Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oblique Lateral Interbody Fusion Combined With Lateral Plate Fixation for the Treatment of Lumbar Degenerative Diseases: a Preliminary Clinical Study

Background The oblique lateral interbody fusion (OLIF) is a minimally invasive indirect decompression technique for the treatment of lumar spine disease. The OLIF has usually combined with supplemental posterior pedicle screw fixation for decreasing the perioperative complications. The purpose of this study was to evaluate clinical efficacy and complications of oblique lateral interbody fusion (OLIF) combined with lateral plate instrumentation for the treatment of lumbar degenerative diseases.Methods From May 2020 to August 2020, the clinical data of 20 patients who underwent OLIF combined with lateral plate instrumentation were retrospectively analyzed. The operation time, blood loss, and the complications were recorded. Also, the radiological parameters, Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were evaluated before and after surgery.Results The average operation time, blood loss, and length of hospital stay were 75.41±11.53 min, 39.57±9.22 ml, and 7.22±1.85 days, respectively. The VAS and ODI had both significantly improved after surgery (7.23±1.26 VS 2.15±0.87; 60.27±7.91 VS 21.80±6.32, P < 0.001). The postoperative disk height (DH) was 13.02±8.83 mm, which is much higher than before (P < 0.001); The postoperative foraminal height (FH) improved significantly (16.18±3.49 VS 21.54±2.12 mm, P < 0.01), and the cross-sectional area (CSA) had improved from 88.95±14.79 mm2 to 126.53±8.83 mm2 (P < 0.001). The radiological fusion rate was 95% at the last follow-up, while cage subsidence was found in one case. No major complications, such as ureteral injury, vascular injury and vertebral body fracture occurred.Conclusions OLIF combined with lateral plate fixation can avoid the lumbar posterior surgery, minimize the operation time, blood loss and the posterior ligament complex disruption. It can realize one-stage intervertebral fusion and instrumentation through a single small incision.
Terahertz imaging with self-pulsations in quantum cascade lasers under optical feedback

The phenomenon of self-pulsation (SP) in terahertz (THz) quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) due to optical feedback was reported recently. In this Letter, we propose a THz imaging modality using the SP phenomenon in a THz QCL. We explore the theoretical oscillation properties of the SP scheme and demonstrate its suitability to perform imaging experimentally. The SP imaging scheme operates in self-detection mode, eliminating the need for an external detector. Moreover, the scheme requires only a fixed current, meaning that one can avoid many of the pitfalls associated with high temperature operation of THz QCLs, including frequency chirp and mode hops caused by sweeping the laser current. This also means that one is free to locate the operating point at the maximum power, to produce the desired beam profile or for highest spectral purity, depending on the application. The SP imaging modality proposed in this work can be translated directly to high operating temperature THz QCLs.
From Catching Up to Convergence of the Latecomer Firms: Comparing Behavior and Innovation Systems of Firms in Korea and the US

This paper addresses the issue of catching and convergence at the level of firms, and investigates whether Korean firms tend to converge toward mature firms represented by the US firms in terms of their behavior and performance as well as firm-level innovations systems. It conducts regression analyses of several behavior and performance variables, using the data of the Korean and US firms during the 1990s, the 2000s, and 2010s. It finds some evidence of convergence, such that Korean firms become more profitability- rather than growth-oriented, borrowing and investing less, and thus being less indebted. However, they have not changed much in terms of their behavior toward firm values and dividend tendencies. Further analyses, using the patent-derived, innovation system variables, also confirm some aspects of convergence, compared with the early results, for which self-citations become significant and positive for firm values; furthermore, the variable of cycle time of technology is no longer significant for profitability, which is consistent with the results from the US firms. Meanwhile, changes in corporate governance associated with the rise of foreign shareholder are also shown to have resulted in higher profitability but insignificant change in firm values. An emerging conclusion is an ongoing but partially completed process of convergence.
Intimate partner violence and physical health problems in women

