Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Elasto-Magnetic Pumps Integrated within Microfluidic Devices

Many lab-on-a-chip devices require a connection to an external pumping system in order to perform their function. While this is not problematic in typical laboratory environments, it is not always practical when applied to point-of-care testing, which is best utilised outside of the laboratory. Therefore, there has been a large amount of ongoing research into producing integrated microfluidic components capable of generating effective fluid flow from on-board the device. This research aims to introduce a system which can produce practical flow rates, and be easily fabricated and actuated using readily available techniques and materials. We show how an asymmetric elasto-magnetic system, inspired by Purcell’s 3-link swimmer can provide this solution through the generation of non-reciprocal motion in an enclosed environment. The device is fabricated monolithically within a microfluidic channel at the time of manufacture, and is actuated using a weak, oscillating magnetic field. The flow rate can be altered dynamically, and the resultant flow direction can be reversed by adjusting the frequency of the driving field. The device is proven, experimentally and numerically, to operate effectively when applied to fluids with a range of viscosities. Such a device may be able to replace external pumping systems in more portable applications.
Haematological Profile of Oreochromis Niloticus (Burchell, 1822) Exposed to Cadmium Chloride

Changes in Oreochromis niloticus blood cells were investigated after 96-h of exposure to cadmium chloride. One hundred and eighty (180) Oreochromis niloticus with average weight of 26.07±1.23g and mean length of 17.50 + 0.50cm were divided into 5 groups (T1-T5) at ten (10) fish per group and in triplicates after being acclimatized for 14 days. They were then exposed to various concentrations (0, 28, 30,
Change in Patellar Cartilage from 2.5 to 4.5 Years Following ACL Reconstruction With and Without Meniscal Pathology

Background: Anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) together with concomitant meniscal injury are risk factors for the development of tibiofemoral (TF) osteoarthritis (OA), but the potential effect on the patellofemoral (PF) joint is unclear. The aim of this study was to: (i) investigate change in patellar cartilage morphology in individuals 2.5 to 4.5 years after ACLR with or without concomitant meniscal pathology and in healthy controls, and (ii) examine the association between baseline patellar cartilage defects and patellar cartilage volume change.Methods: 32 isolated ACLR participants, 25 ACLR participants with combined meniscal pathology and nine healthy controls underwent knee magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with 2-year intervals (baseline = 2.5 years post-ACLR). Patellar cartilage volume and cartilage defects were assessed from MRI using validated methods. Results: Both ACLR groups showed patellar cartilage volume increased over 2 years (p < 0.05), and isolated ACLR group had greater annual percentage cartilage volume increase compared with controls (mean difference 3.6%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0%, 6.3%, p = 0.008) and combined ACLR group (mean difference 2.2%, 95% CI 0.2%, 4.2%, p = 0.028). Patellar cartilage defects regressed in the isolated ACLR group over 2 years (p = 0.02). Baseline patellar cartilage defect score was positively associated with annual percentage cartilage volume increase (B = 0.02; 95% CI 0.003, 0.03; p = 0.02) in the pooled ACLR participants. Conclusions: Hypertrophic response was evident in the patellar cartilage of ACLR participants with and without meniscal pathology. Surprisingly, the increase in patellar cartilage volume was more pronounced in those with isolated ACLR. Although cartilage defects stabilise in the majority of ACLR participants, the severity of patellar cartilage defects at baseline influenced the magnitude of the cartilage hypertrophic response over the subsequent ~2 years.
Improved Event-Based Pi Controller for Limit Cycles Avoidance

