Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Biomechanics of the Levator Aponeurosis.

PURPOSE To investigate biomechanical properties of the levator aponeurosis. METHODS Patients undergoing external levator resection for primary or revision correction of acquired ptosis were analyzed as primary and revision groups. Immediately postoperatively, the resected segments of the levator aponeurosis were stressed by adding sequential masses to the tissue. Specimen length was recorded at each stress level. Stress-strain diagrams were used to summarize how the tissue elongated in response to the external forces, because these diagrams correct for differences in specimen size. Representative specimens were analyzed histologically. RESULTS Twenty-two specimens from 14 patients in the primary group and 10 specimens from 7 patients in the revision group met inclusion criteria. In the primary group, the mean age was 66 years; 8 patients were women. In the revision group, the mean age was 69 years; 6 patients were women. Levator aponeurosis specimens in both the primary and revision group demonstrated proportional increases in length with increasing stress, demonstrating that the levator aponeurosis is extensile. Given the same amount of stress, the levator aponeurosis from primary specimens elongated more than revision specimens. Histologically, revision specimens exhibited increased collagen and haphazard, tangled elastin fibers. CONCLUSIONS The levator aponeurosis obtained during surgical correction of acquired ptosis elongates in response to nominal external forces. This biomechanical property is important because the length of the aponeurosis may vary intraoperatively if variable forces are applied to the eyelid. This property might be related to connective tissue architecture and, specifically, fibrosis. Surgeons performing levator aponeurosis resection should be mindful to maintain a consistent amount of force on the levator aponeurosis when performing the resection to maximize intercase consistency.
Role for intrarenal mechanisms in the impaired salt excretion of experimental nephrotic syndrome.

A unilateral model of puromycin aminonucleoside (PAN)-induced albuminuria was produced in Munich-Wistar rats to examine the mechanisms responsible for renal salt retention. 2 wk after selective perfusion of left kidneys with PAN (n = 8 rats) or isotonic saline (control, n = 7 rats), increases in albumin excretion and decreases in sodium excretion were demonstrated in PAN-perfused but not in nonperfused kidneys of PAN-treated rats although systemic plasma protein concentration remained at control level. Total kidney glomerular filtration rate (GFR) and superficial single nephron (SN) GFR were also reduced selectively in PAN-perfused kidneys, on average by approximately 30%, due primarily to a marked decline in the glomerular capillary ultrafiltration coefficient (Kf), which was also confined to PAN-perfused kidneys. Values for absolute proximal reabsorption (APR) were also selectively depressed in PAN-perfused kidneys, in keeping with a similarly selective decline in peritubular capillary oncotic pressure measured in these kidneys, the latter also a consequence of the fall in Kf. In a separate group of seven PAN-treated rats, however, no differences were detected between PAN-perfused and nonperfused kidneys in the absolute amount of sodium reaching the early (0.77 +/- 0.09 neq/min vs. 0.74 +/- 0.08, P greater than 0.40) and late portions of superficial distal tubules (0.31 +/- 0.02) neq/min vs. 0.32 +/- 0.05, P greater than 0.50), despite the lesser filtered load of sodium in PAN-perfused kidneys. Suppressed sodium reabsorption in both proximal convoluted tubules and short loops of Henle of PAN-perfused kidneys contributed to this equalization of sodium delivery rates to the late distal tubule, as did comparable reabsorption along distal convolutions. In two additional groups of PAN-treated rats, infusion of saralasin (0.3 mg/kg per h, i.v.) led to substantial increases in total kidney GFR and SNGFR in PAN-perfused but not in nonperfused kidneys. Despite these increases in total and SNGFR, urinary sodium excretion by PAN-perfused kidneys remained at a level far below that for nonperfused kidneys, again indicating that the antinatriuresis characterizing the PAN-perfused kidney is due to alterations in sodium handling by the tubules rather than changes in GFR. These results therefore indicate (a) that reductions in Kf and depressed sodium reabsorption by proximal tubules and Henle's loop segments in this model are brought about by intrarenal rather than circulating or systemic factors, and (b) assuming that superficial nephrons are representative of the entire nephron population, renal salt retention in this model is due primarily to intrarenal factor(s) acting beyond the distal convolution.
Adaptation of SVD-based fuzzy reduction via minimal expansion

Most adopted fuzzy inference techniques do not hold the universal approximation property if the numbers of antecedent sets are limited. This fact and the exponential complexity problem of widely adopted fuzzy logic techniques show the contradictory features of fuzzy rule bases in pursuit of good approximation. As a result, complexity reduction emerged in fuzzy theory. The natural disadvantage of using complexity reduction is that the adaptivity property of the reduced approximation becomes highly restricted. This paper proposes a technique for the singular value decomposition (SVD) based reduction developed by Yam et al. (see IEEE Trans. Fuzzy Syst., vol. 7, p. 120-131, Feb. 1999), which may alleviate the adaptivity restriction.
A Practice Discipline That's Here and Now

