bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Uretero-Iliac artery fistula: a rare cause of haematuria
Authors: Hernandez Natalia , Desroches Bethany , Peden Eric , Satkunasivam Raj
Published: September 2020

A woman in her mid-forties with a history of cervical cancer requiring chemoradiation presented with bilateral ureteral strictures secondary to radiation therapy. The ureteral obstruction was initially relieved with bilateral percutaneous nephrostomy tubes, and subsequently, bilateral ureteral stents. Over the course of 8 months, she presented with multiple episodes of severe gross haematuria. This persisted even after stent removal and conversion back to percutaneous nephrostomy tubes. The initial evaluation, done with concern for an uretero-iliac artery fistula, which included bilateral retrograde pyelograms and CT angiography was non-diagnostic. Given continued haematuria, repeat endoscopic evaluation was undertaken; on retrograde pyelogram, brisk contrast was seen to pass into the arterial system, consistent with a left ureteroarterial fistula. The patient underwent endovascular iliac artery stent placement. Subsequently, the patient underwent resection of the iliac artery with endovascular graft in situ, left distal ureterectomy with proximal ureteral ligation following femoral-to-femoral bypass. This allowed for complete resolution of the patient’s gross haematuria episodes.
Micturition syncope: a rare presentation of bladder paraganglioma
Authors: Sunil V Neethu , John Kevin , Nawahirsha Sultan , Iyyadurai Ramya
Published: September 2020

A 68-year-old woman presented with episodes of headache, palpitations, sweating and poorly controlled hypertension for the past 6 years. These symptoms were, at times, associated with micturition, and there were few episodes of micturition syncope as well. She had elevated 24-hour urinary normetanephrine and was found to have a paraganglioma arising from the urinary bladder infiltrating the sigmoid colon. She underwent laparotomy with excision of the bladder paraganglioma, following which her symptoms subsided. Paragangliomas are extra-adrenal catecholamine-producing tumours. Bladder paragangliomas need to be considered when evaluating hypertensive patients with headache, palpitations or syncope related to micturition.
Lytic lesion of skull: a rare presentation of chronic granulomatous disease
Authors: Kumar Gurinder
Published: September 2020

An 18-month-old boy presented with lytic lesion of skull and recurrent abscesses withSerratia marcescens. The extensive work up revealed a gene mutation confirming the diagnosis of chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). This case scenario underscores the importance of exploring the possibility of immunodeficiency if there is a history of recurrent abscesses with atypical organism. The case also demonstrates that CGD can present as lytic lesion of skull.
Metformin-associated lactic acidosis: reinforcing learning points
Authors: Goonoo Mohummad Shaan , Morris Rebecca , Raithatha Ajay , Creagh Fionuala
Published: September 2020

Metformin-associated lactic acidosis (MALA) carries a high mortality rate. It is seen in patients with type 2 diabetes on metformin or patients who attempt suicide with metformin overdose. We present the case of a man in his early 20s with type 2 diabetes, hypertension and hypothyroidism who presented with agitation, abdominal pain and vomiting after ingesting 50–60 g of metformin; he developed severe lactic acidosis (blood pH 6.93, bicarbonate 7.8 mEq/L, lactate 28.0 mEq/L). He was managed with intravenous 8.4% bicarbonate infusion and continuous venovenous haemodiafiltration. He also developed acute renal failure (ARF) requiring intermittent haemodialysis and continuous haemodiafiltration. MALA is uncommon and causes changes in different vital organs and even death. The primary goals of therapy are restoration of acid-base status and removal of metformin. Early renal replacement therapy for ARF can result in rapid reversal of the acidosis and good recovery, even with levels of lactate normally considered to be incompatible with survival.
Unusual fistula demonstrating the need for an early cholecystectomy
Authors: Harrison Gregory , Fernandes Roland
Published: September 2020

A 79-year-old man developed a spontaneous cholecystocutaneous fistula 12 months after an initial episode of acute cholecystitis. A laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedure was twice abandoned due to extensive adhesions and active disease, limiting safe dissection of Calot's triangle. Abdominal collections formed and a spontaneous cholecystocutaneous fistula developed. Imaging revealed an 11 cm calculus and erosion of the fundus of the gall bladder through the sheath. Definitive management was achieved with a laparoscopic assisted open cholecystectomy.
A biventricular takotsubo cardiomyopathy complication: large thrombus formation to stroke in 150 min
Authors: Moffet Eric W , Bhattal Gurjaspreet Kaur , Simpkins Alexis N , Petersen John W
Published: September 2020

A 67-year-old postmenopausal African American woman presented with biventricular takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TTC)—evidenced by transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) showing apical akinesis of both left and right ventricles in the absence of obstructive coronary artery disease on left heart catheterisation. On the 4th hospital day, she experienced acute left facial droop, dysarthria and dysphagia. CT of the head showed a wedge infarct of the right middle cerebral artery territory. Cardioembolism was presumed after intracranial and extracranial sources of thromboembolism were ruled out. Intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) was administered with resolution of symptoms. She was later discharged without neurological deficits. Crucially, repeat TTE after tPA infusion revealed a left ventricular mass concerning for thrombus. TTE 150 min prior to stroke onset was devoid of a mass. This case uniquely illustrates the potential for rapid thrombus formation and embolism in patients with TTC. As such, it emphasises the high index of suspicion required for management of these patients.
Primary prevention of sexually transmitted infections in Switzerland: practices of family physicians and their determinants—a national cross-sectional survey
Authors: Vautrin Hanna , Senn Nicolas , Cohidon Christine
Published: September 2020

Objectives

To describe the activities of general practitioners (GPs) pertaining to primary prevention in the field of affective and sexual life, studying the advice they provide as well as their vaccination practices.

