Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concealment of damaged block transform coded images using projections onto convex sets

An algorithm for lost signal restoration in block-based still image and video sequence coding is presented. Problems arising from imperfect transmission of block-coded images result in lost blocks. The resulting image is flawed by the absence of square pixel regions that are notably perceived by human vision, even in real-time video sequences. Error concealment is aimed at masking the effect of missing blocks by use of temporal or spatial interpolation to create a subjectively acceptable approximation to the true error-free image. This paper presents a spatial interpolation algorithm that addresses concealment of lost image blocks using only intra-frame information. It attempts to utilize spatially correlated edge information from a large local neighborhood of surrounding pixels to restore missing blocks. The algorithm is a Gerchberg (1974) type spatial domain/spectral domain constraint-satisfying iterative process, and may be viewed as an alternating projections onto convex sets method.
Emerging technological advancements in colonoscopy: Third Eye® Retroscope® and Third Eye® PanoramicTM, Fuse® Full Spectrum Endoscopy® colonoscopy platform, Extra‐Wide‐Angle‐View colonoscope, and NaviAidTM G‐EYETM balloon colonoscope

Colonoscopy is the criterion standard for detecting colorectal adenomas and cancers. However, multiple studies have reported a significant percentage of adenomas are missed during standard, forward‐viewing colonoscopy. Missed adenomas can lead to interval colorectal cancers. Aside from inadequate colon preparation, incomplete examinations (e.g. failure to intubate the cecum), short withdrawal times, and patient‐related factors, the primary reason for missing colorectal adenomas and early cancers is poor visualization of the proximal aspect of colonic folds, at anatomical flexures, and in the ileocecal valve area. These anatomical sites tend to be hidden from the standard forward‐viewing colonoscope (170‐degree angle of view) and can often only be seen through manipulation of the colonoscope by the endoscopist. Thus, there is mounting evidence supporting the need to reduce the adenoma ‘miss rate’ of standard forward‐viewing colonoscopy by improving upon current colonoscope technology and its current visualization/optics limitations. Recently, there are a number of emerging technologies that may help revolutionize how colonoscopy is carried out and that will significantly reduce adenoma miss rates. These include the Third Eye® Retroscope® and Third Eye® PanoramicTM (Avantis Medical Systems, Sunnyvale, CA, USA); Fuse® Full Spectrum Endoscopy® colonoscopy platform (EndoChoice Inc., Alpharetta, GA, USA); Extra‐Wide‐Angle‐View colonoscope (Olympus, Tokyo, Japan), and the NaviAidTM G‐EYETM balloon colonoscope (SMART Medical Systems Ltd, Ra'anana, Israel).
Health value & perceived control over health: behavioural constructs to support Type 2 diabetes self-management in clinical practice.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To explore health value and perceived control over health in relation to self-management behaviours in adults with Type 2 diabetes mellitus. BACKGROUND Helping people to modify health related behaviour in diabetes is complex due to a multitude of factors. Exploring the meaning of the constructs of Modified Social Learning Theory could be beneficial to identifying people at risk of poor diabetes self-management. DESIGN An exploratory qualitative study. METHODS Thirteen adults with insulin-treated Type 2 diabetes mellitus were purposively sampled. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. An in-depth thematic analysis was carried out. RESULTS Health became a value priority on diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes mellitus. Participants described holding both terminal (relating to desired end states) and instrumental (a means to an end) health values pre-diagnosis but these became instrumental post-diagnosis to meet new lifestyle needs and maintain their quality of life. Descriptions of 'conflicts' in locus of control beliefs when managing Type 2 diabetes mellitus demonstrated influences on levels of self-efficacy and health value. Common themes that impacted on diabetes self-management included co-morbidities, medication management, blood glucose monitoring and reasoning for Type 2 diabetes mellitus. CONCLUSIONS Locus of control beliefs, levels of self-efficacy and health value were influenced by complications associated with Type 2 diabetes mellitus. The findings on Modified Social Learning Theory and instrumental health value as a moderator to health behaviour resulted in the development of a proposed framework with potential practical utility. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE This research demonstrates the relevance of exploring the constructs of Modified Social Learning Theory (MSLT) in relation to diabetes self-management behaviours in Type 2 diabetes mellitus. The proposed Type 2 diabetes mellitus Self-management Behaviour Support framework incorporates Modified Social Learning Theory and instrumental health value as the theoretical basis for development and could provide clinical nurses and doctors with a tool that will allow for in-depth assessment and planning of Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients' self-management behaviours.
Understanding evolution.

