Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early Crack Detection of Reinforced Concrete Structure Using Embedded Sensors

The damage in reinforced concrete (RC) structures can be induced either by the dynamic or static load. The inspection technologies available today have difficulty in detecting slowly progressive, locally limited damage, especially in hard-to-reach areas in the superstructure. The four-point bending test on the benchmark RC structure was used as a test of the quality and sensitivity of the embedded sensors. It allowed assessment of whether any cracking and propagation that occurs with the embedded sensors can be detected. Various methods are used for the analysis of the ultrasonic signals. By determining the feature from the ultrasonic signals, the changes in the whole structure are evaluated. The structural degradation of the RC benchmark structure was tested using various non-destructive testing methods to obtain a comprehensive decision about structural condition. It is shown that the ultrasonic sensors can detect a crack with a probability of detection of 100%, also before it is visible by the naked eye and other techniques, even if the damage is not in the direct path of the ultrasonic wave. The obtained results confirmed that early crack detection is possible using the developed methodology based on embedded and external sensors and advanced signal processing.
The anti-biofilm and anti-virulence activities of trans-resveratrol and oxyresveratrol against uropathogenic Escherichia coli

Abstract Uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) is the primary causative agent of urinary tract infections, which are one of the most common infectious disease types in humans. UPEC infections involve bacterial cell adhesion to bladder epithelial cells, and UPEC can also form biofilms on indwelling catheters that are often tolerant to common antibiotics. In this study, the anti-biofilm activities of t-stilbene, stilbestrol, t-resveratrol, oxyresveratrol, ε-viniferin, suffruticosol A, and vitisin A were investigated against UPEC. t-Resveratrol, oxyresveratrol, and ε-viniferin, suffruticosol A, and vitisin A significantly inhibited UPEC biofilm formation at subinhibitory concentrations (10–50 μg ml−1). These findings were supported by observations that t-resveratrol and oxyresveratrol reduced fimbriae production and the swarming motility in UPEC. Furthermore, t-resveratrol and oxyresveratrol markedly diminished the hemagglutinating ability of UPEC, and enhanced UPEC killing by human whole blood. The findings show that t-resveratrol, oxyresveratrol, and resveratrol oligomers warrant further attention as antivirulence strategies against persistent UPEC infections.
A Charging Algorithm for the Wireless Rechargeable Sensor Network with Imperfect Charging Channel and Finite Energy Storage

Recently, wireless energy transfer technology becomes a popular way to address energy shortage in wireless sensor networks. The capacity of the mobile wireless charging car (WCV) and the wireless channel between the WCV and the sensor are two important factors influencing the energy efficiency of the wireless sensor network, which has not been well considered. In this paper, we study the energy efficiency of a wireless rechargeable sensor network charged by a finite capacity WCV through an imperfect wireless channel. To estimate the energy efficiency, we first propose a new metric named waste rate, which is defined as a function of the charging channel quality. Then, energy efficiency optimization is modeled as minimizing the waste rate. Through optimizing the distance between the WCV and sensor nodes, the set of optimal charging sensor nodes is obtained. By using the Hamiltonian circle, the nearest neighbor algorithm is proposed to find the traveling path of the WCV. Furthermore, to avoid the untimely death of sensor nodes and the coverage hole, an extended node dynamic replacement strategy is proposed. The simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the waste rate and the total charging time; i.e., the sum of traveling time and charging delay can be significantly reduced, which indicates that the proposed algorithm can improve the energy efficiency of the network.
Prenatal diagnosis of micrognathia in 41 fetuses: Retrospective analysis of outcome and genetic etiologies