One of the issues in designing event-based proportional-integral (PI) controller using aggressive tuning rules is the possible occurrence of limit cycles. To date, there is no adequate simple event-based PI controller technique able to explicitly use aggressive tuning rule. In this paper an improved simple event-based PI controller is proposed to address this issue. By analysing the discrete PI algorithm, an improved triggering condition is introduced. To test the effectiveness of the approach, extensive simulations are carried out by introducing the proposed method to process control under various sampling period, triggering limit, and different tuning rules namely, AMIGO, SIMC and One-Third tuning rules. The performances are evaluated based on two standard criteria: ability to imitate the time-triggered system and computation load reduction. The results show that the performance of the proposed method able to surpass others simple event-based PI controller approaches by giving a closest response to the time-triggered system, lowest computational load and able to avoid the limit cycles occurrences. It is envisaged that the proposed method can be useful in designing a simple event-based PI controller that compatible with any type of tuning rules.
Effectiveness of Caregiver Education for Prevention of Shoulder Pain in Acute Stroke Survivors: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of caregiver education to prevent or reduce hemiplegic shoulder pain, a complication following stroke that adversely affects functional outcomes and prolongs rehabilitation. Method: The study was a randomised controlled trial involving acute stroke survivors in the hospital and their primary caregivers. The participants were conveniently selected and randomly allocated to the experimental (n = 20) and control groups (n = 20) using block randomisation. The stroke survivors of both the study groups received conventional therapy. In the experimental group, caregivers participated in three individual sessions of the education programme for shoulder care, which comprised provision of information, demonstration and training. The outcome measures at pre-assessment were the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) for shoulder pain and the Fugyl-Meyer Assessment for Upper Extremity for Motor Recovery. Caregiver feedback scores were obtained following the intervention. The VAS scores were obtained at 30 days following intervention and 30 days following post-assessment (follow-up assessment) through the posted envelopes. Mann-Whitney U test and Chi- square test were used for statistical analysis. Results: There was no significant difference between the groups on VAS at follow-up assessment. The number of stroke survivors reporting “no pain” increased by 29% in the experimental group and decreased by 6% in the control group. Caregiver feedback scores were higher in the experimental group than in the control group (P Conclusion: This study indicates that educating caregivers on shoulder care during acute management at the hospital, improves their confidence in handling and positioning the stroke survivor after discharge and could reduce hemiplegic shoulder pain.
Once-Weekly Nocturnal Ocular Choroidal Vascular Decongestion by Topical Long-acting Timolol Ophthlamic Solution Applied to Headache-Ipsilateral eye to Prevent Weekend-Migraine Attacks: Smartphone-app

This clinical study evaluates over medium-to-long term the hypothesis that intermittent spontaneous ocular choroidal vasculature-related congestive and nociceptive corneoscleral envelope distention have a pathogenetic role in genesis of episodic lateralizing migraine headache attacks. No neuro-anatomic or -physiologic difference prevails between the three divisions of the trigeminal nerve, but migraine dominantly affect the ophthalmic division. Use of topical ophthalmic solution for managing acute headache attacks of migraine has given contradictory results in controlled trials. I report the distribution of weekend-migraine headache attacks on a single‐participant (N=1) level for 2 patients over a 3-year period (2017-2020) without misuse of any recreational drug other than caffeine on week-days. After a run-in basal period of 6-months recorded on their Smartphones app, with their informed consent, a trial was carried out with topical long-acting β-blocker timolol maleate 0.5% w/v ophthalmic solution once weekly on Saturday night just before sleeping with no other advice to promote nocturnal sleeping or early awakening the next morning; only alcohol binge was proscribed. No week-end attacks of lateralizing migraine headache were reported in the 2 patients over a period of 3years, a long-term consistent response. The biologically-plausible and defensible mechanistic link between migraine, intraocular pressure, ocular choroidal vasculature, nociceptive corneoscleral envelope aberration, and the pharmacologic basis for therapeutic ocular hypotension for prophylaxis of migraine headache attacks is elucidated for the first time in migraine literature.
Association of pesticides and kidney function among adults in the US population 2001-2010

