Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of Skeletal Muscle MRI inPeripheral Nerve Disorders

In diagnosing peripheral nerve disorders, the involved nerves can usually be determined based on clinical history and neurological findings with the aid of electrophysiological examinations. Despite the principle, we often encounter diagnostic challenges. In this chapter, we describe the clinical utility of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the evaluation of peripheral nerve disorders. MRI can visualize pathological changes in skeletal muscles secondary to lesions of the peripheral nerve, plexus or nerve root. The lesion sites may be inferred based on the distribution of the involved muscles. After the first report in 1987 (Shabas et al., 1987), MRI has increasingly been used to evaluate denervated muscles (West et al., 1994; Fleckenstein et al., 1993; Uetani et al., 1993). In particular, studies of entrapment or compressive neuropathy have greatly contributed to the understanding of clinical-radiological correlations in peripheral nerve damage. Animal experiments have also been conducted, in which muscle MRI was examined after peripheral nerve transection. MRI has several distinct advantages over needle electromyography (EMG), including noninvasiveness, accessibility to deep muscles and interexaminer reliability (Koltzenburg and Bendszus, 2004; Bendszus et al., 2003; McDonald et al., 2000). MRI is particularly useful as needle EMG is difficult to perform on children or patients on anticoagulation. Excellent spatial resolution allows MRI to detect atrophy of the small muscles, moreover, different MRI pulse sequences show sensitivity to different stages of denervation, thus, MRI can provide valuable information about the duration of muscle denervation (Kamath et al., 2008). MRI has a potential to visualize mass lesions causing nerve damage, such as tumours, which is useful for the clinical judgment of surgical resectability (Grant et al., 2002). An abnormal MR signal in muscles is not specific to denervation and may also be seen in any condition that causes muscle edema, including severe muscle strains, blunt trauma and acute myositis. Thus, MRI findings need to be interpreted in combination with other clinical information. Previous muscle MRI studies of peripheral nerve disorders have mostly focused on entrapment or compression neuropathy (Andreisek et al., 2006; Petchprapa et al., 2010; Donovan et al., 2010). However, given its capability in visualizing pathological changes and mapping the distributions of the involved muscles, the use of MRI can be extended to a variety of peripheral nerve disorders. We will give a theoretical background of muscle MRI and describe its clinical applications in peripheral nerve disorders with some representative cases. We will also mention non-muscular features of MRI, e.g. nerve signal
Color harmony for image indexing

A predictive model for estimating the perceived harmony of ordinary multi-colored images is proposed and evaluated. The model is based on earlier research concerning two-color harmonies. Color regions of images are extracted using mean shift segmentation. Global and local harmony scores are derived for two-color combinations included in different subsets of all segmented regions. Statistical measurements of the obtained harmony scores are used for predicting the perceived overall harmony. The model is validated in a psychophysical experiment, where human observers are judging images on a harmony scale. The findings show that humans do perceive harmony in multi-colored images in similar ways, and that the proposed model results in useful predictions of harmony. The model can be applied in automatic labeling or classification of images.
Rapid Retraining on Speech Data with LSTM Recurrent Networks.

A system that could be quickly retrained on different corpora would be of great benefit to speech recognition. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) are able to transfer knowledge by simply storing and then retraining their weights. In this report, we partition the TIDIGITS database into utterances spoken by men, women, boys and girls, and successively retrain a Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) RNN on them. We find that the network rapidly adapts to new subsets of the data, and achieves greater accuracy than when trained on them from scratch. This would be useful for applications requiring either cross corpus adaptation or continually expanding datasets.
Population dynamics of Aspergillus flavus in the air of an intensively cultivated region of south-west Arizona

