Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retreatment to enlarge small excimer laser optical zones using combined myopic and hyperopic ablations.

PURPOSE We describe a retreatment technique using a combination of large-diameter myopic and hyperopic excimer laser ablations of a near equivalent diopter value to enlarge previous small ablation zones without altering the refractive result obtained by the initial surgery. METHODS Eight eyes of six patients were retreated with a Technolas Keracor 217 laser in order to enlarge the optical zone. All patients had a good refractive result after the initial surgery, but reported halos under low light conditions. Retreatment consisted of a combination of myopic and hyperopic ablations of near equivalent value, eg, -1.00 D and +1.00 D treatment. These opposite value ablations should neutralize their respective refractive effect, but by removing a larger diameter of tissue, actually displace the transition zones further toward the corneal periphery. Although the initial treatment used photorefractive keratectomy in four of the eight eyes, LASIK was used for retreatment in all eyes. Improvement was assessed subjectively by the patient and was measured objectively with a Technomed C-Scan ray-tracing program. RESULTS In six of eight eyes, patients experienced moderate or marked improvement. This improvement was objectively correlated on postoperative corneal topography. CONCLUSION Combined larger diameter myopic and hyperopic retreatment seems to be safe and effective for enlarging previous small treatment zones, reducing symptoms such as halos in selected patients.
Bidirectional chromosome replication in Bacillus subtilis 168

Density transfer analysis of deoxyribonucleic acid from Bacillus subtilis 168 thy spores germinating in 5-bromouracil medium shows the order of replication of genetic markers to be: purA16, cysA14, sacA, ctrA, (narB, arol), dal, (hisA1, purB6), (tre-12, thr-5), (argA, aroG, argC4), (metC, leu-8, pheA), (ura-1, aroD), lys-1, (trpC, metB, ilvA, citB, citK, gltA). The precise order of transfer of markers within parentheses could not be determined in these experiments. Taken together with new PBS1 transduction data presented here and in the accompanying paper of J. Lepesant-Kejzlarová, J.-A. Lepesant, J. Walle, A. Billaut, and R. Dedonder (1975), the results can be resolved in terms of a symmetric, fully bidirectional mode of chromosome replication with a replication origin close to the purA16 marker and a terminus in the region of the gltA, citK loci, diametrically opposed to the origin. A new genetic map of the B. subtilis 168 chromosome is presented.
Combining population-based and exact methods for multi-level capacitated lot-sizing problems

We present an ant-based algorithm to solve multi-level capacitated lot-sizing problems. We apply a hybrid approach where we use the ant system to optimize the decomposition of the problem into smaller subproblems. These subproblems, containing only a few items and periods, are solved using CPLEX. Then the overall solution is derived by consolidating the partial solutions. This hybrid approach provides superior results with respect to solution quality in comparison with the existing approaches in the literature. §This research emerged from the PhD thesis of Rapeepan Pitakaso during his stay at the University of Vienna.
Cerebral Hemodynamics in Preeclampsia: Cerebral Perfusion and the Rationale for an Alternative to Magnesium Sulfate

