Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Completing the Metamorphosis: Building a Center of Excellence in Postbariatric Plastic Surgery

Postbariatric body contouring is an expanding and rapidly evolving specialty within plastic surgery. To best address the many clinical issues related to the safe and effective care of the postbariatric patient, the authors have established a dedicated multidisciplinary treatment center. Team building efforts have brought together attending plastic surgeons who specialize in body contouring, nurses focused on body contouring after weight loss, and an administrative staff well trained in the issues related to managing these specific types of cases. Through core partnerships, nutritionists, lifestyle counselors, and psychologic professionals are present in the clinic to evaluate patients alongside the plastic surgeon. A dedicated physician assistant and body-contouring fellow work in both the clinic and the operating room (OR). This team approach has allowed for the establishment of defined screening procedures and patient care algorithms. Outreach and patient education initiatives have allowed the center to forge strong alliances with the regional bariatric surgeons and make patients aware of the role of plastic surgery as they start the process of weight loss. A strong research mission is demonstrated by an IRB-approved clinical registry and database that facilitate outcomes studies.
Influence of Field Plate on the Transient Operation of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT

In this letter, a link between the AlGaN/GaN high-electron-mobility-transistor (HEMT) field plate (FP) and the rate of reoccupation of surface traps is presented. Surface traps are considered to be among the primary factors behind HEMT performance deterioration at high frequencies. Results from simulations using the commercial software package DESSIS are presented, in which the FP is found to reduce trap reoccupation by limiting the tunneling injection of electrons into surface traps in the gate-drain region and thus considerably improve the transient operation of the device.
Barite in the ocean – occurrence, geochemistry and palaeoceanographic applications

The mineral barite (BaSO4) can precipitate in a variety of oceanic settings: in the water column, on the sea floor and within marine sediments. The geological setting where barite forms ultimately determines the geochemistry of the precipitated mineral and its usefulness for various applications. Specifically, the isotopic and elemental composition of major and trace elements in barite carry information about the solution(s) from which it precipitated. Barite precipitated in the water column (marine or pelagic barite) can be used as a recorder of changes in sea water chemistry through time. Barite formed within sediments or at the sea floor from pore water fluids (diagenetic or cold seeps barite) can aid in understanding fluid flow and sedimentary redox processes, and barite formed in association with hydrothermal activity (hydrothermal barite) provides information about conditions of crust alteration around hydrothermal vents. The accumulation rate of marine barite in oxic‐pelagic sediments can also be used to reconstruct past changes in ocean productivity. Some key areas for future work on the occurrence and origin of barite include: fully characterizing the mechanisms of precipitation of marine barite in the water column; understanding the role and potential significance of bacteria in barite precipitation; quantifying parameters controlling barite preservation in sediments; determining the influence of diagenesis on barite geochemistry; and investigating the utility of additional trace components in barite.
TLR4- and TLR2-Mediated B Cell Responses Control the Clearance of the Bacterial Pathogen, Leptospira interrogans1

Leptospirosis is a widespread zoonosis caused by pathogenic Leptospira interrogans that are transmitted by asymptomatic infected rodents. Leptospiral lipoproteins and LPS have been shown to stimulate murine cells via TLRs 2 and 4. Host defense mechanisms remain obscure, although TLR4 has been shown to be involved in clearing Leptospira. In this study, we show that double (TLR2 and TLR4) knockout (DKO) mice rapidly died from severe hepatic and renal failure following Leptospira inoculation. Strikingly, the severe proinflammatory response detected in the liver and kidney from Leptospira-infected DKO mice appears to be independent of MyD88, the main adaptor of TLRs. Infection of chimeric mice constructed with wild-type and DKO mice, and infection of several lines of transgenic mice devoid of T and/or B lymphocytes, identified B cells as the crucial lymphocyte subset responsible for the clearance of Leptospira, through the early production of specific TLR4-dependent anti-Leptospira IgMs elicited against the leptospiral LPS. We also found a protective tissue compartmentalized TLR2/TLR4-mediated production of IFN-γ by B and T lymphocytes, in the liver and kidney, respectively. In contrast, the tissue inflammation observed in Leptospira-infected DKO mice was further characterized to be mostly due to B lymphocytes in the liver and T cells in the kidney. Altogether these findings demonstrate that TLR2 and TLR4 play a key role in the early control of leptospirosis, but do not directly trigger the inflammation induced by pathogenic Leptospira.
Roman Gold-Mining in North-West Spain