Airborne propagules of Aspergillus flavus were quantified to investigate population dynamics of A. flavus in a region of south-west Arizona prone to epidemics of aflatoxin contamination of cottonseed. Air was sampled continuously from May 1997 to March 1999 at two sites using Burkard cyclone samplers. One sampler was initially at the centre of 65 ha of cotton treated with an atoxigenic strain of A. flavus to manage aflatoxin contamination of cottonseed. The second sampler was 0·6 km from the treated field. Total fungal colony-forming units (CFU) sampled ranged from 17 to 667 and from 9 to 1277 m at the untreated and treated sites, respectively. Counts of A. flavus ranged from 0 to 406 m and from 0 to 416 per m at the untreated and treated sites, respectively. Aspergillus flavus comprised 1–46 and 1–51% of the total cultured fungi at the treated and untreated sites, respectively. Peaks in total fungal and A. flavus CFU coincided with boll maturation and cotton harvest (days 251–321). Autoregression analysis suggested that there was no difference in total fungal CFU between treated and untreated sites, but the analysis showed that the quantity of A. flavus decreased at the treated site. This is probably caused by changes in cropping making the conditions less conducive to growth and reproduction of A. flavus in the surrounding fields. The incidence of the S strain of A. flavus was highest between May and August. The L strain accounted for up to 100% of the A. flavus sampled in the other months, and autoregression analysis showed that the L strain accounted for a greater overall proportion of the A. flavus population at the treated site compared with the untreated site. Autoregression analysis also showed the vegetative compatibility group of the applied strain was a greater proportion of L-strain A. flavus at the treated site (5–75%) than at the untreated site (0–65%), although this decreased with time. The quantity of A. flavus sampled at both treated and untreated sites was correlated with air and soil temperature. Large quantities of A. flavus occurred in the soil (up to 34 474 CFU g) of cotton fields and on cotton plant parts and debris (up to 272 461 CFU g) adjacent to the cyclone samplers. Aspergillus flavus is a major constituent of the airborne mycoflora associated with cotton fields in south-west Arizona when temperature is conducive to fungal growth. Although application of atoxigenic A. flavus altered the proportion of A. flavus strains and vegetative compatibility groups in the aerial mycoflora, the total quantity of A. flavus remained similar to that in untreated fields. Dispersal of A. flavus between fields suggests that atoxigenic fungi will be most effective in area-wide management programmes.
An efficient brush model for physically-based 3D painting

This paper presents a novel 3D brush model consisting of a skeleton and a surface, which is deformed through constrained energy minimization. The main advantage of our model over existing ones is in its ability to mimic brush flattening and bristle spreading due to brush bending and lateral friction exerted by the paper surface during the painting process. The ability to recreate such deformations is essential to realistic 3D digital painting simulations, especially in the case of Chinese brush painting and calligraphy. To further increase realism, we also model the plasticity of wetted brushes and the resistance exerted by pores on the paper surface onto the brush tip. Our implementation runs on a consumer-level PC in real-time and produces very realistic results.
Biomass and Carbon Sequestration by Juglans regia Plantations in the Karst Regions of Southwest China

Abstract: To better understand carbon (C) sequestration by Juglans regia L. plantations in karst regions of southwest China, this study examined biomass increment and C storage in four different-aged J. regia stands, as well as the distribution of carbon stock among the various ecosystem components. Tree and ecosystem biomass increased with stand age. Aboveground biomass (AGB) represented 64.79% of the total biomass, belowground tree biomass comprised 22.73%, and shrubs and herbs totaled 11.38%, whereas only a small amount (1.11%) was associated with soil litter. Soil organic C (SOC) content in the top soil of plantations aged 1, 5, 9, and 13 years was 33.37, 53.15, 33.56, and 49.78 mg ha−1, respectively. SOC content decreased continually with increasing soil depth. Ecosystem C storage amounted to 33.49, 54.21, 46.40, and 65.34 mg ha−1 for the 1-, 5-, 9-, and 13-year old plantations, respectively, with most (86.55%) of the ecosystem C being in the soil. Our results suggest that large-scale planting of J. regia has potential for not only vegetation restoration but also high C fixation capacity in the karst region of southwest China.
Interleukin 21 Is a T Helper (Th) Cell 2 Cytokine that Specifically Inhibits the Differentiation of Naive Th Cells into Interferon γ–producing Th1 Cells

