Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hospital-Acquired Serum Chloride Derangements and Associated In-Hospital Mortality

Background: We aimed to describe the incidence of hospital-acquired dyschloremia and its association with in-hospital mortality in general hospitalized patients. Methods: All hospitalized patients from 2009 to 2013 who had normal admission serum chloride and at least two serum chloride measurements in the hospital were studied. The normal range of serum chloride was defined as 100–108 mmol/L. Hospital serum chloride levels were grouped based on the occurrence of hospital-acquired hypochloremia and hyperchloremia. The association of hospital-acquired hypochloremia and hyperchloremia with in-hospital mortality was analyzed using logistic regression. Results: Among the total of 39,298 hospitalized patients, 59% had persistently normal hospital serum chloride levels, 21% had hospital-acquired hypochloremia only, 15% had hospital-acquired hyperchloremia only, and 5% had both hypochloremia and hyperchloremia. Compared with patients with persistently normal hospital serum chloride levels, hospital-acquired hyperchloremia only (odds ratio or OR 2.84; p < 0.001) and both hospital-acquired hypochloremia and hyperchloremia (OR 1.72; p = 0.004) were associated with increased in-hospital mortality, whereas hospital-acquired hypochloremia only was not (OR 0.91; p = 0.54). Conclusions: Approximately 40% of hospitalized patients developed serum chloride derangements. Hospital-acquired hyperchloremia, but not hypochloremia, was associated with increased in-hospital mortality.
The synovial surface of the articular cartilage

The articular cartilage has been the subject of a huge amount of research carried out with a wide array of different techniques. Most of the existing morphological and ultrastructural data on this tissue, however, were obtained either by light microscopy or by transmission electron microscopy. Both techniques rely on thin sections and neither allows a direct, face-on visualization of the free cartilage surface (synovial surface), which is the only portion subject to frictional as well as compressive forces. In the present research, high resolution visualization by scanning electron microscopy and by atomic force microscopy revealed that the collagen fibrils of the articular surface are exclusively represented by thin, uniform, parallel fibrils evocative of the heterotypic type IX-type II fibrils reported by other authors, immersed in an abundant matrix of glycoconjugates, in part regularly arranged in phase with the D-period of collagen. Electrophoresis of fluorophore-labeled saccharides confirmed that the superficial and the deeper layers are quite different in their glycoconjugate content as well, the deeper ones containing more sulfated, more acidic small proteoglycans bound to thicker, more heterogeneous collagen fibrils. The differences found between the synovial surface and the deeper layers are consistent with the different mechanical stresses they must withstand.
Construction of retrovirus vector taking MDR1/ACBC1 and its transfection into human placenta derived mesenchymal stem cells

In the study, we used both the methods of perfusion and density gradient centrifugation to isolate and purify mesenchymal stem cells (MSCS) from placenta tissue, and constructed a retroviral vector with multiple drug resistant genes, and the green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been used as an indicative mark. The 293T cell was transfected by the retroviral vector PMX-flag-MDR1-GFP together with its peripheral membrane protein gene. After the infective and replication–defective retrovirus were acquired, we transfected them into human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (HPMSCs). We successfully observed the expression of the reporter gene-GFP by using the green light fluorescence microscope and the p-glycoprotein (P-gp) expressed by exogenous gene MDR1 by Western Blotting. All these facts indicated that the retroviral vector PMX-flag-MDR1-GFP had successfully been transfected into HPMSCs and the exogenous gene multidrug resistance (MDR)1 was detected as normally expressed. The daunorubicin (DNR) pump experiment proved that P-gp of HPMSCs transfected with PMX-flag-MDR1-GFP was of biological activity. The result indicates that MDR1 retroviral vector can transfect the HPMSCs. Not only can the exogenous gene be expressed, but also the expression protein had the biological activity. The conclusion lays a solid foundation of the clinical application of MDR1 genetic therapy. Keywords: Transfect, human placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells, multidrug resistance (MDR)1 gene.
Near Infrared-Controlled Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator Sensor

In this letter, a near infrared (NIR) controlled whispering gallery mode resonator sensor is presented. The resonator incorporates a high-resistivity silicon (HRS) disk, which is placed in the proximity of a microstrip line. The strength of the coupling in the resonator is controlled through illumination of the HRS disk by the NIR radiation. By tuning the amount of this illumination, and without making any change in the physical structure of the resonator, it is shown that the resonator can be easily adjusted to operate in its most sensitive way: critical coupling condition. Under this condition, the transparency level of the sample-under-test to the NIR radiation strongly affects the level of coupling from the microstrip line to the resonator, and as a consequence, the sensing mechanism is realized. For verification of the proposed sensing technique, experiments over salty liquid and aqueous glucose solution are carried out. The sensor operates at a frequency of 29.08 GHz and shows high sensitivity of 0.76–1.62 dB/(mg/ml).
In vitro fermentation of rumen microorganisms cultured in medium supplemented with bacterio-mineral water (BMW) produced from bio-reacted swine manure

