Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance evaluation of visual SLAM using several feature extractors

Visual Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) implementations must use feature extraction to reduce the dimensionality of image input, yet no comparison of feature extractors exists in the context of visual SLAM. This paper presents both a method for comparison of visual SLAM performance using several different feature extractors and the first experimental study using this method. Possible evaluation metrics are discussed and consistency testing and accumulated uncertainty are chosen to measure performance. Three feature extractors commonly used for visual SLAM are examined: the Harris corner detector, the Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi tracker, and the Scale-Invariant Feature Transform. All three are found to perform similarly in an indoor test environment, close to or within the limits of measurement. A modest scale change is handled without difficulty. We conclude that feature extractor choice is not significant in terms of visual SLAM performance and other criteria may be used to make the selection.
Myasthenia gravis in children: Long‐term follow‐up

We report observations made on 149 patients with juvenile myasthenia gravis studied from onset of disease for as long as 40 years. Median follow‐up was 17 years; minimum was 4 years. Eight other patients with congenital myasthenia gravis were studied separately. Of the juvenile myasthenic patients, 85 (57%) underwent thymectomy because of disease severity. In juvenile myasthenia gravis, a spontaneous remission rate of 22.4 per 1,000 person‐year was observed, regardless of disease duration. A remission rate of 260 per 1,000 person‐years was seen during the first year after thymectomy, with a rate of 95 per 1,000 person‐years during the next 2 years. Early surgery, presence of bulbar symptoms, absence of ocular signs or generalized symptoms, onset of symptoms between ages 12 and 16, and presence of other immune disease were associated with increased postoperative remission rates. Epilepsy (4 patients) and neoplasia (7 patients) were the most frequent associated nonimmune disorders; rheumatoid arthritis (5 patients) and neoplasia diabetes mellitus (3 patients), asthma (3 patients), and thyroid disease (3 patients) were the most frequent associated immune diseases.
The molecular connection to the FIR-radio continuum correlation in galaxies

We have studied the relationships between the radio continuum (RC) and CO emission for a set of galaxies selected from the BIMA Survey of Nearby Galaxies. We find that the global CO-RC correlation is as tight as the global FIR-RC corre- lation for the 24 galaxies studied. Within 9 galaxies with ∼6 �� CO and RC data available, the CO and RC emission is as tightly correlated as its global value; the radially averaged correlation is nearly linear, extends over four order of magnitude and holds down to the smallest linear resolution of the observations, which is ∼100 pc. We define qCO/RC as the log of the ratio of the CO to RC flux as a way to characterize the CO-RC correlation. Combining 6 �� pixel-by-pixel comparisons across all sources yields an average small-scale correlation of qCO/RC = 1.1 ± 0.28; that is, the spatially resolved correlation has a dispersion that is less than a factor of 2. There are however systematic variations in the CO/RC ratio; the strongest organized structures in qCO/RC tend to be found along spiral arms and on size scales much larger than the resolution of the observations. We do not measure any systematic trend in CO/RC ratio as a function of radius in galaxies. The constancy of the CO/RC ratio stands in contrast to the previously measured decrease in the FIR/RC ratio as a function of radius in galaxies. We suggest that the excellent correlation between the CO, RC and FIR emission in galaxies is a consequence of regulation by hydrostatic pressure; this model links all three emissions without invoking an explicit dependence on a star formation scenario.
A Mesh Routing Protocol using Cluster Label in the ZigBee Network

IEEE 802.15. 4-based ZigBee routing is based on ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV) so that ZigBee states the possibility of building mesh network with data dissemination manner similar to ad hoc network. Although ZigBee focuses on low data rate, routing overhead for route discovery may interfere with network traffic. Since it affects network performances such as end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio in dense networks, it is necessary that routing protocols improving the scalability are designed. In this paper, we present a mesh routing protocol for ZigBee, called ZigBee cluster label (ZiCL). As ZiCL divides the ZigBee network into one or more logical clusters and encourages nodes to share routing information, it reduces numerical potential route discoveries. Therefore, it shows that network performances such end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio are significantly improved, especially in dense network. Simulation results demonstrate that ZiCL enhances scalability
Role of Pituitary Hormones on 17α-Ethinylestradiol-Induced Cholestasis in Rat

