Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Smart Breathable Fabric

Smart breathable cotton fabrics were made using a temperature-sensitive copolymer - poly(N-tert-butylacrylamide-ran-acrylamide:: 27: 73). The cotton fabric was coated using an aqueous solution (20 wt%) of the copolymer containing 1,2,3,4-butanetetracarboxylic acid as a cross-linker (50 mol%) and sodium hypophosphite (0.5 wt%) as a catalyst, followed by drying (120°C, 5 min) and curing (200°C, 5 min). The integrity of the cross-linked coatings to the fabric was observed to be excellent. The coatings after integration to the cotton substrate retained temperature-sensitive swelling behavior and showed a transition in the temperature range of 15-40°C. Below 15°C, the coatings swell by 800% while above 40°C they deswell to a swelling percentage of less than 50% (on the basis of dry weight). The transition to swelling was completed in about 20 min while deswelling was quicker in 2-3 min. The response was found to be reversible and stable to repeated cycles of transition. The coated fabrics showed a temperature-responsive water vapor transmission rate (WVTR). The WVTR values of the responsive (copolymer coated) and the nonresponsive (poly(acrylamide) coated) breathable fabric were measured as a percentage (transmission percentage) of control uncoated substrate. The transmission percentage at 20% relative humidity for the copolymer coated fabrics was found to change across the transition temperature (15-45°C) from 58 to 94% compared to the poly(acrylamide)-coated fabrics which changed only from 70 to 94%, showing a clear response to changing environmental temperature.
What’s in an Embedding? Analyzing Word Embeddings through Multilingual Evaluation

In the last two years, there has been a surge of word embedding algorithms and research on them. However, evaluation has mostly been carried out on a narrow set of tasks, mainly word similarity/relatedness and word relation similarity and on a single language, namely English. We propose an approach to evaluate embeddings on a variety of languages that also yields insights into the structure of the embedding space by investigating how well word embeddings cluster along different syntactic features. We show that all embedding approaches behave similarly in this task, with dependency-based embeddings performing best. This effect is even more pronounced when generating low dimensional embeddings.
Preparation of body armour material of Kevlar fabric treated with colloidal silica nanocomposite

To safeguard bodies of soldiers better, including their necks and joints, a novel armour material was exploited using nanocomposite. Compared with traditional armour materials, this new material possessed superior barrier property and more comfortable characteristics. The new armour material was made of Kevlar cloth and shear thickening fluid (STF). Colloidal silica particles were first synthesised via the Stöber synthesis method and then they were used to prepare a suspension with solvent of polyethylene glycol 200. At last, Kevlar cloth was treated with the suspension and the resultant was named as STF–Kevlar nanocomposite. In this process, the particle sizes were characterised with scanning electron microscopy. The rheological properties were measured with a Physica MCR301 stress controlled rheometer. The results showed that the silica particles could be determined to be monodispersed spherical particles. The suspension, named the shear thickening fluid, had shear thickening characteristic. The property of multilayer STF–Kevlar nanocomposite targets was compared to that of the neat Kevlar cloth and the results indicated that the STF–Kevlar nanocomposite had an improvement in barrier property and was more flexible and comfortable. The mechanism that could improve the barrier property of STF–Kevlar was briefly explained.
A recessive variant of the Romano-Ward long-QT syndrome?

