Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contrast media volume is significantly related to patient lung volume during CT pulmonary angiography when employing a patient-specific contrast protocol

Aim: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between contrast media volume and patient lung volume when employing a patient-specific contrast media formula during pulmonary computed tomography angiography (CTA). Materials and methods: IRB approved this retrospective study. CTA of the pulmonary arteries was performed on 200 patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (PE). The contrast media volume (CMV) was calculted by employing a patient-specific contrast formula. Lung volume was quantified employing semi-automated lung software that calculated lung volumes (intellispace -Philips). The mean cross-sectional opacification profile of central and peripheral pulmonary arteries and veins were measured for each patient and arteriovenous contrast ratio (AVCR) calculated for each lung segment. Mean body mass index (BMI) and lung volume were quantified. Receiver operating (ROC) and visual grading characteristics (VGC) measured reader confidence in emboli detection and image quality respectively. Inter and intra-observer variations were investigated employing Cohen’s kappa methodology. Results: Results showed that the mean pulmonary arterial opacification of the main pulmonary circulation (343.88±73HU), right lung; upper (316.51±23HU), middle (312.5±39HU) and lower (315.23±65HU) lobes and left; upper (318.76±83HU), and lower (321.91±12HU) lobes. The mean venous opacification of all pulmonary veins was below 182±72HU. AVCR was observed at all anatomic locations (p<0.0002) where this ratio was calculated. Moreover, larger volumes of contrast significantly correlated with larger lung volumes (r=0.89, p<0.03) and radiation dose (p<0.03). VGC and ROC analysis demonstrated increased area under the curve: 0.831 and 0.99 respectively (p<0.02). Inter-observer variation was observed as excellent (κ = 0.71). Conclusion: We conclude that increased CMV is significantly correlated to increased patient lung volume and radiation dose when employing a patient-specific contrast formula. The effects patient habitus is highlighted.
PROBLEMS AND CONSTRAINTS OF SMALL-SCALE IRRIGATION (FADAMA) IN NIGERIA

Small-scale irrigation “Fadama” plays a key role in the economics of Nigeria as a basic source of food, income, and employment, especially for women in the “slack” period of rainfed agriculture. A study was undertaken to assess the practice of Fadama irrigation in Oyo and Osun states of Nigeria with a view to better understand the characteristic problems and needs. This paper reports on some general information on Fadama irrigation that are useful to project planners and assisting agencies. Fadama irrigation practice has increased significantly over the last 10 years because of increasing demand and high cost of vegetables produced by farmers. The majority of farmers are assisted by World Bank funded States Agricultural Development Program (ADP) through the provision of pumps and irrigation infrastructure. Farmers lack adequate start up capital and are frequently faced with irregular fuel supply, frequent pump breakdown, low stream flow, and well dry ups. Those using the furrow system also complained of high labor requirement and there is stiff competition for the limited lands around the major perennial streams in the area. The majority of farmers are illiterate and lack basic knowledge of water requirement, irrigation scheduling, and skills in maintaining and operating the pumps. This affects the yield of crops as the crops are either over- or under-irrigated, leading to wastage of the little available water. Erosion is a serious problem during the rainy season and coupled with continuous use of land, low fertility results. Recommendations are made that can enhance the farmers' productivity and increase their farm hectarage in order to meet the growing demand for their produce and make the practice attractive to women.
Contribution of rigor shortening and cold shortening to variability in the texture of Pectoralis major muscle from commercially‐processed broilers

Abstract 1. Three experiments were conducted to establish the degree to which cold shortening and rigor shortening contribute to variability in the texture of Pectoralis major (PM) muscles of commercially processed broiler carcases chilled at different rates. 2. In the first experiment, free range and standard broiler carcases were air‐chilled under normal commercial conditions at 0°C. Strong negative correlations between pH values 15 min post‐mortem (pH15 min) and sarcomere length indicated that some cold shortening had occurred, while evidence supporting the occurrence of rigor shortening was much weaker. Regardless of the cause of muscle shortening, weak negative correlations between shear force and sarcomere length indicated that shorter sarcomeres were associated with tougher meat. In addition, strong negative correlations between pH values 24 h post‐mortem (pH24 h) and cooking losses suggested that increased juiciness is associated with higher ultimate pH values. 3. In the second experiment, carcase.
A mathematically rigorous assessment of the efficiency of quarantining and contact tracing in curbing the COVID-19 epidemic