Estrogens cause intrahepatic cholestasis in susceptible women during pregnancy, after administration of oral contraceptives, or during postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy. 17α-Ethinylestradiol (EE) is a synthetic estrogen widely used to cause experimental cholestasis in rodents with the aim of examining molecular mechanisms involved in this disease. EE actions on the liver are thought to be mediated by estrogen receptor α (ERα) and pituitary hormones. We tested this hypothesis by analyzing metabolic changes induced by EE in livers from hypophysectomized (HYPOX) and hypothyroid rats. Microarray studies revealed that the number of genes regulated by EE was increased almost 4-fold in HYPOX rat livers compared with intact males. Little overlap was apparent between the effects of EE in intact and HYPOX rats, demonstrating that pituitary hormones play a critical role in the hepatic effects of EE. Consistently, hypophysectomy protects the liver against induction by EE of serum bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase, two markers of cholestasis and hepatotoxicity and modulates the effects of EE on several genes involved in bile acid homeostasis (e.g., FXR, SHP, BSEP, and Cyp8b1). Finally, we demonstrate a novel mechanism of action of EE through binding and negative regulation of glucocorticoid receptor-mediated transcription. In summary, pituitary- and ERα-independent mechanisms contribute to development of EE-induced changes in liver transcriptome. Such mechanisms may be relevant when this model of EE-induced cholestasis is evaluated. The observation that the pharmacological effects of estrogen in liver differ in the absence or presence of the pituitary could be clinically relevant, because different drugs that block actions of pituitary hormones are now available.
Influence of Oct1/Oct2-Deficiency on Cisplatin-Induced Changes in Urinary N-Acetyl-β-D-Glucosaminidase

Purpose: This study aimed to test the influence of functional renal organic cation transporters (OCT2 in humans, Oct1 and Oct2 in mice) on biomarkers of cisplatin nephrotoxicity, such as urinary activity of N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAG). Experimental Design: Temporal cisplatin-induced nephrotoxicity was assessed by histopathology and biomarkers. Cisplatin-mediated NAG changes and survival were determined in wild-type and Oct1/2(-/-) mice. Identification of OCT2 inhibitors was done in transfected 293Flp-In cells, and the NCI60 cell line panel was used to assess contribution of OCT2 to cisplatin uptake in cancer cells. Results: Classical biomarkers such as blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine were not elevated until 72 hours after cisplatin administration and substantial kidney damage had occurred. Oct1/2(-/-) mice had 2.9-fold lower NAG by 4 hours (P < 0.0001) and 2.3-fold increased survival (P = 0.0097). Among 16 agents, cimetidine strongly inhibited uptake of tetraethylammonium bromide (P = 0.0006) and cisplatin (P < 0.0001), but did not have an influence on cisplatin uptake in SK-OV-3 cells, the cancer line with the highest OCT2 mRNA levels. In wild-type mice, cimetidine inhibited cisplatin-induced NAG changes (P = 0.016 versus cisplatin alone) to a degree similar to that seen in Oct1/2(-/-) mice receiving cisplatin (P = 0.91). Cumulative NAG activity of >0.4 absorbance units (AU) was associated with 21-fold increased odds for severe nephrotoxicity (P = 0.0017), which was linked with overall survival (hazard ratio, 8.1; 95% confidence interval, 2.1-31; P = 0.0078). Conclusions: Cimetidine is able to inhibit OCT2-mediated uptake of cisplatin in the kidney, and subsequently ameliorate nephrotoxicity likely with minimal effect on uptake in tumor cells. Clin Cancer Res; 16(16); 4198–206. ©2010 AACR.
Glauber dynamics on trees and hyperbolic graphs

