Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Recognition of partially occluded objects through fuzzy invariant indexing

We present an approach to the recognition of partially occluded objects employing fuzzy invariant values and fuzzy if-then-rules, called fuzzy invariant indexing (FII). Compared with traditional invariant indexing, the fuzzy method proposed here offers the following advantages: firstly, as shown in the experimental results of the paper the recognition quality may be considerably increased in the case of similar objects; secondly, the ability is provided to control the recognition process during the hypothesis evaluation stage, and thirdly, a FII-based recognition system can be simply extended in a closed form, i.e. new attributes may be added to the fuzzy classification rules resulting in only minor changes to the original structure of the system. We demonstrate the recognition performance of the new FII-technique for partially occluded (quasi-)planar objects in real image scenes taken from different camera viewpoints and conclude the paper with a discussion of the potential of the method and directions of possible future research.
Plasma soluble leptin receptor levels are associated with pancreatic β‐cell dysfunction in patients with type 2 diabetes

A soluble form of the leptin receptor (soluble Ob‐R) in the circulation regulates leptin's bioactivity, and is inversely associated with body adiposity and circulating leptin levels. However, no study has examined the clinical impact of soluble Ob‐R on glucose metabolism in diabetes. The present study aimed to investigate the association of plasma soluble Ob‐R levels with insulin resistance and pancreatic β‐cell function in patients with type 2 diabetes.
A stepped care strategy using buprenorphine and methadone versus conventional methadone maintenance in heroin dependence: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE Both methadone and buprenorphine are effective therapy for heroin dependence. Efficacy is best documented for methadone maintenance therapy, but safety concerns limit its use. Buprenorphine offers lower overdose risk and improved access, but efficacy may be lower. The authors compared adaptive, buprenorphine-based stepped care to optimal methadone maintenance treatment. METHOD This randomized controlled trial was undertaken 2004-2006. It consisted of a 24-day uniform double-blind induction phase followed by single-blind flexible dosing based on structured clinical criteria, for a total of 6 months. Ninety-six self-referred subjects with heroin dependence were randomly assigned to methadone or to stepped treatment initiated with buprenorphine/naloxone and escalated to methadone if needed. All subjects received intensive behavioral treatment. Primary outcome was retention in treatment. Secondary outcomes were completer analyses of problem severity (Addiction Severity Index) and proportion of urine samples free of illicit drugs. RESULTS Overall, 6-month retention was 78%. Stepped treatment and methadone maintenance therapy outcomes were virtually identical. Among completers of stepped therapy, 46% remained on buprenorphine/naloxone. Proportion of urine samples free of illicit opiates increased over time and ultimately reached approximately 80% in both arms. Problem severity decreased significantly and uniformly in both arms. CONCLUSIONS A stepped treatment of heroin dependence as described here appears equally efficacious compared to optimally delivered methadone maintenance therapy. Together with prior data on the advantageous safety of buprenorphine, this suggests that broad implementation of strategies using buprenorphine as first-line treatment should be considered.
Optical Biosensors Based on Plasmonic Nanostructures: A Review

This paper reviews fundamentals of optical affinity biosensors based on plasmonic nanostructures and discusses recent advances in the development of this technology, including plasmonic nanostructures and surface plasmon phenomena, advances in sensor instrumentation, and functional coatings. Examples of applications for both the detection of chemical and biological substances as well as the investigation of biomolecular interactions are also given.
Modeling and Simulation of Genetic Regulatory Systems: A Literature Review

In order to understand the functioning of organisms on the molecular level, we need to know which genes are expressed, when and where in the organism, and to which extent. The regulation of gene expression is achieved through genetic regulatory systems structured by networks of interactions between DNA, RNA, proteins, and small molecules. As most genetic regulatory networks of interest involve many components connected through interlocking positive and negative feedback loops, an intuitive understanding of their dynamics is hard to obtain. As a consequence, formal methods and computer tools for the modeling and simulation of genetic regulatory networks will be indispensable. This paper reviews formalisms that have been employed in mathematical biology and bioinformatics to describe genetic regulatory systems, in particular directed graphs, Bayesian networks, Boolean networks and their generalizations, ordinary and partial differential equations, qualitative differential equations, stochastic equations, an.
P-wave and QT dispersion in patients with conversion disorder

