Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Additive manufacturing of hydrogel-based materials for next-generation implantable medical devices

Wirelessly controlled, tailored, integrated biocompatible devices with moving components are used for drug delivery. Implantable microdevices often have static components rather than moving parts and exhibit limited biocompatibility. This paper demonstrates a fast manufacturing method that can produce features in biocompatible materials down to tens of micrometers in scale, with intricate and composite patterns in each layer. By exploiting the unique mechanical properties of hydrogels, we developed a “locking mechanism” for precise actuation and movement of freely moving parts, which can provide functions such as valves, manifolds, rotors, pumps, and delivery of payloads. Hydrogel components could be tuned within a wide range of mechanical and diffusive properties and can be controlled after implantation without a sustained power supply. In a mouse model of osteosarcoma, triggering of release of doxorubicin from the device over 10 days showed high treatment efficacy and low toxicity, at 1/10 of the standard systemic chemotherapy dose. Overall, this platform, called implantable microelectromechanical systems (iMEMS), enables development of biocompatible implantable microdevices with a wide range of intricate moving components that can be wirelessly controlled on demand, in a manner that solves issues of device powering and biocompatibility.
Redetermination of 1-naphthaleneacetic acid

The crystal structure of the title compound, C12H10O2, was originally determined by Rajan [Acta Cryst. (1978). B34, 998–1000] using intensity data estimated from Weissenberg films. This redetermination provides a structure with significantly improved precision with respect to the geometric parameters. In the crystal structure, intermolecular O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, weak C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds and C—H⋯π interactions link the molecules into a two-dimensional sheet lying parallel to (100).
Cost-Aware Traffic Management Under Demand Uncertainty from a Colocation Data Center User’s Perspective

Burstable billing is widely adopted by colocation data center providers to charge their users for data transferring. This paper proposes a cost-aware traffic management approach for a colocation data center user under burstable billing where it is charged based on the 95th percentile bandwidth usage. To do this, we first develop a tractable mathematical expression to calculate the 95th percentile usage of a user. Then, we develop an optimization problem to maximize the user’s surplus based on both deterministic and stochastic predictions of the user’s demand. We show that the resulted optimization problem, while non-convex by nature, can be efficiently solved or approximated using a convex program. We also show that the proposed approach can also be applied in a more general scenario where the user gets services from multiple service providers. Using real-world workload traces, we show that the proposed approach can reduce a colocation data center user’s IP transit cost by 26 percent and increase its total surplus by 23 percent, compared to the current practice of allocating bandwidth on-demand.
Nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma behaves as a distinct clinical entity with good outcome: evidence from 14-year follow-up in the West of Scotland Cancer Network

Clinically and biologically, nodular lymphocyte predominant Hodgkin lymphoma (NLPHL) has much more in common with germinal-center derived B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) than with classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL). Management of NLPHL remains controversial. In a 14-year multicenter series, 69 cases were analyzed, and the median follow-up was 53 months (range 11–165.) B-symptoms were present in only 4.3% of patients, and 81.1% of patients had stage I/II disease. Treatment was with radiotherapy (53.6%), chemotherapy (21.7%), combined modality (17.4%), and observation (7.2%). In all, 10.1% of patients relapsed and 2.9% of patients developed high-grade transformation to DLBCL. All relapses and transformations were salvageable. No patient died of their disease. The 5-year relapse-free survival was 92%, transformation-free survival 98.4%, and overall survival 100%. We conclude that NLPHL behaves as a distinct clinical entity, often presenting at an early stage without risk factors. It has an excellent outcome. It may be possible, in early-stage disease, to reduce the intensity of therapy in NLPHL, to single-modality radiotherapy, without affecting OS.
Direct Virtual Torque Control for Doubly Fed Induction Generator Grid Connection

This paper presents a grid-connection control strategy of doubly fed induction generator wind system based on the direct control of both a virtual torque and rotor flux of the generator. This control is achieved with no proportional-integral regulator and requires the measurement of only grid voltages, rotor currents, and rotor position. The same switching table is used for grid synchronization and for running process. A field-programmable-gate-array-based design of the proposed control is developed and tested on a 4-kW experimental prototype. Experimental results are provided to show the effectiveness of the fast and soft grid-connection method developed.
Embryonic retinal gene expression in sonic‐you mutant zebrafish