Preeclampsia and eclampsia continue to be major causes of maternal death. Currently, approximately 18% of U.S. maternal deaths are attributed to hypertensive disorders and eclampsia, and several hundred women die from eclampsia and its complications every year. In the United States, preeclamptic women have received magnesium sulfate as a seizure prophylaxis agent for 3 decades, and this practice is becoming more widely accepted internationally. In addition to a recognized failure rate, there are financial, logistic, and safety concerns associated with the universal administration of magnesium sulfate. Many institutions in the developing world lack the necessary equipment and expertise to administer the medication, and many preeclamptic patients thus do not receive magnesium sulfate before their first seizure. As effective as it has been in reducing mortality from eclampsia, magnesium sulfate is also associated with appreciable morbidity and mortality from administration errors and magnesium toxicity. The availability of an easily administered, cheap, safe, and orally administered alternative to magnesium sulfate would be welcomed in the developing world and would provide an extremely useful alternative therapy to the current standard of care. Recent advances in the understanding of the pathophysiology of preeclampsia and eclampsia, primarily related to cerebral perfusion and blood flow, could allow us to reduce the seizure rate in treated preeclamptic women even further than what is currently reported. This article deals with the rationale behind the use of labetalol as an alternative to magnesium sulfate for the prevention of eclampsia. Target Audience: Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Family Physicians Learning Objectives: After completion of this article, the reader should be able to recall that hypertensive diseases of pregnancy contribute a significant portion of today’s maternal mortality, explain that methods of preventing eclampsia are not applicable worldwide, and state that understanding of the pathophysiology of preeclampsia/eclampsia may assist in developing safe and effective medications that can be used universally.
Economic rationale of traditional agroforestry systems: a case-study of Ficus trees in semiarid agro-ecosystems of Karnataka, southern India

Abstract In Mandya district of southern dry agroclimatic zone of Karnataka, trees of the genus Ficus are abundant in rainfed agro-ecosystems with field crops like millets, maize, pulses and oilseeds. Economic values of this traditional agroforestry system were compared with alternative high-input systems using data collected from farmers’ interviews, group discussions and field walks held in 18 villages in Mandya. Data on annual farming costs and returns were used for a preliminary income comparison of various agricultural systems prevalent in Mandya. For further comparison with Ficus agroforestry, alternative systems were selected based on existing cropping pattern and farmers’ preferences. Financial (including all paid up costs and benefits) and economic (including opportunity costs of land, family labour, external agricultural inputs and benefit of in situ litter nutrient input from trees) benefit-cost analyses were conducted for assessing relative profitability of farming systems. Among the different systems compared, irrigated agroforestry systems with high-value trees emerged to be the most profitable. Among rainfed systems Ficus agroforestry had higher financial net present value (NPV), while economically Eucalyptus plantation had higher NPV due to less labour requirements. The implications of these results in judging a socioeconomically optimal land use for Mandya are discussed further.
Shifting Confidence in Home Ownership: The Great Recession *

We study the responses to several questions related to real estate that were added to the Michigan Survey of Consumers in July and August of 2011. In particular, we asked about attitudes toward renting versus buying a home; about commuting; and about how much to spend on a mortgage. By matching the results to data about relative house price declines during the recent crisis (at the ZIP-code level), we can study the relationship between the housing crash and individual attitudes. We find that younger respondents are relatively less confident about home ownership after larger declines, while older respondents are relatively more confident. In both cases, this is observed only for those with personal experience of loss (via themselves or someone close) during the crash. We find no effect on attitudes toward commuting, and we find that people who live in the high- decline areas believe it is appropriate to spend more on a mortgage.
Use of continuous glucose monitoring in patients with diabetes on peritoneal dialysis: poor correlation with HbA1c and high incidence of hypoglycaemia

Achieving adequate glycaemic control in patients with diabetes on peritoneal dialysis is challenging. Traditional assessment of glycaemia using HbA1c is difficult in such patients because of renal anaemia or carbamylation of haemoglobin, and significant glucose excursions may be masked. We describe three patients with diabetes on peritoneal dialysis with similar HbA1c levels, but with very different glucose profiles shown on continuous glucose monitoring.
Feasibility of an Infraclavicular Block With a Reduced Volume of Lidocaine With Sonographic Guidance