Objective The aim of this study was to investigate QT dispersion (QTd), which is the noninvasive marker of ventricular arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death, and P-wave dispersion, which is the noninvasive marker of atrial arrhythmia, in patients with conversion disorder (CD). Patients and methods A total of 60 patients with no known organic disease who were admitted to outpatient emergency clinic and were diagnosed with CD after psychiatric consultation were included in this study along with 60 healthy control subjects. Beck Anxiety Inventory and Beck Depression Scale were administered to patients and 12-lead electrocardiogram measurements were obtained. Pd and QTd were calculated by a single blinded cardiologist. Results There was no statistically significant difference in terms of age, sex, education level, socioeconomic status, weight, height, and body mass index between CD patients and controls. Beck Anxiety Inventory scores (25.2±10.8 and 3.8±3.2, respectively, P<0.001) and Beck Depression Scale scores (11.24±6.15 and 6.58±5.69, respectively, P<0.01) were significantly higher in CD patients. P-wave dispersion measurements did not show any significant differences between conversion patients and control group (46±5.7 vs 44±5.5, respectively, P=0.156). Regarding QTc and QTd, there was a statistically significant increase in all intervals in conversion patients (416±10 vs 398±12, P<0.001, and 47±4.8 vs 20±6.1, P<0.001, respectively). Conclusion A similar relation to that in literature between QTd and anxiety and somatoform disorders was also observed in CD patients. QTc and QTd were significantly increased compared to the control group in patients with CD. These results suggest a possibility of increased risk of ventricular arrhythmia resulting from QTd in CD patients. Larger samples are needed to evaluate the clinical course and prognosis in terms of arrhythmia risk in CD patients.
The case for non-Gaussianity on cluster scales

We address whether possible scale-dependent deviations from Gaussianity in the primordial density field that are consistent with the cosmic microwave background observations could explain the apparent excess of early cluster formation at high redshift. Using two phenomenological non-Gaussian models we find that at fixed normalization to the observed local abundance of massive clusters, the protoclusters observed at z ∼ 4 are significantly more likely to develop in strongly non-Gaussian models than in the Gaussian paradigm. We compute the relative z < 1 evolution of X-ray cluster counts in the non-Gaussian case with respect to the Gaussian expectation, and the relative excess contribution to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum due to the integrated thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) effect. We find that both the observed hints of an unexpectedly slow evolution in the X-ray counts and the excess power at high l that may have been observed by CMB interferometers can also be reproduced in our non-Gaussian simulations.
Xenoestrogens released from lacquer coatings in food cans.

We present data showing that some foods preserved in lacquer-coated cans and the liquid in them may acquire estrogenic activity. Hormonal activity was measured using the E-screen bioassay. The biological activity of vegetables packed in cans was a result of plastic monomers used in manufacturing the containers. The plastic monomer bisphenol-A, identified by mass spectrometry, was found as a contaminant not only in the liquid of the preserved vegetables but also in water autoclaved in the cans. The amount of bisphenol-A in the extracts accounted for all the hormonal activity measured. Although the presence of other xenoestrogens cannot be ruled out, it is apparent that all estrogenic activity in these cans was due to bisphenol-A leached from the lacquer coating. The use of plastic in food-packaging materials may require closer scrutiny to determine whether epoxy resins and polycarbonates contribute to human exposure to xenoestrogens. ImagesFigure 1.Figure 2. AFigure 2. BFigure 3. AFigure 3. BFigure 4.Figure 5. AFigure 5. BFigure 6.
Codes in context: How states, markets, and civil society shape adherence to global labor standards: Codes in context