Hedgehog (Hh) signaling is required for proper eye development in vertebrates; known roles for Hh in the zebrafish include regulation of eye morphogenesis, ganglion cell neurogenesis, and photoreceptor differentiation. To gain insight into the mechanisms by which Hh signaling influences these developmental events, we have examined proliferation, cell death, and expression patterns of several retinal genes in the eyes of embryonic zebrafish lacking the sonic hedgehog gene. We find that features of the eye phenotype of the sonic‐you (syu) mutant are consistent with multiple roles for the Hh signal during retinal development. Most interestingly, half of the mutant retinas failed to initiate cell differentiation and, instead, retained a neuroepithelial appearance. In the other half of the mutants, retinal cell differentiation was initiated, but not fully propagated. We also find that Hh signaling is important for retinal cell proliferation and retinal cell survival; together, these functions provide an explanation for progressive microphthalmia in the syu‐/‐ mutant. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
What Can Nonfinancial Measures Tell Us About the Likelihood of Fraud ?

Audit firms that fail to detect fraud at their clients incur substantial monetary penalties and negative publicity. For the past two decades or more, the audit profession has attempted to find efficient and effective methods of improving auditors’ fraud risk assessments so as to enhance audit quality and reduce auditor liability. The purpose of this study is to empirically examine whether auditors can effectively use nonfinancial measures to detect fraud. Given that auditors can identify nonfinancial measures (e.g., facilities growth) that are positively correlated with financial measures (e.g., revenue growth) and that are less easily manipulated by fraud perpetrators than financial measures, inconsistencies between nonfinancial measures and financial performance indicate high fraud risk. We find that the difference between nonfinancial measures and financial performance is significantly greater for fraud firms than for their nonfraud competitors. In short, the fraud-firms’ nonfinancial measures did not support the growth of their financial performance. We also find these inconsistencies between nonfinancial measures and financial measures appear to be a significant fraud indicator when included in a model containing financial measures that have previously been linked to the likelihood of fraud. Overall, our results provide empirical evidence suggesting that auditors can effectively use nonfinancial measures to assess the likelihood of fraud.
Neighbouring bases in template influence base-pairing of isoguanine.

Assuming that the efficiency of the incorporation of 5-methyl-2'-deoxyisocytosine-5' triphosphate (dMiCTP) and dTTP opposite isoguanine (iG) is a measure of the proportion of the keto and enol tautomers of iG in the Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase active centre, we studied the influence of temperature and iG-neighbouring bases in the template on base-pairing of iG. On the basis of experiments with four sequences (3'-TXT-5', 3'-GXG-5', 3'-CXC-5', 3'-CXT-5', where X=iG) at 37, 50, 65 and 80 degrees C, we found that 3'-neighbours decrease the fraction of the keto tautomer in the order C>G>or=T, whereas temperature apparently does not influence the tautomeric equilibrium of iG. The variability of the ratio of incorporation of dMiCTP versus dTTP (5-20) primarily reflects the variability of K (m) values, since V (max) values are roughly similar, which indicates that the iG.MiC and iG.T pairs fit the polymerase active centre equally well. The altering of the base-pairing of iG by sequence context is discussed in relation to tautomerism and miscoding of this oxidized adenine derivative. A key derivative for preparation oligodeoxynucleotides, O (2)-diphenylcarbamoyl- N (6)-[(dimethylamino)ethylidene]-2'-deoxyisoguanosine, is extremely labile (t (1/2)=3.5 min) in 3% trichloroacetic acid/dichloromethane, i.e. under the conditions of automated DNA synthesis, which results in low yield and length heterogeneity of templates.
Hybrid lasers based on CdSe/CdS core/shell colloidal quantum rods on silica microspheres

Single-mode lasing at ~628 nm above an absorbed pump power threshold of 67.5 μW, tunable within a 2.1-nm range (30% of the free-spectral-range) was obtained from colloidal CdSe/CdS core/shell nanorods on whispering-gallery-mode silica microspheres.
Alloreactivity of natural killer cells in allogeneic liver transplantation.