At the end of the 20th cen tury mo lec u lar ge net ics has been the cen tral theme in bi o log i cal thought. No body ques tions the im por tance of ge net ics, nor ar gues that DNA plays the role of the blue print of life for all com po nents of the liv ing cell. How ever, we still do not un der stand the gen eral mech a nism of the cell func tion and de vel op ment. The se quence of the hu man ge nome as well as other genomes is gen er ally be lieved to be the start ing point of bi o log i cal and bio med i cal in ves ti ga tions in the fol low ing cen tury and of the de bate on the or i gin of life. Life de pends on the in ter ac tion of thou sands of genes and their pro tein prod ucts, or ches trated by the reg u la tory logic of each ge nome. If we are to com pre hend this logic, we must hope that it can be dis sected into a se ries of inter linked mod ules or net works, each of which can be stud ied in rel a tive iso la tion. But even then, the com plex ity of a sin gle mod ule can be daunt ing. There is a hope that de tailed an no ta tion of the da ta base of genes and in-depth ex plo ra tion of the physi co-chemical prin ci ples of liv ing sys tems will bring us closer to the un der stand ing of the cell. The ba sis of our in sight into cell supra mo lecu lar struc ture is the doc trine of self as sem bly and self or gani sa tion which is a di rect ex ten sion of the cen tral dogma of mo lec u lar bi ol ogy from the real se quence of lin ear in for ma tion to the third di men sion of pro tein and as sem blies. The mechanism of self-assembly is very pow er ful and it op er ates far be yond atomic di men sions to form very com plex struc ture like ri bo somes or spliceosomes. At each level, novel laws can be found whose nec es sary, sep a rate study has de fined par tic u lar dis ci pline. As Phil An der son once said psy chol ogy is not ap plied bi ol ogy, it is not ap plied chem is try or it is not ap plied phys ics. The features of the very same sys tem de pend on the scale of ob ser va tion. This pre cludes the ex trap o la tion of knowl edge at one level to higher lev els, where the “com plex ity” in creases. Un der stand ing why this is so and de ter min ing Vol. 48 No. 2/2001
Adaptive hypofractionated gamma knife radiosurgery for a large brainstem metastasis

Background: To demonstrate how adaptive hypofractionated radiosurgery by gamma knife (GK) can be successfully utilized to treat a large brainstem metastasis - a novel approach to a challenging clinical situation. Case Description: A 42-year-old woman, diagnosed with metastatic nonsmall cell lung cancer in July 2011, initially treated with chemotherapy and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, developed multiple brain metastases March 2013, with subsequent whole brain radiotherapy, after which a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed a significant volume regression of all brain metastases. A follow-up MRI in October 2013 revealed a growing brainstem lesion of 26 mm. Linear accelerator-based radiotherapy and microsurgery were judged contraindicated, why the decision was made to treat the patient with three separate radiosurgical sessions during the course of 1 week, with an 18% tumor volume reduction demonstrated after the last treatment. Follow-up MRI 2.5 months after her radiosurgical treatment showed a tumor volume reduction of 67% compared to the 1st day of treatment. Later on, the patient developed a radiation-induced perilesional edema although without major clinical implications. An MRI at 12 months and 18-fluoro-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography of the brain at 13 months showed decreased edema with no signs of tumor recurrence. Despite disease progression during the last months of her life, the patient's condition remained overall acceptable. Conclusion: GK-based stereotactic adaptive hypofractionation proved to be effective to achieve tumor control while limiting local adverse reactions. This surgical modality should be considered when managing larger brain lesions in critical areas.
Influence of confounding factors on plasma Mid-Regional pro-Adrenomedullin and Mid-Regional pro-A-type Natriuretic Peptide concentrations in healthy individuals

Background: MRproADM and MRproANP can be used as diagnostic and prognostic markers in heart failure. Aim: The objective was to identify confounding factors for the interpretation of plasma MRproADM and MRproANP concentrations. Methods: A total of 518 healthy volunteers with a mean age of 60.84 ± 7.41 years were analyzed. We evaluated the influence of demographic factors, renal function and echocardiographic indices on the candidate peptides. Results: Multivariate analysis revealed that age (P < 0.001), BMI (P < 0.001) and eGFR (P < 0.001) were independent predictors for MRproADM concentrations in healthy subjects. The independent predictors for MRproANP were age (P < 0.001), female gender (P < 0.001), heart rate (P < 0.001) and eGFR (P = 0.039). Conclusion: The interpretation of both peptides is multifaceted due to confounders. Knowledge of these factors will further our understanding of how these peptides behave in health and in disease.
Modeling LSH for performance tuning

Although Locality-Sensitive Hashing (LSH) is a promising approach to similarity search in high-dimensional spaces, it has not been considered practical partly because its search quality is sensitive to several parameters that are quite data dependent. Previous research on LSH, though obtained interesting asymptotic results, provides little guidance on how these parameters should be chosen, and tuning parameters for a given dataset remains a tedious process. To address this problem, we present a statistical performance model of Multi-probe LSH, a state-of-the-art variance of LSH. Our model can accurately predict the average search quality and latency given a small sample dataset. Apart from automatic parameter tuning with the performance model, we also use the model to devise an adaptive LSH search algorithm to determine the probing parameter dynamically for each query. The adaptive probing method addresses the problem that even though the average performance is tuned for optimal, the variance of the performance is extremely high. We experimented with three different datasets including audio, images and 3D shapes to evaluate our methods. The results show the accuracy of the proposed model: the recall errors predicted are within 5% from the real values for most cases; the adaptive search method reduces the standard deviation of recall by about 50% over the existing method.
Why should anyone care about computing with anyons?

