Treatment of hemimasticatory spasm secondary to parry-romberg syndrome via partial resection of the trigeminal nerve motor branch under intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring: A case report and literature review

Parry-Romberg syndrome (PRS) combined with hemimasticatory spasm (HMS) is a rare craniofacial disorder characterized by unilateral facial tissue atrophy with paroxysmal involuntary contractions of the jaw-closing muscles. Although a majority believe that this is a result of demyelination changes from the effect of the facial involvement of PRS on the trigeminal nerve motor branches, the mechanism of PRS is presently unclear. Moreover, the therapeutic effects of existing drugs that target PRS have not been satisfactory. For intolerable spasms of the masticatory muscles, botulinum toxin injection may temporarily relieve the symptoms of spasms. We report a case of HMS secondary to PRS that was treated via a partial resection of the trigeminal nerve motor branch under intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring

Off-line evaluation of indoor positioning systems in different scenarios: the experiences from IPIN 2020 competition

Every year, for ten years now, the IPIN competition has aimed at evaluating real-world indoor localisation systems by testing them in a realistic environment, with realistic movement, using the EvAAL framework. The competition provided a unique overview of the state-of-the-art of systems, technologies, and methods for indoor positioning and navigation purposes. Through fair comparison of the performance achieved by each system, the competition was able to identify the most promising approaches and to pinpoint the most critical working conditions. In 2020, the competition included 5 diverse off-site off-site Tracks, each resembling real use cases and challenges for indoor positioning. The results in terms of participation and accuracy of the proposed systems have been encouraging. The best performing competitors obtained a third quartile of error of 1 m for the Smartphone Track and 0.5 m for the Foot-mounted IMU Track. While not running on physical systems, but only as algorithms, these results represent impressive achievements.Track 3 organizers were supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska Curie Grant 813278 (A-WEAR: A network for dynamic WEarable Applications with pRivacy constraints), MICROCEBUS (MICINN, ref. RTI2018-095168-B-C55, MCIU/AEI/FEDER UE), INSIGNIA (MICINN ref. PTQ2018-009981), and REPNIN+ (MICINN, ref. TEC2017-90808-REDT). We would like to thanks the UJI’s Library managers and employees for their support while collecting the required datasets for Track 3. Track 5 organizers were supported by JST-OPERA Program, Japan, under Grant JPMJOP1612. Track 7 organizers were supported by the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology through the Center for Analytics-Data-Applications (ADA-Center) within the framework of “BAYERN DIGITAL II. ” Team UMinho (Track 3) was supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope under Grant UIDB/00319/2020, and the Ph.D. Fellowship under Grant PD/BD/137401/2018. Team YAI (Track 3) was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan under Grant MOST 109-2221-E-197-026. Team Indora (Track 3) was supported in part by the Slovak Grant Agency, Ministry of Education and Academy of Science, Slovakia, under Grant 1/0177/21, and in part by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract APVV-15-0091. Team TJU (Track 3) was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61771338 and in part by the Tianjin Research Funding under Grant 18ZXRHSY00190. Team Next-Newbie Reckoners (Track 3) were supported by the Singapore Government through the Industry Alignment Fund—Industry Collaboration Projects Grant. This research was conducted at Singtel Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence Lab for Enterprises (SCALE@NTU), which is a collaboration between Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Team KawaguchiLab (Track 5) was supported by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant JP17H01762. Team WHU&AutoNavi (Track 6) was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2016YFB0502202. Team YAI (Tracks 6 and 7) was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan under Grant MOST 110-2634-F-155-001

Enhanced sampling in molecular dynamics using metadynamics, replica-exchange, and temperature-acceleration

We review a selection of methods for performing enhanced sampling in molecular dynamics simulations. We consider methods based on collective variable biasing and on tempering, and offer both historical and contemporary perspectives. In collective-variable biasing, we first discuss methods stemming from thermodynamic integration that use mean force biasing, including the adaptive biasing force algorithm and temperature acceleration. We then turn to methods that use bias potentials, including umbrella sampling and metadynamics. We next consider parallel tempering and replica-exchange methods. We conclude with a brief presentation of some combination methods. \ua9 2013 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Off-Line Evaluation of Indoor Positioning Systems in Different Scenarios: The Experiences From IPIN 2020 Competition

