Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Data Collection Strategy for Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks Based on Energy Efficiency and Collaborative Optimization

In the clustering routing protocol, prolonging the lifetime of the sensor network depends to a large extent on the rationality of the cluster head node selection. The selection of cluster heads for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks (HWSNs) does not consider the remaining energy of the current nodes and the distribution of nodes, which leads to an imbalance of network energy consumption. A strategy for selecting cluster heads of HWSNs based on the improved sparrow search algorithm- (ISSA-) optimized self-organizing maps (SOM) is proposed. In the stage of cluster head selection, the proposed algorithm establishes a competitive neural network model at the base station and takes the nodes of the competing cluster heads as the input vector. Each input vector includes three elements: the remaining energy of the node, the distance from the node to the base station, and the number of neighbor nodes of the node. The best cluster head is selected through the adaptive learning of the improved competitive neural network. When selecting the cluster head node, comprehensively consider the remaining energy, the distance, and the number of times the node becomes a cluster head and optimize the cluster head node selection strategy to extend the network life cycle. Simulation experiments show that the new algorithm can reduce the energy consumption of the network more effectively than the basic competitive neural network and other algorithms, balance the energy consumption of the network, and further prolong the lifetime of the sensor network.
Ionic salt (4-ethoxybenzyl)-triphenylphosphonium bromide as a green corrosion inhibitor on mild steel in acidic medium: experimental and theoretical evaluation

A new phosphonium salt (4-ethoxybenzyl)-triphenylphosphonium bromide (EBTPPB), having different substituents attached to phosphorous and having different anions, is investigated as an inhibitor for mild steel (MS) corrosion in 0.5 M H2SO4 solutions via electrochemical polarization and electrochemical impedance (EI) spectroscopy. Electrochemical results show that EBTPPB compound has practically good inhibiting features for MS corrosion in the corrosive medium with efficiencies of approximately 98% at an optimum 10−2 M concentration. The inhibition is of a mixed cathodic–anodic type. Passive potential (Epp) of the modified steel specimen is in the inactive region and thus inhibits the corrosion process. Langmuir Adsorption (LA) isotherm was performed to provide precise information on the adsorption behavior of the ionic salt. It exhibits both physisorption and predominantly chemisorption mechanism on MS surface. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) associated with Energy Dispersion X-ray (EDX) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) assessment of the electrode surface is consistent with the existence of adsorbing screen of EBTPPB molecules. An apparent connection was ascertained between the experimental corrosion inhibition efficiency (IE%) and the theoretical parameters using quantum chemical calculations.
Risk of COPD Exacerbations Associated with Statins versus Fibrates: A New User, Active Comparison, and High-Dimensional Propensity Score Matched Cohort Study

Background Several observational studies have found that statins may materially decrease the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. However, most of these studies used a prevalent user, non-user comparison approach, which may lead to overestimation of the clinical benefits of statins. We aimed to explore the risk of COPD exacerbations associated with statins with a new user, active comparison approach to address potential methodological concerns. We selected fibrates, another class of lipid-lowering agents, as the reference group because no evidence suggests that fibrates have an effect on COPD exacerbations. Methods We identified patients with COPD who initiated statins or fibrates from a nationwide Taiwanese database. Patients were followed from cohort entry to the earliest of the following: hospitalization for COPD exacerbations, death, end of the data, or 180 days after cohort entry. Stratified Cox regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of COPD exacerbations comparing statins with fibrates after variable-ratio propensity score (PS) matching and high-dimensional PS (hd-PS) matching, respectively. Results We identified a total of 134,909 eligible patients (110,726 initiated statins; 24,183 initiated fibrates); 1979 experienced COPD exacerbations during follow-up. The HRs were 1.10 (95% CI, 0.96 to 1.26) after PS matching and 1.08 (95% CI, 0.94 to 1.24) after hd-PS matching. The results did not differ materially by type of statins and patient characteristic and did not change with longer follow-up durations. Conclusion This large-scale, population-based cohort study did not show that use of statins was associated with a reduced risk of acute exacerbations in patients with COPD using state-of-the-art pharmacoepidemiologic approaches. The findings emphasize the importance of applying appropriate methodology in exploring statin effectiveness in real-world settings.
Distribution of Eu ion in nano-size Y2O3:Eu Nanopowder prepared by solution combustion method

