Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hand Segmentation Using Randomized Decision Forest Based on Depth Images

The segmentation of human hand is still challenged by its complex geometry and similar optical characteristics with other parts of human body. This paper presents an improved strategy for hand segmentation using the randomized decision forest framework based on depth images. In the proposed method, a new depth feature derived from the central point of hand structure, is induced to strengthen the ability of generalization of depth feature as well as reduce the requirement for training dataset, while not sacrifice the accuracy of hand segmentation. The experiments conducted on test dataset and real data showed that the improved method is relatively more efficient to be implemented and holds a good robustness to predict unknown hand pose.
Glucose Self-monitoring in Non–Insulin-Treated Patients With Type 2 Diabetes in Primary Care Settings: A Randomized Trial

Importance The value of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) levels in patients with non–insulin-treated type 2 diabetes has been debated. Objective To compare 3 approaches of SMBG for effects on hemoglobin A1c levels and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) among people with non–insulin-treated type 2 diabetes in primary care practice. Design, Setting, and Participants The Monitor Trial study was a pragmatic, open-label randomized trial conducted in 15 primary care practices in central North Carolina. Participants were randomized between January 2014 and July 2015. Eligible patients with type 2 non–insulin-treated diabetes were: older than 30 years, established with a primary care physician at a participating practice, had glycemic control (hemoglobin A1c) levels higher than 6.5% but lower than 9.5% within the 6 months preceding screening, as obtained from the electronic medical record, and willing to comply with the results of random assignment into a study group. Of the 1032 assessed for eligibility, 450 were randomized. Interventions No SMBG, once-daily SMBG, and once-daily SMBG with enhanced patient feedback including automatic tailored messages delivered via the meter. Main Outcomes and Measures Coprimary outcomes included hemoglobin A1c levels and HRQOL at 52 weeks. Results A total of 450 patients were randomized and 418 (92.9%) completed the final visit. There were no significant differences in hemoglobin A1c levels across all 3 groups (P = .74; estimated adjusted mean hemoglobin A1c difference, SMBG with messaging vs no SMBG, −0.09%; 95% CI, −0.31% to 0.14%; SMBG vs no SMBG, −0.05%; 95% CI, −0.27% to 0.17%). There were also no significant differences found in HRQOL. There were no notable differences in key adverse events including hypoglycemia frequency, health care utilization, or insulin initiation. Conclusions and Relevance In patients with non–insulin-treated type 2 diabetes, we observed no clinically or statistically significant differences at 1 year in glycemic control or HRQOL between patients who performed SMBG compared with those who did not perform SMBG. The addition of this type of tailored feedback provided through messaging via a meter did not provide any advantage in glycemic control. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT02033499
A Quantitative Ethnopharmacological Documentation of Natural Pharmacological Agents Used by Pediatric Patients in Mauritius

The pediatric population constitutes the most vulnerable patients due to a dearth of approved drugs. Consequently, there is a pressing need to probe novel natural pharmacological agents in an endeavour to develop new drugs to address pediatric illnesses. To date, no studies have explored the use of natural therapies for pediatric health care in Mauritius. Parents (n = 325) from different regions of the island were interviewed. Quantitative indexes such as fidelity level (FL), informant consensus factor (F IC), and use-value (UV) were calculated. Thirty-two plants were reported to be used by pediatric patients. Gastrointestinal disorders (F IC = 0.97) encompassing regurgitation, infantile colic, and stomach aches were the most common ailments managed with herbs. Matricaria chamomilla used for infantile colic and its pharmacological properties has previously been documented for pediatric patients. Product from A. mellifera (UV = 0.75) was the most utilized zootherapy for managing cough. Most plants and animal products reported in this study have bioactive constituents supported by existing scientific literature but their use for the pediatric population is scant. The present ethnopharmacological study has opened new perspectives for further research into their pharmacology, which can subsequently support and facilitate timely pediatric medicinal product development.
Dyadic Hostility and the Ties That Bind: State-to-State versus State-to-System Security and Economic Relationships

An important question in the conflict processes literature concerns what types of international relationships are more likely to lead to peaceful interactions. Both security and economic ties have been posited as powerful determinants of conflict, yet their effects are often examined independently from one another. Furthermore, a debate exists as to whether it is states’ ties to the international order or to each other that are most important in determining conflict. A resolution of the competing perspectives would expect that two states that have a tight network of security and economic relationships, both to each other and to the international order, should be extremely unlikely to engage in hostile action against each other. Surprisingly, a series of multinomial logits using non-directed dyads from 1951 to 1985 suggests that dyads with tight economic and security ties at both the state-to-state and statetosystem levels are only slightly less likely to engage in dyadic disputes than those without such simultaneous ties. However, this study finds that both (1) tight security and economic ties to the international order and (2) tight intra-dyadic security and economic ties have important, independent effects in limiting dyadic hostility. This suggests that the states within a dyad have two separate paths to more peaceful interactions - the first lies in tightening ties between states, the second in strengthening dyadic security and economic ties to the international order.
Total estradiol, rather than testosterone levels, predicts osteoporosis in aging men.