The Augustan conquest of the Asturias was resisted with all the tenacity native to that region, but under the combined pressure of no less than three legions, this wild and mountainous area of North-Western Spain finally capitulated in c. 25 B.C. On the Roman side the prospect of mineral exploitation was a major motive that demanded at times the presence of both Augustus and Agrippa. The literary references to the Spanish mining-projects that followed the conquest do not specify particular sites, but indicate instead general areas where mining was initiated. Fortunately, however, the gold-rushes of the last century in California and elsewhere reawakened interest in other areas of the world, and particularly this region of Spain, partly as a result of the legendary stories of Roman successes. The prospectors found many traces of those efforts, although in the main unsuccessful themselves. Part at least of what they saw was recorded in the current mining papers and journals of that period, and we are indebted to the work of O. Davies for abstracting and summarizing much of this information, which would otherwise be difficult to assimilate, the sources now being unobtainable or very inaccessible. We may be sure that the twenty or so mines that he noted are an underestimate, and that many more await discovery. Although Davies' list was made over thirty years ago, none of the sites have since been surveyed in any detail and no photographic record exists.
Leadership Efficacy , Job Satisfaction and Educational Quality In Chilean Elementary Schools

This paper is based on a national study of school leadership in Chile. Surveys were administered during the 2009 school year to school directors and teachers in 649 urban elementary schools across Chile’s three education sectors: municipal schools, government subsidized private schools, and non-subsidized private schools. While nearly all principals reported high levels of satisfaction and individual efficacy in the overall performance of their jobs, a substantial number expressed low confidence in their capacity to improve the quality of teaching and learning, especially in municipal schools. Using correlation and regression analysis, the paper explores the relationships between survey measures of principals’ efficacy and job satisfaction, professional education, years’ experience, and practices in order to identify those factors that contribute to principal confidence in their ability to improve their schools. The analyses considers differences in school context (sector, size) and student performance (national achievement test scores) that may be linked to varying expressions of principals’ sense of efficacy. The findings confirm prior research concerning the task dependent nature of principals’ self efficacy in their work.
Estimating neighbourhood-level socio-economic effect on preterm births using a multilevel approach: a case study in Georgia, USA

This study investigates the contextual effect of neighbourhood socio-economic status (SES) on the risk of preterm birth (PTB) using multilevel models. Birth data retrieved from 2000 Georgia Vital Records were geocoded and joined to their respective census tracts. The census tract level Index of Deprivation (IoD) was calculated using nine 2000 Census variables based on a previously proposed ‘standard’ index. Two-level random intercept regression models were developed using 117,329 live and singleton births at the individual level and 1618 census tracts at the neighbourhood level. After adjustment for individual-level factors, IoD generated an odds ratio of 1.006 (95% CI 1.00–1.01), showing a modest but significant effect on PTB. Intra-class correlation (ICC) was 0.83% after adjusting for individual-level factors and the census tract level IoD. A wide IOR-80% interval (0.74–1.36) suggests large unexplained residual in between census tract variation remained. The median odds ratio (MOR) value of 1.17 revealed that the unmodelled neighbourhood effect was stronger than the fixed effect of census tract-level predicting variable, IoD, but weaker than the effects of several individual-level predictor variables, including race, tobacco use, prenatal care, foetal death history and marital status. Overall, better census tract-level SES would have a modest protective effect for PTB risk. The full strength of multilevel models should be exploited further to help our understanding of PTB aetiology.
Grid-Based Quaternion Filter for SO(3) Estimation

A novel discrete Bayesian filtering scheme is proposed on the manifold of unit quaternions for rotation estimation. Existing quaternion filters rely on specific distributions (typically the Bingham distribution) to model the uncertainty in a parametric form. The scheme proposed in this paper allows non-parametric modeling of the underlying uncertainty using Dirac mixtures located on a hyperspherical grid. The grid is generated by first discretizing the tangent space layer-wise w.r. t. spherical coordinates. Then, the on-tangent-space grid is mapped back to the manifold via the exponential map. The on-manifold grid of quaternions is deployed in a discrete Bayesian filtering scheme. We evaluate the proposed grid-based quaternion filter for recursive rotation estimation with simulations. Results show that the tracking performance of the proposed approach is superior to Bingham-based quaternion filters.
Ageing, autoimmunity and arthritis: An introduction

As populations grow, greater effort is made to understand the political and economic impact of ageing. Understanding the pathophysiology of this degenerative process has engendered no less effort or interest. At the subcellular and molecular level, ageing heralds changes in the balance between DNA damage and repair, changes in the frequency of somatic mutations, as well as deterioration in the functional integrity of mitochondria and its own DNA [1]. At a cellular level, these changes can manifest as clonal expansions driven by a strong survival advantage, and in some cases as malignant transformation. Recent events in the cloning arena have forced scientists and physicians to reflect upon the potential impact of somatic cell nuclear transfer. What is the impact of genetic chimaerism? Does it accelerate ageing? What are the mechanisms, and at what level do they work? Readers of Arthritis Research & Therapy must be particularly curious to know why Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an established adult somatic cell, subsequently developed arthritis [2]. We have yet to find the answer to these important questions.
Renewable resources for the production of fuels and chemicals.