The cytokine potential of developing T helper (Th) cells is directly shaped both positively and negatively by the cytokines expressed by the effector Th cell subsets. Here we find that the recently identified cytokine, interleukin (IL)-21, is preferentially expressed by Th2 cells when compared with Th1 cells generated in vitro and in vivo. Exposure of naive Th precursors to IL-21 inhibits interferon (IFN)-γ production from developing Th1 cells. The repression of IFN-γ production is specific in that the expression of other Th1 and Th2 cytokines is unaffected. IL-21 decreases the IL-12 responsiveness of developing Th cells by specifically reducing both signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 protein and mRNA expression. These results suggest that Th2 cell-derived IL-21 regulates the development of IFN-γ–producing Th1 cells which could serve to amplify a Th2 response.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes a Comparison of Two Process Tracing Methods for Choice Tasks

1976). Understanding these prototypical patterns for Process tracing methods, particularly those based evaluating information helps identify behavior that on information acquisition, are becoming common-could constrain or alter decision processes. Second, the place. Because of this, it is important to examine both information acquisition patterns directly influence cog-the reactivity and the validity of these techniques. nition and memory. Subtle changes in presentation for-This research compares information acquisition be-mat can change the frequency of preference reversals contingent upon the process tracing method for 10 process tracing measures including subsequent choices. way information is displayed can change decisions, un-Computerized process tracing tools increase the derstanding these influences is important in the design amount of time needed to acquire information com-of interfaces for electronic commerce (Widing & Talar-pared with eye tracking equipment. As a result, sub-zyk, 1993). jects using Mouselab tend to have more systematic in-Process tracing methods often examine the informa-formation acquisition behavior than that observed tion individuals seek before making a choice and how with eye tracking equipment. Additional research is that information produces a choice. Information acqui-needed to explore the magnitude and consequences of sition behavior has been studied using eye tracking
Medium‐resolution spectroscopy of FORJ0332−3557: probing the interstellar medium and stellar populations of a lensed Lyman‐break galaxy at z= 3.77★

We recently reported the discovery of FORJ0332-3557, a lensed Lyman-break galaxy at z = 3.77 in a remarkable example of strong galaxy-galaxy gravitational lensing. We present here a medium-resolution rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) spectrum of the source, which appears to be similar to the well-known Lyman-break galaxy MS1512-cB58 at z = 2.73. The spectral energy distribution is consistent with a stellar population of less than 30Ma, with an extinction of Av = 0.5 mag and an extinction-corrected star formation rate SFRUV of 200-300h-170Msolara-1. The Ly? line exhibits a damped profile in absorption produced by a column density of about NHI = (2.5 +/- 1.0) × 1021cm-2, superimposed on an emission line shifted both spatially (0.5 arcsec with respect to the UV continuum source) and in velocity space (+830kms-1 with respect to the low-ionization absorption lines from its interstellar medium), a clear signature of outflows with an expansion velocity of about 270kms-1. A strong emission line from HeII ? 164.04 nm indicates the presence of Wolf-Rayet stars and reinforces the interpretation of a very young starburst. The metallic lines indicate subsolar abundances of elements Si, Al and C in the ionized gas phase. Based on observations made at the ESO VLT under programmes 74.A-0536 and 78.A-0240. E-mail: remi.cabanac@ast.obs-mip.fr (RAC); david.valls-gabaud@obspm.fr (DV-G); clidman@eso.org (CL)
University of Glasgow at TREC 2007: Experiments in Blog and Enterprise Tracks with Terrier

In TREC 2007, we participate in four tasks of the Blog and Enterprise tracks. We continue experiments using Terrier 1 [14], our modular and scalable Information Retrieval (IR) platform, and the Divergence From Randomness (DFR) framework. In particular, for the Blog track opinion ﬁnding task, we propose a statistical term weighting approach to identify opinionated documents. An alternative approach based on an opinion identiﬁcation tool is also utilised. Overall, a 15% improvement over a non-opinionated base-line is observed in applying the statistical term weighting approach. In the Expert Search task of the Enterprise track, we investigate the use of proximity between query terms and candidate name occurrences in documents.
The Dissimilar Effects of Fairness on Knowledge Sharing in Distributed Workgroups: A Social Network Perspective