BACKGROUND The cytolytic attack of natural killer (NK) cells is blocked by recognition of the idiotypic phenotype of certain polymorphisms in HLA class I molecules, specifically by HLA-C alleles (Asn77, Lys80 or Ser77, Asn80) or HLA-Bw4 allotypes. Because liver allograft rejection is associated closer with mismatch in HLA class I than class II, we investigated the role of NK cells in acute hepatic allograft rejection in vivo/in vitro. METHODS The HLA pattern was typed with serological and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques. In 31 liver transplantations, mononuclear cells from donor spleen and peripheral blood of recipients (before/after transplantation) were cultured in mixed lymphocyte cultures (MLC). MLC-derived effector cells were analyzed by flow cytometry and tested in 51Cr-release assays. RESULTS Patients with NK allospecific constellations tended to have higher numbers of NK cells in peripheral blood during the first 4 weeks after transplantation, and patients' lymphocytes stimulated with donor cells had a significantly higher cytotoxic activity on days 14 and 21 compared with patients without NK allospecificity. However, acute rejection occurred with similar frequency in both groups (31% with allospecific constellations vs. 40% without). Moreover, acute rejection episodes were not associated with an increase in NK cells in vivo or enhanced cytotoxicity of NK cells to donor target cells. CONCLUSIONS Under standard immunosuppressive therapy, NK allospecific constellations did not seem play a major role in acute hepatic allograft rejection. Strategies to prevent or treat NK allospecific constellations after liver transplantation are not likely to reduce the incidence or severity of acute allograft rejection.
PTU-220 Are more colonic polyps found with better bowel preparation?

Introduction Colonic adenoma detection is one of the quality indicators of endoscopy1 and is measured as present or not, rather than an absolute number of adenomatous polyps per colonoscopy. Several factors are associated with higher polyp detection rate; adequate colonic distension, retroflexion in the rectum, position change, cleaning and suctioning, with slow and thorough examination of the mucosa.2 The quality of bowel preparation is variable and assessed subjectively by the endoscopist. The purpose of this observational study was to determine whether more polyps are detected with good bowel preparation. Methods All colonoscopies stored on the reporting system database (from 2004 to 2009) in a District General Hospital were identified. Completed examinations with data for both the absolute number of polyps per colonoscopy and preparation quality were included. Colonoscopies in which cancers were diagnosed, and those with missing data were excluded. Independent T-testing and χ2 were used in the statistical analysis. Results 4442 colonoscopies with complete data were identified for analysis. 3489 (78.5%) detected no polyps, and 953 (21.5%) found polyps. Polyp detection rate was not dependent on the quality of the bowel preparation (p=0.81). There was no significant difference between “good” and “poor” preparation in the mean number of polyps detected per colonoscopy (p=0.428), between “good” and “satisfactory” preparation (p=0.329), or between “satisfactory” and “poor” (p=0.936). Conclusion The quality of bowel preparation appears to make no difference to the likelihood of detecting adenomas in the colon or to the absolute number detected per colonoscopy. These results suggest that either polyp detection rate/number is not a robust measure of quality or the subjective measure of bowel preparation is not discriminatory. Further prospective studies are required to establish a validated bowel preparation score, which, if carefully structured, would standardise preparation as a quality measure and augment the factors known to influence polyp detection rate.Abstract PTU-220 Table 1 Quality of bowel preparation Good Satisfactory Poor No. colonoscopies (%) 2458 (77.8) 1361 (30.6) 623 (14.0) Polyp detection (%) 536 (21.8) 285 (20.9) 132 (21.2) Mean no. polyps (range) 0.48 (0–20) 0.44 (0–9) 0.44 (0–9) Mean no. polyps detected (where present) [median] 2.21 [2] 2.11 [2] 2.06 [1] References 1. Valori R, Barton R. BSG Quality and Safety Indicators for Endoscopy. The Joint Advisory Group on GI Endoscopy. 2007. 2. Cairns SR, Scholefield JH, Steele RJ, et al. Guidelines for colorectal cancer screening and surveillance in moderate and high risk groups (update from 2002). Gut 2010;59:666–90. Competing interests None declared.
Regularizing the loss layer of CNNs for facial expression recognition using crowdsourced labels

