LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Real-time thresholding with Euler numbers

The problem of finding an automatic thresholding technique is well known in applications involving image differencing like visual-based surveillance systems, autonomous vehicle driving, etc. Among the algorithms proposed in the past years, the thresholding technique based on the stable Euler number method is considered one of the most promising in terms of visual results. Unfortunately its high computational complexity made it an impossible choice for real-time applications. The implementation here proposed, called fast Euler numbers, overcomes the problem since it calculates all the Euler numbers in just one single raster scan of the image. That is, it runs in OðhwÞ, where h and w are the image s height and width, respectively. A technique for determining the optimal threshold, called zero crossing, is also proposed. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
L'optimisation des réseaux cellulaires assistée par ordinateur: le logiciel RNO (Radio Network Optimisation)

Quality of service has become today a major concern for operators of mobile communication networks. The massive development of networks and strong competition between operators has lead to the necessary and daily follow-up o f network quality of service, a key factor for its subscriber's fidelity. This article aims at presenting the optimization methodology and proposes its illustration with a case of Rxo (Radio Network Optimisation) software usage, one of the Alcatel optimization toolchain component. After a short presentation of cellular network, the optimization basic principles are described. RNO software and its main functionnalities are then detailed before a last part dedicated to a real case of optimization done with RNO software.
Wavelet filter-based weak signature detection method and its application on rolling element bearing prognostics

De-noising and extraction of the weak signature are crucial to fault prognostics in which case features are often very weak and masked by noise. The wavelet transform has been widely used in signal de-noising due to its extraordinary time-frequency representation capability. In this paper, the performance of wavelet decomposition-based de-noising and wavelet filter-based de-noising methods are compared based on signals from mechanical defects. The comparison result reveals that wavelet filter is more suitable and reliable to detect a weak signature of mechanical impulse-like defect signals, whereas the wavelet decomposition de-noising method can achieve satisfactory results on smooth signal detection. In order to select optimal parameters for the wavelet filter, a two-step optimization process is proposed. Minimal Shannon entropy is used to optimize the Morlet wavelet shape factor. A periodicity detection method based on singular value decomposition (SVD) is used to choose the appropriate scale for the wavelet transform. The signal de-noising results from both simulated signals and experimental data are presented and both support the proposed method. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. jsv.2005.03.007 ding author. Tel.: +1 414 229 3106; fax: +1 414 229 3107. resses: haiqiu@uwm.edu (H. Qiu), jaylee@uwm.edu (J. Lee), jinglin@mail.ioc.ac.cn (J. Lin).
Toxicological mixture models are based on inadequate assumptions.

The interactions of thousands of chemicals in the environment with millions of biological species ultimately determine whether a given mixture of chemicals has marginal or catastrophic consequences. The foundations for toxicological effect models of mixtures were laid by pharmacologists in the 1920s (1, 2). At the time, the problem of joint action was solved mathematically by simply adding doses and responses, on the assumption that compounds do not influence each other’s physiological action. In environmental risk assessment and human toxicology, our understanding of the toxicity of mixtures is still based on these concepts, with addition forming the basis for all models, regardless of the sophistication of the mixture models employed or the number of additional interactions (e.g., with respect to exposure) defined (3). We believe the time is ripe for a new approach, for there is evidence that additivity is not in all cases as universal as has been postulated for more than 80 years. To determine whether classical mixture models are valid, we performed a metastudy on metal mixture responses compiled from the literature. Our metastudy was performed by assembling data of peer-reviewed articles published from 1981 to 2007 available via the ISI Web of Science database. The aim was not full coverage of all papers concerning mixtures, but to obtain a representative overview of papers on metal mixtures. The articles were a selection of binary or tertiary mixture toxicity studies on the effects of Cd, Cu, and/ or Zn. In total, 19 studies were included, giving 91 records on metal combinations: 67 binary mixture combinations and 24 tertiary mixture combinations. To properly deal with multiple modes of exposure, possibly leading to different interactions, we made a distinction between metal toxicity via oral uptake and via passive uptake from the environment. For this study, only organisms for which the latter constituted the primary route were considered. Studies on freshwater (41 records) and marine organisms (31 records) as well as on soil-dwelling organisms (19 records) were included, with the proviso for terrestrial studies that only soil-dwelling organisms exposed to pore water were considered. Fate of metals in the solutions was not explicitly accounted for because of lack of information on the physicochemical water properties determining metal speciation. More details on the records used in our study are available upon request. With regard to the toxic effects of mixtures, two reference models are available for the analysis of noninteractive joint action (1, 2). Joint action is classified as similar when the primary site of action is the same for both or all the compounds (eq 1), and dissimilar when the site of action differs (eq 2).
When Constant-Time Source Yields Variable-Time Binary: Exploiting Curve25519-donna Built with MSVC 2015