Y2O3:Eu compound is known as the best red phosphor source for three color fluorescent lamps and color displays [1]. The chemical and thermal stability of this compound is better than sulfide based phosphors such as Y2O2SO4:Eu [2]. It also exhibits higher quantum efficiency and stability against high current densities [3]. Although, the optical properties of micron-size Y2O3:Eu powder have been optimized [3], they are not optimized for nanosize Y2O3:Eu . In our previous work [4, 5] , we demonstrated that quenching concentration of nanosize Y2O3:Eu is about 5 percent of Eu concentration which had conflict with the result of Ye et al[6]. They believed that upon decreasing the size of Y2O3:Eu compound the quenching concentration could be enhanced. In this work, we present solid reasons and mechanism in order to explain this phenomenon.
A comparison of self-report, systematic observation and third-party judgments of church attendance in a rural Fijian Village

Social desirability reporting leads to over estimations of church attendance. To date, researchers have treated over-reporting of church attendance as a general phenomenon, and have been unable to determine the demographic correlates of inaccuracy in these self-reports. By comparing over eight months of observational data on church attendance (n = 48 services) to self-report in a rural Fijian village, we find that 1) self-report does not reliably predict observed attendance, 2) women with two or more children (≥ 2) are more likely to over-report their attendance than women with fewer children (≤ 1), and 3) self-report of religiosity more reliably predicts observed church attendance than does self-report of church attendance. Further, we find that third-party judgements of church attendance by fellow villagers are more reliably associated with observed church attendance than self-report. Our findings suggest that researchers interested in estimating behavioral variation, particularly in domains susceptible to social desirability effects, should consider developing and employing third-party methods to mitigate biases inherent to self-report.
Rapid vaccine development using a micro-scale platform

Vaccine research and development is becoming increasingly important because of the potential to create a blockbuster drug, such as Prevnar. However, the development pipeline continues to be a limiting factor in commercialising a vaccine. In this thesis a micro-scale platform is created to mimic the key features of a unit operation so that it is possible to calculate the impact of a commercial manufacturing process using this scaled down platform. Two model vaccines were applied to the micro-scale platform, a new Meningitis serogroup B vaccine based on the outer membrane vesicle proteins of Neisseria lactamica and the licensed UK Anthrax vaccine. To create the platform, cultures of Neisseria lactamica in microwells have been combined with statistical techniques such as Design of Experiments to increase biomass production by four fold and antigen yields by 165%. Microwell experiments were coupled with SELDI-TOF mass spectroscopy to enable a detailed insight into the changing vaccine composition with culture conditions. Microwell results here were scaled up to 2, 8 and 50 litre fermentations using dimensionless analysis based on the oxygen mass transfer co-efficient, kLa. The effects of pilot scale downstream processing were investigated using ultra scale down tools and models. It was possible to characterise product losses and the robustness of the process stream by conducting shear experiments. Furthermore, final product filter sterilisation was investigated using a microwell platform coupled with statistical analysis, particle sizing and DLVO theory. Through these studies it was possible to minimise aggregation and increase antigen transmission through the membrane from 35% to 78%. The platform was applied to cultures of Bacillus anthracis Sterne 34F2, the Anthrax vaccine strain. Microwells were used to mimic Thompson bottle cultures and ascertain the main factors which effect B. anthracis growth and antigen production. The cell density dependent signalling mechanism, known as quorum sensing was found to control growth and antigen production in B. anthracis and that a protein below 5kDa may be involved in the quorum sensing mechanism along with the auto inducer molecule, AI-2. Finally, transfer of B. anthracis vaccine production from static culture to a homogenous stirrer tank culture environment was investigated using a miniature bioreactor. It found that transfer was possible and that doing so reduced the culture time from 28 hours to just 14 hours, increasing production of PA and LF vaccine antigens by 25% and 78% respectively. Aeration of the culture showed that biomass production could be improved upon, but it had a detrimental effect on antigen expression.
Fatty acid metabolism in lambs supplemented with different condensed and hydrolysable tannin extracts