Numerous findings in scientific literature consistently show the association of intimate partner violence (IPV) and domestic abuse with the risk for and incidence of a series of different physical health conditions and problems. Studies have shown the association of IPV and overall health and wellbeing especially in women. The purpose of the paper is therefore to present an overview of the research in the field of IPV and women’s mental and physical health. Both quantitative and qualitative research studies published from 2012 to 2018 were included in the review. The results show that IPV is associated with several mental health problems in women, such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as with women’s worse physical health, chronic pain, substance abuse, gynaecological, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems and behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and physical factors. The article reviews current studies and confirms that the experience of IPV in women has long-term consequences for their physical and mental health.
Potassium and Cardiac Surgery

Potassium homeostasis affects cardiac rhythm and contractility, along with vascular reactivity and vascular smooth muscle proliferation. This chapter will focus on potassium dynamics during and after cardiac surgery involving cardioplegic arrest and cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Hyperkalemic, hypothermic solutions are frequently used to induce cardioplegic arrest and protect the heart during cardiac surgery involving CPB. Common consequences of hyperkalemic cardioplegic arrest and reperfusion include microvascular dysfunction involving several organ systems and myocardial dysfunction. Immediately after CPB, blood potassium levels often drop precipitously due to a variety of factors, including CPB -induced electrolyte depletion and frequent, long-term administration of insulin during and after surgery. Meanwhile, some patients with pre-existing kidney dysfunction may experience postoperative hyperkalemia following cardioplegia. Any degree of postoperative hyper/hypokalemia significantly elevates the risk of cardiac arrythmias and subsequent myocardial failure. Therefore, proper management of blood potassium levels during and after cardioplegia/CPB is crucial for optimizing patient outcomes following cardiac surgery.
Glucose Induces Thylakoid Formation and Upregulates Green Pigment Contents in Complete Dark Culture of the Angiosperm Pachiramacrocarpa

In addition to angiosperms, most plants are able to synthesize chlorophyll (Chl)-generating green tissues in total darkness. In this study, 140 plants of the angiosperm Pachira macrocarpa were divided into five groups. Among them, one group was grown for 2 weeks under natural light conditions, whereas the others were grown in complete darkness (0 μmol m−2 s−1). Dark-grown plants were then treated with 0~6% glucose for another 8 weeks. The budding and greening ratios, ultrastructure of chloroplasts (ChlPs) of newly developed leaves, and green pigment contents of pre-illuminated mature and young leaves, and totally dark-grown newly developed leaves were measured. Results showed that glucose inhibited the budding and promoted the greening of newly developed leaves. Pre-illuminated mature and young leaves were able to synthesize green pigments during the 2 weeks of dark adaption. Dark-grown newly developed leaves contained high levels of green pigments at 2 and 3 weeks after budding. Green pigments of glucose-fed newly developed leaves had increased, whereas they had decreased in control leaves. In addition, ChlPs of dark-grown glucose-fed newly developed leaves contained both giant grana and prolamellar bodies (PLBs), usually found in shade plants and etiolated seedlings, respectively. The higher the glucose concentration was, the greater the numbers of grana, thylakoids, and PLBs. Glucose increased the green pigment contents and grana formation in newly developed leaves in a dark condition, and the mechanisms are discussed.
Deep Neural Networks Evolve Human-like Attention Distribution during Goal-directed Reading Comprehension