The elliptic curve Curve25519 has been presented as protected against state-of-the-art timing-attacks [2]. This paper shows that a timing attack is still achievable against a particular X25519 implementation which follows the RFC 4 7748 requirements [10]. The attack allows the retrieval of the complete private key used in the ECDH protocol. This is achieved due to timing leakage during Montgomery ladder execution and relies on a conditional branch in the Windows runtime library 2015. The attack can be applied remotely.
Inspiring blind high school students to pursue computer science with instant messaging chatbots

Blind students are an underrepresented group in computer science. In this paper, we describe our experience preparing and leading the computer science track at the National Federation of the Blind Youth Slam. As part of this workshop, fifteen blind high school students created and personalized instant messaging chatbots, a project designed to be completely accessible to blind students. Chatbots enable students to infuse their own personalities into a socially-oriented program that incorporates ideas from artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and web services. We first outline the chatbots project and curriculum, which has wide appeal for all students, and then offer general design principles used to create it that can help ensure the accessibility of future projects. Students created their chatbots using a real programming language and were guided by both blind and sighted mentors. By programming from the start in a supportive environment, our students will gain the confidence to persevere in computer science in the future.
Fuzzy logic Controller Design for gun-turret system

Abstract: High precision control is desirable for future weapon systems. In this paper, several control design methodologies are applied to a weapon system to assess the applicability of each control design method and to characterize the achievable performance of the gun-turret system in precision control. The design objective of the gun-turret control system is to achieve a rapid and precise tracking response with respect to the turret motor command from the fire control system under the influences of disturbances, nonlinearities, and modeling uncertainties. A fuzzy scheme is proposed for control of multi-body, multi-input and multioutput nonlinear systems with joints represented by a gun turret-barrel model which consists of two subsystems: two motors driving two loads (turret and barrel) coupled by nonlinear dynamics. Fuzzy control schemes are employed for compensation and nonlinear feedback control laws are used for control of nonlinear dynamics. Fuzzy logic control (FLC) provides an effective means of capturing the approximate, inexact nature of the real world, and to address unexpected parameter variations and anomalies. Viewed in this perspective, the essential part of the FLC is a set of linguistic control rules related by the dual concepts of fuzzy implication and the compositional rule of inference. In essence, the FLC provides an algorithm which can convert the linguistic control strategy based on expert knowledge into an automatic control strategy. Accordingly, the design must be robust, adaptive, and, hopefully, intelligent in order to accommodate these uncertainties. Simulation results verify the desired system tracking performance.
Relating schizotypy and personality to the phenomenology of creativity.

INTRODUCTION
Although a considerable amount of research has addressed psychopathological and personality correlates of creativity, the relationship between these characteristics and the phenomenology of creativity has been neglected. Relating these characteristics to the phenomenology of creativity may assist in clarifying the precise nature of the relationship between psychopathology and creativity. The current article reports on an empirical study of the relationship between the phenomenology of the creative process and psychopathological and personality characteristics in a sample of artists.


METHOD
A total of 100 artists (43 males, 57 females, mean age = 34.69 years) from a range of disciplines completed the Experience of Creativity Questionnaire and measures of "positive" schizotypy, affective disturbance, mental boundaries, and normal personality.


RESULTS
The sample of artists was found to be elevated on "positive" schizotypy, unipolar affective disturbance, thin boundaries, and the personality dimensions of Openness to Experience and Neuroticism, compared with norm data. Schizotypy was found to be the strongest predictor of a range of creative experience scales (Distinct Experience, Anxiety, Absorption, Power/Pleasure), suggesting a strong overlap of schizotypal and creative experience.


DISCUSSION
These findings indicate that "positive" schizotypy is associated with central features of "flow"-type experience, including distinct shift in phenomenological experience, deep absorption, focus on present experience, and sense of pleasure. The neurologically based construct of latent inhibition may be a mechanism that facilitates entry into flow-type states for schizotypal individuals. This may occur by reduced latent inhibition providing a "fresh" awareness and therefore a greater absorption in present experience, thus leading to flow-type states.
Topical and intravenous tranexamic acid reduce blood loss compared to routine hemostasis in total knee arthroplasty: a multicenter, randomized, controlled trial