Five groups of lambs (n = 9 each) were used to test the effect of plant extracts rich in hydrolysable (HT) or condensed tannin (CT) on animal performance, fatty acid composition of rumen content, liver and meat. The control group (CO) received a concentrate-based diet without tannins supplementation. The other groups received the same diet as the control lambs plus 4% chestnut (CH) and tara (TA) extracts as a source of HT and mimosa (MI) and gambier (GA) extracts as a source of CT. One-way ANOVA was used to assess the overall effect of dietary treatments, tannins supplementation (CO vs. CH+TA+MI+GA) and the effect of tannin type (HT vs. CT: CH+TA vs. MI+GA) on animal performance, rumen content, liver and intramuscular FA. Dietary CH negatively affected animal performance. The rumen content of the different groups showed similar levels of 18:3 c9c12c15, 18:2 c9c12, 18:2 c9t11, 18:1 t11 and 18:0, whereas 18:1 t10 was greater in CO. Also, 18:1 t10 tended to be lower in the rumen of HT than CT-fed lambs. These data were partially confirmed in liver and meat, where CO showed a greater percentage of individual trans 18:1 fatty acids in comparison with tannins-fed groups. Our findings challenge some accepted generalizations on the use of tannins in ruminant diets as they were ineffective to favour the accumulation of dietary PUFA or healthy fatty acids of biohydrogenation origin in the rumen content and lamb meat, but suggest a generalized influence on BH rather than on specific steps.
Heart rate control using first- and second-order models during treadmill exercise

Heart rate control using first- and second-order models was compared using a novel control design strategy which shapes the input sensitivity function. Ten participants performed two feedback control test series on a treadmill with square wave and constant references. Using a repeated measures, counterbalanced study design, each series compared controllers C1 and C2 based on first- and second-order models, respectively. In the first series, tracking accuracy root-mean-square tracking error (RMSE) was not significantly lower for C2: 2.59 bpm vs. 2.69 bpm (mean, C1 vs. C2), p = 0.79. But average control signal power was significantly higher for C2: 11.29×10−4m2/s2 vs. 27.91×10−4m2/s2, p=3.1×10−10. In the second series, RMSE was also not significantly lower for C2: 1.99 bpm vs. 1.94 bpm, p = 0.39; but average control signal power was again significantly higher for C2: 2.20×10−4m2/s2 vs. 2.78×10−4m2/s2, p = 0.045. The results provide no evidence that controllers based on second-order models lead to better tracking accuracy, despite the finding that they are significantly more dynamic. Further investigation using a substantially larger sample size is warranted.
Intelligent Dermatologist Tool for Classifying Multiple Skin Cancer Subtypes by Incorporating Manifold Radiomics Features Categories

The rates of skin cancer (SC) are rising every year and becoming a critical health issue worldwide. SC's early and accurate diagnosis is the key procedure to reduce these rates and improve survivability. However, the manual diagnosis is exhausting, complicated, expensive, prone to diagnostic error, and highly dependent on the dermatologist's experience and abilities. Thus, there is a vital need to create automated dermatologist tools that are capable of accurately classifying SC subclasses. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques including machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have verified the success of computer-assisted dermatologist tools in the automatic diagnosis and detection of SC diseases. Previous AI-based dermatologist tools are based on features which are either high-level features based on DL methods or low-level features based on handcrafted operations. Most of them were constructed for binary classification of SC. This study proposes an intelligent dermatologist tool to accurately diagnose multiple skin lesions automatically. This tool incorporates manifold radiomics features categories involving high-level features such as ResNet-50, DenseNet-201, and DarkNet-53 and low-level features including discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and local binary pattern (LBP). The results of the proposed intelligent tool prove that merging manifold features of different categories has a high influence on the classification accuracy. Moreover, these results are superior to those obtained by other related AI-based dermatologist tools. Therefore, the proposed intelligent tool can be used by dermatologists to help them in the accurate diagnosis of the SC subcategory. It can also overcome manual diagnosis limitations, reduce the rates of infection, and enhance survival rates.
Potential of Exosomes as Cell-Free Therapy in Articular Cartilage Regeneration: A Review