Fossil resources can be conserved by the use of renewable resources, primarily wood, either for the generation of energy or by the production of synthetic polymers using renewable materials as feedstocks. The sources of renewable resources for energy generation are summarized. The forms of energy generation possible from biomass are discussed. The production of chemicals and polymers from biomass is somewhat limited but still of conservation value. The chemical and by-product potential of renewable resources is evaluated. Production of chemicals by gasification is also briefly considered. (JSR)
Retinal projections in the ringtailed possum Pseudocheirus peregrinus

The retinal projections in the ringtailed possum, Pseudocheirus peregrinus were determined using Fink‐Heimer material and autoradiography. At least seven regions in the brain receive retinal projections. These are (1) the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus (2) the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (3) the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus (4) the lateral posterior nucleus (5) the pretectum (6) the superior colliculus, and (7) the accessory optic system. The accessory optic system and lateral posterior nucleus receive a contralateral retinal projection only and the other five regions receive a bilateral retinal projection.
Notch signalling in T‐cell lymphoblastic leukaemia/lymphoma and other haematological malignancies

Notch receptors participate in a highly conserved signalling pathway that regulates normal development and tissue homeostasis in a context‐ and dose‐dependent manner. Deregulated Notch signalling has been implicated in many diseases, but the clearest example of a pathogenic role is found in T‐cell lymphoblastic leukaemia/lymphoma (T‐LL), in which the majority of human and murine tumours have acquired mutations that lead to aberrant increases in Notch1 signalling. Remarkably, it appears that the selective pressure for Notch mutations is virtually unique among cancers to T‐LL, presumably reflecting a special context‐dependent role for Notch in normal T‐cell progenitors. Nevertheless, there are some recent reports suggesting that Notch signalling has subtle, yet important roles in other forms of haematological malignancy as well. Here, we review the role of Notch signalling in various blood cancers, focusing on T‐LL with an eye towards targeted therapeutics. Copyright © 2010 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
NEURO-FUZZY CONTROLLER IMPLEMENTATION FOR AN ADAPTIVE CATHODIC PROTECTION ON IRAQ-TURKEY CRUDE OIL PIPELINE

Impressed current cathodic protection is widely used to prevent corrosion of structural steels, especially, those used in a crude oil pipeline. The potential required for cathodic protection depends upon the steel being protected from the environment. Since corrosion rate depends on current flow to or from the steel and the adjacent medium, the corrosion activity of the steel in soil normally increases as soil resistivity decreases. The major constituents are resistivity, chlorides, sulfates, and the acidity (pH) of the soil. Output voltage, depending on desired reference voltage, needs to be controlled and tuned by transformer rectifier (TR) units. Proportional–integral (PI) and proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controllers have been used recently in tuning the output voltage, but overshoot and oscillation occurred in the outputs. In order to overcome these problems, a new approach based on a neuro-fuzzy controller for tuning the output voltage of TR units is presented in this study. The neuro-fuzzy classification based on a fuzzy logic controller was implemented in a microcontroller. The controller helps to compensate for the variations and the dynamic changes in the TR units on the Iraq-Turkey crude oil pipeline. The experimental results achieved from two stations have shown that the proposed neuro-fuzzy controller is simple, does not require any derivative function, and has no overshoot and oscillation.
Psychiatric and substance use comorbidity among treatment-seeking opioid abusers.

BACKGROUND Major studies of psychiatric comorbidity in opioid abusers reported rates of comorbidity that far exceeded general population estimates. These studies were published more than a decade ago and reported on few women and few substance use diagnoses. METHODS Psychiatric and substance use comorbidity was assessed in 716 opioid abusers seeking methadone maintenance. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Revised Third Edition diagnostic assessment was conducted 1 month after admission. Rates of psychiatric and substance use disorder were compared by gender, and associations were assessed between psychiatric comorbidity and dimensional indexes of substance use severity, psychosocial impairment, and personality traits. RESULTS Psychiatric comorbidity was documented in 47% of the sample (47% women and 48% men). Antisocial personality disorder (25.1%) and major depression (15.8%) were the most common diagnoses. Patients had at least 2 substance use diagnoses, most often opioid and cocaine dependence. Demographics, substance use history, and personality variables discriminated between patients with vs without comorbidity. Psychiatric comorbidity also was associated with a more severe substance use disorder. CONCLUSIONS Psychiatric comorbidity, especially personality and mood disorder, was common in men and women. The positive associations between psychiatric comorbidity and severity of substance use and other psychosocial problems were most consistent among those with antisocial personality.
Haptic wrist guidance using vibrations for Human-Robot teams