Deep, convolutional neural networks have become the state-of-the-art method for automatic Facial Expression Recognition (FER). Because of the small size and controlled conditions of most FER datasets, however, models can still overfit to the training dataset and struggle to generalize well to new data. We present a novel approach of using crowdsourced label distributions for improving the generalization performance of convolutional neural networks for FER. We implement this as a loss layer regularizer, where the ground truth labels are combined with crowdsourced labels in order to construct a noisy output distribution during training. We use a label disturbance method in which training examples are randomly replaced with incorrect labels drawn from the combined label probability distribution. We compare the performance of our disturbed and undisturbed models in cross-validation testing on the extended Cohn-Kanade dataset and cross-dataset experiments on the MMI, JAFFE, and FER2013 datasets. We find that using our proposed method, test performance is improved on both the MMI and JAFFE datasets. Our results suggest that using nonuniform probability distributions to disturb training can improve generalization performance of CNNs on other FER datasets.
TABLEMotor Evoked Potential Monitoring Improves Outcome after Surgery for Intramedullary Spinal Cord Tumors: A Historical Control Study.

Received, February 23, 2005. Accepted, January 24, 2006. OBJECTIVE: The value of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (INM) during intramedullary spinal cord tumor surgery remains debated. This historical control study tests the hypothesis that INM monitoring improves neurological outcome. METHODS: In 50 patients operated on after September 2000, we monitored somatosensory evoked potentials and transcranially elicited epidural (D-wave) and muscle motor evoked potentials (INM group). The historical control group consisted of 50 patients selected from among 301 patients who underwent intramedullary spinal cord tumor surgery, previously operated on by the same team without INM. Matching by preoperative neurological status (McCormick scale), histological findings, tumor location, and extent of removal were blind to outcome. A more than 50% somatosensory evoked potential amplitude decrement influenced only myelotomy. Muscle motor evoked potential disappearance modified surgery, but more than 50% D-wave amplitude decrement was the major indication to stop surgery. The postoperative to preoperative McCormick grade variation at discharge and at a follow-up of at least 3 months was compared between the two groups (Student’s t tests). RESULTS: Follow-up McCormick grade variation in the INM group (mean, 0.28) was significantly better (P 0.0016) than that of the historical control group (mean, –0.16). At discharge, there was a trend (P 0.1224) toward better McCormick grade variation in the INM group (mean, –0.26) than in the historical control group (mean, –0.5). CONCLUSION: The applied motor evoked potential methods seem to improve longterm motor outcome significantly. Early motor outcome is similar because of transient motor deficits in the INM group, which can be predicted at the end of surgery by the neurophysiological profile of patients.
Economic Burden of COPD in the Presence of Comorbidities

BACKGROUND: The morbidity and mortality associated with COPD exacts a considerable economic burden. Comorbidities in COPD are associated with poor health outcomes and increased costs. Our objective was to assess the impact of comorbidities on COPD-associated costs in a large administrative claims dataset. METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study of data from the Truven Health MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters and the MarketScan Medicare Supplemental Databases from January 1, 2009, to September 30, 2012. Resource consumption was measured from the index date (date of first occurrence of non-rule-out COPD diagnosis) to 360 days after the index date. Resource use (all-cause and disease-specific [ie, COPD- or asthma-related] ED visits, hospitalizations, office visits, other outpatient visits, and total length of hospital stay) and health-care costs (all-cause and disease-specific costs for ED visits, hospitalizations, office visits, and other outpatient visits and medical, prescription, and total health-care costs) were assessed. Generalized linear models were used to evaluate the impact of comorbidities on total health-care costs, adjusting for age, sex, geographic location, baseline health-care use, employment status, and index COPD medication. RESULTS: Among 183,681 patients with COPD, the most common comorbidities were cardiovascular disease (34.8%), diabetes (22.8%), asthma (14.7%), and anemia (14.2%). Most patients (52.8%) had one or two comorbidities of interest. The average all-cause total health-care costs from the index date to 360 days after the index date were highest for patients with chronic kidney disease ($41,288) and anemia ($38,870). The impact on total health-care costs was greatest for anemia ($10,762 more, on average, than a patient with COPD without anemia). CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis demonstrated that high resource use and costs were associated with COPD and multiple comorbidities.
Disturbance feed forward control of a handheld parallel robot