Abstract Treatment of cartilage defects such as osteoarthritis (OA) and osteochondral defect (OCD) remains a huge clinical challenge in orthopedics. OA is one of the most common chronic health conditions and is mainly characterized by the degeneration of articular cartilage, shown in the limited capacity for intrinsic repair. OCD refers to the focal defects affecting cartilage and the underlying bone. The current OA and OCD management modalities focus on symptom control and on improving joint functionality and the patient’s quality of life. Cell-based therapy has been evaluated for managing OA and OCD, and its chondroprotective efficacy is recognized mainly through paracrine action. Hence, there is growing interest in exploiting extracellular vesicles to induce cartilage regeneration. In this review, we explore the in vivo evidence of exosomes on cartilage regeneration. A total of 29 in vivo studies from the PubMed and Scopus databases were identified and analyzed. The studies reported promising results in terms of in vivo exosome delivery and uptake; improved cartilage morphological, histological, and biochemical outcomes; enhanced subchondral bone regeneration; and improved pain behavior following exosome treatment. In addition, exosome therapy is safe, as the included studies documented no significant complications. Modifying exosomal cargos further increased the cartilage and subchondral bone regeneration capacity of exosomes. We conclude that exosome administration is a potent cell-free therapy for alleviating OA and OCD. However, additional studies are needed to confirm the therapeutic potential of exosomes and to identify the standard protocol for exosome-based therapy in OA and OCD management.
Systematic Monitoring of Cognition for Adults With Cerebral Palsy—The Rationale Behind the Development of the CPCog-Adult Follow-Up Protocol

Cerebral palsy (CP) comprises a heterogeneous group of conditions recognized by disturbances of movement and posture and is caused by a non-progressive injury to the developing brain. Birth prevalence of CP is about 2–2.5 per 1,000 live births. Although the motor impairment is the hallmark of the diagnosis, individuals with CP often have other impairments, including cognitive ones. Cognitive impairments may affect communication, education, vocational opportunities, participation, and mental health. For many years, CP has been considered a “childhood disability,” but the challenges continue through the life course, and health issues may worsen and new challenges may arise with age. This is particularly true for cognitive impairments, which may become more pronounced as the demands of life increase. For individuals with CP, there is no one-to-one correlation between cognition and functioning in other areas, and therefore, cognition must be individually assessed to determine what targeted interventions might be beneficial. To facilitate this for children with CP, a systematic follow-up protocol of cognition, the CPCog, has been implemented in Norway and Sweden. However, no such protocol currently exists for adults with CP. Such discontinuity in healthcare services that results from lack of follow-up of cognitive functioning and subsequent needs for adjustments and interventions makes transition from pediatric to adult healthcare services challenging. As a result, a protocol for the surveillance of cognition in adults with CP, the CPCog-Adult, has been developed. It includes assessment of verbal skills, non-verbal reasoning, visual–spatial perception, and executive functioning. It is recommended to perform these assessments at least once in young adulthood and once in the mid-fifties. This report describes the process of developing the CPCog-Adult, which has a three-fold purpose: (1) to provide equal access to healthcare services to enable the detection of cognitive impairments; (2) to provide interventions that increase educational and vocational participation, enhance quality of life, and prevent secondary impairments; and (3) to collect systematic data for research purposes. The consent-based registration of data in the well-established Swedish and Norwegian national CP registries will secure longitudinal data from childhood into adulthood.
Multimodal Medical Image Fusion Based on Multiple Latent Low-Rank Representation