There is a vacuum for a practice discipline of nursing that would enable nurses to articulate the significance of what they do as an essential thread of contemporary healthcare provision. This article is an effort to develop the meaning and possibilities of a practice discipline for nursing. Tuning into the general shift in thought about our human condition across disciplines and nations, we consider features of a participatory paradigm, which, when refocused on the humanness of the health circumstance, informs our approach to a practice discipline. Knowledge is personal and participatory, evolving in the here-and-now of health systems. Research integral to practice and service innovation illustrates the way of looking and talking about a new phase in discipline development. The discipline is relational and creative in practice, evolving in the forums for dialogue. Each one of us as nurses has responsibility in participation.
Pulses and fronts in the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation near a subcritical bifurcation.

Uniformly translating solutions of the one-dimensional complex Ginzburg-Landau equation are stud- ied near a subcritical bifurcation. Two classes of solutions are singled out since they are often produced starting from localized initial conditions: moving fronts and stationary pulses. A particular exact analytic front solution is found, which is conjectured to control the relative stability of pulses and fronts. Numerical solutions of the Ginzburg-Landau equation confirm the predictions based on this conjecture.
Salmonella Enteritidis’ Vaccine Produces In Vitro and In Vivo Protection against Colonization

Salmonella enterica can be considered as one of the most important causes of food- poisoning with poultry thought to be the main source. Although S. Typhimurium, S. Enteritidis and the vast majority of other Salmonella serovars generally produce little systemic disease in adult chickens, they are able to colonize the alimentary tract of poultry. The two caeca are the main sites of the colonization of Salmonellae in chickens, and the bacteria can be easily harvested from the caeca for analysis. Bacterial proteins analyses utilizing SDS-PAGE showed differences between in vitro and in vivo that out of about 40 protein bands of in vitro preparation only a few (3-5) bands can be visualized from in vivo preparations. We suggested that some avian proteases might be responsible. Accordingly, and to investigate the hypothesis that an inactivated vaccine harvested from chickens is thought to be more protective than bacteria grown in broth culture, the immunogenicity of inactivated vaccines, either proteins or formalin killed bacteria (S. Enteritidis) harvested from chicken intestine and those from broth culture (in vitro), were compared using bacterial proteins or formalin killed bacteria as an orally inoculated vaccine candidate in chicken. The results demonstrated that sonicated proteins extracts in general have a stronger effect as vaccines against S. Enteritidis colonization in chickens than formalin killed bacteria. In contrast, the in vitro sonicated proteins obtained from a nutrient broth culture had a much better protective vaccine effect than the in vivo sonicated proteins preparations harvested from bacteria grown in chickens.
Evaluation of the prevalence of urinary incontinence in spayed female dogs: 566 cases (2003-2008).

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence of urinary incontinence in spayed female dogs and categorize affected dogs by age at time of ovariohysterectomy, number of litters prior to ovariohysterectomy, body weight, treatment of affected dogs, and severity of incontinence and to determine associations among these variables. DESIGN Retrospective case series. ANIMALS 566 ovariohysterectomized dogs. PROCEDURES An attempt was made to contact owners of 912 dogs ovariohysterectomized between January 2003 and January 2008 to discuss presence or absence of urinary incontinence. The actual number of responders was 566. Those owners with incontinent pets received a questionnaire further assessing degree of incontinence, diagnostic testing, treatment, and history. RESULTS The prevalence of acquired urinary incontinence was determined to be 5.12% (29/566 dogs) on the basis of results of phone surveys and questionnaires. There was no significant difference in the age at time of ovariohysterectomy between incontinent and continent groups. A significant association was found between body weight and incontinence, with incontinence rates higher among larger (≥ 15 kg [33.1 lb]) dogs. Larger dogs were approximately 7 times as likely (OR, 7.2 [95% confidence interval, 2.5 to 21.1]) to develop acquired urinary incontinence, compared with small dogs (< 15 kg). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Although acquired urinary incontinence in female dogs is known to be associated with ovariohysterectomy, the prevalence in this study was low.
Lung transplant patients benefit from 64-slice CT

Lung transplantation is an accepted treatment option for patients with end-stage lung disease. The procedure can increase quality of life and prolong survival. Single-lung transplants are performed more frequently than bilateral procedures, which increases the number of transplant recipients, given the shortage of suitable donors.1,2 Complications occur frequently, however, significantly reducing the success of grafts and patients' survival time.
Dietary patterns and breast cancer risk in the California Teachers Study cohort 1-5