In this article we present a pedagogical introduction of the main ideas and recent advances in the area of topological quantum computation. We give an overview of the concept of anyons and their exotic statistics, present various models that exhibit topological behaviour and establish their relation to quantum computation. Possible directions for the physical realization of topological systems and the detection of anyonic behaviour are elaborated.
Low Voltage Scanning Electron Microscopy

Low Voltage Scanning Electron Microscopy (LVSEM), defined as operation in the energy range below 5 keV, has become perhaps the most important single operational mode of the SEM. This is because the LVSEM offers advantages in the imaging of surfaces, in the observation of poorly conducting and insulating materials, and for high spatial resolution X-ray microanalysis. These benefits all occur because a reduction in the energy Eo of the incident beam leads to a rapid fall in the range R of the electrons since R ∼k.E0 1.66. The reduction in the penetration of the beam has important consequences.
Phase Identification in Electric Power Distribution Systems by Clustering of Smart Meter Data

Accurate network and phase connectivity models are crucial to distribution system analytics, operations and planning. Although network connectivity information is mostly reliable, phase connectivity data is typically missing or erroneous. In this paper, an innovative phase identification algorithm is developed by clustering of voltage time series gathered from smart meters. The feature-based clustering approach is adopted where principal component analysis is first carried out to extract feature vectors from the raw time series. A constrained k-means clustering algorithm is then executed to separate customers/smart meters into various phase connectivity groups. The algorithm is applied on a real distribution feeder in Southern California Edison's service territory. The accuracy of the proposed algorithm is over 90%.
Water Drinking Test: Intraocular Pressure Changes after Tube Surgery and Trabeculectomy

Purpose: To study the effects of filtration surgeries (tube and trabeculectomy) on changes in intraocular pressure after a water-drinking test. Methods: In this prospective, non-randomized, comparative clinical study, 30 patients who had tube surgery and 30 age- and sex-matched trabeculectomy patients underwent a water-drinking test. Only one eye of each patient was included. The baseline intraocular pressure was ≤21 mmHg in all enrolled eyes with or without adjunctive topical medications. After the water-drinking test, the intraocular pressure was measured and recorded at 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes and the results were compared between the two groups. Results: In both groups, intraocular pressure significantly increased from baseline at all measured time-points (P < 0.001). In the trabeculectomy group, the average intraocular pressure increased from 14.8 ± 2.9 to 18.8 ± 4.7 mmHg at 30 minutes, but decreased at 60 min (18.0 ± 5.2 mmHg). In the Tube group, intraocular pressure increased incrementally until the last measurement (14.2 ± 3.9, 18.8 ± 5.6, and 19.7 ± 6.0 mmHg at baseline, 30, and 60 minutes, respectively). The end-pressure difference (intraocular pressure at 60 minutes vs. baseline) was significantly greater in the tube group (5.6 ± 3.6 mmHg; 41% change) than in the trabeculectomy group (3.2 ± 4.7; 23% change; P = 0.03). Conclusion: Intraocular pressure significantly increased after the water-drinking test in both the groups. Intraocular pressure started to decline 30 minutes after the water-drinking test in the trabeculectomy group, while it continued to increase up to 60 minutes in the Tube group. This finding may have implications regarding the efficacy or safety of the procedures in advanced glaucoma patients.
A symmetric hybrid position/force control scheme for the coordination of two robots

A symmetric scheme-not a master/slave scheme-is proposed for the coordination of two robots to manipulate a single object jointly. The definition of workspace force, velocity, and position vectors as symmetric functions of the joint space force, velocity and position vectors of the two robots is essential to implementing the symmetric scheme. These workspace vectors are derived by first analyzing the statics of the closed kinematic chain consisting of the two robots and the object, and then calculating velocities using the force-velocity duality. The workspace-position vector is defined by integrating the velocities. The derived workspace vectors are used successfully to implement the symmetric scheme. <<ETX>>
Exome sequencing of patients with histiocytoid cardiomyopathy reveals a de novo NDUFB11 mutation that plays a role in the pathogenesis of histiocytoid cardiomyopathy