In our model of the COVID-19 epidemic, infected individuals can be of four types, according whether they are asymptomatic (A) or symptomatic (I), and use a contact tracing mobile phone app (Y) or not (N). We denote by f the fraction of A’s, by y the fraction of Y’s and by R0 the average number of secondary infections from a random infected individual.We investigate the effect of non-electronic interventions (voluntary isolation upon symptom onset, quarantining private contacts) and of electronic interventions (contact tracing thanks to the app), depending on the willingness to quarantine, parameterized by four cooperating probabilities.For a given ‘effective’ R0 obtained with non-electronic interventions, we use nonnegative matrix theory and stopping line techniques to characterize mathematically the minimal fraction y0 of app users needed to curb the epidemic. We show that under a wide range of scenarios, the threshold y0 as a function of R0 rises steeply from 0 at R0= 1 to prohibitively large values (of the order of 60 – 70% up) whenever R0 is above 1.3. Our results show that moderate rates of adoption of a contact tracing app can reduce R0 but are by no means sufficient to reduce it below 1 unless it is already very close to 1 thanks to non-electronic interventions.
Partial purification of soluble potato polyphenol oxidase by partitioning in an aqueous two-phase system

Soluble potato polyphenol oxidase was partially purified using a two-phase partitioning approach with Triton X-114. The phenols were also reduced to 3% of the original content, avoiding the postpurification tanning of the enzyme. The enzyme was kinetically characterized with two phenolic substrates (tert-butylcatechol and chlorogenic acid) at two pHs (4.5 and 6.5). The latter substrate presented inhibition at high substrate concentration. Selected inhibitor agents were also studied. Tropolone was found to be the most effective inhibitor and presented a mixed type of inhibition
A new aspect of advantage on uniportal video-assisted thoracic surgery for lung cancer

J Thorac Dis 2020 | http://dx.doi. org/10.21037/jtd-20-1386 In surgical treatment of lung cancer, uniportal videoassisted thoracic surgery (U-VATS) has been gradually increasing as a minimally invasive surgical treatment, as well as robot assisted thoracic surgery (RATS), in thoracic surgery. Reports on several treatment outcomes of U-VATS suggest that, at present, at least, perioperative complications, mortality, and early recurrence after surgery may be comparable to those of conventional multiportal VATS (M-VATS) (1-3). Although there have been fewer reports on the prognosis, outcomes of early non-small cell lung cancer comparable to those acquired by M-VATS may increase based on our experience. In this report, the comparative study of the short-term treatment outcome of lung cancer between U-VATS and M-VATS performed at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden is demonstrated (4). The study design was an institutional observational cohort study, and interestingly carcinoid accounted for 8–9% of the surgical cases in both groups that were included pathological stage I to IV. The disease stage was more than IIIA in 8.2% in the U-VATS group, being higher than that (4.7%) in the M-VATS group. Preoperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy was performed in 3.3 and 1.9% of all cases in the U-VATS and M-VATS groups, respectively. Figure 3 shows the 2-year survival rate in the U-VATS and M-VATS groups. The survival rate was slightly lower in the M-VATS group. Early recovery after surgery, postoperative wound pain relief, and the esthetic satisfaction of patients are considered advantages of U-VATS, compared to those of M-VATS, but questions remain whether there is a statistically significant difference. In our study on a comparison of the wound pain relief effect between the 2 surgical procedures, a significant difference was noted in the wound pain relief effect on postoperative month 2 and thereafter, rather than early after surgery (5). The most important point is that a higher rate of direct discharge to home after surgery in the U-VATS than M-VATS group was presented in this report, but data on the presence or absence of the postoperative use of anti-inflammatory analgesics and opioid analgesics considered to be related to the rate of direct discharge to home after surgery, surgical factors (operative time and blood loss, etc.), and data on wound pain relief were not disclosed and it would have been better to describe comments on the reason for the presence of reoperation by U-VATS performed in approximately 5%. Moreover, in the Karolinska Institute, postoperative management is performed following the protocol termed enhanced recovery after thoracic surgery (ERATS). Consequently, due to introduction of this protocol, the rate of direct discharge to home was 76.2% in the U-VATS group, being clearly higher than that (62.1%) in the M-VATS group, and observation of the significance in the U-VATS group based on this postoperative low-invasiveness evaluation Editorial Commentary
Putting Things in Order: The Ups and Downs of Detrended Correspondence Analysis