Attention is a key mechanism for information selection in both biological brains and 19 many state-of-the-art deep neural networks (DNNs). Here, we investigate whether 20 humans and DNNs allocate attention in comparable ways when seeking information 21 in a text passage to answer a question. We analyze 3 transformer-based DNNs that 22 reach human-level performance when trained to perform the reading comprehension 23 task. We find that the DNN attention distribution quantitatively resembles human 24 attention distribution measured by eye tracking: Human readers fixate longer on 25 words that are more relevant to the question-answering task, demonstrating that 26 attention is modulated by the top-down reading goal, on top of lower-level visual 27 layout and textual features. Further analyses reveal that the attention weights in DNNs 28 are also influenced by both the top-down reading goal and lower-level textual 29 features, with the shallow layers more strongly influenced by lower-level textual 30 features and the deep layers attending more to task-relevant words. Additionally, deep 31 layers’ attention to task -relevant words gradually emerges when pre-trained DNN 32 models are fine-tuned to perform the reading comprehension task, which coincides 33 with the improvement in task performance. These results demonstrate that DNNs can 34 naturally evolve human-like attention distribution through task optimization. The 35 results suggest that human attention during goal-directed reading comprehension is a 36 consequence of task optimization and the attention weights in DNN are of biological 37 significance. abstract information, e.g., object information in convolutional networks 42 and syntactic information in BERT 43,44 . A recent study has also compared human eye movements and attention weights in the last layer of BERT, when participants evaluate whether a passage is an appropriate answer to a question. It is demonstrated that the human fixation time is more similar to the attention weights in BERT than the simple TF-IDF weights 27 .
Spatial variation and drivers of vegetation structure and composition in coastal freshwater wetlands of subtropical Australia

Coastal freshwater wetlands (CFWs) are among the most understudied wetlands globally and are highly vulnerable to projected climate changes. To address CFW knowledge gaps in south-east Queensland, Australia, we surveyed the floristic composition and structure of wooded CFWs and explored variation in vegetation patterns in relation to selected environmental drivers. Understorey and shrub assemblages were surveyed using a cover-class scale and stem counts for tree species abundance. Vegetation structure attributes (stem density, basal area) were calculated from survey data. Redundancy analysis was used to investigate drivers of vegetation structure and the species composition of each stratum. Vegetation structure patterns were associated with gradients of rainfall, soil moisture, salinity and pH. Understorey species composition was associated with wallum wetland species, native perennial grass and herb species, and vegetation patterns of the canopy. Common CFW species, namely Melaleuca quinquenervia and Eucalyptus tereticornis, dominated tree assemblage variation. Overall, CFW vegetation exhibited strong associations with gradients of salinity, rainfall, groundwater dependence and disturbance. Alterations to key drivers of vegetation pattern with future climate changes are likely to markedly influence the composition, structure and function of CFW vegetation communities. Action is therefore required to maintain CFW vegetation communities and ecological function in these diverse and unique wetland systems.
Factorization-Aware Training of Transformers for Natural Language Understanding on the Edge

Fine-tuning transformer-based models have shown to outperform other methods for many Natural Language Understanding (NLU) tasks. Recent studies to reduce the size of trans-former models have achieved reductions of > 80% , making on-device inference on powerful devices possible. However, other resource-constrained devices, like those enabling voice assistants (VAs), require much further reductions. In this work, we propose factorization-aware training (FAT), wherein we factorize the linear mappings of an already compressed transformer model (DistilBERT) and train jointly on NLU tasks. We test this method on three different NLU datasets and show our method outperforms naive application of factorization after training by 10% − 440% across various compression rates. Additionally, We introduce a new metric called factorization gap and use it to analyze the need for FAT across various model components. We also present results for training subsets of factorized components to enable faster training, re-usability and maintainability for multiple on-device models. We further demonstrate the trade-off between memory, inference speed and performance at a given compression-rate for a on-device implementation of a factorized model. Our best performing factorized model, achieves a relative size reduction of 84% with ≈ 10% relative degradation in NLU error rate compared to a non-factorized model on our internal dataset.
Wirksamkeit der Bauchlagerung bei ARDS

