Publications by authors named "Perera A"

This study conducts a comprehensive analysis of gender inequality in Sri Lanka, focusing on the relationship between key socioeconomic factors and the Gender Inequality Index (GII) from 1990 to 2022. By applying machine learning techniques, including Decision Trees and Ensemble methods, the study investigates the influence of economic indicators such as GDP per capita, government expenditure, government revenue, and unemployment rates on gender disparities. The analysis reveals that higher GDP and government revenues are associated with reduced gender inequality, while greater unemployment rates exacerbate disparities.

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Background: Intracerebral schwannomas are rare tumors resembling their peripheral nerve sheath counterparts but localized in the CNS. They are not classified as a separate tumor type in the 2021 WHO classification. This study aimed to compile and characterize these rare neoplasms morphologically and molecularly.

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Background: As the healthcare of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) shifts toward community-based services, physicians in all areas of medicine are more likely to care for this population. To ensure that all physicians can provide high-quality care to people with IDD, further understanding and attention to undergraduate medical education related to IDD is needed.

Methods: A 24-item survey assessed the experiences, attitudes, knowledge, skills, and future interest of Canadian medical students regarding IDD.

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We have generated single cell transcriptomic atlases of vomeronasal organs (VNO) from juvenile and adult mice. Combined with spatial molecular imaging, we uncover a distinct, previously unidentified class of cells that express the vomeronasal receptors (VRs) and a population of canonical olfactory sensory neurons in the VNO. High-resolution trajectory and cluster analyses reveal the lineage relationship, spatial distribution of cell types, and a putative cascade of molecular events that specify the V1r, V2r, and OR lineages from a common stem cell population.

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Background: Endovascular treatment of peripheral arterial disease requires safe and reliable arterial access. This study evaluates the feasibility and safety of percutaneous axillary artery access for endovascular therapy. A variety of anatomic and logistic obstacles can be overcome with upper extremity access.

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The homeostasis of the intestinal epithelium relies on intricate yet insufficiently understood mechanisms of intestinal epithelial plasticity. Here, we elucidate the pivotal role of Frizzled5 (Fzd5), a Wnt pathway receptor, as a determinant of murine intestinal epithelial cell fate. Deletion of Fzd5 in Lgr5 intestinal stem cells (ISCs) impairs their self-renewal, whereas its deletion in Krt19 cells disrupts lineage generation, without affecting crypt integrity in either case.

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Background: Deep brain stimulation is a treatment for advanced Parkinson's disease and currently tuned to target motor symptoms during daytime. Parkinson's disease is associated with multiple nocturnal symptoms such as akinesia, insomnia, and sleep fragmentation, which may require adjustments of stimulation during sleep for best treatment outcome.

Objectives: There is a need for a robust biomarker to guide stimulation titration across sleep stages.

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Background: The role of a Flight Nurse is specialised; they must have both education and experience to fulfil the requirements of the role. Mastering these skills takes time, thus long-term retention is essential. When nurses experience their work as more fulfilling, they are more inclined to remain within a role for an extended period.

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Electronic structure methods built around double-electron excitations have a rich history in quantum chemistry. However, it seems to be the case that such methods are only suitable in particular situations and are not naturally equipped to simultaneously handle the variety of electron correlations that might be present in chemical systems. To this end, the current work seeks a computationally efficient, low-rank, "ultimate" coupled cluster method based exclusively on T2 and its products that can effectively emulate more "complete" methods that explicitly consider higher-rank, T2m, operators.

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Moving in straight lines is a behaviour that enables organisms to search for food, move away from threats, and ultimately seek suitable environments in which to survive and reproduce. This study explores a vision-based technique for detecting a change in heading direction using the Milky Way (MW), one of the navigational cues that are known to be used by night-active insects. An algorithm is proposed that combines the YOLOv8m-seg model and normalised second central moments to calculate the MW orientation angle.

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Linear amines, from propylamine to nonylamine, are studied under ambient conditions by X-ray scattering and molecular dynamics simulations of various force field models. The major finding is that the prepeak in alkylamines is about 1 order of magnitude weaker than that in alkanols, hence suggesting much weaker hydrogen bonding-induced clustering of the amine groups than for the hydroxyl groups. Computer simulation studies reveal that the OPLS-UA model reproduces the prepeak, but with larger amplitudes, while the GROMOS-UA and CHARMM-AA force fields show almost no prepeak.

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Injury is common in the life of organisms. Because the extent of damage cannot be predicted, injured organisms must determine how much tissue needs to be restored. Although it is known that amputation position affects the regeneration speed of appendages, mechanisms conveying positional information remain unclear.

