Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Connectivity Based Human Body Modeling from Monocular Camera

In this paper, we develop a system for automated human body tracking and modeling based on a monocular camera. In this system, ten body parts including head, torso, arms and legs are extracted to build a 2D human body model. One way to decompose human silhouette into different parts is to generate cuts between the negative minimum curvature (NMC) points. However, due to the self-occlusion problem and left-right ambiguity, each individual body part cannot be successfully identified in every frame. Therefore, in addition to utilizing the NMC points, we design a forward and backward tracking mechanism to identify the location of head in each frame. The torso angle and size are determined by integrating multiple-frame information with the modified solution of Poisson equation. Hands and feet can then be identified correctly based on a modified star skeleton approach along with the nearest-neighbor tracking mechanism. The rest of joint points can also be located by making use of the notion “connectivity”. In the experiments, we analyze the performance of the proposed human body modeling mechanism. We also demonstrate a behavior analysis application by employing the proposed method. The experiment results verify the robustness of the proposed approach and the feasibility of the employing the proposed approach to the action recognition application.
Chromosomal Imbalances in Patients with Congenital Cardiac Defects: A Meta-analysis Reveals Novel Potential Critical Regions Involved in Heart Development.

OBJECTIVE Congenital cardiac defects represent the most common group of birth defects, affecting an estimated six per 1000 births. Genetic characterization of patients and families with cardiac defects has identified a number of genes required for heart development. Yet, despite the rapid pace of these advances, mutations affecting known genes still account for only a small fraction of congenital heart defects suggesting that many more genes and developmental mechanisms remain to be identified. DESIGN In this study, we reviewed 1694 described cases of patients with cardiac defects who were determined to have a significant chromosomal imbalance (a deletion or duplication). The cases were collected from publicly available databases (DECIPHER, ISCA, and CHDWiki) and from recent publications. An additional 68 nonredundant cases were included from the University of Michigan. Cases with multiple chromosomal or whole chromosome defects (trisomy 13, 18, 21) were excluded, and cases with overlapping deletions and/or insertions were grouped to identify regions potentially involved in heart development. RESULTS Seventy-nine chromosomal regions were identified in which 5 or more patients had overlapping imbalances. Regions of overlap were used to determine minimal critical domains most likely to contain genes or regulatory elements involved in heart development. This approach was used to refine the critical regions responsible for cardiac defects associated with chromosomal imbalances involving 1q24.2, 2q31.1, 15q26.3, and 22q11.2. CONCLUSIONS The pattern of chromosomal imbalances in patients with congenital cardiac defects suggests that many loci may be involved in normal heart development, some with very strong and direct effects and others with less direct effects. Chromosomal duplication/deletion mapping will provide an important roadmap for genome-wide sequencing and genetic mapping strategies to identify novel genes critical for heart development.
The Association between Phthalates in Dust and Allergic Diseases among Bulgarian Children

Background Recent studies have identified associations between the concentration of phthalates in indoor dust and allergic symptoms in the airways, nose, and skin. Objectives Our goal was to investigate the associations between allergic symptoms in children and the concentration of phthalate esters in settled dust collected from children’s homes in Sofia and Burgas, Bulgaria. Methods Dust samples from the child’s bedroom were collected. A total of 102 children (2–7 years of age) had symptoms of wheezing, rhinitis, and/or eczema in preceding 12 months (cases), and 82 were nonsymptomatic (controls). The dust samples were analyzed for their content of dimethyl phthalate (DMP), diethyl phthalate (DEP), di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP), butyl benzyl phthalate (BBzP), di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), and di-n-octyl phthalate (DnOP). Results A higher concentration of DEHP was found in homes of case children than in those of controls (1.24 vs. 0.86 mg/g dust). The concentration of DEHP was significantly associated with wheezing in the preceding 12 months (p = 0.035) as reported by parents. We found a dose–response relationship between DEHP concentration and case status and between DEHP concentration and wheezing in the preceding 12 months. Conclusions This study shows an association between concentration of DEHP in indoor dust and wheezing among preschool children in Bulgaria.
Power control analysis for variable speed pumped storage with full-size converter

Variable speed pumped storage (VSPS) with full-size converter can be an effective measure for automatic frequency control and balancing renewable generation power fluctuation. This paper mainly studies the modeling and control strategies of both the machine-side and grid-side converter, basing on the structure of VSPS with three-level full-size converter. The characteristics of power regulation are analyzed for both generator mode and motor mode. On a basis of the given reference power generated by the need of grid operation, the control strategy of active power and reactive power is described. Finally, the authors illustrate the effect of the VSPS with full-size system for the network power control with renewable generation with MATLAB/SIMULINK.
Produced Flowback Salts vs. Induced-Fracture Interface: A Field and Laboratory Study