OBJECTIVE To study and establish sex hormone cutoff levels for osteoporosis risk in men over 50 years old. METHODS Case-control study of 216 men > 50 years, 110 with osteoporosis (O) and 106 with normal bone density (C). We measured estradiol (E2), sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), total testosterone (TT) and albumin. Free testosterone (FT) and bioavailable testosterone (BT) were calculated through Vermeulen's formula. RESULTS There was no difference in TT between groups. Relative risks of osteoporosis were 1.89 for E2 < 37 pg/mL (p = 0.02); 1.91 for SHBG > 55 nmol/L (p = 0.019); 2.5 for FT < 7 ng/dL (p = 0.015); 2.7 for BT < 180 ng/dL (p = 0.0003). CONCLUSIONS In men over 50 years old, TT was not indicative of osteoporosis risk while E2 < 37 ng/mL was. SHBG > 55 nmol/L, FT < 7 ng/dL and BT < 180 ng/dL can represent additional indications for osteoporosis screening in men over 50 years old.
The Role of Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1α, Glucose Transporter-1, (GLUT-1) and Carbon Anhydrase IX in Endometrial Cancer Patients

Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α), glucose transporter-1 (GLUT-1), and carbon anhydrase IX (CAIX) are important molecules that allow adaptation to hypoxic environments. The aim of our study was to investigate the correlation between HIF-1α, GLUT-1, and CAIX protein level with the clinicopathological features of endometrial cancer patients. Materials and Methods. 92 endometrial cancer patients, aged 37–84, were enrolled to our study. In all patients clinical stage, histologic grade, myometrial invasion, lymph node, and distant metastases were determined. Moreover, the survival time was assessed. Immunohistochemical analyses were performed on archive formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue sections. Results. High significant differences (P = 0.0115) were reported between HIF-1α expression and the histologic subtype of cancer. Higher HIF-1α expression was associated with the higher risk of recurrence (P = 0.0434). The results of GLUT-1 and CAIX expression did not reveal any significant differences between the proteins expression in the primary tumor and the clinicopathological features. Conclusion. The important role of HIF-1α in the group of patients with the high risk of recurrence and the negative histologic subtype of the tumor suggest that the expression of this factor might be useful in the panel of accessory pathomorphological tests and could be helpful in establishing more accurate prognosis in endometrial cancer patients.
Towards robust and efficient computation in dynamic peer-to-peer networks

Motivated by the need for robust and fast distributed computation in highly dynamic Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks, we study algorithms for the fundamental distributed agreement problem. P2P networks are highly dynamic networks that experience heavy node churn (i.e., nodes join and leave the network continuously over time). Our goal is to design fast algorithms (running in a small number of rounds) that guarantee, despite high node churn rate, that almost all nodes reach a stable agreement. Our main contributions are randomized distributed algorithms that guarantee stable almost-everywhere agreement with high probability even under high adversarial churn in a polylogarithmic number of rounds. In particular, we present the following results: 1. An O(log2 n)-round (n is the stable network size) randomized algorithm that achieves almost-everywhere agreement with high probability under up to linear churn per round (i.e., en, for some small constant e > 0), assuming that the churn is controlled by an oblivious adversary (that has complete knowledge and control of what nodes join and leave and at what time and has unlimited computational power, but is oblivious to the random choices made by the algorithm). 2. An O(log m log3 n)-round randomized algorithm that achieves almost-everywhere agreement with high probability under up to e√n churn per round (for some small e > 0), where m is the size of the input value domain, that works even under an adaptive adversary (that also knows the past random choices made by the algorithm). Our algorithms are the first-known, fully-distributed, agreement algorithms that work under highly dynamic settings (i.e., high churn rates per step). Furthermore, they are localized (i.e., do not require any global topological knowledge), simple, and easy to implement. These algorithms can serve as building blocks for implementing other non-trivial distributed computing tasks in dynamic P2P networks.
Zinc improves learning and memory abilities of fetal growth restriction rats and promotes trophoblast cell invasion and migration via enhancing STAT3-MMP-2/9 axis activity