Abstract.We study continuous time Glauber dynamics for random configurations with local constraints (e.g. proper coloring, Ising and Potts models) on finite graphs with n vertices and of bounded degree. We show that the relaxation time (defined as the reciprocal of the spectral gap |λ1−λ2|) for the dynamics on trees and on planar hyperbolic graphs, is polynomial in n. For these hyperbolic graphs, this yields a general polynomial sampling algorithm for random configurations. We then show that for general graphs, if the relaxation time τ2 satisfies τ2=O(1), then the correlation coefficient, and the mutual information, between any local function (which depends only on the configuration in a fixed window) and the boundary conditions, decays exponentially in the distance between the window and the boundary. For the Ising model on a regular tree, this condition is sharp.
Rapid Divergence of Two Classes of Haemophilus ducreyi

ABSTRACT Haemophilus ducreyi, the etiologic agent of chancroid, expresses variants of several key virulence factors. While previous reports suggested that H. ducreyi strains formed two clonal populations, the differences between, and diversity within, these populations were unclear. To assess their variability, we examined sequence diversity at 11 H. ducreyi loci, including virulence and housekeeping genes, augmenting published data sets with PCR-amplified genes to acquire data for at least 10 strains at each locus. While sequences from all 11 loci place strains into two distinct groups, there was very little variation within each group. The difference between alleles of the two groups was variable and large at 3 loci encoding surface-exposed proteins (0.4 < KS < 1.3, where KS is divergence at synonymous sites) but consistently small at genes encoding cytoplasmic or periplasmic proteins (KS < 0.09). The data suggest that the two classes have recently diverged, that recombination has introduced variant alleles into at least 3 distinct loci, and that these alleles have been confined to one of the two classes. In addition, recombination is evident among alleles within, but not between, classes. Rather than clones of the same species, these properties indicate that the two classes may form distinct species.
AA-ICP: Iterative Closest Point with Anderson Acceleration

Iterative Closest Point (ICP) is a widely used method for performing scan-matching and registration. Being simple and robust, this method is still computationally expensive and may be challenging to use in real-time applications with limited resources on mobile platforms. In this paper we propose a novel effective method for acceleration of ICP which does not require substantial modifications to the existing code. This method is based on an idea of Anderson acceleration which is an iterative procedure for finding a fixed point of contractive mapping. The latter is often faster than a standard Picard iteration, usually used in ICP implementations. We show that ICP, being a fixed point problem, can be significantly accelerated by this method enhanced by heuristics to improve overall robustness. We implement proposed approach into Point Cloud Library (PCL) and make it available online. Benchmarking on the real-world data fully supports our claims.
Mucin‐depleted foci are modulated by dietary treatments and show deregulation of proliferative activity in carcinogen‐treated rodents

The correlation between mucin‐depleted foci (MDF) and colon carcinogenesis was studied in F344 rats initiated with 1,2‐dimethylhydrazine and treated with a chemopreventive regimen (polyethylene glycol, PEG) or with a promoting diet (high‐corn oil). High corn oil diet increased MDF, while PEG reduced them. The expression of p27 and p16, inhibitors of cyclin‐dependent kinases, which inhibit the progression of the cell cycle, was studied by immunohistochemistry in MDF and in aberrant crypt foci (ACF) of control rats. In both MDF and ACF, the nuclear expression of p27 was markedly reduced, while p16 was reduced to a lower extent. Mitotic activity was higher in MDF and ACF than in normal mucosa of control rats. MDF were also identified in azoxymethane‐initiated SWR/J mice. These results further confirm that MDF are preneoplastic lesions and could be useful biomarkers of colon carcinogenesis. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Intestinal Helminthiasis in Children of Gurez Valley of Jammu and Kashmir State, India