The water recovered from hydraulic-fracturing operations (i.e., flowback water) is highly saline, and can be analyzed for reservoir characterization. Past studies measured ion-concentration data during imbibition experiments to explain the production of saline flowback water. However, the reported laboratory data of ion concentration are approximately three orders of magnitude lower than those reported in the field. It has been hypothesized that the significant surface area created by hydraulic-fracturing operations is one of the primary reasons for the highly saline flowback water. In this study, we investigate shale/water interactions by measuring the mass of total ion produced (TIP) during water-imbibition experiments. We conduct two sets of imbibition experiments at low-temperature/low-pressure (LT/LP) and high-temperature and high-pressure (HT/HP) conditions. We study the effects of rock surface area (As), temperature, and pressure on TIP during imbibition experiments. Laboratory results indicate that pressure does not have a significant effect on TIP, whereas increasing As and temperature both increase TIP. We use the flowback-chemical data and the laboratory data of ion concentration to estimate the fracture surface area (Af) for two wells completed in the Horn River Basin (HRB), Canada. For both wells, the estimated Af values from LT/LP and HT/HP test results have similar orders of magnitude (approximately 5.0×106 m2) compared with those calculated from production and flowback rate-transient analysis (RTA) (approximately 106 m2). The proposed scaleup procedure can be used as an alternative approach for a quick estimation of Af using early-flowback chemical data.
Accessibility of the [14C]Benzylpenicillin Binding Proteins in Membranes of Sporulating Bacilli

Triton X-100 treatment or freeze-thawing damages the membranes of sporulating or vegetative cells as seen by protein leakage from cells. A 40% increase in the specific [14C]benzylpenicillin-binding capacity of detergent-treated or frozen sporulating cells was observed. Neither freezing nor Triton X-100 treatment of vegetative cells produced a detectable effect on their [14C]benzylpenicillin-binding capacity. These data indicate the presence of penicillin-binding sites in intact sporulating bacilli not accessible to penicillin in routine binding assays. The chemical specificity of [14C]benzylpenicillin binding to detergent-treated sporulating cells is similar to that observed with untreated vegetative or sporulating cells.
High Speed and Memory Efficient Parallel Bit Plane Coding Architecture for JPEG2000

Bit plane coding (BPC) constitutes an important component of the EBCOT Tier-1 block of JPEG2000 encoder. This paper proposes an efficient parallel hardware structure to implement the computation intensive word level bit plane coding algorithm. The proposed architecture computes the context and decision for all bit planes in parallel. The three coding passes are merged for all bit planes in a scan while the samples are coded in sequence. The proposed parallel BPC architecture offers a speed of 31 over the serial BPC architecture. Its memory requirement is independent of the size of the code block. The speed of the proposed architecture has been shown to be significantly faster than an architecture which has been recently reported in literature. The system architecture has been functionally verified by ModelSim and synthesized by TSMC 0.25 mum vtvt CMOS cell libraries.
Efficiently Decoding Reed–Muller Codes From Random Errors

Reed–Muller (RM) codes encode an <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-variate polynomial of degree at most <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r$ </tex-math></inline-formula> by evaluating it on all points in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\{0,1\}^{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. We denote this code by <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RM(r,m)$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The minimum distance of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RM(r,m)$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$2^{m-r}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and so it cannot correct more than half that number of errors in the worst case. For random errors one may hope for a better result. In this paper we give an efficient algorithm (in the block length <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n=2^{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) for decoding random errors in RM codes far beyond the minimum distance. Specifically, for low-rate codes (of degree <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r=o(\sqrt {m})$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), we can correct a random set of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(1/2-o(1))n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> errors with high probability. For high rate codes (of degree <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m-r$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r=o(\sqrt {m/\log m})$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), we can correct roughly <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$m^{r/2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> errors. More generally, for any integer <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, our algorithm can correct any error pattern in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RM(m-(2r+2),m)$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, for which the same erasure pattern can be corrected in <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RM(m-(r+1),m)$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The results above are obtained by applying recent results of Abbe, Shpilka, and Wigderson (STOC, 2015) and Kudekar <italic>et al.</italic> (STOC, 2016) regarding the ability of RM codes to correct random erasures. The algorithm is based on solving a carefully defined set of linear equations and thus it is significantly different than other algorithms for decoding RM codes that are based on the recursive structure of the code. It can be seen as a more explicit proof of a result of Abbe <italic>et al.</italic> that shows a reduction from correcting erasures to correcting errors, and it also bares some similarities with the error-locating pair method of Pellikaan, Duursma, and Kötter that generalizes the Berlekamp–Welch algorithm for decoding Reed–Solomon codes.
Climate Change Sentiment on Twitter: An Unsolicited Public Opinion Poll

