Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vibration-Assisted Sputter Coating of Cenospheres: A New Approach for Realizing Cu-Based Metal Matrix Syntactic Foams

The coating of hollow alumino-silicate microspheres or cenospheres with thin layers of Cu by means of vibration-assisted magnetron sputtering yields a starting material with considerable potential for the production of new types of metal matrix syntactic foams as well as optimized variants of conventional materials of this kind. This study introduces the coating process and the production of macroscopic samples from the coated spheres via spark plasma sintering (SPS). The influence of processing parameters on the coating itself, and the syntactic foams are discussed in terms of the obtained density levels as a function of sintering temperature (which was varied between 850 and 1080 °C), time (0.5 to 4 min), and surface appearance before and after SPS treatment. Sintering temperatures of 900 °C and above were found to cause breaking-up of the homogeneous sputter coating into a net-like structure. This effect is attributed to wetting behavior of Cu on the alumino-silicate cenosphere shells. Cylindrical samples were subjected to conductivity measurements and mechanical tests, and the first performance characteristics are reported here. Compressive strengths for Cu-based materials in the density range of 0.90–1.50 g/cm3 were found to lie between 8.6 and 61.9 MPa, depending on sintering conditions and density. An approximate relationship between strength and density is suggested based on the well-known Gibson–Ashby law. Density-related strength of the new material is contrasted to similar findings for several types of established metal foams gathered from the literature. Besides discussing these first experimental results, this paper outlines the potential of coated microspheres as optimized filler particles in metal matrix syntactic foams, and suggests associated directions of future research.
Network Coding for Wireless Ad Hoc Cognitive Radio Networks

A cognitive radio network (CRN) is often described as a secondary communication network operating in a frequency band originally allocated to a primary network consisting of one or multiple primary users (PUs). In this paper, we consider a wireless ad hoc network as a CRN, which coexists with multiple geographically distributed PUs. A novel approach based on network coding is proposed for wireless multicast in CRNs to improve the throughput of the secondary network with minimum energy-per-bit, while protecting the PUs. Under interference power constraints for PUs, and signal-to-interference- plus-noise ratio (SINR) constraint for each transmission, we formulate the minimum-energy multicast in CRNs problem as a linear optimization, which is much easier to solve compared to the NP-hard problem associated with the routing solution. Computer simulations are presented to evaluate the performance gains achieved by the proposed technique in terms of network throughput as well as energy efficiency.
Motion in radiotherapy: photon therapy

This review considers the management of motion in photon radiation therapy. An overview is given of magnitudes and variability of motion of various structures and organs, and how the motion affects images by producing artifacts and blurring. Imaging of motion is described, including 4DCT and 4DPET. Techniques for monitoring motion in real time by use of surrogates are reviewed. Treatment planning for various motion-management treatment delivery strategies is discussed, including choice of planning image, treatment field margins and dose calculation. Imaging techniques displaying motion in the treatment room for pre-treatment as well as real-time imaging for localization and verification are covered, and their use for various motion-management treatment delivery techniques is discussed. Use of motion management for different treatment sites—breast, lung and other sites—is elaborated, and gating, breath-hold and beam tracking strategies are described. Suggestions are given for breast and lung for practicable protocols for routine clinical use of motion management, including decision strategies. Finally, a perspective of the future of motion management in photon radiation therapy is given.
PREVALÊNCIA DE RETINOPATIA DIABÉTICA EM USUÁRIOS DE UMA GERÊNCIA DE SAÚDE DO ESTADO DA PARAÍBA

O diabetes melito e uma sindrome de etiologia multipla caracterizada pela menor utilizacao da glicose pelos tecidos perifericos, devido a falta de insulina e/ou da incapacidade da mesma de exercer adequadamente seus efeitos, que pode ser pela deficiencia da insulina ou mecanismos que impecam sua acao. Esta doenca e considerada um dos mais serios problemas de saude publica em todo mundo. Suas manifestacoes cronicas mais comuns sao as doencas oculares, renais e vasculares que vem sendo apontadas como principais causas de invalidez e incapacitacao para o trabalho. O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar a prevalencia de retinopatia diabetica em diabeticos tipo 1 e tipo 2, atendidos em umas das Gerencias de Saude do Estado da Paraiba, alem de verificar a ocorrencia de acordo com o sexo. Foi realizado um estudo transversal, de carater quantitativo e documental durante o periodo de julho de 2013 a julho de 2014. Foram analisados 627 prontuarios de pacientes com diagnostico de diabetes tipo 1 e tipo 2, habitantes de varios municipios, inclusive Campina Grande, e atendidos por uma das Gerencia de Saude do Estado da Paraiba mediante Acao Civil Publica e/ou Acao Judicial. Foram analisados: sexo, idade, tipo de diabetes, tipo de diabetes relacionada ao sexo, medicacao utilizada no controle do diabetes de acordo com o tipo, presenca de retinopatia diabetica e necessidade de tratamento oftalmologico. Dos 627 pacientes, 19,62% (n=123) desenvolveram a Retinopatia Diabetica e 80,38% (n=504) nao tinham desenvolvido esta complicacao. As pacientes do sexo feminino foram as mais acometidas.
Eccentric muscle performance of elbow and knee muscle groups in untrained men and women.