A model-based control approach for a surgical parallel robot is presented, which combines a local tool stabilization with a global disturbance feed forward control. The robot is held in the operator’s hand during the manipulation of bones. For a precise processing the tool has to be decoupled from disturbances due to unintentional hand movements of the surgeon at the robot base. The base disturbances are transformed for a feed forward control using the inverse dynamics of the robot. Simulations show that disturbances can be reduced by many orders depending on sensor errors and delay.
Placental productions and expressions of soluble endoglin, soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase receptor-1, and placental growth factor in normal and preeclamptic pregnancies.

CONTEXT Increased production of antiangiogenic factors soluble endoglin (sEng) and soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase receptor-1 (sFlt-1) by the placenta contributes to the pathophysiology in preeclampsia (PE). OBJECTIVE Our objective was to determine the differences in endoglin (Eng), fms-like tyrosine kinase receptor-1 (Flt-1), and placental growth factor (PlGF) expressions between normal and PE placentas and sEng, sFlt-1, and PlGF production by trophoblast cells (TC) cultured under lowered oxygen conditions. METHODS TCs isolated from normal and PE placentas were cultured under regular (5% CO2/air) and lowered (2% O2/5% CO2/93% N2) oxygen conditions. sEng, sFlt-1, and PlGF productions were determined by ELISA. Protein expressions for Eng, Flt-1, and PlGF in the placental tissues were accessed by immunohistochemical staining and Western blot analysis. Deglycosylated Eng, Flt-1, and PlGF protein expressions in placental tissues were also examined. RESULTS PE TCs produced significantly more sEng, sFlt-1, and PlGF compared with those from normal TCs (P < 0.05). Under lowered oxygen conditions, PE TCs, but not normal TCs, released more sEng and sFlt-1. In contrast, both normal and PE TCs released less PlGF (P < 0.05). Enhanced expressions of Eng and Flt-1, as well as glycosylated Eng and Flt-1, were observed in PE placentas. Immunoblot also revealed that TCs released glycosylated sFlt-1, but not sEng, in culture. CONCLUSIONS PE TCs produce more sEng, sFlt-1, and PlGF than normal TCs. Lowered oxygen conditions promote sEng and sFlt-1, but reduce PlGF, productions by PE TCs. More glycosylated sEng and sFlt-1 are present in PE placentas. Trophoblasts release glycosylated sFlt-1, but unglycosylated sEng, in culture.
An analysis of partial efficiencies of energy utilisation of different macronutrients by barramundi (Lates calcarifer) shows that starch restricts protein utilisation in carnivorous fish

Abstract This study examined the effect of including different dietary proportions of starch, protein and lipid, in diets balanced for digestible energy, on the utilisation efficiencies of dietary energy by barramundi (Lates calcarifer). Each diet was fed at one of three ration levels (satiety, 80 % of initial satiety and 60 % of initial satiety) for a 42-d period. Fish performance measures (weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio) were all affected by dietary energy source. The efficiency of energy utilisation was significantly reduced in fish fed the starch diet relative to the other diets, but there were no significant effects between the other macronutrients. This reduction in efficiency of utilisation was derived from a multifactorial change in both protein and lipid utilisation. The rate of protein utilisation deteriorated as the amount of starch included in the diet increased. Lipid utilisation was most dramatically affected by inclusion levels of lipid in the diet, with diets low in lipid producing component lipid utilisation rates well above 1·3, which indicates substantial lipid synthesis from other energy sources. However, the energetic cost of lipid gain was as low as 0·65 kJ per kJ of lipid deposited, indicating that barramundi very efficiently store energy in the form of lipid, particularly from dietary starch energy. This study defines how the utilisation efficiency of dietary digestible energy by barramundi is influenced by the macronutrient source providing that energy, and that the inclusion of starch causes problems with protein utilisation in this species.