The consequences of anthropogenic climate change are extensively debated through scientific papers, newspaper articles, and blogs. Newspaper articles may lack accuracy, while the severity of findings in scientific papers may be too opaque for the public to understand. Social media, however, is a forum where individuals of diverse backgrounds can share their thoughts and opinions. As consumption shifts from old media to new, Twitter has become a valuable resource for analyzing current events and headline news. In this research, we analyze tweets containing the word “climate” collected between September 2008 and July 2014. Through use of a previously developed sentiment measurement tool called the Hedonometer, we determine how collective sentiment varies in response to climate change news, events, and natural disasters. We find that natural disasters, climate bills, and oil-drilling can contribute to a decrease in happiness while climate rallies, a book release, and a green ideas contest can contribute to an increase in happiness. Words uncovered by our analysis suggest that responses to climate change news are predominately from climate change activists rather than climate change deniers, indicating that Twitter is a valuable resource for the spread of climate change awareness.
On the Analytic Wavelet Transform

An exact and general expression for the analytic wavelet transform of a real-valued signal is constructed, resolving the time-dependent effects of nonnegligible amplitude and frequency modulation. The analytic signal is first locally represented as a modulated oscillation, demodulated by its own instantaneous frequency, and then Taylor-expanded at each point in time. The terms in this expansion, called the instantaneous modulation functions, are time-varying functions which quantify, at increasingly higher orders, the local departures of the signal from a uniform sinusoidal oscillation. Closed-form expressions for these functions are found in terms of Bell polynomials and derivatives of the signal's instantaneous frequency and bandwidth. The analytic wavelet transform is shown to depend upon the interaction between the signal's instantaneous modulation functions and frequency-domain derivatives of the wavelet, inducing a hierarchy of departures of the transform away from a perfect representation of the signal. The form of these deviation terms suggests a set of conditions for matching the wavelet properties to suit the variability of the signal, in which case our expressions simplify considerably. One may then quantify the time-varying bias associated with signal estimation via wavelet ridge analysis, and choose wavelets to minimize this bias.
Consequences of Loss of Vph1 Protein-containing Vacuolar ATPases (V-ATPases) for Overall Cellular pH Homeostasis*

In yeast cells, subunit a of the vacuolar proton pump (V-ATPase) is encoded by two organelle-specific isoforms, VPH1 and STV1. V-ATPases containing Vph1 and Stv1 localize predominantly to the vacuole and the Golgi apparatus/endosomes, respectively. Ratiometric measurements of vacuolar pH confirm that loss of STV1 has little effect on vacuolar pH. Loss of VPH1 results in vacuolar alkalinization that is even more rapid and pronounced than in vma mutants, which lack all V-ATPase activity. Cytosolic pH responses to glucose addition in the vph1Δ mutant are similar to those in vma mutants. The extended cytosolic acidification in these mutants arises from reduced activity of the plasma membrane proton pump, Pma1p. Pma1p is mislocalized in vma mutants but remains at the plasma membrane in both vph1Δ and stv1Δ mutants, suggesting multiple mechanisms for limiting Pma1 activity when organelle acidification is compromised. pH measurements in early prevacuolar compartments via a pHluorin fusion to the Golgi protein Gef1 demonstrate that pH responses of these compartments parallel cytosolic pH changes. Surprisingly, these compartments remain acidic even in the absence of V-ATPase function, possibly as a result of cytosolic acidification. These results emphasize that loss of a single subunit isoform may have effects far beyond the organelle where it resides.
Characterization of the Vibrio cholerae vceCAB Multiple-Drug Resistance Efflux Operon in Escherichia coli

ABSTRACT Herein, we identify vceC as a component of a vceCAB operon, which codes for the Vibrio cholerae VceAB multiple-drug resistance (MDR) efflux pump, and vceR, which codes for a transcriptional autoregulatory protein that negatively regulates the expression of the vceCAB operon and is modulated by some of the substrates of this MDR efflux pump.
CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS AS POTENTIAL MARKERS FOR MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT AND ALZHEIMER ’ S DISEASE Psychiatria Danubina