Every year, for ten years now, the IPIN competition has aimed at evaluating real-world indoor localisation systems by testing them in a realistic environment, with realistic movement, using the EvAAL framework. The competition provided a unique overview of the state-of-the-art of systems, technologies, and methods for indoor positioning and navigation purposes. Through fair comparison of the performance achieved by each system, the competition was able to identify the most promising approaches and to pinpoint the most critical working conditions. In 2020, the competition included 5 diverse off-site off-site Tracks, each resembling real use cases and challenges for indoor positioning. The results in terms of participation and accuracy of the proposed systems have been encouraging. The best performing competitors obtained a third quartile of error of 1 m for the Smartphone Track and 0.5 m for the Foot-mounted IMU Track. While not running on physical systems, but only as algorithms, these results represent impressive achievements.Track 3 organizers were supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska Curie Grant 813278 (A-WEAR: A network for dynamic WEarable Applications with pRivacy constraints), MICROCEBUS (MICINN, ref. RTI2018-095168-B-C55, MCIU/AEI/FEDER UE), INSIGNIA (MICINN ref. PTQ2018-009981), and REPNIN+ (MICINN, ref. TEC2017-90808-REDT). We would like to thanks the UJI’s Library managers and employees for their support while collecting the required datasets for Track 3. Track 5 organizers were supported by JST-OPERA Program, Japan, under Grant JPMJOP1612. Track 7 organizers were supported by the Bavarian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology through the Center for Analytics-Data-Applications (ADA-Center) within the framework of “BAYERN DIGITAL II. ” Team UMinho (Track 3) was supported by FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope under Grant UIDB/00319/2020, and the Ph.D. Fellowship under Grant PD/BD/137401/2018. Team YAI (Track 3) was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan under Grant MOST 109-2221-E-197-026. Team Indora (Track 3) was supported in part by the Slovak Grant Agency, Ministry of Education and Academy of Science, Slovakia, under Grant 1/0177/21, and in part by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract APVV-15-0091. Team TJU (Track 3) was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61771338 and in part by the Tianjin Research Funding under Grant 18ZXRHSY00190. Team Next-Newbie Reckoners (Track 3) were supported by the Singapore Government through the Industry Alignment Fund—Industry Collaboration Projects Grant. This research was conducted at Singtel Cognitive and Artificial Intelligence Lab for Enterprises (SCALE@NTU), which is a collaboration between Singapore Telecommunications Limited (Singtel) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Team KawaguchiLab (Track 5) was supported by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant JP17H01762. Team WHU&AutoNavi (Track 6) was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2016YFB0502202. Team YAI (Tracks 6 and 7) was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Taiwan under Grant MOST 110-2634-F-155-001.Peer reviewe

Experimental research on the effect of applied potential gradient on frozen loess

Due to the existence of an electric double layer in the soil, frozen soil always has a certain amount of unfrozen water. And it will migrate under the action of the electric field. Select a kind of frost heave-sensitive soil (Lanzhou loess) as the object of study, and several bench-scale experiments on frozen Lanzhou loess were performed using 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 V/cm potential gradients. The water content was measured after tests to investigate the relationship between water migration and applied potential gradient. The current was monitored during the experiments to calculate the energy consumption, and to evaluate the usability of electroosmosis in the frozen soil. The amount of water migration increase with the increase of potential gradient and the varied water content with potential gradients can be divided into steady, fluctuation, and incremental stage. The variation of current can reflect the process of water migration to a certain extent and can be divided into two stages, and water migration mainly occurs at the stage of drastic change of current

The Enzyme-Like Property and Photocatalytic Effect on α, α-Diphenyl-β-Picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) of CuPt Nanocomposite

With co-reduction method, a new nanocomposite consisting of Cu and Pt (CuPt) was prepared in household. The morphology of CuPt alloy was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscope (TEM). The diameter of CuPt was ca. 125 nm measured by dynamic light scattering (DLS). The atom ratio of Cu to Pt was determined to be about 1.2 by energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX). Enzyme-like activities of CuPt, including peroxidase (POD)-like and ascorbic acid oxidase (AAO)-like activities were examined with UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer. The CuPt was found to interact with α, α-diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) in the presence or absence of AA. With irradiation by light emitting diode (LED) light, the photocatalysis effect of CuPt on DPPH was investigated. With the addition of histidine, it was proved that singlet oxygen had an important role in the interaction involving CuPt. The new nanocomposite and the properties suggest various potentials of application

Membrane lipid peroxidation by the peroxidase-like activity of magnetite nanoparticles

We report that Fe3O4 nanoparticles are able to catalyse lipid peroxidation in liposomes at acidic but not neutral pH. The oxidation is dependent on either pre-existing lipid peroxides or hydrogen peroxide as a substrate. This is the first evidence for metal oxide nanoparticles as peroxidase mimetics oxidising biomolecules in a relevant environment.</p