Design

Cross-sectional national survey.

Setting/participants

The study was carried out using the Swiss Primary Care Active Monitoring GPs’ network, a national GP network created in 2012. One hundred and seventy Swiss GPs, from a random sample from professional lists stratified by canton, participated in the present study.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

Prevention practices against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) performed by GPs through advice provided as well as their vaccination practices. Predictive factor of these practices through their links with the doctors’ relevant characteristics and their opinions about STI prevention.

Results

Approximately 80% consider prevention in the area of affective and sexual life to be part of their duty and discuss it easily with patients. Most of them spontaneously give advice regarding STIs during a routine consultation. Regarding human papillomavirus (HPV) immunisation in adults, almost half of GPs report never doing it, while almost 75% often or always immunise their adult patients against hepatitis B. Higher numbers of consultations per day are associated with vaccinating more adults against HPV (OR 1.13 (1.05 to 1.23)) and against hepatitis A (OR 1.17 (1.05 to 1.31)). Vaccinating children against hepatitis B is associated with practising in rural areas (OR 4.64 (1.20 to 17.98)). GPs practising in the French-speaking region of Switzerland immunise children less against HPV (OR 0.40 (0.20 to 0.80)). Longer consultations are associated with providing advice on affective and sexual life during a first consultation (OR 1.08 (1.01 to 1.14)).

Conclusion

Swiss GPs are involved in primary prevention against STIs and consider it as their responsibility. Prevention practices are associated with GPs’ favourable opinions on prevention.
Blood pressure reduction and outcome after endovascular therapy: a secondary analysis of the BEST study
Authors: Anadani Mohammad , de Havenon Adam , Yaghi Shadi , Mehta Tapan , Arora Niraj , Starosciak Amy Kathryn , De Los Rios La Rosa Felipe , Siegler James , Mistry Akshitkumar M , Chitale Rohan , Spiotta Alejandro M , Tsivgoulis Georgios , Khatri Pooja , Mistry Eva A
Published: September 2020

Background

Elevated systolic blood pressure (SBP) in the acute phase after endovascular therapy (EVT) is associated with worse outcome. However, the association between systolic blood pressure reduction (SBPr) and the outcome of EVT is not well understood.

Objective

To determine the association between SBPr and clinical outcomes after EVT in a prospective multicenter cohort.

Methods

A post hoc analysis of the Blood Pressure after Endovascular Stroke Therapy (BEST) prospective observational cohort study was carried out. SBPr was defined as the absolute difference between admission SBP and mean SBP in the first 24 hours after EVT. Logistic regression was used to assess the association between SBPr and poor functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale score 3–6) at 90 days.

Results

A total of 259/433 (58.5%) patients had poor outcome. SBPr was higher in the poor outcome group than in the good outcome group (26.6±27.4 vs 19.0±22.3 mm Hg; p<0.001). However, in adjusted models, SBPr was not independently associated with poor outcome (OR=1.00 per 1 mm Hg increase, 95% CI 0.99 to 1.01) or death (OR=0.9 per 1 mm Hg increase; 95% CI 0.98 to 1.00). No association remained when SBPr was divided into tertiles. Subgroup analyses based on history of hypertension, revascularization status, and antihypertensive treatment yielded similar results.

Conclusion

The reduction in baseline SBP following EVT was not associated with poor functional outcomes. Most of the cohort (88%) achieved successful recanalization, and therefore, these results mainly apply to patients with successful recanalization.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and oropharyngeal HPV in ethnically diverse, sexually active adolescents: community-based cross-sectional study
Authors: Kerry-Barnard Sarah , Beddows Simon , Reid Fiona , Beckley-Hoelscher Nicholas , Soldan Kate , Panwar Kavita , Seran Cangul , Fleming Charlotte , Lesniewska Agata , Planche Tim , Williamson Jonathan , Hay Phillip , Oakeshott Pippa
Published: September 2020

Objectives

Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is the most common human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancer in the UK, but little is known about the prevalence of oropharyngeal HPV in sexually active teenagers. We investigated reported HPV vaccination coverage (in females) and prevalence of oropharyngeal HPV in sexually active students attending six technical colleges in London, UK.

Methods

In 2017, we obtained mouthwash samples and questionnaires from male and female students taking part in the ‘Test n Treat’ chlamydia screening trial. Samples were subjected to HPV genotyping.