Fetal growth restriction (FGR) is a well-known risk factor for cognitive dysfunction, especially for learning and memory abilities. However, knowledge about prevention and treatment methods of learning and memory abilities of fetal are limit. Here, Morris water maze and passive avoidance tests showed zinc supplementation could protect the impairment of the learning and memory abilities caused by FGR. As accumulating evidence suggested that insufficiency of placental trophoblast cell invasion was closely related to FGR fetal neurodevelopmental dysplasia, we further explored the relationship between zinc supplementation during pregnancy and placental trophoblast. Microarray identified 346 differently expressed genes in placental tissues with and without zinc supplementation, and GO and KEGG analyses showed these differently expressed genes were highly enriched in cell invasion and migration and STAT3 pathway. Protein-protein interaction(PPI) analysis found that STAT3 interacted with matrix metalloproteinase-2/9 (MMP-2/9). In vivo, western blot results authenticated that the expression levels of phospho-STAT3, STAT3, MMP-2 and MMP-9 were up-regulated in placental tissues after zinc treatment. To validate whether zinc could promotes trophoblast cell invasion and migration via enhancing STAT3-MMP-2/9 activity. In vitro, Transwell assay was performed, and we observed that abilities of invasion and migration were obviously increased in zinc treated trophoblast cells. And phospho-STAT3, STAT3, MMP-2 and MMP-9 expression levels were correspondingly increased in zinc treated trophoblast cells, which were dose-dependent. Moreover, gain–of-function and loss-of-function of STAT3 confirmed that zinc promotes cell invasion and migration via regulating STAT3 mediated up-regulation of MMP-2/9 activity. We propose that activation of MMP-2/9 mediated by STAT3 may contribute to invasion and migration of trophoblast cells, which improved neurodevelopmental impairment of FGR rats probably via contributing to placental development. Our findings are the first to show a possible mechanism of reversing neurodevelopmental impairment of FGR rats by zinc supplementation, holding promise for the development of novel therapeutic modalities for learning and memory abilities impairment caused by FGR.
Influence of the Particle Size on the Rheology of Magnetorheological Elastomer

In this paper, the correlation between the particle size and rheological properties of MRE was discussed through both experimental results and theoretical analysis. It shows that the particle size can significantly influence the magnetorheological effect by changing the initial shear modulus and the saturated magnetic-induced shear modulus . With an increase in the particle size, the initial shear modulus gets lower, and the saturated magnetic-induced shear modulus increases to the maximum and then decreases. The larger the particle size is, the longer the distance between neighbor particles along the magnetic field is. Based on the relationship between the particle size and shear modulus, there exists an optimum size for added particles. Moreover, the performance of MRE can be improved by optimizing the particle size based on those rules.
Macroscopic No-Slip Boundary Condition Confirmed in Full Atomistic Simulation of Oil Film

The no-slip boundary condition widely used in the macroscopic fluid mechanics has not been explained from the molecular level. This letter describes all atom molecular dynamics simulation to study boundary slip of hydrocarbon oil film under shear of a submicron thickness confined between solid walls. The large time-space scale simulation under the realistic interactions of fluid atoms, solid-fluid interaction and sliding speed has shown the no-slip of the oil film. The difference between the nanoscale film and the submicron thick film is explained from the viewpoint of the anisotropic viscosity rise in the vicinity of the solid wall and the correlation length of the momentum up to several tenths of nanometers. The results of the present simulation coincide with the experiments of fluid flow through nanometer-scale channels.
Multi-modal analysis for person type classification in news video

Classifying the identities of people appearing in broadcast news video into anchor, reporter, or news subject is an im-portant topic in high-level video analysis. Given the visual resemblance of different types of people, this work explores multi-modal features derived from a variety of evidences, such as the speech identity, transcript clues, temporal video structure, named entities, and uses a statistical learning approach to combine all the features for person type classifica-tion. Experiments conducted on ABC World News Tonight video have demonstrated the effectiveness of the approach, and the contributions of different categories of features have been compared.
Biophysical studies of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus

The molecular weight of infectious pancreatic necrosis virus (IPNV) has been determined by analytical ultracentrifugation and dynamic light scattering. The sedimentation coefficient of the virus was found to be 435S. The average value for molecular weight is (55 +/- 7) x 106. The virus genome consists of two segments of double-stranded RNA (molecular weights, 2.5 x 106 and 2.3 x 106), which represents 8.7% of the virion mass. The capsid protein moiety of IPNV consists of four species of polypeptides, as determined by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The number of molecules of each polypeptide in the virion has been determined. There are 22 molecules of the internal polypeptide alpha (molecular weight, 90,000), 544 molecules of the outer capsid polypeptide beta (molecular weight, 57,000), and 550 and 122 molecules, respectively, of the internal polypeptides gamma1 (molecular weight, 29,000) and gamma2 (molecular weight, 27,000). IPNV top component contains only the beta polypeptide species, and its molecular weight is estimated to be 31 x 106. The hydrodynamic diameter and electron microscopic diameter (calculated by catalase crystal-calibrated electron microscopy) of IPNV was compared with those of reovirus and encephalomyocarditis virus. Due to the swelling of the outer capsid, reovirus particles were found to be much larger when hydrated (96-nm diameter) than when dehydrated (76-nm diameter), having a large water content content and low average density. In contrast, IPNV particles are more rigid, having nearly the same average diameter under hydrous (64 nm) as under anhydrous conditions (59.3 nm). Encephalomyocarditis virus has a very low water content and does not shrink at all when prepared for electron microscopy.
Technology mapping for minimizing gate and routing area