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an early stage of cognitive decline that has a significant risk of converting to dementia. Cardiovascular pathology appears to have a major impact in cognitive decline, and it is clear that early identification and correction of cardiovascular morbidity could have a major impact on cognitive functioning. Subjects and methods: Our study was conducted in order to identify some cardiovascular risk factors among patients with cognitive decline (MCI or Alzheimer disease-AD) and to find if there is any correlation with the degree of cognitive decline. We evaluated the body mass index, total cholesterol, hypertension, history of smoking, alcohol consumption and diabetes mellitus in patients with MCI and AD, compared with an age-matched control group. Results: Regarding the body mass index, we observed a progressive decrease in patients with MCI and AD, in comparison with the control group. Similar aspects were also observed in the case of cholesterol levels, only that post hoc analysis revealed no significantly statistical differences between MCI and AD groups. The systolic blood pressure was increased in the patients with MCI and AD. Also, as in the case of cholesterol levels, post hoc analysis revealed no significantly statistical differences between MCI and AD groups. Pearson’s correlation showed significant connections between the cardiovascular risk factors and the results of the cognitive evaluation. Conclusions: Our results constitute additional evidence that cardiovascular risk factors are involved in cognitive regression. This finding could have an important impact on the management of dementia.
The SCFSlimb E3 ligase complex regulates asymmetric division to inhibit neuroblast overgrowth

Drosophila larval brain neuroblasts divide asymmetrically to balance between self‐renewal and differentiation. Here, we demonstrate that the SCFSlimb E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, which is composed of Cul1, SkpA, Roc1a and the F‐box protein Supernumerary limbs (Slimb), inhibits ectopic neuroblast formation and regulates asymmetric division of neuroblasts. Hyperactivation of Akt leads to similar neuroblast overgrowth and defects in asymmetric division. Slimb associates with Akt in a protein complex, and SCFSlimb acts through SAK and Akt to inhibit neuroblast overgrowth. Moreover, Beta‐transducin repeat containing, the human ortholog of Slimb, is frequently deleted in highly aggressive gliomas, suggesting a conserved tumor suppressor‐like function.
Using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale to screen for dementia in Chinese patients with Parkinson's Disease

Background Dementia is one of the most distressing and burdensome health problems associated with Parkinson's Disease (PD). The Montreal Cognitive Assessment scale (MoCA) is widely used to screen for dementia in PD patients, but the appropriate diagnostic cutoff score when used with Chinese PD patients is not known. Aim Determine a diagnostic cutoff value of the Chinese version of the MoCA (MoCA-C) for Chinese PD patients and describe the characteristics of PD patients screened positive for dementia using the MoCA-C. Methods The presence of dementia in 616 PD patients and 85 community controls was determined using the Movement Disorder Society Task Force criteria (the gold standard diagnosis). We administered the MoCA-C to these individuals and used a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve to identify the cutoff score of the MoCA-C that most efficiently identified dementia in both PD patients and community controls. Demographic and clinical characteristics of PD patients who were screened positive or negative for dementia using the MoCA-C were compared. Results A MoCA-C score of 23 was the optimal cutoff score for dementia in both patients and controls. Using this cutoff score, the sensitivity and specificity of the MoCA-C in PD patients were 0.70 and 0.77, respectively; the positive and negative predictive values were 0.59 and 0.85, respectively; and the overall concordance (kappa [95% confidence interval]) was 0.45 (0.39-0.52). The corresponding kappa value (concordance) in community controls was only 0.25 (0.05-0.45). Compared to PD patients who screened negative for dementia, those who screened positive for dementia were significantly impaired in all cognitive domains, including visuospatial and executive functioning, naming, attention, language, abstraction, delayed recall and orientation (all p<0.001). Among the PD patients, screening positive for dementia was independently associated with old age, low educational attainment, female gender and more severe motor impairment. Conclusions The commonly recommended cutoff screening score for dementia of 26 on the MoCA it too high for PD patients in China; a cutoff score of 23 is more appropriate. Potential risk factors for dementia in Chinese PD patients include older age, less education, and more severe motor symptoms of PD.
A psychological study of a 106-year-old-man: a contribution to dynamic concepts of aging and dementia.

1. A case of a superannuated man, free of dementia despite his advanced age, is presented to illustrate that there is not necessarily a direct relationship between age and dementia. This man, on detailed study, was found to have high intellectual endowment and good emotional resources. 2. Dynamic concepts of aging are discussed and the speculation presented that strong ego resources may play a role in resisting the onset of dementia in advancing age.