Bacterio-mineral water (BMW) produced from manure has been known to exert a number of positive effects on animal production and odor control. An experiment was conducted to examine the effects of BMW produced from bio-reacted swine manure on in vitro gas production, cellulose degradation, microbial growth and fibrolytic enzyme activities of mixed rumen microorganisms. The five levels of 0, 0.001, 0.005, 0.01 and 1.0% BMW were supplemented into serum vials containing mixed rumen microorganisms. Incubations were carried out anaerobically at 39°C without shaking for 0, 12, 24, 48, 72 and 96 h. There were no significant (p>0.05) differences among the treatments for the initial rate of gas production. At 72 h incubation, the gas production tended (p<0.1) to be increased by the 0.01 and 1.0% BMW treatments compared with control and the 0.001% BMW treatment. At the end of incubation (96 h), the sample supplemented with 0.01% BMW was higher (p<0.05) than control (0% BMW) in the gas production. The microbial growth rate was increased by all the BMW treatments, while 0.01% BMW was most effective in stimulating the growth rate. Although the addition of BMW on the filter paper DM degradation was not significantly influenced throughout the incubation period except the 48 h incubation, DM degradation tended to be increased by all BMW treatments compared with control. The addition of both 0.005 and 0.01% BMW highly increased (p<0.05) CMCase activity compared with control after 24 h and 48 h incubation, while at the 72 h incubation the 0.01% BMW addition only significantly increased (p<0.05). After 72 h incubation, the xylanase activity was significantly (p<0.05) increased with the addition of 1.0% BMW compared with the addition of 0.001 and 0.005% BMW, while at the other incubation times, the xylanase activity was not different among the treatments. In conclusion, the 0.01% BMW of supplementation level would be the suitable addition level to stimulate rumen fermentation increasing microbial growth and cellulose degradation. (Asian- Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 10 : 1435-1439)
What the lab can and cannot do: clinical interpretation of drug testing results

Abstract Urine drug testing is one of the objective tools available to assess adherence. To monitor adherence, quantitative urinary results can assist in differentiating “new” drug use from “previous” (historical) drug use. “Spikes” in urinary concentration can assist in identifying patterns of drug use. Coupled chromatographic-mass spectrometric methods are capable of identifying very small amounts of analyte and can make clinical interpretation rather challenging, specifically for drugs that have a longer half-life. Polypharmacy is common in treatment and rehabilitation programs because of co-morbidities. Medications prescribed for comorbidities can cause drug-drug interaction and phenoconversion of genotypic extensive metabolizers into phenotypic poor metabolizers of the treatment drug. This can have significant impact on both pharmacokinetic (PK) and pharmacodynamic properties of the treatment drug. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) coupled with PKs can assist in interpreting the effects of phenoconversion. TDM-PKs reflects the cumulative effects of pathophysiological changes in the patient as well as drug-drug interactions and should be considered for treatment medications/drugs used to manage pain and treat substance abuse. Since only a few enzyme immunoassays for TDM are available, this is a unique opportunity for clinical laboratory scientists to develop TDM-PK protocols that can have a significant impact on patient care and personalized medicine. Interpretation of drug screening results should be done with caution while considering pharmacological properties and the presence or absence of the parent drug and its metabolites. The objective of this manuscript is to review and address the variables that influence interpretation of different drugs analyzed from a rehabilitation and treatment programs perspective.
Analysis of Low-Power Operation for an Environmental Monitoring Beacon

This paper presents the development of an environmental monitoring Bluetooth Low Energy beacon and analyzes its power consumption based on different operation modes. The technology used for data transmission and sensor data acquisition settings can have a significant impact on a beacon's battery lifetime. As our work suggests, it is possible to greatly increase the life of such a device by simply reducing the sampling/transmission actions rates or by changing the way in which the Bluetooth Low Energy advertisement payloads are sent. The operating period of the system, running on a 3 V coin cell battery with a capacity of 230 mAh, can go up to roughly 2.4 years. Future developments of the described system can be achieved by replacing the battery with power harvesting elements or by complementing the sensing unit, which currently provides ambient parameters of temperature, relative humidity, and atmospheric pressure, with Nitrogen Dioxide, Carbon Dioxide, or Volatile organic compound gas sensors. Thus, this beacon-based solution becomes easily scalable and implementable in a wide range of monitoring applications, either outdoor or indoor.
Color Constancy Using VGG Convolutional Neural Network

In this work, we constructed an improved vgg-16 convolutional neural network model for color constancy, which we called VGGC network structure, to accurately predict scene illumination. VGGC takes a 224×224 image patch as input and works in the spatial structure of the image. It is different from previous methods. there is no manual feature extraction method in VGGC network. The VGGC network is consisted of an input layer, 16 convolutional layers and two fully connected layers. In order to estimate scene illumination more effectively, VGGC network optimizes the learned features. The preliminary experiments of this method on images with spatially varying illumination shows that our VGGC local illumination estimation capability is stable, and the model has better generalization and robustness than the current model using convolutional neural network to predict scene lighting.
Estimating the effects of pile driving sounds on seals: Pitfalls and possibilities.