Distributed workgroups are increasingly adopted by global organizations, enabled by technology advances. While social ties and performance of such workgroups have been examined in existing literature, the distinctions in knowledge sharing practices remain blurred. We developed a research model to examine the effects of social ties on knowledge sharing practices through the lens of justice perceptions (i.e., fairness) from a dyadic level. The model was tested in a field study of distributed workgroups at a large multinational organization. Our results suggested that Simmelian-tied dyads (dyads embedded in three-person cliques) had significant influence on justice perceptions and knowledge sharing. Expertise knowledge sharing was influenced by procedural and informational justice perceptions. Contrary to previous studies, our study suggested that product knowledge sharing occurred regardless of distributive justice perception. The findings provided insights to the mechanisms underlying social ties, justice perceptions, and knowledge sharing.
Learning Arbitrary Pairwise Potentials in CRFs for Semantic Segmentation

Are we using the right potential functions in the Conditional Random Field models that are popular in the Vision community? Semantic segmentation and other pixel-level labelling tasks have made significant progress recently due to the deep learning paradigm. However, most state-of-the-art structured prediction methods also include a random field model with a hand-crafted Gaussian potential to model spatial priors, label consistencies and feature-based image conditioning. In this paper, we challenge this view by developing a new inference and learning framework which can learn arbitrary pairwise CRF potentials. Both standard spatial and high-dimensional bilateral kernels are considered. Our framework is based on the observation that CRF inference can be achieved via projected gradient descent and consequently, can easily be integrated in deep neural networks to allow for end-to-end training. It is empirically demonstrated that such learned potentials can improve segmentation accuracy and that certain label class interactions are indeed better modelled by a non-Gaussian potential. Our framework is evaluated on several public benchmarks for semantic segmentation with improved performance compared to previous state-of-the-art CNN+CRF models.
Emerging Adulthood MoA/IDEA-8 Scale Characteristics From Multiple Institutions

We tested psychometric properties of the Markers of Adulthood (MoA) importance scale and a revised Inventory of the Dimensions of Emerging Adulthood (IDEA-8) in a large, diverse multisite and multinational sample the Emerging Adulthood Measured at Multiple Institutions 2 project. We used multilevel confirmatory factor analyses and multilevel alphas to examine external validity and internal consistency of the scales. We also performed correlational and exploratory multilevel analyses to determine the extent to which emerging adulthood dimensions overlap across scales. The IDEA-8 subscales demonstrated acceptable psychometric properties. Our research suggests that recent approaches to combine the MoA markers provide four modestly reliable factors, but perceptions of adulthood varied considerably as a function of sample. We recommend that the structure of these marker items be examined for any given sample, since their relative importance seems to vary, not just across time but also sample location.
Vascular renin in the guinea pig. Suppression by the renin inhibitor remikiren.

Angiotensin I and II are generated by the vascular wall. Whether this generation depends on renin or on other enzymes is debated. We tested the hypothesis that remikiren, a highly specific inhibitor of human and guinea pig renin, may inhibit the vascular renin-angiotensin system. Isolated hindquarters from guinea pigs were perfused with an artificial medium, and angiotensin I and II release was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography and radioimmunoassay. Guinea pig hindquarters released angiotensin I (23.8 +/- 5.6 fmol/30 min; n = 13) and angiotensin II (95.2 +/- 19 fmol/30 min; n = 13) spontaneously. Inhibition of the angiotensin I-converting enzyme by captopril (10 nmol/mL) suppressed angiotensin II by 85% and increased angiotensin I by 352% (n = 5, P < .05). Infusion of remikiren (1.6 nmol/mL) in addition to captopril decreased angiotensin I release by 68% (P < .05 versus captopril alone, n = 5 each). We conclude that renin generates angiotensin I in an isolated guinea pig resistance vessel bed. Our study demonstrates that renin rather than nonrenin enzymes is responsible for the major part of vascular angiotensin formation.
Social machines in practice: solutions, stakeholders and scopes