BACKGROUND The congenital long-QT syndrome (LQTS) is a genetically heterogeneous disease characterized by prolonged ventricular repolarization and life-threatening arrhythmias. Mutations of the KVLQT1 gene, a cardiac potassium channel, generate two allelic diseases: the Romano-Ward syndrome, inherited as a dominant trait, and the Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome, inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. METHODS AND RESULTS A consanguineous family with the clinical phenotype of LQTS was screened for mutations in the KVLQT1 gene. Complementary RNAs for injection into Xenopus oocytes were prepared, and currents were recorded with the double microelectrode technique. A homozygous missense mutation, leading to an alanine-to-threonine substitution at the beginning of the pore domain of the KVLQT1 channel, was found in the proband, a 9-year-old boy with normal hearing, a prolonged QT interval, and syncopal episodes during physical exercise. The parents of the proband were heterozygous for the mutation and had a normal QT interval. The functional evaluation of the mutant channel activity showed reduction in total current, a hyperpolarizing shift in activation, and a faster activation rate consistent with a mild mutation likely to require homozygosity to manifest the phenotype. CONCLUSIONS These findings provide the first evidence for a recessive form of the Romano-Ward long-QT syndrome and indicate that homozygous mutations on KVLQT1 do not invariably produce the Jervell and Lange-Nielsen syndrome. The implications of this observation prompt a reconsideration of the penetrance of different mutations responsible for LQTS and suggest that mild mutations in LQTS genes may be present among the general population and may predispose to drug-induced ventricular arrhythmias.
Cannabinoid signaling in glial cells

The cannabinoid signaling system is composed of cannabinoid (CB) receptors, their endogenous ligands, the endocannabinoids, and the enzymes that produce and inactivate them. It is well known that neurons communicate between each other through this signaling system. Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive compound of marijuana, interacts with CB receptors, impinging on this communication and inducing profound behavioral effects such as memory impairment and analgesia. Recent evidence suggests that glial cells also express components of the cannabinoid signaling system and marijuana‐derived compounds act at CB receptors expressed by glial cells, affecting their functions. This review summarizes this evidence, discusses how glial cells might use the cannabinoid signaling system to communicate with neighboring cells, and argues that nonpsychotropic cannabinoids, both marijuana‐derived and synthetic, likely constitute lead compounds for therapy aimed at reducing acute and chronic neuroinflammation, such as occurs in multiple sclerosis. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Comparative sequence analysis of Sordaria macrospora and Neurospora crassa as a means to improve genome annotation q

One of the most challenging parts of large scale sequencing projects is the identification of functional elements encoded in a genome. Recently, studies of genomes of up to six different Saccharomyces species have demonstrated that a comparative analysis of genome sequences from closely related species is a powerful approach to identify open reading frames and other functional regions within genomes [Science 301 (2003) 71, Nature 423 (2003) 241]. Here, we present a comparison of selected sequences from Sordaria macrospora to their corresponding Neurospora crassa orthologous regions. Our analysis indicates that due to the high degree of sequence similarity and conservation of overall genomic organization, S. macrospora sequence information can be used to simplify the annotation of the N. crassa genome. 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A Comparative Study of Supervised Learning as Applied to Acronym Expansion in Clinical Reports

Electronic medical records (EMR) constitute a valuable resource of patient specific information and are increasingly used for clinical practice and research. Acronyms present a challenge to retrieving information from the EMR because many acronyms are ambiguous with respect to their full form. In this paper we perform a comparative study of supervised acronym disambiguation in a corpus of clinical notes, using three machine learning algorithms: the naïve Bayes classifier, decision trees and Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Our training features include part-of-speech tags, unigrams and bigrams in the context of the ambiguous acronym. We find that the combination of these feature types results in consistently better accuracy than when they are used individually, regardless of the learning algorithm employed. The accuracy of all three methods when using all features consistently approaches or exceeds 90%, even when the baseline majority classifier is below 50%.
Atlas of CMFGEN Models for OB Massive Stars

We present an atlas of 173 synthetic spectra of stars, with mass from 9 to 120 M⊙, covering the region of the OB main sequence stars in the H–R diagram. The spectra were calculated with the stellar atmosphere code CMFGEN, assuming solar metallicity in the ZAMS. In order to study the effect of rotation on the chemical composition of the stellar atmosphere, we calculated two sets of models: with metallicity changed by rotation when the star evolves and maintaining solar metallicity throughout the same evolutionary track. For each model, we calculated its synthetic spectra in the UV (900–2000 Å), optical (3500–7000 Å), and near IR (10,000–30,000 Å). We show the utility of this atlas, obtaining preliminary models for three stars in the field of the VVVCL086 cluster, comparing their IR observed spectra with the ones of the atlas. This process was done in a few hours, while the standard procedure to obtain such models could take several weeks.
Optimal discrete fractional fourier transform descriptors for image retrieval