Die derzeitige SARS-CoV-2-Pandemie zeigt, dass ein ARDS nach wie vor mit einer hohen Mortalität einhergeht. Eine aufwendige, aber wirksame und etablierte Intervention in der Intensivpflege ist die Bauchlagerung, die allerdings auch nicht frei von Komplikationen ist. Der folgende Beitrag zeigt, dass die Bauchlagerung bei ARDS wirksam ist, wenn bestimmte Kriterien beachtet werden. Die Literaturrecherche ist ein Auszug aus einer Bachelorarbeit im Studiengang Pflege Dual aus dem Jahr 2020.
Solving the Family Traveling Salesperson Problem in the Adleman–Lipton Model Based on DNA Computing

The Family Traveling Salesperson Problem (FTSP) is a variant of the Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP), in which all vertices are divided into several different families, and the goal of the problem is to find a loop that concatenates a specified number of vertices with minimal loop overhead. As a Non-deterministic Polynomial Complete (NP-complete) problem, it is difficult to deal with it by the traditional computing. On the contrary, as a computer with strong parallel ability, the DNA computer has incomparable advantages over digital computers when dealing with NP problems. Based on this, a DNA algorithm is proposed to deal with FTSP based on the Adleman-Lipton model. In the algorithm, the solution of the problem can be obtained by executing several basic biological manipulations on DNA molecules with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${O}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>(<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${N}^{{2}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) computing complexity (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${N}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is the number of vertices in the problem without the origin). Through the simulation experiments on some benchmark instances, the results show that the parallel DNA algorithm has better performance than traditional computing. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by deducing the algorithm process in detail. Furthermore, the algorithm further proves that DNA computing, as one of the parallel computing methods, has the potential to solve more complex big data problems.
ADPF 442: a tutela penal da vida nas audiências públicas sobre a descriminalização do aborto

Neste artigo são analisados discursos proferidos nas audiências públicas realizadas no âmbito da Ação de Descumprimento de Preceito Fundamental nº 442, a respeito dos sentidos atribuídos à intervenção penal do Estado em relação à prática de aborto. A pesquisa foi estruturada por meio da metodologia da Teoria Fundamentada nos Dados. O marco teórico do trabalho é a criminologia crítica e feminista, bem como os estudos de gênero. Os resultados apontam para uma estrutura argumentativa pró-criminalização do aborto que parte da linguagem dos direitos, tratando da questão da origem da vida, para pensar a tutela penal do embrião. A mulher é construída como objeto e meio, enquanto o feto se torna sujeito e fim. A ruptura com a redução da mulher ao seu suposto destino biológico provém de grupos anticriminalização que, ao compreender a criminalização do aborto – que para eles obedece a uma lógica de controle e morte – como um desrespeito ao direito à vida das mulheres, apresentam uma compreensão feminista e interseccional.
The Effect of Accounting Information System and Internal Control System on the Quality of Financial Reports at PT Semen Baturaja (Persero) Tbk.

This study aims to analyze partially and simultaneously the effect of accounting information systems and internal control systems on the quality of financial reports at PT. Semen Baturaja (Persero) Tbk. The data used came from observation and questionnaires to 60 respondents. This research method uses a quantitative approach using multiple linear regression. The results of the study partially show that both accounting information and internal control system variables have a significant positive effect on the quality of financial statements. The results of the study using the coefficient of determination (R2) obtained a value of 0.464. This shows that the large contribution of the accounting information system and internal control system variables can explain the quality of financial statements by 46.4%, the remaining 53.6% can be explained by other variables not included in this study.
Stimulation of C-Kit+ Retinal Progenitor Cells by Stem Cell Factor Confers Protection Against Retinal Degeneration