Results

Of 232 participants approached, 202 (87%) provided a mouthwash sample and questionnaire. Participants’ median age was 17 years and 47% were male. Most (73%) were from black and minority ethnic groups, 64% gave a history of oral sex, 52% reported having a new sexual partner in the past 6 months, 33% smoked cigarettes, 5.9% had concurrent genitourinaryChlamydia trachomatisinfection and 1.5%Neisseria gonorrhoeaeand 5.0% were gay or bisexual. Only 47% (50/107) of females reported being vaccinated against HPV 16/18, of whom 74% had received ≥2 injections. HPV genotyping showed three mouthwash samples (1.5%, 95% CI 0.3% to 4.3%) were positive for possible high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV), one (0.5%, 0.0% to 2.7%) for low-risk HPV 6/11, but none (0.0%, 0.0% to 1.8%) for HR-HPV. Four samples (2.0%, 0.5% to 5.0%) were positive for HPV16 using a HPV16 type-specific quantitative PCR, but these were at a very low copy number and considered essentially negative.

Conclusions

Despite the high prevalence of oral sex and genitourinary chlamydia and low prevalence of HPV vaccination, the prevalence of oropharyngeal HR-HPV in these adolescents was negligible.
Comprehensive measurements of cross sections and spin observables of the three-body break-up channel in deuteron-deuteron scattering at 65 MeV/nucleon
Authors: Ramazani-Sharifabadi R. , Amir-Ahmadi H. R. , Bayat M. T. , Deltuva A. , Eslami-Kalantari M. , Kalantar-Nayestanaki N. , Kistryn St. , Kozela A. , Mahjour-Shafiei M. , Mardanpour H. , Messchendorp J. G. , Mohammadi-Dadkan M. , Ramazani-Moghaddam-Arani A. , Stephan E. , Tavakoli-Zaniani H.
Published: September 2020

Detailed measurements of five-fold differential cross sections and a rich set of vector and tensor analyzing powers of the $$^{2}\mathrm{H}({\varvec{d}},dp){n}$$

2

H

(

d

,
d
p
)

n

break-up process using polarized deuteron-beam energy of 65 MeV/nucleon with a liquid-deuterium target are presented. The experiment was conducted at the AGOR facility at KVI using the BINA 4$$\pi $$
π
-detection system. We discuss the analysis procedure including a thorough study of the systematic uncertainties. The results can be used to examine upcoming state-of-the-art calculations in the four-nucleon scattering domain, and will, thereby, provide further insights into the dynamics of three- and four-nucleon forces in few-nucleon systems. The results of coplanar configurations are compared with the results of recent theoretical calculations based on the Single-Scattering Approximation (SSA). Through these comparisons, the validity of SSA approximation is investigated in the Quasi-Free (QF) region.
Approaching textual coherence of machine translation with complex network
Authors: Niu Jiang , Jiang Yue , Zhou Yadong
Published: September 2020

This study analyzes topological properties of complex networks of textual coherence, and investigates the textual coherence of machine translation by contrasting these properties in machine-translated texts with those in a human-translated text. The complex networks of textual coherence are built by drawing on the knowledge from Systemic Functional Linguistics, with Themes and Rhemes denoted as vertices and the semantic connections between them as edges. It is found that the coherence networks are small-world, assortatively mixed, scale-free with an exponential cut-off, and hub-dependent. The basic building blocks consist of fully-connected triads and fully-connected squares, with the latter playing a more significant role in the network construction. Compared with the complex network of human translation, the networks of machine translations have fewer vertices and edges, lower average degree, smaller network diameter, shorter average path length, larger cluster coefficient, bigger assortativeness coefficient and more types of motifs. Thus, we suggest that the machine-translated texts are sparsely, locally, unevenly and monotonously connected, which may account for why and how machine translation is weak in coherence. This study is the first effort ever to employ complex networks to explore textual coherence of machine translations. It may hopefully promote the cross-disciplinary interaction between linguistics, computer science and network science.
Layer-dependent optoelectronic properties of black phosphorus
Authors: Dong H. M. , Huang L. S. , Liu J. L. , Huang F. , Zhao C. X.
Published: September 2020

The layer-dependent optoelectronic properties of monolayer, bilayer and trilayer black phosphorus (BP) are studied by using the first-principles calculations based on density functional theory (DFT). The valence band splits and the density of states (DOS) in the conduction band obviously shift to the Fermi surface with the increased layer number. The atomic p orbital of BP plays an decisive role in determining the electronic and optical properties, which are drastically different from those of graphene and transition metal dichalogenides (TMDs). The increase of the layer number leads to the metal characteristics. The extinction coefficient and photoconductivity show strong optical responses to the ultraviolet (UV) light, which further increase with the number of layers. BP layers can reflect UV rays effectively because of their metallic properties in the UV energy range. Our study shows that the interlayer interaction can intensely change the electronic and optical properties of BP.
Coupling kinetic theory approaches for pedestrian dynamics and disease contagion in a confined environment
Authors: Kim Daewa , Quaini Annalisa
Published: September 2020