Background: Evidence that diet is associated with breast cancer risk is inconsistent. Most studies have examined risks associated with specific foods and nutrients, rather than measures of overall diet. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate dietary patterns and their relation to breast cancer risk in a large cohort of women. Design: Data from 91,779 women in the California Teachers Study cohort were analyzed, including data from 4140 women with a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer made between 1995 and 2009. Five predominant dietary patterns were identified by using principal components factor analysis: a plant-based diet, high in fruit and vegetables; a high-protein, high-fat diet, high in meats, eggs, fried foods, and high-fat condiments; a high-carbohydrate diet, high in convenience foods, pasta, and bread products; an ethnic diet, high in legumes, soy-based foods, rice, and dark-green leafy vegetables; and a salad and wine diet, high in lettuce, fish, wine, low-fat salad dressing, and coffee and tea. Results: The plant-based pattern was associated with a reduction in breast cancer risk (RR: 0.85; 95% CI: 0.76, 0.95 for the highest compared with the lowest consumption quintile; P-trend = 0.003); risk reduction was greater for estrogen receptor‐negative progesterone receptor‐negative (ER‐PR‐) tumors (RR: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.48, 0.91; P-trend = 0.03). The salad and wine pattern was associated with an increased risk of estrogen receptor‐positive progesterone receptor‐ positive tumors (RR: 1.29; 95% CI: 1.12, 1.49); this effect was only slightly attenuated after adjustment for alcohol consumption. Conclusion: The finding that greater consumption of a plant-based dietary pattern is associated with a reduced breast cancer risk, particularly for ER2PR2 tumors, offers a potential avenue for prevention. Am J Clin Nutr doi: 10.3945/ajcn.113. 061184.
Design of 3.3–3.7 GHz GaN HEMT balanced Class E power amplifier

Among power amplifiers, Class E circuits are very suitable for high efficiency power amplification applications in the radio-frequency. However, because of the single ended structure, these circuits suffer significant harmonic contents in the output and it is usually inevitable to design load matching networks very carefully to get low harmonic content. In this paper, the design of a balanced Class E power amplifier being symmetrically driven by two Class E circuits is studied. The balanced Class E circuit, under nominal operating conditions, has lower harmonic distortions, and the design of the impedance matching network for harmonic filtering becomes less critical. Practical design equations for Class E operation are given and simulation results graphically presented. It has been found that the proposed balanced GaN HEMT class-E amplifier can deliver the higher power, higher efficiency performances and lower harmonic distortion than single ended topologies for WiMax applications.
Direct self control of induction motor based on neural network

This paper presents an artificial neural network based direct self control (ANN-DSC) scheme for an inverter-fed three-phase induction motor. In order to cope with the complex calculations required in DSC, the proposed ANN system employs the individual training strategy with the fixed-weight and the supervised models. A computer simulation program is developed using Matlab/Simulink together with the Neural Network Toolbox. The simulated results obtained demonstrate the feasibility of ANN-DSC. Compared with the classical DSP-based DSC, the proposed ANN-based scheme incurs much shorter execution times and hence the errors caused by control time delays are minimized.
Introduction to the thematic issue on Ambient and Smart Component Technologies for Human Centric Computing

Human-Centric Computing is the discipline that studies the way humans and artificial systems interact reciprocally and exchange information. It is strictly related to other disciplines such as sociology, psychology, cognitive sciences, graphic design and partially overlaps with other ICT technologies such as Human-Computer Interaction, Affective Computing, Persuasive Computing, and others. A strong relationship exists also between HumanCentric Computing and Intelligent Environments such as Ambient Intelligence and Ambient Assisted Living applications, Smart Environments and Smart Cities. From one hand, indeed, the design of Intelligent Environments aimed at supporting actively their inhabitants cannot leave out any aspect concerning the way the user may/want interact with artificial entities and receive support from them. On the other hand, Intelligent Environments may provide technologies such as, for example, those for context and situation awareness, that can enable new ways of designing and realizing more effective interaction systems and mechanisms between humans and artificial entities. In this thematic issue both points of view are considered taking carefully into account that several technical challenges remain to be solved before effective, intelligent, secure, and reliable solutions – that fully exploit potentials of both AmI and HCC – can be deployed trustfully into real environments. 2. In this thematic issue
Design and simulation of turbo-alternators using a coupled permeance network model

The modeling of a turbo-alternator using permeance network is described. This approach allows implementing electrical and magnetic coupling as well as mechanical coupling. Such processes as saturation, movement, and three-dimensional (3-D) effects are taken into account. The aim of this study is to set up a design model of 10-100mW turbo-alternators. The method of taking into account of 3-D effects is described. The first results of simulation were obtained. The experimental measurements validate the model
Electrostatic modification of infrared response in gated structures based on VO2

We investigate the changes in the infrared response due to charge carriers introduced by electrostatic doping of the correlated insulator vanadium dioxide (VO2) integrated in the architecture of the field effect transistor. Accumulation of holes at the VO2 interface with the gate dielectric leads to an increase in infrared absorption. This phenomenon is observed only in the insulator-to-metal transition regime of VO2 with coexisting metallic and insulating regions. We postulate that doped holes lead to the growth of the metallic islands thereby promoting percolation, an effect that persists upon removal of the applied gate voltage.
Photon Correlation Spectroscopy of Colloidal Palladium Using a Coherent X-Ray Beam.

