Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Safety, Survival, and Efficacy of Preserving Left Colonic Artery in Rectal Cancer Surgery: A Meta-analysis and Review.

Purpose: This study analyzes the effect, long-term survival rate, and complications about preserving the left colonic artery (LCAP) in rectal cancer surgery. Methods: Relevant articles were systematically retrieved from multiple electronic databases, for example, EMBASE, BioMed Central, PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane. The time for retrieving was from the establishment of the database to December 31, 2018. Evaluated endpoints were effect of LCAP on the curative effect of rectal neoplasms, such as operation time, the amount of bleeding during the operation, root lymph nodes positive number, and the related complications (anastomotic leakage, etc.), postoperative urinary retention, 5-year survival rate, and recurrence differences in rates. Results: Totally 12 studies were included in this review. The meta-analysis showed that LCAP has less operation time and lower anastomotic leakage incidence. Intraoperative bleeding, root lymph nodes, and other complications did not show any significant difference. Conclusions: LCAP in radical rectal cancer surgery ensures both the radical resection of the tumor and the safety of the operation. So it can provide a new approach to the management of blood vessels and lymph nodes.
Mercuric chloride poisoning: symptoms, analysis, therapies, and autoptic findings. A review of the literature

Abstract Among mercury-related intoxications, the re-emerging of mercuric chloride poisoning has been recently described in literature. Only sparse data, reporting the clinical symptoms, the anatomo-pathological findings, the analytical procedures or the treatment have been published and no exhaustive analysis of all these factors exists in literature. The classic symptoms associated with toxicity of mercuric chloride is a combination of renal, gastrointestinal (GI) and central nervous system (CNS) damages, eventually leading to death. Fatalities related to exposure to mercuric chloride have been reported since the nineteenth century. To date, there have been 45 published cases in the medical literature in which the intoxication or the death is attributed to mercuric chloride. In this review, we will describe the modern medical treatments, with particular attenztion to the developments of the lasts two decades, in order to provide an exhaustive description of the clinical symptoms, the post-mortem findings, and the analytical procedures to act out when mercuric chloride intoxication occurs. The analysis of the data obtained permitted us to accurately describe all the organs and apparatus involved in mercuric chloride intoxication. The target organs were the kidneys, the GI tract and the CNS. A description of the analytical procedures for the determination of mercuric chloride in biological materials, to carry out in vivo and in post-mortem samples has also been described.
HVPG as a Predictor of Mortality in Non-Critically-Ill Cirrhotic Patients

https://jkms.org Portal hypertension (PH) is defined as an increased portal venous pressure gradient above 5 mmHg, and is closely related to complications and mortality of cirrhosis.1 In particular, PH is greatly important before the onset of decompensation state where the degree of PH is well correlated to the prognosis. Portal pressure is known to be more useful in predicting development of complications of cirrhosis in chronic liver disease than the degree of fibrosis observed in liver biopsy. Direct measurement of portal pressure is excessively invasive and no longer used in clinical practice. Instead, because hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) is safe, reproducible, and relatively less invasive, it is most widely used and standard test that reflects portal pressure. Recently, HVPG has been used in variety of fields such as diagnosis and prognosis of cirrhosis, risk stratification, monitoring therapeutic response of betablocker, and prediction of development of hepatocellular carcinoma.2
Gaps in knowledge and practice on dietary consumption among rural farming households; a call for nutrition education training in Tanzania

Abstract Dietary-related conditions are preventable only if people have better understanding of factors that underpin their dietary choices. A cross-sectional study was carried out to examine levels and gaps of nutrition knowledge and practices (KPs) of 663 mothers/caregivers in rural households of Tanzania. Results indicated that, only 14% of the population had received nutrition education prior to the survey. The mean KP score was 6.9 (±2.6) out of 20 with only 17% of the study population had KP scores above the mean. The average proportion of those who had correct responses above mean was 27% for knowledge and 22% practices. Low coverage of nutrition education and poor participation of men in nutrition education activities were frequently reported as the barriers for adoption of desirable dietary practices at households. The KP levels are far below the recommended FAO thresholds and entail high levels of nutrition illiteracy which call for immediate intervention.
The Intensity Order Illusion: Temporal Order of Different Vibrotactile Intensity Causes Systematic Localization Errors.