Maximal voluntary eccentric (ECC) and concentric (CON) capacity of knee and elbow muscle groups was investigated in healthy untrained men (N = 40) and women (N = 50), 21-67 yr of age. Purposes of the study were to describe torque-velocity and ECC-CON relationships, and to compare these relationships among muscle groups and between genders. Average torque was measured at angular velocities of 30 degrees and 120 degrees.s-1 from knee flexor (KF), knee extensor (KE), and elbow flexor (EF) muscle groups unilaterally, using an isokinetic protocol including gravity compensation. Data were analyzed using ANOVA procedures, and a significance level of 0.01 was used for all hypothesis testing. Torque-velocity relationships were similar for each muscle group and gender; i.e., ECC average torque did not change as a function of velocity and CONC torque decreased as angular velocity increased. Women generated greater ECC relative to CONC torque than men in upper and lower extremity muscle groups. Muscle groups differed in ECC relative to CONC capacity in both men and women, with ECC/CONC ratios being greater for KE and EF than KF. In all muscle groups, the magnitude of ECC-CONC differences increased as angular velocity increased. Genders differed in relative strength balance between muscle groups, with men exhibiting greater KF/KE and EF/KF torque ratios than women for both ECC and CONC actions. Results of this study contribute to the body of women. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Object oriented inheritance metric-reusability perspective

Inheritance, a concept of object oriented programming is a vital concept behind the creation of reusable software. The subject of reuse has received much attention as reusability is one of the promising ways to improve software quality. Identifying highly inherited modules give pathway to measure and improve the software quality. The existing inheritance metrics are quite primitive which gives only rough estimate of inheritance of a class or lack validation support. In this paper, inheritance metric based on reusability of UML software designs has been proposed. This measure differs from the existing inheritance metrics in two respects: it considers the number of attributes or methods inherited which is main aspect of inheritance. Second, it targets the two fold behaviour of reusability along the depth of inheritance tree. We prove the theoretical soundness of the proposed metric by Weyuker's nine axioms and give the empirical analysis of proposed metric against existing reusability based inheritance metric.
Allosteric Voltage Gating of Potassium Channels I: Mslo Ionic Currents in the Absence of Ca2+

Activation of large conductance Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channels is controlled by both cytoplasmic Ca(2+) and membrane potential. To study the mechanism of voltage-dependent gating, we examined mSlo Ca(2+)-activated K(+) currents in excised macropatches from Xenopus oocytes in the virtual absence of Ca(2+) (<1 nM). In response to a voltage step, I(K) activates with an exponential time course, following a brief delay. The delay suggests that rapid transitions precede channel opening. The later exponential time course suggests that activation also involves a slower rate-limiting step. However, the time constant of I(K) relaxation [tau(I(K))] exhibits a complex voltage dependence that is inconsistent with models that contain a single rate limiting step. tau(I(K)) increases weakly with voltage from -500 to -20 mV, with an equivalent charge (z) of only 0.14 e, and displays a stronger voltage dependence from +30 to +140 mV (z = 0.49 e), which then decreases from +180 to +240 mV (z = -0.29 e). Similarly, the steady state G(K)-V relationship exhibits a maximum voltage dependence (z = 2 e) from 0 to +100 mV, and is weakly voltage dependent (z congruent with 0.4 e) at more negative voltages, where P(o) = 10(-5)-10(-6). These results can be understood in terms of a gating scheme where a central transition between a closed and an open conformation is allosterically regulated by the state of four independent and identical voltage sensors. In the absence of Ca(2+), this allosteric mechanism results in a gating scheme with five closed (C) and five open (O) states, where the majority of the channel's voltage dependence results from rapid C-C and O-O transitions, whereas the C-O transitions are rate limiting and weakly voltage dependent. These conclusions not only provide a framework for interpreting studies of large conductance Ca(2+)-activated K(+) channel voltage gating, but also have important implications for understanding the mechanism of Ca(2+) sensitivity.
Is Obesity Truly a Risk Factor for Mortality after Tracheotomy?