Introduction: This paper is a part of the helminthological studies carried out on school-going children of the Kashmir Valley and deals with the status of intestinal helminths in the children of Gurez Valley and to assess epidemiological factors associated with the extent of endemic disease so that control measures are adopted. Material and Methods: Stool samples were collected from 352 children from Gurez Valley. The samples were processed using Kato-Katz thick smear technique, and microscopically examined for intestinal parasites. Results: Of the 352 children surveyed, 75.28% had one or more types of intestinal helminthes. Prevalence of Ascaris lumbricoides was highest (71.18%), followed by Trichuris trichiura (26.42%), Enterobius vermicularis (13.92) and Taenia saginata (5.39%). Conditions most frequently associated with infection included the water source, defecation site, personal hygiene, and the extent of maternal education. Conclusion: The study shows a relatively high prevalence of intestinal helminths and suggests an imperative for the implementation of control measures.
D4L: Decentralized dynamic discriminative dictionary learning

We consider discriminative dictionary learning in a distributed online setting, where a team of networked robots aims to jointly learn both a common basis of the feature space and a classifier over this basis from sequentially observed signals. We formulate this problem as a distributed stochastic program with a non-convex objective and present a block variant of the Arrow-Hurwicz saddle point algorithm to solve it. Only neighboring nodes in the communications network need to exchange information, and we penalize the discrepency between the individual feature basis and classifiers using Lagrange multipliers. The application we consider is for a team of robots to collaboratively recognize objects of interest in dynamic environments. As a preliminary performance benchmark, we consider the problem of learning a texture classifier across a network of robots moving around an urban setting where separate training examples are sequentially observed at each robot. Results are shown for both a standard texture dataset and a new dataset from an urban training facility, and we compare the performance of the standard centralized construction to the new distributed algorithm for the case when distinct samples from all classes are seen by the robots. These experiments yield comparable performance between the decentralized and the centralized cases, demonstrating the proposed method's practical utility.
Incidence of Chronic Kidney Disease and Its Risk Factors, Results of Over 10 Year Follow Up in an Iranian Cohort

To examine, the predictors of incident chronic kidney disease (CKD) in a community-based cohort of Middle East population, during a mean follow-up of 9.9 years. In a sample of 3313 non-CKD Iranian adults ≥20 years the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was calculated at baseline and at three year intervals during three consecutive phases. The eGFR <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 was defined as CKD. Multivariate Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the independent variables associated with incident CKD. The incidence density rates of CKD were 285.3 and 132.6 per 10,000 person-year, among women and men, respectively. Female gender per se was associated with higher risk of CKD, compared with males. Among women, age, eGFR, known diabetes, being single or divorced/widowed, hypertension (marginally significant) and current smoking were independent risk factors for CKD; however the intermediate degree of education and family history of diabetes decreased the risk by 40% (P<0.05). Among male subjects, independent predictors of developing CKD included aging and hypertension (with significantly higher risk than in women, P for interaction<0.05), eGFR, new diagnosed diabetes, high normal blood pressure; abdominal obesity decreased the risk of CKD about 30% which was marginally significant. In the Iranian population,>2% of individuals develops CKD each year. Our findings confirmed that sex- specific risk predictors should be considered in primary prevention for incident CKD.
RhoE is required for contact inhibition and negatively regulates tumor initiation and progression

RhoE is a small GTPase involved in the regulation of actin cytoskeleton dynamics, cell cycle and apoptosis. The role of RhoE in cancer is currently controversial, with reports of both oncogenic and tumor-suppressive functions for RhoE. Using RhoE-deficient mice, we show here that the absence of RhoE blunts contact-inhibition of growth by inhibiting p27Kip1 nuclear translocation and cooperates in oncogenic transformation of mouse primary fibroblasts. Heterozygous RhoE+/gt mice are more susceptible to chemically induced skin tumors and RhoE knock-down results in increased metastatic potential of cancer cells. These results indicate that RhoE plays a role in suppressing tumor initiation and progression.
Cost-efficient radio resource allocation in hybrid energy cellular networks

Recently, renewable energy (RE) has been introduced as a promising solution to reduce the "non-green" energy consumption of cellular networks. In this paper, we study the electric bill reduction of a cellular network powered by both RE sources and the power grid in a variable electricity price environment. We decompose the problem of electric bill reduction into three sub-problems: RE allocation, energy consumption minimization and radio resource allocation (RRA). In this context, we propose a new algorithm that adjusts the network configuration to increase the utilization of RE. Results show the efficiency of our proposed algorithm, where it achieves 30% reduction of energy consumption and outperforms a benchmark algorithm with a gain of up to 20 percentage points in terms of electric bill reduction.
Matching Twigs in Probabilistic XML