Tranexamic acid (TXA) is becoming widely used in orthopedic surgery to reduce blood loss and transfusion requirements, but consensus is lacking regarding the optimal route and dose of administration. The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy and safety of topical and intravenous routes of TXA with routine hemostasis in patients undergoing primary total knee arthroplasty (TKA). We performed a randomized, multicenter, parallel, open-label clinical trial in adult patients undergoing primary TKA. Patients were divided into three groups of 50 patients each: Group 1 received 1 g topical TXA, Group 2 received 2 g intravenous TXA, and Group 3 (control group) had routine hemostasis. The primary outcome was total blood loss. Secondary outcomes were hidden blood loss, blood collected in drains, transfusion rate, number of blood units transfused, adverse events, and mortality. One hundred and fifty patients were included. Total blood loss was 1021.57 (481.09) mL in Group 1, 817.54 (324.82) mL in Group 2 and 1415.72 (595.11) mL in Group 3 (control group). Differences in total blood loss between the TXA groups and the control group were clinically and statistically significant (p < 0.001). In an exploratory analysis differences between the two TXA groups were not statistically significant (p = 0.073) Seventeen patients were transfused. Transfusion requirements were significantly higher in Group 3 (p = 0.005). No significant differences were found between groups regarding adverse events. We found that 1 g of topical TXA and 2 g of intravenous TXA were both safe strategies and more effective than routine hemostasis to reduce blood loss and transfusion requirements after primary TKA. I.
Trilostane in dogs.

Over the last 10 years, trilostane, a competitive inhibitor of steroid synthesis, is being widely used for the treatment of canine hyperadrenocorticism. Trilostane causes a significant but reversible decrease in cortisol production and a concomitant improvement in clinical signs in most dogs with this common condition. Side effects, though infrequent, can be serious: dogs treated with this drug require regular monitoring. This review summarizes current knowledge of the use of this drug with particular emphasis on its efficacy, safety, adverse reactions, and effects on endocrine parameters. Brief mention is made of its other uses in dogs and other species.
Adolescent social isolation increases anxiety-like behavior and ethanol intake and impairs fear extinction in adulthood: Possible role of disrupted noradrenergic signaling

Alcohol use disorder, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are highly comorbid, and exposure to chronic stress during adolescence may increase the incidence of these conditions in adulthood. Efforts to identify the common stress-related mechanisms driving these disorders have been hampered, in part, by a lack of reliable preclinical models that replicate their comorbid symptomatology. Prior work by us, and others, has shown that adolescent social isolation increases anxiety-like behaviors and voluntary ethanol consumption in adult male Long-Evans rats. Here we examined whether social isolation also produces deficiencies in extinction of conditioned fear, a hallmark symptom of PTSD. Additionally, as disrupted noradrenergic signaling may contribute to alcoholism, we examined the effect of anxiolytic medications that target noradrenergic signaling on ethanol intake following adolescent social isolation. Our results confirm and extend previous findings that adolescent social isolation increases anxiety-like behavior and enhances ethanol intake and preference in adulthood. Additionally, social isolation is associated with a significant deficit in the extinction of conditioned fear and a marked increase in the ability of noradrenergic therapeutics to decrease ethanol intake. These results suggest that adolescent social isolation not only leads to persistent increases in anxiety-like behaviors and ethanol consumption, but also disrupts fear extinction, and as such may be a useful preclinical model of stress-related psychopathology. Our data also suggest that disrupted noradrenergic signaling may contribute to escalated ethanol drinking following social isolation, thus further highlighting the potential utility of noradrenergic therapeutics in treating the deleterious behavioral sequelae associated with early life stress.
Optimizing Energy Consumption with Task Consolidation in Clouds

Task consolidation is a way to maximize utilization of cloud computing resources. Maximizing resource utilization provides various benefits such as the rationalization of maintenance , IT service customization, and QoS and reliable services. However, maximizing resource utilization does not mean efficient energy use. Much of the literature shows that energy consumption and resource utilization in clouds are highly coupled. Consequently, some of the literature aims to decrease resource utilization in order to save energy, while others try to reach a balance between resource utilization and energy consumption. In this paper, we present an energy-aware task consolidation (ETC) technique that minimizes energy consumption. ETC achieves this by restricting CPU use below a specified peak threshold. ETC does this by consolidating tasks amongst virtual clusters. In addition, the energy cost model considers network latency when a task migrates to another virtual cluster. To evaluate the performance of ETC we compare it against MaxUtil. MaxUtil is a recently developed greedy algorithm that aims to maximize cloud computing resources. The simulation results show that ETC can significantly reduce power consumption in a cloud system, with 17% improvement over MaxUtil. Cloud computing has recently become popular due to the maturity of related technologies such as network devices, software applications and hardware capacities. Resources in these systems can be widely distributed and the scale of resources involved can range from several servers to an entire data center. To integrate and make good use of resources at various scales, cloud computing needs efficient methods to manage them [4]. Consequently, the focus of much research in recent years has been on how to utilize resources and how to reduce power consumption. One of the key technologies in cloud computing is virtualization. The ability to create virtual machines (VMs) [14] dynamically on demand is a popular solution for managing resources on physical machines. Therefore, many methods [17,18] have been developed that enhance resource utilization such as memory compression, request discrimination, defining threshold for resource usage and task allocation among VMs. Improvements in power consumption, and the relationship between resource usage and energy consumption has also been widely studied [6,10–12,14–18]. Some research aims to improve resource utilization while others aim to reduce energy consumption. The goals of both are to reduce costs for data centers. Due to the large size of many data centers, the financial savings are substantial. Energy consumption varies according to CPU utilization [11]. Higher CPU utilization …
Epoetin alfa in patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma: results of the randomized placebo-controlled GHSG HD15EPO trial.