We have used an intense coherent x-ray beam and a real time digital autocorrelator to study the low frequency dynamics of colloidal palladium in glycerol by x-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS). The translational diffusion was studied in the q range from 1.5 3 1023 to 6 3 1023 A21 and in the temperature range from 279 to 293 K. The measured relaxation rates were proportional to q2 and inversely proportional to viscosity as expected for a translational diffusion process. This experiment shows that XPCS can be performed in a wide time range (1024 to 100 s) and opens up a new opportunity for the study of the dynamics of nontransparent media. [S0031-9007(96)01912-6]
Social talk: making conversation with people and machine

Social or interactive talk differs from task-based or instrumental interactions in many ways. Quantitative knowledge of these differences will aid the design of convincing human-machine interfaces for applications requiring machines to take on roles including social companions, healthcare providers, or tutors. We briefly review accounts of social talk from the literature. We outline a three part data collection of human-human, human-woz and human-machine dialogs incorporating light social talk and a guessing game. We finally describe our ongoing experiments on the corpus collected.
Novel erm(T)-Carrying Multiresistance Plasmids from Porcine and Human Isolates of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus ST398 That Also Harbor Cadmium and Copper Resistance Determinants

ABSTRACT This study describes three novel erm(T)-carrying multiresistance plasmids that also harbor cadmium and copper resistance determinants. The plasmids, designated pUR1902, pUR2940, and pUR2941, were obtained from porcine and human methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) of the clonal lineage ST398. In addition to the macrolide-lincosamide-streptogramin B (MLSB) resistance gene erm(T), all three plasmids also carry the tetracycline resistance gene tet(L). Furthermore, plasmid pUR2940 harbors the trimethoprim resistance gene dfrK and the MLSB resistance gene erm(C), while plasmids pUR1902 and pUR2941 possess the kanamycin/neomycin resistance gene aadD. Sequence analysis of approximately 18.1 kb of the erm(T)-flanking region from pUR1902, 20.0 kb from pUR2940, and 20.8 kb from pUR2941 revealed the presence of several copies of the recently described insertion sequence ISSau10, which is probably involved in the evolution of the respective plasmids. All plasmids carried a functional cadmium resistance operon with the genes cadD and cadX, in addition to the multicopper oxidase gene mco and the ATPase copper transport gene copA, which are involved in copper resistance. The comparative analysis of S. aureus RN4220 and the three S. aureus RN4220 transformants carrying plasmid pUR1902, pUR2940, or pUR2941 revealed an 8-fold increase in CdSO4 and a 2-fold increase in CuSO4 MICs. The emergence of multidrug resistance plasmids that also carry heavy metal resistance genes is alarming and requires further surveillance. The colocalization of antimicrobial resistance genes and genes that confer resistance to heavy metals may facilitate their persistence, coselection, and dissemination.
The Schizophrenia-like Psychoses of Epilepsy: Relation between Ages of Onset

In a series of papers, Slater, Beard and Glithero (1963) reported on a group of 69 patients who had suffered from a schizophrenia-like psychosis at some time after the onset of an earlier but continuing epilepsy. They gave a number of arguments, which need not be considered here, to support the view that the epileptic and the schizophrenic states were not independent of one another and merely coincidental, but that the pre-existing epileptic state was the direct cause of the schizophrenia-like illness, and that this could in fact be regarded as a special form of an epileptic psychosis, which took on for a time the appearance of a (symptomatic) schizophrenia. One of the arguments on which reliance was placed was that there was a non-random relationship between the ages of onset of the epilepsy and of the schizophrenia, such that the interval between the two varied about a mean of 14 years. The three clinical groups into which the 69 patients were classified had significantly different mean ages of onset of epilepsy of 20·5, 16·3 and 9·3 years respectively; but there was no significant difference between the three clinical groups in respect of the mean interval between onset of epilepsy and onset of psychosis, 15·6, 14·0 and 12·8 years respectively. In fact, in the case of the duration of epilepsy, with an F value of 0·24, between-group variance was only a fraction of the within-group variance.