The goal of this work is to study an infectious disease spreading in a medium size population occupying a confined environment. For this purpose, we consider a kinetic theory approach to model crowd dynamics in bounded domains and couple it to a kinetic equation to model contagion. The interactions of a person with other pedestrians and the environment are modeled by using tools of game theory. The pedestrian dynamics model allows to weight between two competing behaviors: the search for less congested areas and the tendency to follow the stream unconsciously in a panic situation. Each person in the system has a contagion level that is affected by the people in their neighborhood. For the numerical solution of the coupled problem, we propose a numerical algorithm that at every time step solves one crowd dynamics problem and one contagion problem, i.e. with no subiterations between the two. We test our coupled model on a problem involving a small crowd walking through a corridor.
Cosmological models with squared trace in modified gravity
Authors: Mishra B. , Tripathy S. K. , Ray Saibal
Published: September 2020

In this work, we present a few simple cosmological models under the modified theory of gravity in the particular form of [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] is the Ricci Scalar and [Formula: see text] is the trace of the energy–momentum tensor. Two special cosmological models are studied with (i) hyperbolic scale factor and (ii) specific form of the Hubble parameter. The models are observed to predict relevant cosmological parameters closer to the observational values. Both the models reduce to overlap with the [Formula: see text]CDM model at late times. We have discussed some interesting results related to wormhole solutions as evolved from our model. The possible occurrence of Big Trip in wormholes for the models are also discussed.
An Information Dissemination Influence Model for Mobile Social Network under Multi-Role View
Authors: Li Jianfeng , Li Fangshuo , Wang Wenxiang , Zhai Jun
Published: September 2020

Mobile social networks are dominating in our society’s daily life because of fast advancements of information technologies. To further exploit benefits from the ubiquitous service, studying the influence of information dissemination in this kind of social network becomes a necessity. This paper proposes a mobile social network influence model with regard to multiple roles. In the model, the concept of group is adopted to analyze a user’s role in different contexts. Through the introduction of role’s level and group’s relativity, information dissemination can be investigated deeply, and then, with the Floyd-Warshall algorithm, information strength matrix is constructed to study each node’s influence and under-influence indexes in the network, in addition, the comprehensive influence under multi-role view is also expressed distinctly in the fuzzy form. The result of this research will help find out preferable information disseminators as a new business strategy in e-commerce. Furthermore, it is also useful for detecting gossips and controlling its dissemination in social management.
A Cross-Domain Comparative Study of Big Data Architectures
Authors: Macak Martin , Ge Mouzhi , Buhnova Barbora
Published: September 2020

Nowadays, a variety of Big Data architectures are emerging to organize the Big Data life cycle. While some of these architectures are proposed for general usage, many of them are proposed in a specific application domain such as smart cities, transportation, healthcare, and agriculture. There is, however, a lack of understanding of how and why Big Data architectures vary in different domains and how the Big Data architecture strategy in one domain may possibly advance other domains. Therefore, this paper surveys and compares the Big Data architectures in different application domains. It also chooses a representative architecture of each researched application domain to indicate which Big Data architecture from a given domain the researchers and practitioners may possibly start from. Next, a pairwise cross-domain comparison among the Big Data architectures is presented to outline the similarities and differences between the domain-specific architectures. Finally, the paper provides a set of practical guidelines for Big Data researchers and practitioners to build and improve Big Data architectures based on the knowledge gathered in this study.
Partial actions of weak Hopf algebras on coalgebras
Authors: Fontes Eneilson , Martini Grasiela , Fonseca Graziela
Published: September 2020

In this work, the notions of a partial action of a weak Hopf algebra on a coalgebra and of a partial action of a groupoid on a coalgebra will be introduced, together with some important properties. An equivalence between these notions will be presented. Finally, a dual relation between the structures of a partial action on a coalgebra and of a partial action on an algebra will be established, as well as a globalization theorem for partial module coalgebras will be presented.
Accelerating the Design of β-CD-PVDF-based Molecularly Imprinted Nanocomposite Membrane for Selective Separation: A Surface Functional Monomer-Directing Strategy
Authors: Wu Junda , Gao Jia , Hou Zhiqing , Xing Wendong , Dai Jiangdong , Yan Yongsheng , Wu Yilin
Published: September 2020

Enoxacin, as the broad-spectrum antibacterial activity antibiotics, has been widely used in treatment of bacterial diseases in animals and humans around the world. The extensive use of enoxacin in healthcare has also caused increasingly serious environmental risk as a matter of course. In this work, enoxacin imprinted poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) composite membranes (EIPCMs) were developed by strategy of surface grafting beta-cyclodextrin ([Formula: see text]-CD) for the improved hydrophilic and antifouling properties of the basal membrane. PVDF membrane was prepared by phase inversion method, and [Formula: see text]-CD was grafted onto the surface after hydroxyl groups modification. The effects of adding amount of [Formula: see text]-CD on performance of basal membranes were systematically examined. Further, the specific recognition sites were fabricated via sol–gel surface imprinting method using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as functional monomer and cross-linker, respectively. The specific adsorption and permeation experiments were investigated and explored the separation performance and mechanism of EIPCM. The results indicated that the as-prepared EIPCMs not only exhibited highly favorable features and high rebinding strength (31.25[Formula: see text]mg g[Formula: see text], but also possessed superior selective performance toward enoxacin (imprinted factor [Formula: see text] is 3.15). Furthermore, in order to investigate the practical applications of EIPCMs, the adsorption experiments were carried out using environmental sewage. The work developed here shows great potential for further applications in selective recognition and separation antibiotics pollution from the environment.
Structured illumination microscopy based on asymmetric three-beam interference
Authors: Xu Linyu , Zhang Yanwei , Lang Song , Wang Hongwei , Hu Huijie , Wang Jingkai , Gong Yan
Published: September 2020