Objectives: We sought to determine the short-term and long-term overall mortality rates in obese and non-obese patients after tracheotomy and to evaluate which factors, including the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), predict mortality rates among obese patients. Methods: We performed a retrospective chart review of patients who underwent open tracheotomy in the operating room at a single hospital from 2005 to 2010. Results: Of 200 patients reviewed, 146 were non-obese and 54 were obese. The rate of mortality was higher at 30 days (p = 0.02) and at 1 year (p = 0.04) in obese patients (35.1% and 59.2%, respectively) than in non-obese patients (19.2% and 42.5%, respectively). The need for tracheotomy due to ventilator-dependent respiratory failure (VDRF) was much higher (p < 0.001) in obese patients (83.3%) than in non-obese patients (56.8%), and the rate of mortality was significantly higher (p < 0.001) in those who required tracheotomy for VDRF (32.8% at 30 days and 57% at 1 year) than in those who required tracheotomy for all other indications (4.2% at 30 days and 25% at 1 year). The mortality risk increased with higher CCI scores at both 30 days (p = 0.08) and 1 year (p = 0.009). Conclusions: The overall mortality rate is higher in obese patients after tracheotomy than in non-obese control subjects in the short and long terms. This increased rate of mortality is due to the heightened incidence of tracheotomy for VDRF among obese patients. The mortality rates after tracheotomy correlate well with the CCI.
Permutation distributions of fMRI classification do not behave in accord with central limit theorem

Applying Monte Carlo method on Fisher's exact test is a prominent choice in estimating an existent statistical effect in large data. When used to analyze classification results, the method, which is widely known as permutation testing, works by testing the null hypothesis after generating a permutation distribution (PD) of classification accuracies/errors that is centered around chance-level. In principle, these PDs should behave in accord with the central limit theorem (CLT) if the independence condition in the cross-validation classification error (test statistic) is fulfilled. Permutation testing has been widely used in pattern classification applied to neuroimaging studies to eradicate chance performance. In this work, we used Anderson-Darling test to evaluate the accordance level of PDs of classification accuracies to normality expected under CLT. An exhaustive simulation study was carried out using functional magnetic resonance imaging data that were collected while human subjects responded to visual stimulation paradigms and the following classifiers were considered: support vector machines, logistic regression, ridge logistic regression, Gaussian Naive Bayes, sparse multinomial logistic regression, and artificial neural networks. Our results showed that while the standard normal distribution does not adequately fit to PDs, it tends to fit well when the mean classification accuracy averaged over a set of independent classifiers is considered. We also found that across-run lk motion correction of the fMRI data weakens the accordance of PDs with CLT and this phenomenon could be due to the across runs dependence resulting from motion correction.
Psychological adjustment to gynaecological cancer: Patients’ illness representations, coping strategies and mood disturbance

This study examined associations between illness representation dimensions specified by the self-regulation model, coping and mood in recently diagnosed gynaecological cancer patients. Participants were 61 patients recruited from a specialist outpatient gynaecology clinic. Patients completed a survey measuring their cognitive illness representations (IPQ-R), coping strategies (COPE) and mood (POMS-SF). Consistent with research into other illnesses, the study found theoretically congruent cross-sectional associations between illness representations and mood disturbance. Support was found for a possible path whereby higher denial and avoidant coping might mediate the relationships between cyclical timeline and illness coherence representations and more negative mood. There were no mediational relationships for other coping strategies. Mediation of the relationship between illness representations and mood by avoidant coping has important theoretical and practical implications. These are discussed, as are direct relationships between illness representations and mood.
The Anti-inflammatory Properties of Cocoa Flavanols

Signs of chronic or acute inflammation have been demonstrated in most cardiovascular diseases of multifactorial pathogenesis, including atherosclerosis and chronic heart failure. The triggers and mechanisms leading to inflammation may vary between clinical conditions but they share many common mediators, including specific patterns of eicosanoid and cytokine production. Certain cocoa-based products can be rich in a subclass of flavonoids known as flavanols, some of which have been found in model systems to possess potential anti-inflammatory activity relevant to cardiovascular health. Indeed, experimental evidence demonstrates that some cocoa-derived flavanols can reduce the production and effect of pro-inflammatory mediators either directly or by acting on signaling pathways. However, it should be noted that the evidence for any beneficial effects of cocoa flavanols in providing a meaningful anti-inflammatory action has been gathered predominantly from in vitro experiments. Therefore, additional research in well-designed human clinical experiments, using cocoa properly characterized in terms of flavanol content, would be a welcome addition to the evidence base to determine unambiguously if this benefit does indeed exist. If so, then flavanol-rich cocoa could be a potential candidate for the treatment, or possibly prevention, of the broad array of chronic diseases that are linked to dysfunctional inflammatory responses.
Robust Resource Optimization for Cooperative Cognitive Radio Networks with Imperfect CSI

