42.5% were classified as initial pubertal, followed by 40.6% as in peak height velocity (PHV), with a difference between the sexes (p < 0.001). PHV adolescents presented higher BA averages in both sexes (p = 0.005). There was a correlation between BMI and BA, with a strong correlation for girls in the pre-pubertal stage (r = 0.998; p < 0.05) and moderate correlation for those in PHV (r = 0.421; p < 0.001). By analyzing the relation of the variables to predict adolescents' BA, it was observed that the CA model, maturational stage and BMI explained the variability noted in BA in up to 50.3%. CONCLUSION BMI has a relation with BA. It should be noted that BA is influenced by CA, the maturational stage and BMI.
Short-Term and Long-Term Intra-Individual Variations and Critical Differences of Haematological Laboratory Parameters

The complete blood cell count and the differential leukocyte count have been studied for their variations within-one-day and during one week (short-term variations) and during a period of six months (long-term variations) with an automatic haematology analyser (H-6000, Technicon), in which some new parameters (large unstained cells, high peroxidase cells, red cell distribution width, platelet distribution width, mean platelet volume, plateletcrit) are included. The influence of external factors such as sex-differences, smoking/non-smoking, use of oral contraceptives etc. have also been studied. It appears that the use of critical differences together with haematological data improves the value of these parameters in diagnosis and treatment of patients.
Frequency-specific oscillations synchronization in primary angle-closure glaucoma

Background Previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that patients with primary angle-closure glaucoma were accompanied by abnormal neuronal activity. Purpose To investigate frequency-dependent local oscillations synchronization in primary angle-closure glaucoma using the regional homogeneity method. Material and Methods In total, 37 individuals with primary angle-closure glaucoma (20 men, 17 women) and 37 normal-sighted controls (20 men, 17 women) closely matched in age, sex, and education underwent resting-state MRI scans. We compared the different regional homogeneity values in full band (0.01–0.08 Hz) and two different frequency bands (slow-4: 0.027–0.073 Hz and slow-5: 0.010–0.027 Hz) between two groups. Results Compared to the normal-sighted group, the primary angle-closure glaucoma group showed decreased regional homogeneity values in the left calcarine and left postcentral in full band. The primary angle-closure glaucoma group showed increased regional homogeneity values in the bilateral superior medial frontal lobe in the slow-4 band. The primary angle-closure glaucoma group exhibited decreased regional homogeneity values in the right calcarine in the slow-5 band. Specifically, we found that the regional homogeneity values in the right superior frontal lobe were greater in the slow-4 than in the slow-5 band, whereas regional homogeneity in the left calcarine, right pallidum, left inferior occipital gyrus, left superior occipital gyrus, left postcentral/angular gyrus, left paracentral lobule, left superior parietal gyrus, and right precuneus gyrus were greater in the slow-5 than in the slow-4 band. Conclusion Primary angle-closure glaucoma groups showed abnormal regional homogeneity in visual network (calcarine) and default mode network (superior medial frontal lobe) at two frequency bands. Moreover, the regional homogeneity signals in slow-5 band showed closely related to the severity of individuals with primary angle-closure glaucoma.
Discovery of a spontaneous portosystemic shunt following portal vein embolization

Right portal vein embolization (PVE) has become a crucially important option in the minimally‐invasive treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma or secondary liver malignancy before partial hepatectomy or trisegmentectomy to reduce perioperative morbidity. The main goal of PVE is to increase the volume of the future liver remnant (FLR), which can provide complete liver metabolic functionality without risk of developing posthepatectomy liver failure, also known as “small for size syndrome. ” PVE accomplishes this via the redirection of portal venous flow toward the left portal vein circulation resulting in an increased left hepatic lobe volume.