Fetal micrognathia can be detected early in pregnancy. Prognosis of micrognathia depends on the risk of respiratory distress at birth and on the long‐term risk of intellectual disability. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the long‐term prognosis of fetuses with prenatal diagnosis of micrognathia by estimating the prevalence and the severity of confirmed genetic diagnosis in our cohort. Our retrospective study included 41 fetuses with prenatal diagnosis of micrognathia referred to the multidisciplinary centers for prenatal diagnosis in Nice and Marseille, France, between 2006 and 2016. Fetal micrognathia was associated with cleft palate in 27 cases. A genetic cause was confirmed in 21 cases (67%). A chromosomal abnormality was present in 12 cases, including three copy‐number variations diagnosed by array CGH. Monogenic disorders were identified in nine cases, most often after birth. Fetuses with family history of micrognathia or Pierre Robin sequence had a favorable outcome. Prognosis was good for the fetuses without associated findings and normal chromosomal analysis, with the exception of one case with a postnatal diagnosis of mandibulofacial dysostosis with microcephaly. Prognostic was poor for the fetuses with additional ultrasound anomalies, as only 5 out of 28 children had a good outcome. Prenatal diagnosis of micrognathia is an indicator of a possible fetal pathology justifying multidisciplinary management. Our study confirms the necessity of performing prenatal array CGH. Use of high‐throughput gene sequencing in prenatal period could improve diagnostic performance, prenatal counseling, and adequate postnatal care.
Performance-based pharmacy payment models: the case for change.

In response to rising healthcare costs, healthcare payers across the globe have been experimenting with performance-based payment models that link payments to providers with the quality of care that they provide. Community pharmacy in Australia has yet to be significantly affected by these changes. Initial steps have been taken to fund quality-linked interventions by pharmacists, such as the provision of medicines in dose administration aids, but funding for dispensing prescriptions remains solely based on a fee-for-service model. At the foundation of any performance-based payment model are measures that, in aggregate, reflect the quality of care that is provided. Patient adherence to prescription regimens can be correlated with the counselling provided by pharmacists and, as such, can serve as the measure on which a performance-based payment model for dispensing can be constructed. Experience in the US suggests per-prescription payments to a pharmacy can be increased or decreased by a small, yet meaningful, amount based on a measure of the level of adherence of patients of the pharmacy. The current dispensing payment model in the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme may be able to be modified in a similar manner to support provision by pharmacists of improved quality of care.What is known about the topic? Dispensing in community pharmacy in Australia is currently remunerated on a fee-for-service basis that carries no incentive to deliver an enhanced performance that could lead to improved quality of care.What does this paper add? Several countries have introduced alternative payment models that link the level of funding to the quality of services provided by healthcare practitioners, and potentially to patient outcomes. Counselling is an integral aspect of pharmacists' dispensing and, based on the principle that counselling improves adherence, which improves outcomes, remuneration paid to a pharmacy for dispensing could be adjusted in relation to the level of adherence demonstrated by patients of the pharmacy.What are the implications for practitioners? Pharmacists would be incentivised through quality-linked dispensing remuneration to provide enhanced counselling and other inputs that lead to improved patient outcomes and health system benefits.
Citywide transmission of MDR-TB under China's rapid urbanization: a retrospective population-based genomic spatial epidemiological study.

BACKGROUND Population movement could extend multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) transmission and complicate its global prevalence. We sought to identify the high-risk populations and geographic sites of MDR-TB transmission in Shenzhen, the most common destination for internal migrants in China. METHODS We performed a population-based, retrospective study of patients who were diagnosed with MDR-TB in Shenzhen during 2013-2017. By defining genomic clusters with a threshold of 12 SNP distance based on whole-genome sequencing their clinical strains, the clustering rate was calculated to evaluate the level of recent transmission. Risk factors for MDR-TB transmission were identified by multivariable logistic regression. To further delineate the epidemiological links, we invited the genomic-clustered patients to an in-depth social network investigation. RESULTS In total, 105 (25.2%) of the 417 enrolled MDR-TB patients were grouped into 40 genome clusters, suggesting recent transmission of MDR strains. The adjusted risk for students to have a clustered strain was 4.05 (95% confidential intervals [CI], 1.06-17.0) times greater than other patients. The majority (70%, 28/40) of the genomic clusters involved patients who lived in different districts, with residences separated by an average of 8.76 kilometers. Other than household members, confirmed epidemiological links were also identified among classmates and workplace colleagues. CONCLUSIONS These findings demonstrate that local transmission of MDR-TB is a serious problem in Shenzhen city. While most transmission occurred between people who lived distant from each other, there was clear evidence that transmission occurred in schools and workplaces, which should be included as targeted sites for active case finding.
Mitochondrial Peptide Humanin Protects Silver Nanoparticles-Induced Neurotoxicity in Human Neuroblastoma Cancer Cells (SH-SY5Y)