C-kit/CD117, expressed in a series of tissue-specific progenitor cells, plays an important role in tissue regeneration and tissue homeostasis. We previously demonstrated that organoid-derived c-kit+ retinal progenitor cells can facilitate the restoration of degenerated retina. Meanwhile, we have identified a population of endogenous c-kit+ cells in retinas of adult mouse. However, the exact role of these cells in retinal degeneration remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated that stimulation of endogenous c-kit+ cells by stem cell factor (SCF) conferred protection against retinal degeneration. Retinal degeneration was induced by intravitreal injection of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA). NMDA challenge increased the total number of c-kit+ cells in the retinal ganglion cell layer (GCL), while deregulated the protein level of SCF, which was mainly expressed in Müller cells. Both flash electroretinogram (fERG) and light/dark transition tests showed that intravitreal injection of SCF effectively improved the visual function of NMDA-treated mice. Mechanistically, SCF administration not only prevented the loss of retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), but also maintained the function of RGCs as quantified by fERG. Further, we performed transcriptome sequencing analysis of the retinal cells isolated from SCF-treated mice and the parallel control. Gene Ontology analysis showed that SCF-induced transcriptome changes were closely correlated with eye development-related pathways. Crystallins and several protective factors such as Pitx3 were significantly upregulated by SCF treatment. Our results revealed the role of SCF stimulated c-kit+ cells in the protection of RGCs in NMDA-treated mice, via inhibiting the loss of RGCs. Administration of SCF can act as a potent strategy for treating retinal degeneration-related diseases.
Preliminary Study of Polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/Manganese Oxide Activated Carbon Nanofibers for Cd (II) Adsorption

In this work, activated carbon nanofibers (ACNFs) from precursor polyacrylnitrile (PAN) and manganese oxide (MnO2) were prepared via electrospinning process. The electrospun PAN/MnO2-based ACNFs were characterized in term of its morphological structure, functional group analysis and specific surface area using SEM-EDX, FTIR and BET analysis respectively. The comparative adsorption study of cadmium (II) ions from aqueous solution between the neat ACNFs, composite ACNFs and commercial granular activated carbon was also conducted. SEM analysis illustrated that composite ACNFs have more compact fibers with presence of MnO2 beads with smaller fiber diameter of 437.2 nm as compared to the neat ACNFs which is 575.5 nm. BET analysis elucidated specific surface area of ACNFs/MnO2 to be 67 m2/g. Under adsorption study, it was found out that Cd (II) removal by ACNFs/MnO2 was the highest (97%) followed by neat ACNFs (96%) and GAC (74%).
The Swedish wood manufacturing sector: findings from a contextually adapted structure-conduct-performance model

ABSTRACT The scope of this article is an inter-industry study of the Swedish Wood Manufacturing Sector (WMS), examined from the perspective of the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) paradigm in the theoretical field of Industrial Organization. The four research questions are: (1) identify the industries within the sector, (2) construct a contextually adapted SCP model and form the basis for hypotheses of relationships between the different variables in the model, (3) establish quantitative correlations between the variables, and finally (4) present a basically qualitative, explanatory interpretive analysis. The empirical investigation is a total population study of 311 firms. Nine industries are identified, and an SCP model is presented including four explanatory variables – exposure to international competition, value-added scope, domestic demand growth potential and (domestic industry) seller concentration – and two performance variables – industry profitability (ROA) and industry growth. The combined qualitative and quantitative explanatory analysis identifies some important relationships in the SCP model. The most prominent findings are the strong negative relationships between exposure to international competition and industry profitability and industry growth. Another finding is that strong positive relationships are found between the degree of value-added scope and industry profitability and industry growth.
Telemetron: Measuring Network Capacity Between Off-Path Remote Hosts

This paper presents Telemetron, the first active bandwidth measurement tool that can estimate the path capacity between two remote hosts, from an off-path Measuring Machine (MM). It is possible to induce traffic flow between off-path remote hosts—sending request packets to one host, with a spoofed source IP, will cause the first host to send reply packets to the other. The challenge for MM is to measure the rate at which these packets arrive at the second machine. Our key observation is that if the second machine has a global IP-ID counter, the arrival of packets can be monitored remotely, using probes from MM. By observing the rate of increment in the global IP-ID counter, MM estimates the path capacity between remote hosts. Telemetron shows high accuracy; on average, the path capacity reported is 92.5% of the theoretical limit.