Transnational business regulation is increasingly implemented through private voluntary programs—like certification regimes and codes of conduct—that diffuse global standards. But little is known about the conditions under which companies adhere to these standards. We conduct one of the first large-scale comparative studies to determine which international, domestic, civil society, and market institutions promote supply chain factories’ adherence to the global labor standards embodied in codes of conduct imposed by multinational buyers. We find that suppliers are more likely to adhere when they are embedded in states that participate actively in the ILO treaty regime and that have stringent domestic labor law and high levels of press freedom. We further demonstrate that suppliers perform better when they serve buyers located in countries where consumers are wealthy and socially conscious. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of overlapping state, civil society, and market governance regimes to meaningful transnational regulation.
Laparoscopic Hysterectomy

The first laparoscopic hysterectomy using only laparoscopic techniques was performed around 10 years ago by Harry Reich. Such total laparoscopic hysterectomy (TLH) approach is surgically elegant but technically difficult. A number of alternative laparoscopic techniques to perform all or some of the hysterectomy have since been introduced to simplify the surgical technique but retain the major advantages of the approach, which is to avoid the use of a large laparotomy wound. The advantages of this approach have been well documented, but so far the laparoscopic route has been little used by the general gynecologic surgical community. Although it has been possible in some units to reduce the laparotomy rate for hysterectomy to 10%, there is evidence from the United Kingdom and the United States that still more than 70% of all hysterectomies are still being performed by the laparotomy approach. This chapter seeks to explain why this should be so and how appropriate training and acquisition of the necessary skills in operative laparoscopy and vaginal surgery can be achieved to ensure that all patients who may benefit by avoiding a laparotomy incision are given the opportunity to do so. Copyright © 1999 by W B. Saunders Company
Ablation of hippocampal neurogenesis impairs contextual fear conditioning and synaptic plasticity in the dentate gyrus

Although hippocampal neurogenesis has been described in many adult mammals, the functional impact of this process on physiology and behavior remains unclear. In the present study, we used two independent methods to ablate hippocampal neurogenesis and found that each procedure caused a limited behavioral deficit and a loss of synaptic plasticity within the dentate gyrus. Specifically, focal X irradiation of the hippocampus or genetic ablation of glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive neural progenitor cells impaired contextual fear conditioning but not cued conditioning. Hippocampal-dependent spatial learning tasks such as the Morris water maze and Y maze were unaffected. These findings show that adult-born neurons make a distinct contribution to some but not all hippocampal functions. In a parallel set of experiments, we show that long-term potentiation elicited in the dentate gyrus in the absence of GABA blockers requires the presence of new neurons, as it is eliminated by each of our ablation procedures. These data show that new hippocampal neurons can be preferentially recruited over mature granule cells in vitro and may provide a framework for how this small cell population can influence behavior.
Efficient Service Allocation in Hardware Using Credit-Controlled Static-Priority Arbitration

Resources in contemporary systems-on-chip (SoC) are shared between applications to reduce cost. Access to shared resources is provided by arbiters that require a small hardware implementation and must run at high speed. To manage heavily loaded resources, such as memory channels, it is also important that the arbiter minimizes over allocation. A Credit-Controlled Static-Priority (CCSP) arbiter comprised of a rate regulator and a static-priority scheduler has been proposed for scheduling access to SoC resources. The proposed rate regulator, however, is not straight-forward to implement in hardware, and assumes that service is allocated with infinite precision. In this paper, we introduce a fast and small hardware implementation of the CCSP rate regulator and formally prove its correctness. We also show an efficient way of representing the allocated service in hardware with finite precision. Based on this representation, we define and evaluate two allocation strategies, and derive tight bounds on their respective over allocations. We show that increasing the precision of the implementation results in an exponential reduction in maximum over allocation at the cost of a linear increase in area. We demonstrate that the allocation strategy has a large impact on the allocation success rate for use cases with high load. Finally, we compare CCSP to traditional frame-based approaches and conclude that having a fine allocation granularity that is decoupled from latency is essential to manage highly loaded resources in real-time systems.
Pap smear-A tool for detection of cervical intraepithelial lesions in health check up schemes : A study of 36 , 740 cases