Two of the fundamental questions in community ecology are: (1) How do species respond to environmental gradients? and (2) What are the interspecific associations in a community? Such data typically involve sampling many sites and variables (e.g., species, environmental conditions), which are often so numerous as to make simple bivariate analyses unrealistic. As a result, ecologists have adopted and adapted multivariate methods in order to best organize samples on the basis of the site attributes. Methods such as principal components analysis (PCA; see, e.g., Crome and Richards 1988; Schlesinger et al. 1989), correspondence analysis (CA; Blondel et al. 1988; Jackson and Harvey 1989), and nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS; Kenkel and Orloci 1986) are commonly employed. Owing to the heterogeneous nature of ecological data (i.e., high species turnover along a gradient or beta diversity), these multivariate methods frequently produce a "horseshoe" or an "arch" configuration in the first two axes of the resulting ordination (Kendall 1971; Hill and Gauch 1980). Wartenberg et al. state that this arch occurs because sites "are considered similar due to the corresponding lack of individuals of most species, rather than the presence of members of the same species. This similarity leads to involution, the closeness (in species space) of dissimilar extremes of an environmental gradient" (1987, p. 441). Some researchers regard the arch as undesirable, and several approaches are available to remove the arch from ordination analyses (e.g., Phillips 1978; Williamson 1978; Hill and Gauch 1980; Bradfield and Kenkel 1987; ter Braak 1987). Other researchers propose that the arch reflects attributes of the data rather than its being a mathematical artifact (e.g., Noy-Meir and Austin 1970; Swan 1970; Pielou 1984; Beals 1985; Wartenberg et al. 1987). The debate about the origin and implications of the arch and horseshoe remains unresolved. In fact, Peet et al. (1988, p. 926) state that "although the CA arch is certainly an inherent property of the method, it is not the same phenomenon as the related PCA horseshoe," as suggested by others (e.g., Pielou 1984; Wartenberg et al. 1987). The most popular method of removing the arch effect from ordinations is detrended correspondence analysis (DCA; Hill and Gauch 1980), a modification of traditional CA. The process of detrending (or removal of the arch) is implemented through the division of the first axis from CA into a number of segments. Within each of these segments, the site scores for the second axis are adjusted by subtracting the within-segment mean on the second axis from the score for each site. As a result, each segment has a mean value of zero for scores on the second axis. This process is repeated several times, and the results are averaged to determine
Incidence of bifurcation coronary lesion as a culprit lesion in patients with acute myocardial infarction: Impact of treatment strategy on short and long term outcomes

Abstract Purpose: Although, there are several studies comparing single and two-stent techniques in patients with bifurcation lesions, evidence in patients presenting with myocardial infarction (MI) is still insufficient. We aimed to assess the short and long term outcomes of provisional and two-stent techniques of bifurcation lesions in patients with ACS. Materials and methods: 2992 patients with MI who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) were enrolled in the present study. Of 2992 patients, 385 patients with MI had bifurcation lesions. The Synergy between PCI with TAXUS™ and Cardiac Surgery (SYNTAX) score, pre-PCI Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) flow, post-PCI TIMI flow, duration of procedure, angiographic features, post-PCI side branch loss, 1- and 12-month mortality rates were noted. Results: 169 (43.9%) patients had ST segment elevation MI, whereas 216 (56.1%) patients had non-ST segment elevation MI. 355 (92.2%) patients underwent provisional stenting and 30 (7.8%) patients underwent two-stent technique. Side branch loss was observed in 40 patients (11.2%) in the provisional group and 1 patient (3.3%) in the two-stent group (p=0.2). Compared to provisional group, durations of angiography and revascularization in two-stent group were significantly longer (p<0.001 and p<0.001). Both 1-month and 12-month mortality rates were similar in provisional and two-stent groups (4.2% vs. 3.3%, p=0.8 and 11.5% and 13.3%, p=0.7; respectively). Conclusion: In patients presenting with ACS and bifurcation lesions, procedural success, side branch loss, as well as short and long term mortality were similar in both provisional and two-stent techniques.
A Novel Spike Detection Algorithm Based on Multi-Channel of BECT EEG Signals

Benign childhood epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes (BECT) is one of the most common epilepsy syndromes in childhood which is typically characterized by localized discharges in the central and temporal regions. Traditionally, the recognition of spikes requires visual assessment of long-term EEG recordings which is time consuming and subjective because it depends on the knowledge and experience of the doctor. Therefore, a novel multi-step spike detection algorithm based on average reference (AV) channel and bipolar (BP) channel BECT EEG is proposed, including candidate spike detection algorithm, false positive spike (FPS) elimination, spike feature extraction and random forest (RF) classification. The proposed method is evaluated using 7 routine EEG recordings. This brief shows that the sensitivity (Sen), specificity (Spe), selectivity (Sel) and accuracy (AC) obtained by the proposed method are 97.4%, 96.5%, 96.6% and 96.9%, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed method is capable of detecting BECT spikes efficiently.
Comparison between Coliform Populations at Different Sites of the Intestinal Tract of Pigs