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is a rapidly developing super-resolution technology. It has been widely used in various application fields of biomedicine due to its excellent two- and three-dimensional imaging capabilities. Furthermore, faster three-dimensional imaging methods are required to help enable more research-oriented living cell imaging. In this paper, a fast and sensitive three-dimensional structured illumination microscopy based on asymmetric three-beam interference is proposed. An innovative time-series acquisition method is employed to halve the time required to obtain each raw image. A segmented half-wave plate as a substantial linear polarization modulation method is applied to the three-dimensional SIM system for the first time. Although it needs to acquire 21 raw images instead of 15 to reconstruct one super-resolution image, the SIM setup proposed in this paper is 30% faster than the traditional spatial light modulator-SIM (SLM-SIM) in imaging each super-resolution image. The related theoretical derivation, hardware system, and verification experiment are elaborated in this paper. The stable and fast 3D super-resolution imaging method proposed in this paper is of great significance to the research of organelle interaction, intercellular communication, and other biomedical fields.
Noble-metal-free catalysts based on apatite-type lanthanum silicate for complete toluene combustion
Authors: Matsuo Kenji , Nunotani Naoyoshi , Imanaka Nobuhito
Published: September 2020

Noble-metal-free LaCoO3/La[Formula: see text]Si5CoO[Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text]-Al2O3 catalysts were developed for complete toluene combustion, and their catalytic activities were investigated. The active oxygen supply from the apatite-type La[Formula: see text]Si5CoO[Formula: see text] promoter successfully improved the oxidation ability of the LaCoO3 activator, and the highest catalytic activity was obtained for the 10 wt.% LaCoO3/20 wt.% La[Formula: see text]Si5CoO[Formula: see text]/[Formula: see text]-Al2O3 catalyst, which oxidized toluene completely at the temperature as low as 300[Formula: see text]C.
Comparative Analysis of Spintronic Memories for Low Power on-chip Caches
Authors: Singh Inderjit , Raj Balwinder , Khosla Mamta , Kaushik Brajesh Kumar
Published: September 2020

The continuous downscaling in CMOS devices has increased leakage power and limited the performance to a few GHz. The research goal has diverted from operating at high frequencies to deliver higher performance in essence with lower power. CMOS based on-chip memories consumes significant fraction of power in modern processors. This paper aims to explore the suitability of beyond CMOS, emerging magnetic memories for the use in memory hierarchy, attributing to their remarkable features like nonvolatility, high-density, ultra-low leakage and scalability. NVSim, a circuit-level tool, is used to explore different design layouts and memory organizations and then estimate the energy, area and latency performance numbers. A detailed system-level performance analysis of STT-MRAM and SOT-MRAM technologies and comparison with 22[Formula: see text]nm SRAM technology are presented. Analysis infers that in comparison to the existing 22[Formula: see text]nm SRAM technology, SOT-MRAM is more efficient in area for memory size [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]KB, speed and energy consumption for cache size [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]KB. A typical 256[Formula: see text]KB SOT-MRAM cache design is 27.74% area efficient, 2.97 times faster and consumes 76.05% lesser leakage than SRAM counterpart and these numbers improve for larger cache sizes. The article deduces that SOT-MRAM technology has a promising potential to replace SRAM in lower levels of computer memory hierarchy.
Business Analytics in E-Commerce: A Literature Review
Authors: Li Xuemei
Published: September 2020

This paper attempts to identify the value and the use of business analytics (BA) in E-commerce, and challenges and trends associated with BA in E-commerce. It systematically examines the literature about BA, with a particular focus on E-commerce. BA has critical value in E-commerce. BA has been used in customer analysis and website usage analysis. The most important factor for the value of E-commerce BA is customer. This paper also suggests an E-commerce BA research model which describes the BA iterative process from data to analysis, to decision, to estimation, and separates BA analysis results as functional-level and competitive-level results. Challenges identified in this paper hold theoretical and practical implications. Future studies could seek an enhanced understanding of BA through quantitative analysis.
Triple-Parity RAID and Beyond
Authors: Leventhal Adam
Published: September 2020

How much longer will current RAID techniques persevere? The RAID levels were codified in the late 1980s; double-parity RAID, known as RAID-6, is the current standard for high-availability, space-efficient storage. The incredible growth of hard-drive capacities, however, could impose serious limitations on the reliability even of RAID-6 systems. Recent trends in hard drives show that triple-parity RAID must soon become pervasive. In 2005,
Scientific American
reported on Kryder’s law, which predicts that hard-drive density will double annually. While the rate of doubling has not quite maintained that pace, it has been close.
Realtime Computer Vision with OpenCV
Authors: Pulli Kari , Baksheev Anatoly , Kornyakov Kirill , Eruhimov Victor
Published: September 2020