This paper proposes to extend the conventional discrete Fourier transform (DFT) descriptor to discrete fractional Fourier transform (DFrFT) descriptors for representing edges in images. The DFrFT descriptors of training images are employed for constructing a dictionary. However, it is required to determine the optimal rotational angles. This problem is formulated as an optimization problem such that the Fisher discriminant is minimized. Nevertheless, this optimization problem is nonconvex. Also, both the intraclass and interclass separations of the DFrFT descriptors are independent of the rotational angles if these separations are defined using the 2-norm operator. To tackle these difficulties, the 1-norm operator is employed instead. However, this reformulated optimization problem is nonsmooth. To solve this problem, the nondifferentiable points of the objective function are found. Then, the stationary points between any two consecutive nondifferentiable points are identified. After that, the objective functional values are evaluated at these nondifferentiable points and stationary points. The smallest L objective functional values are picked up and the corresponding rotational angles are chosen for constructing the dictionary. Here, L is the total number of the rotational angles for constructing the dictionary. Finally, a 1-NN classification rule is applied for performing the image retrieval. Computer numerical simulation results show that our proposed method outperforms the conventional DFT descriptor approach.
A learning experience.

Effective language learning experiences are facilitated by the use of high-yield teaching and learning strategies designed to move students toward the attainment of carefully planned course, unit and lesson performance objectives. How do you provide meaningful learning experiences that advance student learning? During this self-assessment, be sure to use evidence to support your reflections. Once you have completed the self-assessment, review the outcomes with a critical friend, mentor, or supervisor. An open and honest conversation about your performance vs. ratings helps to clarify rationale for levels selected and will help you to set realistic goals. Reflect on your current performance level of the TELL criteria below. N = I do not do this. S = I sometimes do this. M = I do this most of the time. C = I do this with confidence.
Neurons and Objects: The Case of Auditory Cortex

Sounds are encoded into electrical activity in the inner ear, where they are represented (roughly) as patterns of energy in narrow frequency bands. However, sounds are perceived in terms of their high-order properties. It is generally believed that this transformation is performed along the auditory hierarchy, with low-level physical cues computed at early stages of the auditory system and high-level abstract qualities at high-order cortical areas. The functional position of primary auditory cortex (A1) in this scheme is unclear – is it ‘early’, encoding physical cues, or is it ‘late’, already encoding abstract qualities? Here we argue that neurons in cat A1 show sensitivity to high-level features of sounds. In particular, these neurons may already show sensitivity to ‘auditory objects’. The evidence for this claim comes from studies in which individual sounds are presented singly and in mixtures. Many neurons in cat A1 respond to mixtures in the same way they respond to one of the individual components of the mixture, and in many cases neurons may respond to a low-level component of the mixture rather than to the acoustically dominant one, even though the same neurons respond to the acoustically-dominant component when presented alone.
Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome: Evidence for Abnormal Adrenergic Function

Subjects with the Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase deficiency with self-mutilation) exhibit an apparently unique pattern of adrenergic dysfunction characterized by elevated plasma dopamine β-hydroxylase activity and an absence of pressor response to acute sympathetic stimulation. Patients with a partial deficiency of hypoxanthine-guanine phosphoribosyltransferase without self-mutilation do not exhibit these abnormalities of adrenergic function.
Melanoma Computer-Aided Diagnosis