PURPOSE
To determine whether epoetin alfa reduces anemia-related fatigue, improves other aspects of health-related patient-recorded outcomes (PROs), reduces the number of RBC transfusions, and has an impact on freedom from treatment failure (FFTF) and overall survival (OS) in patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL).


PATIENTS AND METHODS
The prospectively randomized HD15EPO study performed by the German Hodgkin Study Group investigated epoetin alfa administered at doses of 40,000 U weekly during and after chemotherapy (six to eight cycles of bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone [BEACOPP]) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled setting. The study accrued 1,379 patients, of whom 1,328 were assessable for safety, 1,303 were assessable for clinical outcome, and 930 were assessable for PROs.


RESULTS
PROs were not different in patients receiving placebo or epoetin alfa, both after the end of chemotherapy and 6 months thereafter. There was no difference between patients treated with epoetin alfa or placebo with respect to FFTF and OS. There were also no differences in the numbers of deaths, progressions, relapses, and thromboembolic events. The median number of RBC transfusions was reduced from four per patient in the placebo group to two per patient in the epoetin alfa group (P < .001), with 27.4% of patients needing no RBC transfusion in the placebo group compared with 36.7% of patients in the epoetin alfa group (P < .001).


CONCLUSION
Epoetin alfa administered at 40,000 U weekly parallel to BEACOPP chemotherapy was safe in patients with advanced-stage HL and reduced the number of RBC transfusions but had no impact on fatigue and other PRO domains.
Lake Michigan lower food web: Long-term observations and Dreissena impact

a Lake Michigan Field Station/Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory/NOAA, 1431 Beach St, Muskegon, MI 49441, USA b Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory/NOAA, 4840 S. State Rd., Ann Arbor, MI 48108, USA c School Forest Resources, Pennsylvania State University, 434 Forest Resources Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA d School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, 440 Church St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Synthetic cathinone abuse

The abuse of synthetic cathinones, widely known as bath salts, has been increasing since the mid-2000s. These substances are derivatives of the naturally occurring compound cathinone, which is the primary psychoactive component of khat. The toxicity of synthetic cathinones includes significant sympathomimetic effects, as well as psychosis, agitation, aggression, and sometimes violent and bizarre behavior. Mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone are currently the predominantly abused synthetic cathinones.
Phase I trial of 17-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin in patients with advanced cancer.

PURPOSE
To define the maximum tolerated dose (MTD), toxicities, and pharmacokinetics of 17-allylamino-17-demethoxygeldanamycin (17-AAG) when administered using continuous and intermittent dosing schedules.


EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Patients with progressive solid tumor malignancies were treated with 17-AAG using an accelerated titration dose escalation schema. The starting dose and schedule were 5 mg/m(2) daily for 5 days with cycles repeated every 21 days. Dosing modifications based on safety, pharmacodynamic modeling, and clinical outcomes led to the evaluation of the following schedules: daily x 3 repeated every 14 days; twice weekly (days 1, 4, 8, and 11) for 2 weeks every 3 weeks; and twice weekly (days 1 and 4) without interruption. During cycle 1, blood was collected for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies.


RESULTS
Fifty-four eligible patients were treated. The MTD was schedule dependent: 56 mg/m(2) on the daily x 5 schedule; 112 mg/m(2) on the daily x 3 schedule; and 220 mg/m(2) on the days 1, 4, 8, and 11 every-21-day schedule. Continuous twice-weekly dosing was deemed too toxic because of delayed hepatotoxicity. Hepatic toxicity was also dose limiting with the daily x 5 schedule. Other common toxicities encountered were fatigue, myalgias, and nausea. This latter adverse effect may have been attributable, in part, to the DMSO-based formulation. Concentrations of 17-AAG above those required for activity in preclinical models could be safely achieved in plasma. Induction of a heat shock response and down-regulation of Akt and Raf-1 were observed in biomarker studies.


CONCLUSION
The MTD and toxicity profile of 17-AAG were schedule dependent. Intermittent dosing schedules were less toxic and are recommended for future phase II studies.