BACKGROUND: Context: Cervical Pap smear screening is a tool for early detection of premalignant conditions in normal healthy individuals attending health check up schemes. Aims: To reclassify the available data of Pap smears of 13 years into various categories according to The Bethesda System and find out the incidence in healthy individuals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 36740 women who came for routine health check up were subjected to Pap smear examination. Slides were stained and reviewed by Pathologists and then reclassified and rearranged. RESULTS: In our study intraepithelial lesion were found to be 1.3%, ASCUS 0.11%, LSIL 0.83%, HSIL 0.31%, SCC 0.05%, AGUS 0.02%. CONCLUSION: Early screening of premalignant cervical disease in women through cytology can considerably reduce morbidity and mortality, in our developing world.
Diversity of Neural Precursor Cell Types in the Prenatal Macaque Cerebral Cortex Exists Largely within the Astroglial Cell Lineage

The germinal zones of the embryonic macaque neocortex comprise the ventricular zone (VZ) and the subventricular zone (SVZ). The mammalian SVZ is subdivided into an inner SVZ and an outer SVZ, with the outer SVZ being particularly large in primates. The existence of distinct precursor cell types in the neocortical proliferative zones was inferred over 100 years ago and recent evidence supports this concept. Precursor cells exhibiting diverse morphologies, patterns of transcription factor expression, and fate potential have been identified in the neocortical proliferative zones. Neurogenic precursor cells are thought to exhibit characteristics of glial cells, but the existence of neurogenic precursor cells that do not share glial specific properties has also been proposed. Therefore, one question that remains is whether neural precursor cells in the prenatal neocortex belong within the astroglial cell class, as they do in neurogenic regions of the adult neocortex, or instead include a diverse collection of precursor cells belonging to distinct cell classes. We examined the expression of astroglial markers by mitotic precursor cells in the telencephalon of prenatal macaque and human. We show that in the dorsal neocortex all mitotic cells at the surface of the ventricle, and all Pax6+ and Tbr2+ mitotic cells in the proliferative zones, express the astroglial marker GFAP. The majority of mitotic cells undergoing division away from the ventricle express GFAP, and many of the GFAP-negative mitoses express markers of cells derived from the ventral telencephalon or extracortical sites. In contrast, a markedly lower proportion of precursor cells express GFAP in the ganglionic eminence. In conclusion, we propose that the heterogeneity of neural precursor cells in the dorsal cerebral cortex develops within the GFAP+ astroglial cell class.
Noniterative Joint Frequency Offset and Channel Estimation for MIMO OFDM Systems Using Cascaded Orthogonal Pilots

In this paper, we reconsider the issues of frequency offset and channel estimation in multiple-input-multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) systems. We first design “cascaded orthogonal” pilot symbols and adopt the properties of Fourier transform and Hadamard product to deliver a closed-form estimate of frequency offset; meanwhile, another closed-form estimate of channel under minimum mean square error (MSE) criterion is presented. A tight lower bound for the MSE of the channel is also derived. The proposed channel estimator is robust to the residual frequency offset, whereas the frequency offset estimator is nearly independent of the unknown channel vector and is also robust to channel variations. Simulation results show that the proposed method greatly reduces the MSE of the channel in the moderate-to-high value of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), even at a large normalized (by subcarrier spacing) frequency offset |ν| = 0.5. Compared with the optimal pilot design without frequency offset, our solution performs only slightly worse for low values of frequency offset (|ν| ≤ 0.01), but the difference is insignificant. The computational complexity of the proposed scheme is also much lower than that of the conventional iterative means.
The Ras Inhibitor Farnesylthiosalicylic Acid as a Potential Therapy for Neurofibromatosis Type 1