Haptic illusions serve as important tools for studying neuro-cognitive processing of touch and can be utilized in practical contexts. We report a new spatio-temporal haptic illusion that involves mislocalization when the order of vibrotactile intensity is manipulated. We tested two types of motors mounted in a 4 x 4 array in the lower thoracic region. We created apparent movement with two successive vibrotactile stimulations of varying distance (40, 20, or 0 mm) and direction (up/down/same), while changing the temporal order of stimulation intensity (strong-weak vs. weak-strong). Participants judged the perceived direction of movement in a 2-alternative forced-choice task. The results suggest that varying the temporal order of vibrotactile stimuli with different intensity leads to systematic localization errors: When a strong intensity stimulus was followed by a weak intensity stimulus, the probability that participants perceived a downward movement increased, and vice versa. The illusion is so strong that the order of the strength of stimulation determined perception even when the actual presentation movement was the opposite. We then verified this Intensity Order Illusionusing an open response format where observers judged the orientation of an imaginary line drawn between two sequential tactor activations. The intensity order illusion reveals a strong bias in vibrotactile perception that has important implications for the design of haptic information systems.
Self-Assembly of Covalently Linked Porphyrin Dimers at the Solid–Liquid Interface

The synthesis and surface self-assembly behavior of two types of metal-porphyrin dimers is described. The first dimer type consists of two porphyrins linked via a rigid conjugated spacer, and the second type has an alkyne linker, which allows rotation of the porphyrin moieties with respect to each other. The conjugated dimers were equipped with two copper or two manganese centers, while the flexible dimers allowed a modular built-up that also made the incorporation of two different metal centers possible. The self-assembly of the new porphyrin dimers at a solid–liquid interface was investigated at the single-molecule scale using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). All dimers formed monolayers, of which the stability and the internal degree of ordering of the molecules depended on the metal centers in the porphyrins. While in all monolayers the dimers were oriented coplanar with respect to the underlying surface (‘face-on’), the flexible dimer containing a manganese and a copper center could be induced, via the application of a voltage pulse in the STM setup, to self-assemble into monolayers in which the porphyrin dimers adopted a non-common perpendicular (‘edge-on’) geometry with respect to the surface.
Gaze and Motor Traces of Language Processing: Evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorders in Comparison to Typical Controls

ABSTRACT We investigated what strategies underlie figurative language processing in two groups of participants distinguished by the presence of a developmental deficit, highly-verbal participants with autism, and control participants without autism in two age ranges each. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder are characterised by impaired social interaction and communication. Even at the high end of the spectrum, where structural language is adequate, difficulties in comprehending non-literal aspects of language are widely attested. The exact causes of these problems are, however, still open to debate. In an interactive sentence-picture matching task participants selected the most suitable image representation of a non-literal figurative expression that matched the target meaning, while their eye-movements and hand movements were being tracked. Our results suggest that individuals with ASD have different processing patterns than typically developing peers when interpreting figurative language, even when they provide the correct answers. Both children with and without autism, and participants with autism display greater uncertainty and competition between alternatives when providing the answer, often reflected in also considering the literal interpretation of the expression against its target figurative meaning. We provide evidence that expression transparency and decomposability play a central role in figurative language processing across all groups.
Monoclonal Antibody Responses after Recombinant Hemagglutinin Vaccine versus Subunit Inactivated Influenza Virus Vaccine: a Comparative Study

There are ongoing efforts to increase the efficacy of influenza vaccines and to promote production strategies that can rapidly respond to newly emerging viruses. It is important to understand if current alternative seasonal vaccines, such as Flublok and Flucelvax, that use alternate production strategies can induce protective influenza-specific antibodies and to evaluate what type of epitopes are targeted by distinct vaccine formulations. ABSTRACT Vaccination is the best measure of protection against influenza virus infection. Vaccine-induced antibody responses target mainly the hemagglutinin (HA) surface glycoprotein, composed of the head and the stalk domains. Recently two novel vaccine platforms have been developed for seasonal influenza vaccination: a recombinant HA vaccine produced in insect cells (Flublok) and Flucelvax, prepared from virions produced in mammalian cells. In order to compare the fine specificity of the antibodies induced by these two novel vaccine platforms, we characterized 42 Flublok-induced monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) and 38 Flucelvax-induced MAbs for avidity, cross-reactivity, and any selectivity toward the head versus the stalk domain. These studies revealed that Flublok induced a greater proportion of MAbs targeting epitopes near the receptor-binding domain on HA head (hemagglutinin inhibition-positive MAbs) than Flucelvax, while the two vaccines induced similar low frequencies of stalk-reactive MAbs. Finally, mice immunized with Flublok and Flucelvax also induced similar frequencies of stalk-reactive antibody-secreting cells, showing that HA head immunodominance is independent of immune memory bias. Collectively, our results suggest that these vaccine formulations are similarly immunogenic but differ in the preferences of the elicited antibodies toward the receptor-binding domain on the HA head. IMPORTANCE There are ongoing efforts to increase the efficacy of influenza vaccines and to promote production strategies that can rapidly respond to newly emerging viruses. It is important to understand if current alternative seasonal vaccines, such as Flublok and Flucelvax, that use alternate production strategies can induce protective influenza-specific antibodies and to evaluate what type of epitopes are targeted by distinct vaccine formulations.
A Long and Winding Road? Analyzing E-Government Website Maturity in Germany