Background: Differential diagnosis of melanoma from melanocytic nevi is often not straightforward. Thus, a growing interest has developed in the last decade in the automated analysis of digitized images obtained by epiluminescence microscopy techniques to assist clinicians in differentiating early melanoma from benign skin lesions. Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic accuracy provided by different statistical classifiers on a large set of pigmented skin lesions grabbed by four digital analyzers located in two different dermatological units. Experimental Design: Images of 391melanomas and 449 melanocytic nevi were included in the study. A linear classifier was built by using the method of receiver operating characteristic curves to identify a threshold value for a fixed sensitivity of 95%. A K-nearest-neighbor classifier, a nonparametric method of pattern recognition, was constructed using all available image features and trained for a sensitivity of 98% on a large exemplar set of lesions. Results: On independent test sets of lesions, the linear classifier and the K-nearest-neighbor classifier produced a mean sensitivity of 95% and 98% and a mean specificity of 78% and of 79%, respectively. Conclusions: In conclusion, our study suggests that computer-aided differentiation of melanoma from benign pigmented lesions obtained with DB-Mips is feasible and, above all, reliable. In fact, the same instrumentations used in different units provided similar diagnostic accuracy. Whether this would improve early diagnosis of melanoma and/or reducing unnecessary surgery needs to be demonstrated by a randomized clinical trial.
Safety, Effectiveness, and Costs of Bevacizumab-Based Therapy in Southern Spain

AbstractTo evaluate the safety and efficacy of bevacizumab in a broader patient population with solid tumors in the context of general clinical practice. Moreover, we quantified the economic impact and characterized the off-label use (OLU) of this agent in real-life prescribing practices.This is an open, retrospective, observational, real world study carried out at a regional Spanish hospital attending a population of 665,000 inhabitants. All of the patients receiving bevacizumab-containing therapy between January 2006 and February 2012 at the study hospital were included: no exclusion criteria were specified. All study variables were collected from available hospital records.The analysis comprised 240 episodes from 226 patients (male 41%; median age 57 years, 25% ≥65 years). Eighty cases (33%) of bevacizumab treatment were administered as first-line therapy. The median duration of bevacizumab treatment was 5.8 months (95% CI 5.1–6.6), without difference by age, line of treatment, or type of tumor. Typically bevacizumab-related toxicities included bleeding (25%), hypertension (5%), wound-healing complications (4%), gastrointestinal perforation (2%), and arterial thromboembolism (1%). Median progression-free survival was 7.5 months (95% CI 6.3–8.7) and median OS reached 13.1 months (95% CI 11.4–14.9). Bevacizumab increased the chemotherapy cost to 207% (from &OV0556;3,115,615 to &OV0556;9,552,405). Bevacizumab was prescribed off-label in 43% of episodes, amounting to &OV0556;3,586,420 (56% of bevacizumab total cost). The efficacy and safety profile of bevacizumab in routine clinical practice is consistent with results observed in prospective randomized clinical trials. OLU of this drug should be closely monitored.
Ascent of Finite Cohen–Macaulay Type

In 1987 F. -O. Schreyer conjectured that a local ring R has finite Cohen–Macaulay type if and only if the completion R has finite Cohen–Macaulay type. We prove the conjecture for excellent Cohen–Macaulay local rings and also show by example that it can fail in general.
ConvNets-Based Action Recognition from Depth Maps through Virtual Cameras and Pseudocoloring

In this paper, we propose to adopt ConvNets to recognize human actions from depth maps on relatively small datasets based on Depth Motion Maps (DMMs). In particular, three strategies are developed to effectively leverage the capability of ConvNets in mining discriminative features for recognition. Firstly, different viewpoints are mimicked by rotating virtual cameras around subject represented by the 3D points of the captured depth maps. This not only synthesizes more data from the captured ones, but also makes the trained ConvNets view-tolerant. Secondly, DMMs are constructed and further enhanced for recognition by encoding them into Pseudo-RGB images, turning the spatial-temporal motion patterns into textures and edges. Lastly, through transferring learning the models originally trained over ImageNet for image classification, the three ConvNets are trained independently on the color-coded DMMs constructed in three orthogonal planes. The proposed algorithm was extensively evaluated on MSRAction3D, MSRAction3DExt and UTKinect-Action datasets and achieved the state-of-the-art results on these datasets.
The role of basophil activation test in special populations with mastocytosis and reactions to hymenoptera sting