The extensive usage of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as medical products such as antimicrobial and anticancer agents has raised concerns about their harmful effects on human beings. AgNPs can potentially induce oxidative stress and apoptosis in cells. However, humanin (HN) is a small secreted peptide that has cytoprotective and neuroprotective cellular effects. The aim of this study was to assess the harmful effects of AgNPs on human neuroblastoma SH-SY5Y cells and also to investigate the protective effect of HN from AgNPs-induced cell death, mitochondrial dysfunctions, DNA damage, and apoptosis. AgNPs were prepared with an average size of 18 nm diameter to study their interaction with SH-SY5Y cells. AgNPs caused a dose-dependent decrease of cell viability and proliferation, induced loss of plasma-membrane integrity, oxidative stress, loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), and loss of ATP content, amongst other effects. Pretreatment or co-treatment of HN with AgNPs protected cells from several of these AgNPs induced adverse effects. Thus, this study demonstrated for the first time that HN protected neuroblastoma cells against AgNPs-induced neurotoxicity. The mechanisms of the HN-mediated protective effect on neuroblastoma cells may provide further insights for the development of novel therapeutic agents against neurodegenerative diseases.
Identifying molecular recognition features in intrinsically disordered regions of proteins by transfer learning

MOTIVATION Protein intrinsic disorder describes the tendency of sequence residues to not fold into a rigid three-dimensional shape by themselves. However, some of these disordered regions can transition from disorder to order when interacting with another molecule in segments known as Molecular Recognition Features (MoRFs). Previous analysis has shown that these MoRF regions are indirectly encoded within the prediction of residue disorder as low-confidence predictions (ie. in a semi-disordered state P(D)≈0.5). Thus, what has been learned for disorder prediction may be transferable to MoRF prediction. Transferring the internal characterization of protein disorder for the prediction of MoRF residues would allow us to take advantage of the large training set available for disorder prediction, enabling the training of larger analytical models than is currently feasible on the small number of currently-available annotated MoRF proteins. In this paper we propose a new method for MoRF prediction by transfer learning from the SPOT-Disorder2 ensemble models built for disorder prediction. RESULTS We confirm that directly training on the MoRF set with a randomly-initialized model yields substantially poorer performance on independent test sets than by using the transfer-learning-based method SPOT-MoRF, for both deep and simple networks. Its comparison to current state-of-the-art techniques reveals its superior performance in identifying MoRF binding regions in proteins across two independent testing sets, including our new dataset of >800 protein chains. These test chains share less than 30% sequence similarity to all training and validation proteins used in SPOT-Disorder2 and SPOT-MoRF, and provide a much-needed large-scale update on the performance of current MoRF predictors. The method is expected to be useful in locating functional disordered regions in proteins. AVAILABILITY SPOT-MoRF and its data is available as a web server and as a standalone program at: http://sparks-lab.org/jack/server/SPOT-MoRF/index.php.
Cyclists and triathletes do not differ in muscle volume, muscle recruitment or pedal force effectiveness