Computer vision is a rapidly growing field devoted to analyzing, modifying, and high-level understanding of images. Its objective is to determine what is happening in front of a camera and use that understanding to control a computer or robotic system, or to provide people with new images that are more informative or aesthetically pleasing than the original camera images. Application areas for computer-vision technology include video surveillance, biometrics, automotive, photography, movie production, Web search, medicine, augmented reality gaming, new user interfaces, and many more.
There’s Just No Getting around It: You’re Building a Distributed System
Authors: Cavage Mark
Published: September 2020

Distributed systems are difficult to understand, design, build, and operate. They introduce exponentially more variables into a design than a single machine does, making the root cause of an application problem much harder to discover. It should be said that if an application does not have meaningful SLAs (service-level agreements) and can tolerate extended downtime and/or performance degradation, then the barrier to entry is greatly reduced. Most modern applications, however, have an expectation of resiliency from their users, and SLAs are typically measured by "the number of nines" (e.g., 99.9 or 99.99 percent availability per month). Each additional 9 becomes harder and harder to achieve.
How to De-identify Your Data
Authors: Angiuli Olivia , Blitzstein Joe , Waldo Jim
Published: September 2020

Big data is all the rage; using large data sets promises to give us new insights into questions that have been difficult or impossible to answer in the past. This is especially true in fields such as medicine and the social sciences, where large amounts of data can be gathered and mined to find insightful relationships among variables. Data in such fields involves humans, however, and thus raises issues of privacy that are not faced by fields such as physics or astronomy.
Bitcoin’s Academic Pedigree
Authors: Narayanan Arvind , Clark Jeremy
Published: September 2020

We’ve seen repeatedly that ideas in the research literature can be gradually forgotten or lie unappreciated, especially if they are ahead of their time, even in popular areas of research. Both practitioners and academics would do well to revisit old ideas to glean insights for present systems. Bitcoin was unusual and successful not because it was on the cutting edge of research on any of its components, but because it combined old ideas from many previously unrelated fields. This is not easy to do, as it requires bridging disparate terminology, assumptions, etc., but it is a valuable blueprint for innovation.
Prediction-Serving Systems
Authors: Crankshaw Dan , Gonzalez Joseph
Published: September 2020

This installment of Research for Practice features a curated selection from Dan Crankshaw and Joey Gonzalez, who provide an overview of machine learning serving systems. What happens when we wish to actually deploy a machine learning model to production, and how do we serve predictions with high accuracy and high computational efficiency? Dan and Joey’s selection provides a thoughtful selection of cutting-edge techniques spanning database-level integration, video processing, and prediction middleware. Given the explosion of interest in machine learning and its increasing impact on seemingly every application vertical, it’s possible that systems such as these will become as commonplace as relational databases are today
Knowledge Base Construction in the Machine-learning Era
Authors: Ratner Alex , Ré Christopher
Published: September 2020

More information is accessible today than at any other time in human history. From a software perspective, however, the vast majority of this data is unusable, as it is locked away in unstructured formats such as text, PDFs, web pages, images, and other hard-to-parse formats. The goal of knowledge base construction is to extract structured information automatically from this "dark data," so that it can be used in downstream applications for search, question-answering, link prediction, visualization, modeling and much more. Today, knowledge bases are the central components of systems that help fight human trafficking, accelerate biomedical discovery, and, increasingly, power web-search and question-answering technologies.
Surviving Software Dependencies
Authors: Cox Russ
Published: September 2020

Software reuse is finally here, and its benefits should not be understated, but we’ve accepted this transformation without completely thinking through the potential consequences. The Copay and Equifax attacks are clear warnings of real problems in the way software dependencies are consumed today. There’s a lot of good software out there. Let’s work together to find out how to reuse it safely.
Putting Machine Learning into Production Systems
Authors: Colyer Adrian
Published: September 2020

Breck et al. share details of the pipelines used at Google to validate petabytes of production data every day. With so many moving parts it’s important to be able to detect and investigate changes in data distributions before they can impact model performance. "Software Engineering for Machine Learning: A Case Study" shares lessons learned at Microsoft as machine learning started to pervade more and more of the company’s systems, moving from specialized machine-learning products to simply being an integral part of many products and services.
Reconfigurable Future
Authors: Horowitz Mark
Published: September 2020

Predicting the future is notoriously hard. Sometimes I feel that the only real guarantee is that the future will happen, and that someone will point out how it’s not like what was predicted. Nevertheless, we seem intent on trying to figure out what will happen, and worse yet, recording these views so they can be later used against us. So here I go... Scaling has been driving the whole electronics industry, allowing it to produce chips with more transistors at a lower cost. But this trend is a double-edged sword: We not only need to figure out more complex devices, which people want, but we also must determine which complex devices lots of people want, as we have to sell many, many chips to amortize the significant design cost.
Review—2D Layered Metal Organic Framework Nanosheets as an Emerging Platform for Electrochemical Sensing
Authors: M. V. Varsha , Nageswaran Gomathi
Published: September 2020