Systemic mastocytosis (SM) may be associated with hymenoptera allergy. In such cases, immunotherapy is a life‐saving treatment, but a circumstantiated diagnosis is needed for its prescription. Patients with SM and previous reactions to stings, but with negative tests represent a diagnostic dilemma. The basophil activation test (BAT) may be helpful in refining the diagnosis.
Influence of Magnesia on Iron Ore Sinter Properties and Productivity – Use of Dolomite and Dunite

For production of fluxed sinter the use of dolomite and other MgO bearing materials has increased in the recent past. Flux materials influence the microstructure and chemical properties of the resultant sinter. Improvement in raw material quality and use of alternative raw materials play an important role for improving the sinter quality and overall economics of iron and steel making. The physical and metallurgical properties of sinter mainly depend on the mineralogy of the sinter. Dolomite is composed of calcium magnesium carbonate and dunite consists of magnesium silicate. In the present work laboratory sintering experiments have been carried out with different MgO level (1.40 to 2.60 mass%) to know the influence of MgO on the mineralogy, productivity, physical and metallurgical properties of sinter prepared by using dolomite and dunite. Microstructural examinations of the produced sinter revealed that dunite sinter is bounded with higher amounts of hematite and less calcium ferrites when compared to dolomite sinter. Hematite and calcium ferrite phases decreased whereas magnetite phase increased with increase of magnetite content in sinter using both dolomite and dunite. From the test results it was found that dunite sinter showed better metallurgical properties whereas dolomite sinter showed better physical properties.
The directional sensitivities of the Stiles’ colour mechanisms.

Field sensitivities of the three IIj (j = 3, 4, 5) mechanisms of Stiles were measured for monochromatic backgrounds of different wave numbers (mu)‐1 traversing the eye through different points (r) displaced along a horizontal chord through the centre of the entrance pupil. Each mechanism shows an insensitivity to the direction of retinal incidence of short‐wave backgrounds not previously described. The spectral densities of the centre‐most part of the lens and of the macular pigment were measured on this eye. With reasonable assumptions the former allowed for correction at the receptor level of the directional sensitivity; together with the latter it allowed correction for the spectral sensitivity as well. No correction for the attenuation of the high spatial frequencies of the background as it traversed the pupil at different r was needed. The anomalies of section 2 (above) disappear after correction for losses in the eye media. After these corrections, for every mu and r, the results are well described by the parabola ‘tentatively’ suggested by Stiles (1939) for each mechanism, allowing only a small amount of variance attributable to experimental imprecision alone. Each mechanism is most sensitive to backgrounds going through essentially the same point of the pupil, independent of background. This result is inconsistent with a qualitative explanation of the ‘hue shift’ suggested by Safir, Hyams & Philpot (1971). The field sensitivity spectra for backgrounds traversing the pupil at this most effective point and at the 3.5 mm margin, are the data needed to predict this observer's brightness and colour matches of monochromatic lights passing through the entrance pupil at these two points according to a unified theory of the two Stiles‐Crawford effects. In the following paper these predictions are quantified and confronted with results of the matching experiments (Alpern, Kitahara & Tamaki, 1982).
Human Eye Movements After Viewpoint Shifts in Edited Dynamic Scenes are Under Cognitive Control

We tested whether viewers have cognitive control over their eye movements after cuts in videos of real-world scenes. In the critical conditions, scene cuts constituted panoramic view shifts: Half of the view following a cut matched the view on the same scene before the cut. We manipulated the viewing task between two groups of participants. The main experimental group judged whether the scene following a cut was a continuation of the scene before the cut. Results showed that following view shifts, fixations were determined by the task from 250 ms until 1.5 s: Participants made more and earlier fixations on scene regions that matched across cuts, compared to nonmatching scene regions. This was evident in comparison to a control group of participants that performed a task that did not require judging scene continuity across cuts, and did not show the preference for matching scene regions. Our results illustrate that viewing intentions can have robust and consistent effects on gaze behavior in dynamic scenes, immediately after cuts.