Human-Robot teams can efficiently operate in several scenarios including Urban Search and Rescue (USAR). Robots can access areas too small or deep for a person, can begin surveying larger areas that people are not permitted to enter and can carry sensors and instruments. One important aspect in this cooperative framework is the way robots and humans can communicate during rescue operation. Vision and audio modalities may result not efficient in case of reduced visibility or high noise. A promising way to guarantee effective communications between robot and human in a team is the exploitation of haptic signals. In this work, we present a possible solution to let a robot guide the position of a human operator's hand by using vibrations. We demonstrate that an armband embedding four vibrating motors is enough to guide the wrist of an operator along a predefined path or in a target location. The results proposed can be exploited in human-robot teams. For instance, when the robot detects the position of a sensible target, it can guide the wrist of the operator in such position following an optimal path.
Scaling Up IoT Stream Processing

Users create large numbers of IoT stream queries with data streams generated from various IoT devices. Current stream processing systems such as Storm and Flink are unable to support such large numbers of IoT stream queries efficiently, as their execution models cause a flurry of cache misses while processing the events of the queries. To solve this problem, we present a new group-aware execution model, which processes the events of IoT stream queries in a way that exploits the locality of data and code references, to reduce cache misses and improve system performance. The group-aware execution model leverages the fact that users create the groups of queries according to their interests or location contexts and that queries in the same group can share the same data and codes. We realize the group-aware execution model on MIST---a new stream processing system tailored for processing many IoT stream queries efficiently---to scale up the number of IoT queries that can be processed in a machine. Our preliminary evaluation shows that our group-aware execution model increases the number of queries that can be processed within a single machine up to 3.18X compared to the Flink-based execution model.
Review on Synchronization of Timing Offset for UWB-IR Receivers

The engrossment of Ultra wideband is growing rapidly and its growth has been tremendous specially in shortrange wireless communications in the past few years for a various range of applications. Ultra wideband (UWB) has significance for both high-data-rate (HDR), and low-data-rate (LDR) short range communications. IN wireless communication for high data rates Ultra Wide Band technology is a reliable transmission scheme. In this paper for single user in IEEE 802.15. 4a channel data aided (DA) synchronization is used for both coherent and Non-coherent UWB-IR receivers. Before every transmitted sequence random timing offset using Walsh codes is estimated which further act as pilot sequence to achieve timing synchronization. To perform correlation of received bit stream sliding correlation window of appropriate length is used. For a peak value at an instant, Autocorrelation of Walsh code is performed. This instant of peak is estimated as symbol boundary. In order to show the performance of pilot sequence, Error variance Vs SNR (dB) and its BER performance is plotted for different lengths of pilot sequences in different environments. It can be further helpful to mitigate the negative effects of timing offset. Keywords—Ultra-wide band Impulse radio (UWB-IR), IEEE 802.15. 4a channel model, Sliding correlation window, Walsh code, Error variance.
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) reveals that female Bechstein’s bats live in closed societies

We present a microgeographic analysis of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in Bechstein’s bats using three sources of control region sequence variability, including a novel mtDNA microsatellite, to assess individual relatedness both within and among 10 maternity colonies. Comparison of marker variability among 268 adult females revealed little genetic variability within each colony. However, most colonies were clearly distinguished by colony‐specific mitochondrial haplotypes (total n = 28). Low intracolony variability and strong haplotype segregation among colonies, was reflected by an extraordinary high FST of 0.68, indicating a very low intercolony dispersal rate of approximately one female in five generations. Haplotype distribution among 18 solitary males showed that males frequently disperse between colony locations, indicating the absence of dispersal barriers. Bechstein’s bat maternity colonies are thus closed groups that comprise 20–40 females probably belonging to only one or, at most, two matrilines. The genetic population structure of Bechstein’s bats is in agreement with the hypothesis that females seek familiar and, at least, partially related cooperation partners for raising their young. Alternatively strong philopatry might reflect the importance of profound roost or habitat knowledge for successful reproduction in female Bechstein’s bats.