Two dimensional layered metal-organic framework nanosheets, as a new class of porous crystalline materials have received extensive research attention owing to its intriguing chemistry and remarkable properties like ultrathin thickness, tunable structure, large specific surface area, high aspect ratio, accessible active sites, large pore volume etc. which leads to diverse applications. The unique properties originating from the combination of 2D structure and MOF provide opportunities for enhanced electrochemical activity due to the fast charge transfer and mass transport as well as increased number of surface active sites. In this review, we focus on the recent developments in 2D MOF nanosheet research with emphasize on synthesis and application. First, we summarize the different synthetic methods used for 2D MOF preparation using top-down and bottom-up approaches. In addition, the progress in the application of 2D MOF nanosheet as electrochemical sensing platform is explained in detail. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives for 2D MOF nanosheet research is presented.
Effect of Particle‐Size Gradation on Coarse Sand‐Geotextile Interface Response in Cyclic and Postcyclic Direct Shear Test
Authors: Wang Jun , Ying Meng-Jie , Liu Fei-Yu , Fu Hong-Tao , Ni Jun-Feng , Shi Jing
Published: September 2020

In order to investigate the influence of sand particle‐size gradation on cyclic and postcyclic shear strength behaviour on sand‐geotextile interfaces, a series of monotonic direct shear (MDS), cyclic direct shear (CDS), and postcyclic direct shear (PCDS) tests were performed using a large‐scale direct shear apparatus. The influence of cyclic shear history on the direct shear behaviour of the interface was studied. The results indicated that cyclic shear stress degradation occurred at the sand‐geotextile interface. Shear volumetric contraction induced by the cyclic direct shear increased with the increase in cycle number. The lowest final contraction value was observed in discontinuously graded sand. In the MDS tests, there were great differences in interface shear strength due to the different particle‐size gradations, whereas the differences between shear volumes were negligible. In the PCDS tests, the shear stress‐displacement curves exhibited postpeak stress hardening behaviour for different particle‐size gradations, and differences in shear volumes were detected. The well‐graded sand‐geotextile interface had a higher value of shear stiffness and a higher damping ratio relative to the other interfaces. Postcyclic shear stress degradation was observed for the discontinuously graded sand‐geotextile interface.
A Front Water Recognition Method Based on Image Data for Off-Road Intelligent Vehicle
Authors: Wang Haiwei , Zhao Yibing
Published: September 2020

Off-road intelligent vehicle is an important application about Internet of Vehicles technology used in the transportation field, and the front obstacle recognition method is the key technology for off-road intelligent vehicle. In this paper, based on smart data aggregation inspired paradigm of IoT applications, we mainly study perception technology in vehicle networking by using image data and one symmetrical speeded-up robust features detector (SURF). By considering symmetry and image data aggregation, we found that data aggregation had the ability of providing global information for Internet of Vehicles systems. After we have built the experiment platform, the experiment results showed that this method is faster than Scale-Invariant Feature Transform algorithm in this case, which can satisfy the water detection accuracy and the real-time requirement. So, this method is effective for the water images detection with great symmetry to off-road intelligent vehicle, and it also gives a useful reference about environment perception technology and smart data aggregation inspired paradigm used in future Internet of Vehicles, intelligent vehicle, and traffic safety applications.
Systematic Elucidation of the Mechanism of Quercetin against Gastric Cancer via Network Pharmacology Approach
Authors: Yang Liangjun , Hu Zhipeng , Zhu Jiajie , Liang Qiting , Zhou Hengli , Li Jiali , Fan Xiangzhen , Zhao Ziming , Pan Huafeng , Fei Baoying
Published: September 2020

This study was aimed at elucidating the potential mechanisms of quercetin in the treatment of gastric cancer (GC). A network pharmacology approach was used to analyze the targets and pathways of quercetin in treating GC. The predicted targets of quercetin against GC were obtained through database mining, and the correlation of these targets with GC was analyzed by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses. Next, the protein‐protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed, and overall survival (OS) analysis of hub targets was performed using the Kaplan–Meier Plotter online tool. Finally, the mechanism was further analyzed via molecular docking of quercetin with the hub targets. Thirty‐six quercetin‐related genes were identified, 15 of which overlapped with GC‐related targets. These targets were further mapped to 319 GO biological process terms and 10 remarkable pathways. In the PPI network analysis, six hub targets were identified, including AKT1, EGFR, SRC, IGF1R, PTK2, and KDR. The high expression of these targets was related to poor OS in GC patients. Molecular docking analysis confirmed that quercetin can bind to these hub targets. In conclusion, this study provided a novel approach to reveal the therapeutic mechanisms of quercetin on GC, which will ease the future clinical application of quercetin in the treatment of GC.
6,12-Diphenyl-3, 9-diazatetraasterane-1, 5, 7, 11-tetracarboxylate Inhibits Proliferation, Migration and Promotes Apoptosis in Ovarian Cancer Cells
Authors: Chen Pingping , Wang Huibing , Li Meng , Yang Linqi , Mou Feifei , Singh Bhupinder , He Jing-Yu , Zhang Wei
Published: September 2020