Understanding the potential effects of pile driving sounds on marine wildlife is essential for regulating offshore wind developments. Here, tracking data from 24 harbour seals were used to quantify effects and investigate sensitivity to the methods used to predict these. The Aquarius pile driving model was used to model source characteristics and acoustic propagation loss (16 Hz-20 kHz). Predicted cumulative sound exposure levels (SELcums) experienced by each seal were compared to different auditory weighting functions and damage thresholds to estimate temporary (TTS) and permanent (PTS) threshold shift occurrence. Each approach produced markedly different results; however, the most recent criteria established by Southall et al. [(2019) Aquat. Mamm. 45, 125-232] suggests that TTS occurrence was low (17% of seals). Predictions of seal density during pile driving made by Russell et al. [(2016) J. Appl. Ecol. 53, 1642-1652] were compared to distance from the wind farm and predicted single-strike sound exposure levels (SELss) by multiple approaches. Predicted seal density significantly decreased within 25 km or above SELss (averaged across depths and pile installations) of 145 dB re 1 μPa2⋅s. However, there was substantial variation in SELss with depth and installation, and thus in the predicted relationship with seal density. These results highlight uncertainty in estimated effects, which should be considered in future assessments.
Artificial Classification System for Urothelial Carcinoma

This paper presents an artificial classification system (ACUC) that can be applied to cases of urothelial carcinoma. The ACUC was combined with a microscopy system to enable cell images to be captured from slides and subsequently transferred to a computer for classification. We introduce a two-stage convolutional neural network (CNN) model to classify high-grade urothelial carcinoma. The complexity of the CNN architecture can be reduced using a single CNN model. The ACUC was tested on 600 segments of cell sample images, which were provided by the E-DA hospital, and the results indicated that the accuracy of the ACUC is approximately 88%.
Polycistronic Genome Segment Evolution and Gain and Loss of FAST Protein Function during Fusogenic Orthoreovirus Speciation

The Reoviridae family is the only non-enveloped virus family with members that use syncytium formation to promote cell–cell virus transmission. Syncytiogenesis is mediated by a fusion-associated small transmembrane (FAST) protein, a novel family of viral membrane fusion proteins. Previous evidence suggested the fusogenic reoviruses arose from an ancestral non-fusogenic virus, with the preponderance of fusogenic species suggesting positive evolutionary pressure to acquire and maintain the fusion phenotype. New phylogenetic analyses that included the atypical waterfowl subgroup of avian reoviruses and recently identified new orthoreovirus species indicate a more complex relationship between reovirus speciation and fusogenic capacity, with numerous predicted internal indels and 5’-terminal extensions driving the evolution of the orthoreovirus’ polycistronic genome segments and their encoded FAST and fiber proteins. These inferred recombination events generated bi- and tricistronic genome segments with diverse gene constellations, they occurred pre- and post-orthoreovirus speciation, and they directly contributed to the evolution of the four extant orthoreovirus FAST proteins by driving both the gain and loss of fusion capability. We further show that two distinct post-speciation genetic events led to the loss of fusion in the waterfowl isolates of avian reovirus, a recombination event that replaced the p10 FAST protein with a heterologous, non-fusogenic protein and point substitutions in a conserved motif that destroyed the p10 assembly into multimeric fusion platforms.
A Machine Learning Approach for Beamforming in UDN Considering Selfish and Altruistic Balance

The deep reinforcement learning is investigated for predicting coordinated beamforming strategy in ultra dense network (UDN). The balancing coefficients regulate the strategy between selfish and altruistic beamforming in this case. As balancing coefficients of one user also depend on the beamforming vectors of users in other cells, iterations are inevitable. To address this problem, deep reinforcement learning (DL) based on Deep Q-network is proposed in this paper to predict the balancing coefficients. Moreover, the scheme to discretize the theoretically infinite strategy space with limited levels and granularity in defining the action set of the Deep Q-network is examined. The distinguished feature of the proposed approach is the exploration of the beamforming structure, in consequence, complexity problem brought by predicting the beamforming matrix directly is avoided. Experiment results confirm the feasibility of the proposed discretizing scheme. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed beamforming scheme by comparing with the classical algorithms.
Modeling and Simulation of Hydro Power Plant with Reversible Turbine and Synchronous Generator