We develop robust resource-allocation schemes for a cognitive radio network (CRN), where the secondary users (SUs) try to communicate with each other from different small cell primary user (PU) networks. User cooperation technique is considered for communication among the SUs since PUs are in close proximity and there are tight interference constraints on the PU bands. Power allocation and relay selection schemes are optimized with the provision of quality of service to each SU considering different channel uncertainty models. We incorporate the channel outage events that have resulted from the imperfect channel state information under slow-fading channels in our resource optimization algorithms. We maximize the system goodput of the CRN while satisfying the interference constraints of the PU bands both probabilistically and for the worst case scenario. The original probabilistic optimization problem is approximated and transformed into a convex deterministic form, and a closed-form analytical solution for power allocation is derived. The closed-form power allocation solution helps us to develop an efficient relay selection scheme based on Hungarian algorithm. Simulation results reveal the effectiveness of our proposed schemes and the implications of ignoring the imperfectness among different channels when developing resource-allocation algorithms for CRNs.
Heterogeneous Integration for Performance and Scaling

Moore's law has so far relied on the aggressive scaling of CMOS silicon minimum features of over 1000× for over four decades, and recently, on the adoption of innovative features, such as Cu interconnects, low-k dielectrics for interconnects, strained channels, and high-k materials for gate dielectrics, resulting in a better power performance, cost per function, and density every generation. This has spawned a vibrant system-on-chip (SoC) approach, where progressively more function has been integrated on a single die. The integration of multiple dies on packages and boards has, however, scaled only modestly by a factor of three to five times. In this paper, we show that with the apparent slowing down of semiconductor scaling and the advent of the Internet of Things, there is a focus on heterogeneous integration and system-level scaling. Packaging is undergoing a transformation that focuses on overall system performance and cost rather than on individual components. We propose ways in which this transformation can evolve to provide a significant value at the system level while providing a significantly lower barrier to entry compared with a chip-based SoC approach that is currently used. This transformation is already under way with 3-D stacking of dies and will evolve to make heterogeneous integration the backbone of sustaining Moore's law in the years ahead.
Predictors of Early Readmission in Hospitalized Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Background: Readmissions are being increasingly used as an indicator of quality of care. We sought to identify risk factors for 30-day readmission in hospitalized patients with inflammatory bowel disease. Methods: Patients with inflammatory bowel disease hospitalized between 2004 and 2013 at the University of Maryland were identified. Demographic and clinical information were extracted from the medical record for each admission. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine the association between these variables and readmission. Results: One thousand two hundred thirteen admissions were identified in 498 patients; 232 (19.1%) index admissions were followed by a 30-day readmission. Mean age was 39.4 ± 14.5 years. Approximately 70% of the population was white, 60% were women, and 67.5% had Crohn's disease. Concurrent congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, history of steroid use, diverting ileostomy, subtotal colectomy, or a thromboembolic event during index admission, and IV antibiotics or restricted diet at discharge were associated with readmission. After adjustment, patients with congestive heart failure or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were more likely to be readmitted (aOR 4.06 and 2.86, respectively). Underweight or obese patients were nearly twice as likely to be readmitted (aOR 1.81 and 1.72, respectively). Those with past steroid use, new ileostomy, or those who were discharged on hyperalimentation were twice as likely to be readmitted (aOR 1.90, 2.04, and aOR 1.97, respectively). Conclusions: Nineteen percentage of patients with inflammatory bowel disease treated at a referral center are readmitted within 30 days. Our results suggest that patients with comorbid medical conditions, malnutrition or obesity, a new ileostomy, past steroid use, or those discharged on hyperalimentation are at increased risk for readmission. Research is needed to determine if targeted interventions for high-risk patients decreases readmissions.
Inducible gene expression in GFAP+ progenitor cells of the SGZ and the dorsal wall of the SVZ—A novel tool to manipulate and trace adult neurogenesis

In the adult mammalian brain, neurogenesis originates from astrocyte‐like stem cells. We generated a transgenic mouse line in which the tetracycline dependent transactivator (tTA) is expressed under the control of the murine GFAP promoter. In this mouse line, inducible gene expression targets virtually all GFAP‐expressing stem‐like cells in the dentate gyrus and a subset of GFAP‐expressing progenitors located primarily in the dorsal wall/dorsolateral corner of the subventricular zone. Outside the neurogenic zones, astrocytes are infrequently targeted. We introduce a panel of transgenic mice which allow both inducible expression of candidate genes under control of the murine GFAP promoter and, at the same time, lineage tracing of all cells descendant from the original GFAP‐positive cell. This new mouse line represents a versatile tool for functional analysis of neurogenesis and lineage tracing. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.