BACKGROUND: Non-specific adaptation from training can elicit similar muscle volume and muscle activation between cyclists and triathletes which differ in comparison to non-athletes. OBJECTIVE: To compare muscle volume, muscle activation and pedal forces of cyclists, triathletes and non-athletes. METHODS: Twelve cyclists, ten triathletes and twelve non-athletes performed an incremental test to determine their maximal power output (POMAX). Quadriceps and triceps surae volume were estimated from ultrasound images taken at rest, while pedal forces and muscle activation were recorded at POMAX at 90 rpm. RESULTS: Quadriceps volume was larger in cyclists (∼22%, p < 0.04) and triathletes (∼40%, p < 0.01) compared to nonathletes. Higher activation of rectus femoris (∼55%, p = 0.01) and tibialis anterior (∼88%, p = 0.01) were observed for triathletes compared to non-athletes at the first quarter of the pedaling cycle. Triathletes also showed higher activation for tibialis anterior than cyclists (∼68%, p = 0.03) at the first quarter. Non-athletes applied greater force on the pedal compared to triathletes at the first quarter (∼42%, p < 0.01). Pedal force effectiveness was higher for athletes (37–44%, p < 0.02) compared to nonathletes at the fourth quarter. CONCLUSIONS: Similar muscle volume and muscle activation between cyclists and triathletes may be related to a similar training volume supporting differences relative to non-athletes.
Development and Validation of a Measure of Responsive Sexual Desire

Abstract According to the incentive motivation model, sexual desire does not occur spontaneously but can be triggered by sexual stimuli and stems from one’s experience of sexual arousal. Until now, research into responsive sexual desire has been challenged by the lack of measures capturing desire that emerges following sexual arousal. The aim of this study was to validate the 18-item Report of Behavior and Feelings–Desire (RBF-D) scale in a sample of 291 women (Mage = 22.41, SD = 5.82) with varying degrees of sexual desire. Items on the RBF-D were selected to reflect 5 aspects of responsive sexual desire: sexual activity with a primary partner, sexual desire for a primary partner, sexual activity with other persons, sexual desire for other persons, and autoerotic activities. A 5-factor solution was confirmed via exploratory structural equation modeling. Internal consistency of 4 out of 5 factors was good. Convergent validity was established via small to medium associations of the RBF-D factors with other measures of sexual desire. Low and nonsignificant correlations with depression and sexual inhibition supported the discriminant validity. The RBF-D is a valid and reliable measure that can be useful in clinical and research settings where assessment of responsive sexual desire and behavior is needed.
The development of a mechanical device to stretch skeletal muscle of young and old rats

OBJECTIVE: How much force is needed to stretch skeletal muscle is still unknown. The aim of this study was to develop a device that mechanically stretches rat muscle to compare the force (N) required to stretch the soleus muscle of young and aged rats and the tibio-tarsal angle joint at neutral and stretched positions. METHODS: Twelve female Wistar rats were divided into two groups: a young group (YG, n=6, 311±11 g) of rats 3 months old and an aged group (AG, n=6, 351±43 g) of rats 15 months old. The left soleus muscle was mechanically held in full dorsal flexion and submitted to mechanical passive stretching: 1 bout of 10 repetitions, each repetition lasted 60 seconds with an interval of 45 seconds between repetitions, performed once a day, twice a week, for 1 week. The force required during stretching was measured by a load cell, and the tibio-tarsal angle joint was measured by photometry. RESULTS: The load cell calibration showed excellent reliability, as confirmed by the intraclass correlation coefficient value of 0.93. A decrease in delta force was found in the comparison between YG and AG (0.11±0.03 N vs 0.08±0.02 N, p<0.05, repeated measures ANOVA). There was no difference between the YG and the AG in the tibio-tarsal angle at resting position (87.1±3.8° vs 87.1±3.5°, p=0.35, Kruskal Wallis) and at the end of the stretching protocol (43.9±4.4° vs 42.6±3.4°, p=0.57, Kruskal Wallis). CONCLUSION: The device presented in this study is able to monitor the force necessary to stretch hindlimb rat muscles. Aged rats required less force than young rats to stretch the soleus muscle, and there was no difference regarding the tibio-tarsal angle between the two groups.
Routine preoperative aortic computed tomography angiography is associated with reduced risk of stroke in coronary artery bypass grafting: a propensity-matched analysis.