This paper frames social machines as problem solving entities, demonstrating how their ecosystems address multiple stakeholders' problems. It enumerates aspects relevant to the theory and real-world practice of social machines, based on qualitative observations from our experiences building them. We frame evolving issues including: changing functionality, users, data and context; geographical and temporal scope (considering data granularity and visibility); and social scope. The latter is wide-ranging, including motivation, trust, experience, security, governance, control, provenance, privacy and law. We provide suggestions about building flexibility into social machines to allow for change, and defining social machines in terms of problems and stakeholders.
A survey of professional tasks and training needs of teaching assistants in New South Wales mainstream public schools

ABSTRACT Background: A number of studies of the roles and responsibilities of teaching assistants have been conducted in Australian jurisdictions, but much of this research has been small-scale or geographically localised. Method: The present study was the largest survey conducted in Australia to date and involved a survey of 361 teaching assistants in New South Wales public schools, addressing professional tasks performed, and perceived training needs. Results: Consistent with previous research, there was a strong focus on direct student support, often in a one-to-one context. Generally, the assistants in this research did not perceive a great need for training in most areas relevant to their professional duties. Conclusions: Current patterns of use of teaching assistants may be problematic. It is recommended that teaching assistants provide general classroom support and deliver specific programs under teacher direction, rather than ad hoc individual assistance, and not be required to plan instruction.
Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Serum Retinol Binding Protein4, Insulin Resistance and Blood Lipids in Obese Women

Abstract Background Retinol binding protein4 (RBP4) is a type of adipokine which transports vitamin A to serum. RBP4 could be a bridge between obesity and insulin resistance. This study aimed to investigate the effects of aerobic exercises on RBP4 serum’s concentration and metabolic syndrome risk factors in obese women. Methods Twenty obese women with body max index 35.81±3.67Kg/m2, fat percentage 43.98±4.02, and waist to hip ratio 1.03±0.05 were included and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group received aerobic exercises for a period of 12 weeks each three sessions on treadmill workout. The treadmill speed were based on a 60-65 and 80-85 maximal heart rate percentage and duration of 15-20 and 45-50 minutes, at the beginning and the end of exercise, respectively. Body composition, serum glucose, insulin, TG, LDL-C, HDL-C, total cholesterol, and RBP4, were measured in both groups before and after the treatment by ELISA method. Insulin resistance was measured by HOMA-IR. To compare within group differences and between group comparisons t-correlated and t-independent tests were used, respectively. Results After 12 week aerobic exercises; weight, fat percentage, WHR, and BMI in the experimental group was significantly decreased (P<0.05). RBP4, insulin, insulin resistance, TG and HDL-C had significant differences between two groups. The cholesterol level, LDL-C and glucose did not have any significant changes. Conclusion The aerobic exercises can decrease body composition, insulin resistance, TG, and RBP4, so it can be beneficial for obese women’s health, because it.
Aerial tool operation system using quadrotors as Rotating Thrust Generators

We propose a new aerial tool operation system consisting of multiple quadrotors connected to a tool by spherical joints to perform tool operation tasks. We model the system and show that the attitude dynamics of each quadrotor is decoupled from the tool dynamics, so that we can consider the quadrotors as thrusters and control the tool by adjusting the orientation and magnitude of these thrusters. We also show that the 6-DOF tool dynamics could be under-actuated or fully-actuated, depending on the number of quadrotors attached to the tool and the geometric configuration of their attachments. We then design control laws for the tool-tip position/orientation tracking of the (under-actuated) tool system with two quadrotors and the (fully-actuated) tool system with three quadrotors. We use Lyapunov approach to find the desired thrust command for each quadrotor while also taking into account the spherical joint limits in a form of constrained optimization. Simulation and implementation results are performed to support the theory.