Background Chronic kidney disease with unknown cause (CKDu) is prevalent in tropical and agricultural communities, however, its aetiology remains unclear. The objective of this study was to examine the association between pesticide exposures and the risk of kidney function loss using four waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) to identify a pathological pathway. Methods We pooled data from four cross-sectional waves of NHANES, providing 41,847 participants in total. Sub-population analyses for 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), 3,5,6- trichloropyridinol, 3-phenoxybenzoic acid (3-PBA) and Malathion were conducted using. Logistic regression to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% CIs of the association between log-pesticide levels and kidney function. Results We found that Malathion acid increased the risk of low kidney function among the Malathion sub-population (aOR = 1.26, 95% CI = 1.01–1.56) in the adjusted model. Significantly increased risk of low kidney function was not found among the 2,4-D (aOR = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.72–1.09), 3,5,6-trichloropyridinol (aOR = 0.96, 95% CI = 0.83–1.12) and 3-PBA (aOR = 1.03, 95% CI = 0.94–1.13) subpopulations. Conclusions Our findings provide evidence of altered kidney function in people exposed to Malathion, highlighting the need to focus on Malathion acid as a potential cause of renal injury or chronic kidney disease.
Optimization Of Heterogeneous Iot Information Using Blockchain-Based Multiple Polynomials To Minimize Data Delay In Cloud Edge Environments

Background/Objectives: The information of IoT devices processed in a cloud environment has a costly problem in optimizing information of IoT devices due to different types of information generated by IoT devices and large-scale information processing. In the cloud environment, reducing costs and increasing transmission capacity remain the biggest issues to efficiently manage information generated by heterogeneous IoT devices. Methods/Statistical analysis: The various parameters used for simulation in the proposed technique performance evaluation based on the mean of Monte Carlo simulations. Among the performance evaluation results of the proposed techniques derived in this environment, IoT processing time averaged 11.85% improvement since IoT processing time is classified into multi-subset sized network regions and then generated cumulative use of transactions through similarity between IoT information. Findings: In this paper, we propose an optimization management technique for heterogeneous IoT information using hierarchical distributed polynomials to minimize the cost of processing information generated by IoT devices. The proposed technique not only enables batch distribution processing of IoT information by deep learning IoT information, but also performs multi-dimensional distribution processing of IoT information hierarchically in the process of sending and receiving IoT information. Improvements/Applications: The proposed technique can synchronize the frequency of use according to the number of IoT information by applying the n-order distribution of IoT information to manage IoT information as efficiently as possible. The proposed technique improves bandwidth and processing time over existing techniques in the process of sending and receiving large amounts of IoT information in a short time when distributing heterogeneous IoT information during the IoT information linkage process.
Zeta Potential of the Crude Oil-Brine Interface and Implications for Controlled Salinity Waterflooding

Summary It is commonly observed that improved oil recovery (IOR) by controlled salinity waterflooding (CSW) coincides with a change to a more water-wet state. An important parameter controlling the wetting state is the zeta potential of the mineral-brine and oil-brine interfaces, which controls the electrostatic forces acting between. Evidence suggests successful CSW is observed when the injection brine composition is modified so as to increase the electrostatic repulsion acting between the interfaces, leading to detachment of oil from the mineral surfaces and IOR on the core- to field-scale. Measurements of zeta potential at the mineral-brine interface have been reported using the streaming potential method (SPM) at representative reservoir conditions of temperature, salinity and wetting state. It is generally accepted that the mineral-brine zeta potential becomes more negative with a reduction in the injection brine salinity and/or specific ions. However, comparable zeta potential data for the oil-brine interface are scarce. Most report negative values at pHg6, increasing in magnitude with increasing brine dilution, however, these are typically made using commercially available electrophoretic methods which operate far from reservoir conditions, using suspensions of crude-oil droplets in dilute (l0.1M), single-salt species brines and ambient conditions. Here we report novel and systematic SPM measurements of zeta potential of the oil-brine interface in brines of high ionic strength and containing multivalent ions. A strongly oil-wetting, hydrophobic porous substrate was prepared and coated with the crude-oil of interest. The SPM was used to measure the zeta potential of these substrates when saturated with brines of interest to CSW. We find the zeta potential is negative in simple NaCl brines (up to 2 Mol/L) with the magnitude increasing with decreasing brine salinity, consistent with previous literature. The concentration dependence of a given oil depends on properties such as the acid number and base number. Increasing the concentration of specific ions such as Ca2+ causes the zeta potential to become more positive and for some oils can invert the polarity. The sensitivity of the crude-oil to potential determining ions such as Ca2+ varies significantly dependent on the oil properties. Integrating these measurements with CSW corefloods, we find diluting the injection brine yields IOR only when the zeta potential of the oil-brine interface is negative. In samples where the oil-brine zeta potential is positive, no IOR was observed, consistent with the hypothesis that IOR is caused by an increase in the repulsive electrostatic force between the mineral-brine and oil-brine interfaces.
The Writing Process and the Written Product in Bimodal Bilingual Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children