Interest in hydro power generation has been increasing because of the increased energy consumption and environmental issues. This paper represents modelling of turbine governing system and synchronous machine in a hydro power plant (HPP). It also represents the model of the Jayakwadi pumped storage HPP situated in Paithan Dist. Aurangabad, India. This model is developed in MATLAB SIMULINK environment under normal operating condition and three phase fault condition in a system. The result of this model graphically shows the effect on generator parameters when the fault occurred in the network.
Reducing contrast dose using virtual monoenergetic imaging for aortic CTA

Abstract Three‐dimensional computed tomographic angiography (3D‐CTA) is widely used to evaluate the inner diameters of vessels and the anatomical vascular structure prior to endoscopic aortic surgery or transcatheter valve implantation. Virtual monoenergetic imaging (VMI) is a new application in dual‐energy CT (DECT). We evaluated the potential for contrast dose reduction in preoperative aortic CTA using VMI. To evaluate performance in terms of image quality and vessel shape, we quantified the contrast‐to‐noise ratio (CNR) and the vessel diameter using a cylinder phantom we developed, and used volume rendering to assess visual quality. All VMI had improved CNR values compared with conventional 120 kVp images at an iodine content of 15 mgI/mL. In each image, a virtual mono‐energy of 40 keV yielded the highest CNR value, and an iodine content of 9 mgI/mL was comparable to that of conventional images with an iodine content of 15 mgI/mL. The circularity indices (CI) of the vascular model at 15, 12, and 9 mgI/mL were similar to those of the reference condition using conventional voltages; however, CI was degraded at iodine contents of 6 and 3 mgI/mL with VMI. In the case of iodine content of 15 mgI/mL, VMI was superior, with conventional image by visual evaluation. In the cases of iodine contents of 12 and 9 mgI/mL, image quality was judged to be almost the same level when comparing 12 and 9 mgI/mL to conventional images. In the case of 6 and 3 mgI/mL, reference image using conventional technique was superior to that of VMI. We demonstrated in that decreasing contrast iodine content is possible using VMI with an energy of 40 keV for preoperative aortic 3D‐CTA.
Feeding the Modern Broiler Breeder A Holistic Approach

SUMMARY Managing the modern broiler breeder is an exciting challenge. The reproductive potential of these birds is high, with 145-150 chicks per hen housed being an attainable goal, all the while maintaining the growth potential of a modern broiler. An important part of allowing broiler breeders to achieve their full reproductive potential is to ensure that they receive the correct nutrition, with particular attention being paid to feeding pre and post-peak. At these times, the broiler breeder manager must take into account the status of the flock, with respect to level of egg production, body-weight gain, fat reserves, and feather cover, to ensure that the birds are not being over or under fed. Energy is the first limiting “nutrient” for breeders. Therefore, it is essential that they receive the correct amount of energy during both rear and lay to fulfill maintenance requirements, support growth, and meet the needs of egg mass, daily egg production, and egg size. Energy is utilized for two main purposes, maintenance and reproduction. Maintenance requirements are mainly affected by body weight and may be modified by changes in ambient temperature. If environmental temperature is not appropriate or is variable, the bird may have to use part of its supplied energy to maintain core body temperature. This energy is then no longer available for growth and egg production. Proper control of daily protein intake in broiler breeders is also needed during rear, when it affects body composition and during lay, when it will have an impact on weight gain and egg size. Correct amino acid requirements are determined by accounting for changes in body tissues and egg content. Apart from specific situations, such as heat stress, the protein and amino acid levels in the diet are related to dietary energy content. This, along with the energy requirement of the bird at each stage of life, is what determines feed, and subsequently, nutrient intake. In short, feeding the modern broiler breeder requires a holistic strategy for nutritional parameters and feeding programs to be correctly established.
A Novel Tuning Method of PD With Gravity Compensation Controller for Robot Manipulators

Proportional-Derivative (PD) control is one of the most widely used controllers, especially for robot manipulators. When the robot presents gravitational terms, PD control cannot guarantee position convergence, therefore compensation is required such as PD with gravity compensation, PD+G. PD+G control requires knowledge of the gravitational term and there exist several results that prove global asymptotic stability. However, there is no method to tune the PD gains. In this work, a novel method to tune the PD+G controller is proposed. The tuning method is obtained using the global asymptotic stability result of the La Salle’s theorem and robot dynamics properties. A comparison between previous works is realized via simulations and experiments to verify our approach. The results show fast and smooth convergence to the desired reference without overshoots.