A multimodal medical image fusion algorithm based on multiple latent low-rank representation is proposed to improve imaging quality by solving fuzzy details and enhancing the display of lesions. Firstly, the proposed method decomposes the source image repeatedly using latent low-rank representation to obtain several saliency parts and one low-rank part. Secondly, the VGG-19 network identifies the low-rank part's features and generates the weight maps. Then, the fused low-rank part can be obtained by making the Hadamard product of the weight maps and the source images. Thirdly, the fused saliency parts can be obtained by selecting the max value. Finally, the fused saliency parts and low-rank part are superimposed to obtain the fused image. Experimental results show that the proposed method is superior to the traditional multimodal medical image fusion algorithms in the subjective evaluation and objective indexes.
Role of magnetic resonance vessel wall imaging in detecting and managing ruptured aneurysms among multiple intracranial aneurysms

Background: Wall enhancement of intracranial saccular aneurysms in high-resolution magnetic resonance vessel wall imaging (MR-VWI) might indicate a ruptured aneurysm. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the diagnostic ability of wall enhancement to detect the ruptured aneurysms among multiple aneurysms. Methods: Patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) and multiple intracranial aneurysms who underwent MR-VWI before craniotomy and clipping were included in the study. Three-dimensional T1-weighted fast spin-echo sequences were obtained before and after gadolinium injection. Aneurysm rupture was estimated based on the subarachnoid clot distribution, aneurysmal contours, and MR-VWI findings. We selectively performed surgical clipping and confirmed the rupture site intraoperatively. Results: Thirteen patients with SAH with 13 ruptured and 17 unruptured aneurysms were treated at out facility. The accuracy rate of rupture site diagnosis using MR-VWI was 69.2% (9/13 cases). Each unruptured aneurysm was equally or more strongly enhanced in the other four cases than the ruptured aneurysms. In three of the four unruptured aneurysms with positive MR-VWI findings, atherosclerosis of the aneurysmal wall was observed during simultaneous or elective clipping surgery. Further, clipping surgery was performed without intraoperative rupture in two cases with the help of MR-VWI findings. Conclusion: Correct diagnosis of the rupture site using MR-VWI alone was unreliable due to false positives caused by the wall enhancement of unruptured aneurysms with atherosclerosis. Therefore, ruptured aneurysms should be detected using more information in addition to MR-VWI images. MR-VWI may be advantageous to determine surgical strategies when managing patients with SAH and multiple aneurysms.
Validation of the Greek version of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire - Short Form (PIUQ-SF-6)

Internet is a necessary tool of everyday routine, however, concerns about the development of abnormal behaviours in relation to its use by adolescents are constantly growing. The need of brief screening tools for problematic internet use in teenagers in Greece is imperative. The purpose of this study was to validate the 6-item short form of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ-SF-6) in a Greek sample of adolescents. The sample consisted of 200 adolescents (55.0% males, 61.6% high school students, 38.4% junior high school students) who completed the study’s questionnaires i.e., a demographic questionnaire, the PIUQ-SF-6, the Young’s Diagnostic Questionnaire (YDQ) and the Adolescent Computer Addiction Test (ACAT). The internal consistency of the Greek version of PIUQ-SF-6 was sufficient and acceptable (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient a = 0.80). Confirmatory Factor Analysis was significant, and goodness-of-fit was adequate. For establishing convergent validity, Pearson’s and Spearman’s correlation coefficients were calculated between the PIUQ-SF-6 and ACAT scales and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis (between PIUQ-SF-6 and YDQ) indicated an excellent accuracy. The Greek version of the PIUQ-SF-6 demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties (reliability and validity) and is recommended as a reliable screening tool for problematic internet use in Greek adolescents.