How does bimodal bilingualism—a signed and a spoken language—influence the writing process or the written product? The writing outcomes of twenty deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children and hearing children of deaf adults (CODA) (mean 11.6 years) with similar bimodal bilingual backgrounds were analyzed. During the writing of a narrative text, a keylogging tool was used that generated detailed information about the participants’ writing process and written product. Unlike earlier studies that have repeatedly shown that monolingual hearing children outperform their DHH peers in writing, there were few differences between the groups that likely were caused by their various hearing backgrounds, such as in their lexical density. Signing knowledge was negatively correlated with writing flow and pauses before words, and positively correlated with deleted characters, but these did not affect the written product negatively. Instead, they used different processes to reach similar texts. This study emphasizes the importance of including and comparing participants with similar language experience backgrounds. It may be deceptive to compare bilingual DHH children with hearing children with other language backgrounds, risking showing language differences. This should always be controlled for through including true control groups with similar language experience as the examined groups.
Coexistence of gastrointestinal stromal tumor of the stomach and small bowel adenocarcinoma: A case report

The coexistence of gastrointestinal tumors (GIST’s) with other several primary malignant neoplasms has been demonstrated. However, there is no study that reported simultaneous occurrence of primary small bowel adenocarcinoma (SBA) and a GIST located in the stomach. Here, we report the first case of SBA and a synchronous gastric GIST. Surgical resection and clinicopathological characterization were performed for the masses identified through endoscopic and radiologic studies. Computed tomography scan showed a 13 mm mass located at the gastric antrum and another mass lesion partially occluding the jejunum. A biopsy specimen was obtained from the mass at the proximal jejunum by enteroscopy. The tumor was reported as adenocarcinoma. The patient was operated by the general surgery team. The features of the submucosal lesion resected from the antrum were consistent with a diagnosis of a GIST which contained spindle cells and showed positive staining with CD-117 and CD-34. Mitosis was not observed and Ki67 index was below 10%. This is the first case of coexistence of GIST of the stomach and a SBA to be reported in English-language literature. The prominent characteristics of our case include its antral localisation, male sex, absence of mitosis and incidental diagnosis.
Mitochondria Load Degree in Hepatocytes of the Classical Hepatic Lobules in Chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera)

Hepatocytes represent the majority of the liver cell population and are arranged in the form of cords placed in intimate contact with the sinusoidal capillaries. The functional complexity corroborated with the intensity of the activity of hepatocytes requires large amounts of energy. The organelles involved in the production of chemical energy used in the activity of hepatocytes are the mitochondria. The purpose of this study was to verify the mitochondrial load of hepatocytes in all areas of the classical hepatic lobules, in order to indirectly assess the intensity of hepatocyte activity in each area. Materials and Methods Five fresh corpses of chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) from an independent breeder from Bistrița-Năsăud county were used. Liver fragments were harvested and fixated in Kolster’s solution for 24 hours, stained with Heidenhain ferric hematoxylin, and assessed using Olympus BX41 microscope. Fixation with Kolster's solution and the staining with Heidenhain's iron hematoxylin clearly shows the hepatocytic mitochondria in shades from gray to black. The liver lobules displayed an uneven distribution of mitochondria depending on the area. In zone 1 of the classical hepatic lobule, the degree of loading of hepatocytes with mitochondria is larger than in zone 2 and much larger than in zone 3. Morphological features of the hepatocytes, including the number and distribution of mitochondria in the hepatic lobules, should improve the understanding of the physiology and pathology of the liver.
Safety of Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring during Indirect Decompression in Lumbar Spinal Surgery - Descriptive Report