Objective. A successful brachial plexus block requires a large volume of a local anesthetic. Sonography allows reliable deposition of the anesthetic around the cords of the brachial plexus, potentially lowering the anesthetic requirement. Methods. Fifteen sonographically guided infraclavicular blocks were performed in 14 patients with 2% carbonated lidocaine with epinephrine through a 17‐gauge Tuohy needle. The amount of lidocaine injected at several points around each cord was based on satisfactory spread observed sonographically. A 19‐gauge catheter was then placed with its tip between the posterior cord and axillary artery, and tip position was confirmed by observing the spread of 1 to 2 mL of injected air. Lidocaine was injected through the catheter if necessary to prolong the blocks. Results. Surgery was performed in all patients without general anesthesia, rescue blocks, or infiltration. A heroin user was given an additional 50 μg of fentanyl before the block. One patient required 5 mL of lidocaine through the catheter for an incomplete radial nerve block 5 minutes after initial injection. Seven patients received additional midazolam (mean, 2.5 mg) for alleviation of anxiety despite excellent blocks. The mean ± SD volume of lidocaine for the initial block was 16.1 ± 1.9 mL (4.2 ± 0.9 mg/kg). In 4 patients, additional lidocaine 1 hour after an initial successful block increased the total volume to 19.5 ± 7.1 mL (5 ± 1.9 mg/kg). The mean times to perform the block, onset of the block, and achieving surgical anesthesia and the duration of surgery were 10.8 ± 3.3, 2 ± 1.3, 5.9 ± 2.6, and 92.7 ± 54.4 minutes, respectively. Conclusions. A successful infraclavicular block in adults with 14 mL of lidocaine is feasible with the use of sonography. The reduced volume does not seem to affect the onset but shortens the duration of the block.
Providing consistent rates for backhauling of mobile base stations in public urban transportation

We consider a scenario in which an operator installs (small cell) base stations on top of city buses to offer better quality of experience (QoE) to their passengers. In that case, providing a consistent backhaul rate (i.e., a constant rate at all times) to these base stations could help mitigate the effects of mobility on the QoE. Specifically, we perform the analysis to determine the maximum consistent backhaul rate that can be offered to a bus on a given route, given the resources allocated by the operator to backhauling, by taking advantage of the fact that different buses on that route will see different conditions at a given time. We also consider the case where we allow a small outage probability, i.e., that the consistent rate is not provided for a small proportion of time. We show that by allowing an outage probability of only 1% we can increase the achievable backhaul rate by 50%. We then show how to compute the Pareto frontier (rate region) of the achievable consistent backhaul rates when there are two bus routes. The analysis is performed under an independence assumption and hence we validate our results by simulations. Altogether, the cost of consistency is very high, but it can be partly mitigated by allocating the unused backhaul capacity to best effort services in real time.
On the evaluation of the influence of cellular phones on their users

The authors studied influence of ultrahigh frequency radiation caused by cellular phones on functional state of central nervous, cardiovascular systems and local temperature changes in cellular phones users. The head area near the phone antenna appeared to be under the most intensive heating. Ultrahigh frequency radiation induces significant changes in local temperature and in physiologic parameters of central nervous and cardiovascular systems.
Early survival and delayed death of developmentally‐born dentate gyrus neurons

The storage and persistence of memories depends on plasticity in the hippocampus. Adult neurogenesis produces new neurons that mature through critical periods for plasticity and cellular survival, which determine their contributions to learning and memory. However, most granule neurons are generated prior to adulthood; the maturational timecourse of these neurons is poorly understood compared to adult‐born neurons but is essential to identify how the dentate gyrus (DG), as a whole, contributes to behavior. To characterize neurons born in the early postnatal period, we labeled DG neurons born on postnatal day 6 (P6) with BrdU and quantified maturation and survival across early (1 hr to 8 weeks old) and late (2–6 months old) cell ages. We find that the dynamics of developmentally‐born neuron survival is essentially the opposite of neurons born in adulthood: P6‐born neurons did not go through a period of cell death during their immature stages (from 1 to 8 weeks). In contrast, 17% of P6‐born neurons died after reaching maturity, between 2 and 6 months of age. Delayed death was evident from the loss of BrdU+ cells as well as pyknotic BrdU+caspase3+ neurons within the superficial granule cell layer. Patterns of DCX, NeuN, and activity‐dependent Fos expression indicate that developmentally‐born neurons mature over several weeks and a sharp peak in zif268 expression at 2 weeks suggests that developmentally‐born neurons mature faster than adult‐born neurons (which peak at 3 weeks). Collectively, our findings are relevant for understanding how developmentally‐born DG neurons contribute to memory and disorders throughout the lifespan. High levels of early survival and zif268 expression may promote learning, while also rendering neurons sensitive to insults at defined stages. Late neuronal death in young adulthood may result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of DG neurons, which could impact memory persistence and contribute to hippocampal/DG atrophy in disorders such as depression.
Do the kinematics of a baulked take-off in springboard diving differ from those of a completed dive