The fundamental changes, occurring in modern societies through the digitalization, are also changing the way citizens interact with their governments. With more than 70% of citizens using the internet to retrieve information, websites become a crucial touchpoint for the public’s interaction with administrations. The design and quality of these websites and services offered through them may have a considerable impact on the user’s willingness to further engage with public administrations online. This article sets out to evaluate the German state capitals’ websites with regard to their e-government maturity. We use a maturity evaluation scheme that considers five aspects of e-government: information, communication, transaction, integration, and participation. The results indicate that there is a substantial variety in the websites’ maturity, horizontally as well as vertically. All cities perform well in furnishing information and make use of various communication channels. Transactional services, however, are less developed across all analyzed cities.
The Influence of Welfare Training on Bird Welfare and Carcass Quality in Two Commercial Poultry Primary Processing Plants

Simple Summary Ensuring acceptable welfare of broilers at the slaughterhouse is paramount in meeting legislative and retailer specifications, and in producing high quality meat. Animal welfare training for staff working in red meat slaughterhouses has been shown to improve animal welfare measures and product quality, however there is little evidence of the effects of welfare training in poultry processing plants. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of introducing a welfare training program for staff on bird welfare and carcass quality in a commercial Costa Rican and British poultry slaughter plant. The results we obtained show that staff welfare training has a positive effect on several bird welfare outcomes. Some carcass quality measures also improved post training, although this result was not consistent. These data could help the development and targeting of future welfare training courses and encourage the uptake of welfare training in the poultry slaughter industry. Abstract The number of broilers slaughtered globally is increasing. Ensuring acceptable welfare conditions for birds at the time of slaughter is paramount in meeting legislative and retailer specifications, and in producing high quality meat. There is knowledge that welfare training programs for members of the farming and red meat slaughter industry can improve animal welfare measures and product quality, however there is little evidence of the effects of welfare training in poultry processing plants. In our study, a comprehensive welfare training program was introduced to a Costa Rican and a British commercial broiler primary processing plant, both of which slaughter birds by way of neck cut post electrical water bath stunning. The effects of this program on some welfare and product quality measures were investigated, both immediately and six months post training. The welfare measures that showed significant improvements post training included; flapping at shackling, pre-stun shocks, stun parameters and effective neck cut. Product quality measures including broken wings and red pygostyles also improved, however the positive effect of training was not seen in all quality measures. Welfare training does have the potential to improve broiler welfare and product quality at slaughter, and these data could help the development and targeting of future welfare training courses and encourage the uptake of welfare training in the poultry slaughter industry.
Association of China’s universal two child policy with changes in births and birth related health factors: national, descriptive comparative study

Abstract Objective To measure the association of China’s universal two child policy, announced in October 2015, with changes in births and health related birth characteristics. Design National, descriptive before-and-after comparative study. Setting Every county in 28 of 31 provinces of mainland China. Participants Births included in two national databases: 67 786 749 births from county level monthly aggregated data between January 2014 and December 2017; and 31 786 279 deliveries from individual level delivery information records between January 2015 and December 2017. Main outcome measures Monthly mean number of births and mean proportion of multiparous mothers and mothers aged 35 and over, preterm deliveries, and caesarean deliveries. Results The study had two phases: the baseline period (up to and including June 2016, nine months after the policy announcement) and the effective period (from July 2016 to December 2017). The estimated number of additional births attributable to the new policy between July 2016 and December 2017 was 5.40 million (95% confidence interval 4.34 to 6.46). The monthly mean percentage of multiparous mothers and mothers aged 35 and over increased by 9.1 percentage points (95% confidence interval 6.4 to 11.7) and 5.8 percentage points (5.2 to 6.4), respectively. This increase in older mothers, however, was not associated with a concurrent increase in the overall rate of preterm birth. The monthly mean caesarean delivery rate among multiparous mothers increased by 1.2 percentage points (0.8 to 1.6) from 39.7% to 40.9%, and decreased by 3.0 percentage points (−3.5 to −2.5) among nulliparous mothers from 39.6% to 36.6%. Conclusions Since its announcement in October 2015, the universal two child policy has been associated with a rise in births in China and with changes in health related birth characteristics: women giving birth have been more likely to be multiparous, and more likely to be aged 35 and over. No evidence of concurrent worsening outcomes (that is, premature births) was seen.
Macrosyntactic Segmenters of a spoken French Corpus