Objective: Degenerative disease of the lumbar spine often compromises the life quality of patients. In recent decades, surgical procedures on the lumbar spine have been oriented to reduce risks, costs, and perioperative complications by performing minimally invasive surgeries, specifically anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) and/or lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF). A large number of studies have evaluated these procedures, but those studies almost exclusively evaluated clinical and radiological outcomes. This study aims to evaluate the safety of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) during indirect decompression of the lumbar canal. Methods: This descriptive case series study included 18 patients undergoing a surgical procedure for indirect decompression of the lumbar spinal canal (ALIF/LLIF only or multilevel) from 2018-2019 in the Hospital Universitario San Ignacio (HUSI). The authors measured neurophysiological parameters intraoperatively, with somatosensory-evoked potentials (SSEPs) and motor-evoked potentials (MEPs). Changes in amplitude and latencies were evaluated. Results: Eight subtypes of surgery were performed: 3 single-level ALIF (16.6%), 1 two-level ALIF (5.5%), 1 three-level ALIF (5.5%), 3 single-level LLIF (16.6%), 2 two-level LLIF (11.1%), 2 three-level LLIF (11.1%), 1 three-level LLIF/ALIF (5.5%), and 5 four-level LLIF/ALIF (27.7%). For all cases, SSEPs and MEPs basal registries were compared with the registries after performing the interbody fusion. No changes were evidenced in the neurophysiologic parameters. There was no postoperative neurologic deficit in any of the patients. Discussion: Multimodal Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring (MIONM) gives surgeons the certainty that no neurological damage occurs during a surgical procedure. Interbody fusion is a safe procedure when it is performed with an adequate surgical technique and multimodal monitoring. Multimodal monitoring allows the measurement of several responses, with higher sensitivity and specificity than monitoring single responses. Future research is needed to develop and validate protocols regarding the most appropriate monitoring technique (SSEPs, MEPs, EMGs, EMGt, or multimodal).
Examining the Effects of Feedback-giving as a Gamification Mechanic in Crowd Rating Systems

ABSTRACT Crowd rating derives a collective value based on massive homogeneous contributions from individual users, where using gamification design is a promising approach to encouraging users’ motivation and participation. Drawing upon self-determination theory and motivational affordances theory, this study investigates how different gamification objects, as building blocks for feedback-giving mechanics, affect users’ extrinsic and intrinsic motivation (i.e., compensation and enjoyment), which in turn affect their participation intention. We also examined the role of task complexity in moderating the gamified effects of feedback-giving mechanics. We conducted a four (gamification objects: leaderboards, progress, virtual characters, and plain) by two (task complexity: low and high) between-subject experiment with 402 subjects. The results suggested that feedback-giving as a critical gamification mechanic can motivate participants intrinsically or extrinsically. Specifically, leaderboards and progress positively influenced compensation, and leaderboards and virtual characters positively influenced enjoyment. Task complexity moderated the gamified effects of feedback-giving mechanics on compensation and enjoyment. With a higher task complexity, leaderboards even result in a higher level of enjoyment. This research contributes to the theoretical understanding of feedback-giving mechanics in crowd rating systems, and practically, suggests that the design of feedback-giving and task complexity should be effectively integrated to reach compensational and enjoyable motivation to encourage user engagement in crowd rating activities.