Abstract Consistency and invariance in movements are traditionally viewed as essential features of skill acquisition and elite sports performance. This emphasis on the stabilization of action has resulted in important processes of adaptation in movement coordination during performance being overlooked in investigations of elite sport performance. Here we investigate whether differences exist between the movement kinematics displayed by five, elite springboard divers (age 17 ± 2.4 years) in the preparation phases of baulked and completed take-offs. The two-dimensional kinematic characteristics of the reverse somersault take-off phases (approach and hurdle) were recorded during normal training sessions and used for intra-individual analysis. All participants displayed observable differences in movement patterns at key events during the approach phase; however, the presence of similar global topological characteristics suggested that, overall, participants did not perform distinctly different movement patterns during completed and baulked dives. These findings provide a powerful rationale for coaches to consider assessing functional variability or adaptability of motor behaviour as a key criterion of successful performance in sports such as diving.
Desmoteplase as a potential treatment for cerebral ischaemia

Introduction: Desmoteplase is an investigational plasminogen activator found in the saliva of the vampire bat, Desmodus rotundus. It has been of scientific interest for over 25 years as it exhibits pharmacological properties that have led to the hypothesis that desmoteplase may be safer and more effective than recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) in arterial thromboembolic disease, and in particular, acute ischaemic stroke (AIS). Areas covered: In this review, the authors cover the pharmacological properties of desmoteplase, focussing on how this translates into a theoretical advantage over rtPA in AIS. The authors further present preclinical studies and clinical data on the use of desmoteplase in AIS. Expert opinion: In contrast to rtPA, and despite a similar structure, desmoteplase has demonstrated high selectivity for fibrin and an absence of neurotoxicity in experimental models. Demonstrating such properties in animal models, one would have expected an ambitious clinical study future. Phase II and Phase III clinical studies in patients with AIS demonstrated an excellent safety profile with low risk of symptomatic intracranial haemorrhage compared to rtPA. However, data on clinical and radiological efficacy end points of desmoteplase in AIS are inconclusive. Further Phase III trials are currently underway and their results are eagerly awaited.
Linkages Among Corporate Governance, Intellectual Capital Efficiency and Firm Performance: An Empirical Analysis from Emerging Market

In this study an attempt has been made to create a link between corporate governance, intellectual capital efficiency and firm performance. The sample is BSE SENSEX firms from the year 2013 to 2015. Data has been collected from PROWESS database of Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). Intellectual capital efficiency has been estimated using VAIC (value added intellectual capital) methodology. Previous research suggests measuring intellectual capital through the Market to book ratio and Tobin Q ratio. In the current study an attempt has been made to measure the intellectual capital efficiency through VAIC method which derives interesting insights. The results show that corporate governance affects a firm’s intellectual capital efficiency i.e. if a firm has good corporate governance system in place, it will attract efficient human capital for the firm and in turn a firm’s profitability will increase over a period of time. Among the corporate governance variables, BSH (block shareholding), CEO duality (if the CEO and the chairman of the firm) and board size seem to have a significant impact on a firm’s operational and financial performance measured by return on assets and return on equity respectively. The results pertaining to the effect of intellectual capital efficiency on firm performance show that capital employed efficiency (CEE) and human capital efficiency (HCE) have a significant impact on a firm’s return on equity. The study supports stewardship theory of corporate governance.
How to predict the future (outcome of gastrointestinal disease).