Purpose: Farnesylthiosalicylic acid (FTS) is a Ras inhibitor that dislodges all active Ras isoforms from the membrane. We assessed the ability of FTS to reverse the transformed phenotype of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)–associated tumor cell lines of malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST). Experimental Design:nf1 mutations were genotyped, allelic losses were analyzed, and neurofibromin expression levels were determined in MPNST cell lines ST88-14, S265P21, and 90-8. The effects of FTS on GTP-bound Ras (Ras-GTP) and its prominent downstream targets, as well as on cell morphology, anchorage-dependent and anchorage-independent growth, and tumor growth in mice, were assessed. Results: The MPNST cell lines were biallelic, NF1 inactive, and neurofibromin deficient. We show that FTS treatment shortened the relatively long duration of Ras activation and signaling to extracellular signal-regulated kinase, Akt, and RalA in all NF1-deficient MPNST cell lines (NF1 cells) to that observed in a non-NF1, normally expressing neurofibromin MPNST cell line. These effects of FTS led to lower steady-state levels of Ras-GTP and its activated targets. Both anchorage-dependent and anchorage-independent growth of NF1 cells were dose dependently inhibited by FTS, and the inhibition correlated positively with Ras-GTP levels. NF1 cells were found to possess strong actin stress fibers, and this phenotype was also corrected by FTS. NF1 tumor growth in a nude mouse model was inhibited by oral FTS. Conclusions: FTS treatment of NF1 cells normalized Ras-GTP levels, resulting in reversal of the transformed phenotype and inhibition of tumor growth. FTS may therefore be considered as a potential drug for the treatment of NF1.
Pretreating Luffa Sponge (Luffa cylindrica L.) with Concentrated Phosphoric Acid and Subsequent Enzymatic Saccharification

Luffa was evaluated as a potential energy crop. A considerable amount of luffa sponge biomass can be grown in a vertical direction with approximately 70% polysaccharide content and low lignin content. When concentrated H3PO4 was employed to pretreat luffa sponge, hemicelluloses were the most sensitive component, followed by cellulose and lignin. Hemicellulose solubilization and cellulose loss positively responded to the elevated temperature, time, H3PO4 concentration, and dosage for pretreatment. However, lignin solubilization was not affected greatly. Although the initial hydrolysis rate was accelerated by increasing pretreatment temperature, the final glucose conversion was reduced as temperature was raised higher than 50 °C. Prolonging pretreatment time was positively correlated to enzymatic digestibility. When H3PO4 concentration was lower than 80%, the final glucose conversion was increased with increasing H3PO4 concentration. Increasing H3PO4 concentration to 84% for pretreatment caused the final glucose conversion to decrease slightly, although the hydrolysis rate was initially accelerated. Additionally, an improvement of glucose conversion was obtained with increasing the substrate-to-phosphoric acid ratio. However, the improvement was not cost-effective, as the ratio was lower than 1-to-8.
Performance analysis of a 3-2-1 pose estimation device

This paper deals with the problem of estimating the pose of a moving rigid body by measuring the length of six wires attached to it. Since wires can be seen as extensible legs, this problem is equivalent to that of solving the forward kinematics of a six-degree-of-freedom parallel manipulator. Among all possible locations for the attachments on the moving object, the "3-2-1" configuration is shown to exhibit a large number of favorable properties. The performance analysis of this particular configuration is addressed by finding analytic expressions for the estimated pose covariance matrix and the expected value of the pose estimation error, or bias error, which has been omitted in the previous analysis of wire-based tracking devices. This analysis takes advantage of a formulation for trilateration based on Cayley-Menger determinants, which is mathematically more tractable compared to previous ones, because all terms involved are determinants with geometric meaning. This accommodates a more thorough investigation of the properties of the device.