The coliform populations collected from different parts of the digestive tract were studied in six healthy pigs sacrificed on day 28 post weaning. Digesta were collected from six defined locations of the intestinal tract of these pigs. These spots were; the proximal and distal parts of the jejunum; ileum; caecum; colon, and rectum. The aim was to study how well the rectal coliform flora reflects the flora at other parts of the intestinal tract. The coliforms at each site were enumerated, and it was found that the number of coliforms per gram digesta increased through the passage of the intestinal tract. The density was highest in the samples collected from rectum. Twenty-four coliform isolates from each site were phenotyped using the PhenePlate system. The phenotypic diversities of the coliforms were quite high at all sites (median diversity indices ranged from 0.85 to 0.88). The coliform floras collected at different sites of the intestinal tract were compared with the rectal flora, and the proportions of identical strains at different sites were fairly high. The homogeneity between the coliform populations of different pigs increased through the intestine, and was highest among the samples collected from rectum. Still, it was concluded that phenotyping several rectal isolates was a relevant method to mirror also the anterior intestinal microflora. However, the results obtained also visualised the complexity of the intestinal bacterial flora, and indicate that important constituents of that flora might be lost if too few isolates are scrutinised.
Nutritive Constituents of Some Caribbean Marine Algae

The total significance of marine algae in basic production of organic matter and support of food chains in estuaries and other shallow waters can scarcely be overemphasized, From the viewpoint of general marine ecology, nutrition, and living resources which can benefit mankind (WALFORD, 1958), "sea weeds" have still not received adequate and deserved attention. It is important to learn more about the chemical constituents of marine algae and their contribution to the overall nutrition of coral reefs and mangrove lagoons, Many references to chemical and physiological aspects of algae can be found in such works äs Manual of Phycology (ed. by SMITH, 1951), Physiology and Biochemistry of Algae (ed, by LE\VIN% 1962), the various seaweed symposia (e, g*, YoL'XG and MCLAUGHLIN, 1966), and various papers on selected topics, such äs antibiosis (SIEBURTH, 1968; BURKHOLDER, 1969), and economic aspects of seaweeds (BONEY, 1965). The many ways in which seaweeds are utilized have been described by CHAPMAN, (1950), NEWTON (1951, 1963), SCAGEL (1961), UPHAM (1968), and BONEY (1965). The last author has concluded that seaweeds are a poor source of nutrition, because the amounts of fat and protein are relatively small and the algal polysaccharides are poorly digested by animals and man. Industrial uses for marine colloids and various other extractable compounds continue to be important in contemporary commerce (ÖPHAM, 1968). In addition to the various uses of seaweeds by man> the natural contribution of these plants in marine ecology probably constitutes their greatest value. As primary producers of organic matter, marine algae contribute enormously to food chains in the sea, Because of direct utilization äs food of animals and through microbial decomposition to form detritus and bacteria, which in turn enter into the marine food web, seaweeds deserve to be studied from the viewpoint of chemical and nutritive relationships. If more than 99-9 per cent of the total organic production in the sea is decomposed (ZOBELL, 1946, p. 137), then the study of major and minor components of the primary producers such äs seaweeds, phytoplankton, zooxanthellae, etc. become significant in any consideration of the process of transformation.
Textural Degradation of Cooked Fish Meat Gel (Kamaboko) by the Addition of an Edible Mushroom, Judas' Ear (Auricularia auriculajudae (Fr.) Quel)

Commercial makers of kamaboko, a traditional Japanese preparation of gelled cooked fish meat, have observed that when slivers of the edible Judas' ear mushroom (Auricularia auricula-judue (Fr.) Quel) are incorporated into the gel without being cooked first, the gel tends to have an unsatisfactory texture. Experiments with casein as substrate have already shown that this mushroom has a proteinase. We showed that the proteinase acted on fish myofibrillar proteins, including myosin, actin, and tropomyosin. In kamaboko containing Judas' ear mushroom uncooked, fish proteins were hydrolyzed and gel strength decreased. The results showed that the decrease in gel strength was caused by the hydrolysis of fish proteins by the proteinase.
Evolution of the consumer price index and the unemployment rates of Paraguay in the period 2008-2018

RESUMEN La presente investigación busca analizar la evolución de la tasa de desempleo y el índice de precios al consumidor en el Paraguay durante el periodo 2008 – 2018. Es por ello que el propósito fundamental es visualizar las causas y efectos que ocasionaron las respectivas variaciones en estos indicadores. El enfoque utilizado para la investigación es documental a partir de distintas fuentes oficiales, como: Dirección General de Estadísticas, Encuestas y Censos (DGEEG) y los Boletines Estadísticos del Banco Central del Paraguay (BCP), entre otros, las cuales sirvieron de base para realizar cálculos propios. Entre los principales resultados obtenidos cabe destacar que las grandes variaciones que se presentan cada año tienen un factor común que es el clima, por ser el Paraguay un país caracterizado por la predominancia de los sectores agrícola y ganadero. Por último, se resalta, por un lado, la importancia de políticas que impulsen la inversión para acortar la brecha entre la preparación de los jóvenes en cuanto a capacitación y lo que necesitan las empresas; y, por otro lado, la influencia del nivel general de precios en la determinación del proceso inflacionario.