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We have generated single cell transcriptomic atlases of vomeronasal organs (VNO) from juvenile and adult mice. Combined with spatial molecular imaging, we uncover a distinct, previously unidentified class of cells that express the vomeronasal receptors and a population of canonical olfactory sensory neurons in the VNO. High resolution trajectory and cluster analyses reveal the lineage relationship, spatial distribution of cell types, and a putative cascade of molecular events that specify the V1r, V2r, and OR lineages from a common stem cell population.

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Several studies have reported that low back pain has a high prevalence among the population, with up to 85%. Percutaneous radiofrequency facet denervation (PRFD) is the gold standard of today's rhizotomy for chronic low back pain (CLBP). However, previously published studies present controversial results for the efficacy of PRFD.

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Bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) is a globally dominant crop and major source of calories and proteins for the human diet. Compared with its wild ancestors, modern bread wheat shows lower genetic diversity, caused by polyploidisation, domestication and breeding bottlenecks. Wild wheat relatives represent genetic reservoirs, and harbour diversity and beneficial alleles that have not been incorporated into bread wheat.

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This study is the first to investigate the presence and movement of the novel Liberibacter species 'Candidatus Liberibacter brunswickensis' (CLbr) in eggplant, Solanum melongena. The psyllid, Acizzia solanicola can transmit CLbr to eggplant and CLbr can be acquired by CLbr-negative A. solanicola individuals from CLbr-positive eggplants.

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Article Synopsis
  • Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical method for treating neurological disorders but can lead to surgical site infections (SSIs) as a complication, prompting a study on antibiotic-impregnated envelopes (AIEs) to reduce infection rates.
  • A retrospective analysis from January 2017 to May 2024 included 178 patients, showing significantly lower infection rates (1.7% with AIE vs. 5% without AIE) and a 2.9 times higher infection risk without AIE.
  • The findings suggest that AIEs not only reduced SSIs in both initial and replacement procedures but also resulted in considerable cost savings, highlighting their effectiveness in DBS surgeries.
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Previous studies of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) primarily focused on single cell-based niche models, yielding fruitful but conflicting findings . Here we report our investigation on the fetal liver (FL) as the primary fetal hematopoietic site using spatial transcriptomics. Our study reveals two distinct niches: the portal-vessel (PV) niche and the sinusoidal niche.

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Previous studies have shown that Automated Program Repair (apr) techniques suffer from the overfitting problem. Overfitting happens when a patch is run and the test suite does not reveal any error, but the patch actually does not fix the underlying bug or it introduces a new defect that is not covered by the test suite. Therefore, the patches generated by apr tools need to be validated by human programmers, which can be very costly, and prevents apr tool adoption in practice.

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Many species rely on celestial cues as a reliable guide for maintaining heading while navigating. In this paper, we propose a method that extracts the Milky Way (MW) shape as an orientation cue in low-light scenarios. We also tested the method on both real and synthetic images and demonstrate that the performance of the method appears to be accurate and reliable to motion blur that might be caused by rotational vibration and stabilisation artefacts.

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Previous body image research often grouped both gay and bisexual men into a single category: sexual minoritised men, limiting our understanding of how sexual identity influences body image. However, there is strong reason to believe that bisexual and gay men experience distinct body image concerns. Here, we explored motivations to alter one's leanness and muscularity, as well as (dis)satisfaction with body fat, muscularity, height and penis size, and functionality appreciation across gay, bisexual, and straight cisgender men.

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Respiration rate (RR) holds significance as a human health indicator. Presently, the conventional RR monitoring system requires direct physical contact, which may cause discomfort and pain. Therefore, this paper proposes a non-contact RR monitoring system integrating RGB and thermal imaging through RGB-thermal image alignment.

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Background: Wound complications after lumbar spine surgery may result in prolonged hospitalization and increased morbidity. Early identification can trigger appropriate management.

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of infrared-based wound assessment (FLIR) after lumbar spine surgery in the context of identifying wound healing disorders.

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The structural properties of aqueous 1-4 dioxane mixtures are studied by computer simulations of different water and dioxane force field models, from the perspective of illustrating the link between structural properties at the molecular level and measurable properties such as radiation scattering intensities and Kirkwood-Buff integrals (KBIs). A strategy to consistently correct the KBI obtained from simulations is proposed, which allows us to obtain the genuine KBI corresponding to a given pair of molecular species, in the entire concentration range, and without necessitating excessively large system sizes. The application of this method to the aqueous dioxane mixtures, with an all-atom CHARMM dioxane model and 2 water models, namely, SPC/E and TIP3P, allows one to understand the differences in the structure of the corresponding mixtures at the molecular level, particularly concerning the role of the water aggregates and its model dependence.

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Acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis (AGEP) is a rare, acute skin eruption characterized by the development of numerous nonfollicular sterile pustules. Most cases are caused by drug reactions, among which Diltiazem has been incriminated. Herein, we present an 83-year-old female who presented for evaluation of generalized skin rash 3 days after initiation of Diltiazem.

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