Histiocytoid cardiomyopathy (Histiocytoid CM) is a rare form of cardiomyopathy observed predominantly in newborn females that is fatal unless treated early in life. We have performed whole exome sequencing on five parent‐proband trios and identified nuclear‐encoded mitochondrial protein mutations in three cases. The molecular genetic basis of Histiocytoid CM remains unknown despite several hypotheses in medical literature. The findings presented in this manuscript may represent components of genetic etiologies for this heterogeneous disease. Two probands had de novo non‐sense mutations in the second exon of the X‐linked nuclear gene NDUFB11. A third proband was doubly heterozygous for inherited rare variants in additional components of complex I, NDUFAF2 and NDUFB9, confirming that Histiocytoid CM is genetically heterogeneous. In a fourth case, the proband with Histiocytoid CM inherited a mitochondrial mutation from her heteroplasmic mother, as did her brother who presented with cardiac arrhythmia. Strong candidate recessive or compound heterozygous variants were not found for this individual or for the fifth case. Although NDUFB11 has not been implicated before in cardiac pathology, morpholino‐mediated knockdown of ndufb11 in zebrafish embryos generated defective cardiac tissue with cardiomegaly, looping defects, and arrhythmia which suggests the role of NDUFB11 in the pathogenesis of this abnormal cardiac pathology. Taken together, the unbiased whole exome sequencing approach confirms the suspected genetic heterogeneity of Histiocytoid CM. Therefore, the novel NDUFB11 mutation may cause a complex 1 deficiency in synergy with additional unknown mtDNA variants. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Extrusion of cement-based materials - an overview

Extrusion is a process that consists in forcing a formable material to pass through a die having the cross-section of the part to be obtained. This way of processing is used with conventional and fibre-reinforced cement-based materials to fabricate various construction elements such as panels, pipes and roadside curbs. Recently, with the development of digital fabrication methods and especially 3D concrete printing by selective deposition, the extrusion techniques have experienced a significant increase in interest. This letter describes the screw and ram extrusion techniques and their applications in construction industry. Furthermore, the underlying mechanisms involved during extrusion flow are delineated and the roles of rheological and hydro-mechanical behaviours (the latter one in a soil mechanics sense) in defining the extrudability – ability of being extruded – of the cementitious materials are highlighted. Finally, specific points such as flow-induced anisotropy of fibre reinforced cementitious materials or surface defects are addressed.
The effect of false positive breast screening examinations on subsequent attendance: retrospective cohort study

Objectives To investigate the effect of false positive breast screening examination results on subsequent attendance in the UK National Health Service Breast Screening Programme. Methods 253,017 previously screened women who were invited for rescreening were studied. Attendance rates of women who had received a normal result at the last (index) screen were compared with those of women who had received a false positive result. The effects of age, type of index screening examination (prevalent or incident) and tissue sampling at assessment were investigated. Results Women who had a false positive prevalent index screening examination were significantly more likely to reattend than those who had a normal prevalent index screening examination (87.7% vs. 86.0%). There was no significant difference in reattendance rates between women who had a false positive incident index screening examination and those with a normal incident index screening examination. However, women who underwent needle sampling or open biopsy following false positive incident index screening examinations were 12% and 60% less likely to reattend, respectively, than women whose index screening examinations were normal (p < 0.001), although there was variation between centres. Increasing age significantly reduced the likelihood of reattendance. The overall reattendance of women who had been screened only once was six percentage points lower than that of women who had been screened more than once. Conclusions The findings suggest that most women who undergo the breast screening assessment process retain confidence in breast screening. Needle sampling and open biopsy should be used judiciously in the assessment of screen-detected abnormalities in view of the reduced reattendance that results from their use after incident screening examinations.
Three-dimensional hydrogel constructs for exposing cells to nanoparticles

Abstract In evaluating nanoparticle risks to human health, there is often a disconnect between results obtained from in vitro toxicology studies and those from in vivo activity, prompting the need for improved methods to rapidly assess the hazards of engineered nanomaterials. In vitro studies of nanoparticle toxicology often rely on high doses and short exposure periods due to the difficulty of maintaining monolayer cell cultures over extended time periods as well as the difficulty of maintaining nanoparticle dispersions within the culture environment. In this work, tissue-engineered constructs are investigated as a platform for providing doses of nanoparticles over different exposure periods to cells within a three-dimensional environment that can be tuned to mimic in vivo conditions. Uptake of quantum dots (QDs) by model neural cells was first investigated in a high-dose exposure scenario, resulting in a strong concentration-dependent uptake of carboxyl-functionalised QDs. Poly(ethylene glycol) hydrogel scaffolds with varying mesh sizes were then investigated for their ability to support cell survival and proliferation. Cells were co-encapsulated with carboxyl-functionalised poly(ethylene glycol)-coated QDs at a lower dose than is typical for monolayer cultures. Although the QDs leach from the hydrogel within 24 h, they are also incorporated by cells within the scaffold, enabling the use of these constructs in future studies of cell behaviour and function.