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to determine stroke rates in patients who did or did not undergo routine computed tomography angiography (CTA) aortic imaging before isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS We conducted a retrospective analysis of a prospectively maintained single-centre registry. Between 2009 and 2016, a total of 2320 consecutive patients who underwent isolated CABG at our institution were identified. Propensity score matching was used to create a paired cohort of patients with similar baseline characteristics who did (CTA cohort) or did not (non-CTA cohort) undergo preoperative aortic CTA. The primary end point of the analysis was in-hospital stroke. RESULTS In 435 propensity score-matched pairs, stroke occurred in 4 patients (0.92%) in the CTA cohort and in 14 patients (3.22%) in the non-CTA cohort (P = 0.017). Routine preoperative aortic CTA was associated with a significantly reduced risk of in-hospital stroke [relative risk 0.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.09-0.86; P = 0.026; absolute risk reduction 2.3%, 95% CI 0.4-4.2; P = 0.017; number needed to treat = 44, 95% CI 24-242]. CONCLUSIONS A preoperative screening for atheromatous aortic disease using CTA is associated with reduced risk of stroke after CABG. The routine use of preoperative aortic CTA could be applied so that surgical manipulation of the ascending aorta can be selectively reduced or avoided in patients with atheromatous aortic disease.
Potential for Point-of-Care Tests to Reduce Chlamydia-associated Burden in the United States: A Mathematical Modeling Analysis

Abstract Background Point-of-care testing (POCT) assays for chlamydia are being developed. Their potential impact on the burden of chlamydial infection in the United States, in light of suboptimal screening coverage, remains unclear. Methods Using a transmission model calibrated to data in the United States, we estimated the impact of POCT on chlamydia prevalence, incidence, and chlamydia-attributable pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) incidence, assuming status quo (Analysis 1) and improved (Analysis 2) screening frequencies. We tested the robustness of results to changes in POCT sensitivity, the proportion of patients getting treated immediately, the baseline proportion lost to follow-up (LTFU), and the average treatment delay. Results In Analysis 1, high POCT sensitivity was needed to reduce the chlamydia-associated burden. With a POCT sensitivity of 90%, reductions from the baseline burden only occurred in scenarios in which over 60% of the screened individuals would get immediate treatment and the baseline LTFU proportion was 20%. With a POCT sensitivity of 99% (baseline LTFU 10%, 2-week treatment delay), if everyone were treated immediately, the prevalence reduction was estimated at 5.7% (95% credible interval [CrI] 3.9–8.2%). If only 30% of tested persons would wait for results, the prevalence reduction was only 1.6% (95% CrI 1.1–2.3). POCT with 99% sensitivity could avert up to 12 700 (95% CrI 5000–22 200) PID cases per year, if 100% were treated immediately (baseline LTFU 20% and 3-week treatment delay). In Analysis 2, when POCT was coupled with increasing screening coverage, reductions in the chlamydia burden could be realized with a POCT sensitivity of 90%. Conclusions POCT could improve chlamydia prevention efforts if test performance characteristics are significantly improved over currently available options.
Accuracy of Accelerometers for Measuring Physical Activity and Levels of Sedentary Behavior in Children: A Systematic Review

Objectives: This systematic review evaluated the accuracy of triaxial and omnidirectional accelerometers for measuring physical activity and sedentary behavior in children. Design: Systematic review of the literature. Methods: We comprehensively searched several databases for studies published from January 1996 through June 2018 that reported diagnostic accuracy measures in children and adolescents (age 3-18 years) and compared accelerometers with energy expenditure using indirect calorimetry. Results: We included 11 studies that enrolled 570 participants. All studies used indirect calorimetry as the reference standard. Across the studies, median sensitivity ranged from 46% to 96% and median specificity ranged from 71% to 96%. Median area under the curve ranged from 69% to 98%. Conclusions: Accuracy measures were greatest when detecting sedentary behavior and lowest when detecting light physical activity. Accuracy was higher when the accelerometer was placed on the hip compared with the wrist. The current evidence suggests that triaxial and omnidirectional accelerometers are accurate in measuring sedentary behavior and physical activity levels in children.