6,12-Diphenyl-3,9-diazatetraasterane-1, 5, 7, 11-tetracarboxylate (DDTC) has been synthesized by the photodimerization of 4-phenyl-1,4-dihydropyridine-3,5-dicarboxylate. The potential of theercvantitumor activity and mechanism were investigated in vitro using MTT assay in human lung cancer cell line A549, ovarian cancer cell lines SKOV3 and A2780, breast cancer cell line MCF-7, gastric cancer cell line BGC-823, colon cancer cell line HT29, prostate cancer cell line DU145, and liver cancer cell line SMMC7721. The results show that DDTC can inhibit the growth of ovarian cancer SKOV3 and A2780 cells. The best IC50 value is approximately 5.29±0.38 and 4.29±0.39 μM, respectively. DDTC induced the cell cycle arrest in the G2 phase by flow cytometric analysis. The migration and invasion of ovarian cancer SKOV3 and A2780 cells were inhibited by DDTC. DDTC could increase the expression protein level of E-cadherin in A2780 cells and ascend the expression protein and mRNA levels of E-cadherin in SKOV3 cells. DDTC could also decrease the protein and mRNA expression of EMT (epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition) markers of N-cadherin and Vimentin. mRNA and protein expression level of checkpoint kinase 1 (Chk1) were significantly increased and expressions of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK1) and cell division cycle 25a (Cdc25a) were decreased in the SKOV3 and A2780 cell lines. Moreover, DDTC induced apoptosis by the cleavage and activation of caspase 3 and caspase 9.
Bibliometric Analysis of Ebola Research Indexed in Web of Science and Scopus (2010‐2020)
Authors: Kawuki Joseph , Yu Xiaojin , Musa Taha Hussein
Published: September 2020

Background. Within the past decade, Africa has faced several recurrent outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD), including the 2014‐2016 outbreak in West Africa and the recent 2018‐2020 Kivu outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The study thus aimed at quantifying and mapping the scientific output of EVD research published within 2010‐2020 though a bibliometric perspective. Methods. EVD‐related publications from 2010 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases by using the keywords ‘Ebola’, ‘Ebola Virus Disease’, ‘Ebolas’, and ‘ebolavirus’. Biblioshiny software (using R‐studio cloud) was used to categorise and evaluate authors’, countries’ and journals’ contribution. VOSviewer was used for network visualisation. Results. According to the used search strategy, a total of 3865 and 3848 EVD documents were published in WoS and Scopus, respectively. The average citation per document was 16.1 (WoS) and 16.3 (Scopus). The results show an overall increase in the publication trend within the study period. The leading countries in EVD research were the USA and UK, with over 100 papers in both databases, including Nigeria and South Africa. NIAID and CDC‐USA were the most influential institutions, while “Infectious Diseases” and “Medicine” were the most decisive research fields. The most contributing authors included Feldmann H and Qiu XG with over 60 papers in each database, while Journal of Infectious Diseases was the most crucial journal. The most cited article was from Aylward et al. published in 2014, while recent years displayed a keyword focus on “double‐blind”, “efficacy”, “ring vaccination” and “drug effect”. Conclusion. This bibliometric analysis provides an updated historical perspective of progress in EVD research and has highlighted the role played by various stakeholders. However, the contribution of African countries and institutions is not sufficiently reflected, implying a need for increased funding and focus on EVD research for effective prevention and control.
Preliminary Results of a Novel Standardized Technique of Femtosecond Laser-Assisted Deep Anterior Lamellar Keratoplasty for Keratoconus
Authors: Lucisano Andrea , Giannaccare Giuseppe , Pellegrini Marco , Bernabei Federico , Yu Angeli Christy , Carnevali Adriano , Logozzo Laura , Carnovale Scalzo Giovanna , Scorcia Vincenzo
Published: September 2020

Purpose. To evaluate the feasibility and the initial outcomes of a novel standardized surgical technique of femtosecond laser- (FSL-) assisted big-bubble deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (BBDALK) for eyes with keratoconus. Methods. This prospective interventional case series included 11 consecutive FSL-assisted BBDALK procedures performed for the eyes with keratoconus from September 2019 to December 2019. The FSL was used to create (i) an intrastromal channel incision (1.7 mm in length, 4.6 mm in width, 80% depth, and cut energy of 1.70 μJ) and (ii) a 9.0 mm diameter circular lamellar side cut 65 μm above the endothelium (cut energy of 0.90 μJ) intersecting the intrastromal incision. In the operating room, a blunt dissector was used to open the intrastromal channel incision, through which a blunt spatula was inserted, tangentially advanced towards the center of the cornea, and replaced with a blunt cannula for pneumatic dissection. The subsequent surgical steps did not differ from the conventional technique. Main outcome measures were the success rate of pneumatic dissection and the percentage of intraoperative complications. Results. Eleven eyes of 11 patients (6 males and 5 females; mean age: 34.54 ± 13.23 years) underwent FSL-assisted DALK. Using the FSL, both corneal incisions (lamellar side cut and intrastromal channel incision) were successfully created in all cases without the need for repeat docking or additional dissection. Pneumatic dissection with type 1 bubble formation succeeded in all 11 eyes (100%). DALK surgery was completed uneventfully in all cases. Descemet membrane perforation did not occur in any case, and no procedure was converted to penetrating keratoplasty. Conclusion. Using standardized FSL parameters for both incision design and cut energy in BBDALK surgery, pneumatic dissection can be achieved in a very high rate of cases with minimal risk of intraoperative complications.