This short review is aimed to illustrate three simple rules to predict the outcome of a gastrointestinal disease. The first rule relates to the principle of WYSIWYG, that is, "what you see is what you get. " To predict the future of a given digestive disease, the gastroenterologist needs to pay close attention to its present appearance and develop clear understanding of its pathophysiology. To delineate future trends, as a second rule, the gastroenterologist needs to delineate past trends and try to extrapolate them into the near future. Third, the length of the past medical history also provides a reliable estimate for the expected future lifetime of a gastrointestinal disease. These rules enable gastroenterologists to enlighten themselves, as well as their patients, about the future outcome of a given gastrointestinal disease.
The feasibility of using mobile phone technology for sexual behaviour research in a population vulnerable to HIV: A prospective survey with female sex workers in South India

Abstract Sexual behaviour studies are often challenged by sampling, participation and measurement biases, and may be unacceptable to participants. We invited 293 randomly selected female sex workers (FSWs) in Bangalore, India, to participate in a telephone survey, with condom breakage as the main outcome. Free cell phones were supplied and trained interviewers telephoned FSWs daily to ask about all sex acts the previous day. Later, we undertook focus groups to discuss the methodology with the participants. We evaluated technical and operational feasibility; data reliability and measurement error; emotional and fatigue effects; interviewer bias; survey reactivity effects; and user acceptability. Response rates were high, with 84% of invited participants complying fully with the protocol. The study ran smoothly, with little evidence of biases. The methodology was highly acceptable; the respondents enjoyed using a new telephone and being interviewed at times convenient to them. Other reasons for the success of the method were that the study was sanctioned and supported by the sex worker collective, and the interviewers were well trained and developed a strong rapport with the participants. The success of this methodology, and the wealth of data produced, indicates that it can be an important tool for conducting sexual behaviour research in low literacy, high sex volume populations.
Ultrafast hydrogen bond strengthening of the photoexcited fluorenone in alcohols for facilitating the fluorescence quenching.

The time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) method was performed to investigate the excited-state hydrogen-bonding dynamics of fluorenone (FN) in hydrogen donating methanol (MeOH) solvent. The infrared spectra of the hydrogen-bonded FN-MeOH complex in both the ground state and the electronically excited states are calculated using the TDDFT method, since the ultrafast hydrogen-bonding dynamics can be investigated by monitoring the vibrational absorption spectra of some hydrogen-bonded groups in different electronic states. We demonstrated that the intermolecular hydrogen bond C=O.H-O between fluorenone and methanol molecules is significantly strengthened in the electronically excited-state upon photoexcitation of the hydrogen-bonded FM-MeOH complex. The hydrogen bond strengthening in electronically excited states can be used to explain well all the spectral features of fluorenone chromophore in alcoholic solvents. Furthermore, the radiationless deactivation via internal conversion (IC) can be facilitated by the hydrogen bond strengthening in the excited state. At the same time, quantum yields of the excited-state deactivation via fluorescence are correspondingly decreased. Therefore, the total fluorescence of fluorenone in polar protic solvents can be drastically quenched by hydrogen bonding.
MASS MEDIA AND CONSUMER PURCHASING BEHAVIOUR: A CASE STUDY OF LAHORE, PAKISTAN

The present study aims at understanding the individual’s exposure towards multinational products advertisement by Indian film stars and its effects on consumer purchasing behaviors in Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore. In this competitive age where different kinds of fashion brands are fighting with each other to get number one position in consumer’s mind, while stars is big support in sustaining brand's image. For present study 185 family members were sampled from 5 blocks of Allama Iqbal Town Lahore. The results mentioned below showed an association between advertisements of multinational products and consumer purchasing behavior. Multinational advertisers highlight the product feature in a better way and in return get more attention and convince more and more people towards product.