The aim of this paper is to describe an automated process to segment spoken French transcribed data into macrosyntactic units. While sentences are delimited by punctuation marks for written data, there is no obvious hint nor limit to major units for speech. As a reference, we used the manual annotation of macrosyntactic units based on illocutionary as well as syntactic criteria and developed for the Rhapsodie corpus, a 33.000 words prosodic and syntactic treebank. Our segmenters were built using machine learning methods as supervised classifiers : segmentation is about identifying the boundaries of units, which amounts to classifying each interword space. We trained six different models on Rhapsodie using different sets of features, including prosodic and morphosyntactic cues, on the assumption that their combination would be relevant for the task. Both types of cues could be resulting either from manual annotation/correction or from fully automated processes, which comparison might help determine the cost of manual effort, especially for the 3M words of spoken French of the Orfeo project those experiments are contributing to.
Komplementäre Bildfusion zur Inspektion technischer Oberflächen (Complementary Image Fusion for Inspection of Technical Surfaces)

In diesem Beitrag wird die Fusion komplementärer Bildsensordaten am Beispiel metallischer Oberflächen demonstriert. Die Fusionsergebnisse selbst können Bilder, Merkmale oder Symbole sein. Das Fusionsproblem wird in Form eines Energiefunktionals formuliert. Dessen Summanden beschreiben gewünschte Eigenschaften, sinnvolle Forderungen und Vorwissen bezüglich der Bildserie, des Fusionsergebnisses und etwaiger problemrelevanter Zwischengrößen sowie ihre wechselseitigen Beziehungen. Durch Minimierung des Energiefunktionals erhält man das unter den getroffenen Annahmen optimale Fusionsresultat. In manchen Fällen erlaubt die Struktur der Energiefunktion, die oftmals aufwändige Optimierungsrechnung durch eine effizientere getrennte Minimierung der Einzelterme zu approximieren. Die vorgestellte Methodik wird mittels praxisrelevanter Beispiele erläutert.
The Impact of Skeletal Muscle Contraction on CD146+Lin- Pericytes.

Unaccustomed resistance exercise can initiate skeletal muscle remodeling and adaptive mechanisms that can confer protection from damage and enhanced strength with subsequent stimulation. The myofiber may provide the primary origin for adaptation, yet multiple mononuclear cell types within the surrounding connective tissue may also contribute. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the acute response of muscle-resident interstitial cells to contraction initiated by electrical stimulation (e-stim), and subsequently determine the contribution of pericytes to remodeling as a result of training. Mice were subjected to bilateral e-stim or sham treatment. Following a single session of e-stim, NG2+CD45-CD31- (NG2+Lin-) pericyte, CD146+Lin- pericyte, and PDGFRα+ fibroadipogenic progenitor cell quantity and function were evaluated via multiplex flow cytometry and targeted qPCR. Relative quantity was not significantly altered 24 hours post-contraction, yet unique gene signatures were observed for each cell population at 3 hours post-contraction. CD146+Lin- pericytes appeared to be most responsive to contraction, and upregulation of genes related to immunomodulation and extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling was observed via RNA sequencing. Intramuscular injection of CD146+Lin- pericytes did not significantly increase myofiber size, yet enhanced ECM remodeling and angiogenesis in response to repeated bouts of e-stim for 4 weeks. The results from this study provide the first evidence that CD146+Lin- pericytes are responsive to skeletal muscle contraction and may contribute to the beneficial outcomes associated with exercise.
The Dangerous Side of Placebo Research: Is Hard Science Boosting Pseudoscience?

The progress of placebo research over the past years has benefited all medical sciences because of a shift in the concept of placebo from mere comparator in clinical research to phenomenon worthy of scientific inquiry by hard science. However, this new scientific knowledge is now backfiring on it, and some dangers, so far underestimated or not considered at all, need to be addressed, particularly in clinical practice, where the inappropriate use of placebos can harm.