Evaluation of twig queries over probabilistic XML is investigated. Projection is allowed and, in particular, a query may be Boolean. It is shown that for a well-known model of probabilistic XML, the evaluation of twigs with projection is tractable under data complexity (whereas in other probabilistic data models, projection is intractable). Under query-and-data complexity, the problem becomes intractable even without projection (and for rather simple twigs and data). In earlier work on probabilistic XML, answers are always complete. However, there is often a need to produce partial answers because XML data may have missing sub-elements and, furthermore, complete answers may be deemed irrelevant if their probabilities are too low. It is shown how to define a semantics that provides partial answers that are maximal with respect to a probability threshold, which is specified by the user. For this semantics, it is shown how to efficiently evaluate twigs, even under query-and-data complexity if there is no projection.
Performance of TCP on wireless fading links with memory

In this paper, the bulk throughput performance of TCP NewReno over wireless fading links having memory is studied. Like TCP Tahoe, the NewReno version of TCP implements a fast retransmit procedure, but it uses a different congestion window adaptation algorithm. In this study, we show that, for the default parameters of the BSD implementation of TCP over a 1.5 Mbps wireless link having a very small bandwidth-delay product, and as long as sufficiently large advertised window sizes are used, the burstiness in packet errors caused by slow multipath fading (experienced by slow moving users) significantly benefits NewReno compared to i.i. d. packet errors (experienced at vehicular user speeds). We further show that, in such slow fading conditions, NewReno performs no better than Tahoe, mainly due to the high degree of correlation in the fading process.
Visuomotor Correction is a Robust Contributor to Force Variability During Index Finger Abduction by Older Adults

We examined aging-related differences in the contribution of visuomotor correction to force fluctuations during index finger abduction via the analysis of two datasets from similar subjects. Study (1) Young (N = 27, 23 ± 8 years) and older adults (N = 14, 72 ± 9 years) underwent assessment of maximum voluntary contraction force (MVC) and force steadiness during constant-force (CF) index finger abduction (2.5, 30, 65% MVC). For each trial, visual feedback of the force (VIS) was provided for 8–10 s and removed for 8–10 s (NOVIS). Visual gain of the force feedback at 2.5% MVC was high; 12- and 26-fold greater than the 30 and 65% MVC targets. Mean force, standard deviation (SD) of force, and coefficient of variation (CV) of force was calculated for detrended (<0.5 Hz drift removed) VIS and NOVIS data segments. Study (2) A similar group of 14 older adults performed discrete, randomly-ordered VIS or NOVIS trials at low target forces (1–3% MVC) and high visual gain. Study (1) For young adults the CV of force was similar between VIS and NOVIS for the 2.5% (4.8 vs. 4.3%), 30% (3.2 vs. 3.2%) and 65% (3.5 vs. 4.2%) target forces. In contrast, for older adults the CV of force was greater for VIS than NOVIS for 2.5% MVC (6.6 vs. 4.2%, p < 0.001), but not for the 30% (2.4 vs. 2.4%) and 65% (3.1 vs. 3.3%) target forces. At 2.5% MVC, the increase in CV of force for VIS compared with NOVIS was significantly greater (age × visual condition p = 0.008) for older than young adults. Study (2) Similarly, for older adults performing discrete, randomly ordered trials the CV of force was greater for VIS than NOVIS (6.04 vs. 3.81%, p = 0.01). When visual force feedback was a dominant source of information at low forces, normalized force variability was ~58% greater for older adults, but only 11% greater for young adults. The significant effect of visual feedback for older adults was not dependent on the order of presentation of visual conditions. The results indicate that impaired processing of visuomotor information underlies the greater motor variability observed in older adults during lab-based isometric contractions of a hand muscle.