This paper presents a technology mapping approach for the standard cell technology, which takes into account both gate area and routing area so as to minimize the total chip area after layout. The routing area is estimated using two parameters available at the mapping stage; one is the fanout count of a gate, and the other is the "overlap of fanin level intervals". To estimate the routing area in terms of accurate fanout counts, an algorithm is proposed which solves the problem of dynamic fanout changes in the mapping process. This also enables us to calculate the gate area more accurately. Experimental results show that this approach provides an average reduction of 15% in the final chip area after placement and routing.
ERP measures of semantic richness: the case of multiple senses

Semantic richness refers to the amount of semantic information that a lexical item possesses. An important measure of semantic richness is the number of related senses that a word has (e.g., TABLE meaning a piece of furniture, a table of contents, to lay aside for future discussion, etc.). We measured electrophysiological response to lexical items with many and few related senses in monolingual English-speaking young adults. Participants performed lexical decision on each item. Overall, high-sense words elicited shorter response latencies and smaller N400 amplitudes than low-sense words. These results constitute further evidence of the importance of semantic richness in lexical processing, and provide evidence that processing of multiple related senses begins as early as 200 milliseconds after stimulus onset.
Adult Mammalian Forebrain Ependymal and Subependymal Cells Demonstrate Proliferative Potential, but only Subependymal Cells Have Neural Stem Cell Characteristics

The adult derivatives of the embryonic forebrain germinal zones consist of two morphologically distinct cell layers surrounding the lateral ventricles: the ependyma and the subependyma. Cell cycle analyses have revealed that at least two proliferating populations exist in this region, one that is constitutively proliferating and one that is relatively quiescent and thought to include the endogenous adult neural stem cells. Earlier studies demonstrated that specific dissection of the region surrounding the lateral ventricles was necessary for the in vitro isolation of multipotent, self-renewing neural stem cells. However, in these studies, the ependymal layer was not physically separated from the subependymal layer to identify the specific adult laminar localization of the neural stem cells around the lateral ventricles. To determine which cellular compartment in the adult forebrain contained the neural stem cells, we isolated and cultured the ependyma separately from the subependyma and tested for the presence of neural stem cells using the in vitro neurosphere assay. We demonstrate that the ependymal cells can proliferate in vitro to form sphere-like structures. However, the ependymal cells generating spheres do not have the ability to self-renew (proliferate to form secondary spheres after dissociation) nor to produce neurons, but rather only seem to generate glial fibrillary acidic protein-positive ependymal cells when plated under differentiation conditions in culture. On the other hand, a subpopulation of subependymal cells do possess the self-renewing and multipotential characteristics of neural stem cells. Therefore, the adult forebrain neural stem cell resides within the subependymal compartment.
Investigation of albinism genes in congenital esotropia.

PURPOSE Esotropia is a feature of albinism. Amongst esotropic patients there may be mild unrecognised albinos. Oculocutaneous albinism shares several clinical features with congenital esotropia. It is well known that mammals with oculocutaneous albinism have misrouted retinal ganglion cell axons, most likely caused by the absence of melanin or DOPA during development. We investigated the hypothesis that mutations in the albinism genes Tyrosinase, the P Gene, and TYRP1 may also be responsible for congenital esotropia via a similar mechanism. METHODS We screened these three genes in 21 families with congenital esotropia using single stranded conformational polymorphism analysis. RESULTS No rare sequence variants segregating with esoptopia were detected. A novel silent mutation of the TYRP1 gene was identified in one pedigree but is not likely to be causative. Several previously reported common polymorphisms were detected but do not segregate with disease in this population. CONCLUSIONS Rare mutations of these genes do not appear to be responsible for congenital esotropia. Although we found no evidence for segregation of common variants with disease, these require further investigation for a possible contribution to a complex threshold model. Several lines of evidence indicate a genetic componenet of congenital esotropia, however, this is the first investigation of candidate genes for this disorder.
Measuring Method Complexity of the Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN)

In 2014, the Object Management Group (OMG) published the Case Management Modeling and Notation (CMMN) version 1.0 specification, which is a new process modeling specification to complement its Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) specification. The declarative nature of CMMN is intended to supplement the procedural perspective of BPMN. CMMN takes a data-centric view to process modeling based on business artifacts to provide flexibility for knowledge workers, while retaining the advantages of business process management (BPM) systems. As far as the researchers are aware, this research is among the first contributions to the understanding of CMMN's method complexity in the context of other process modeling notations. We used the meta-model-based method complexity approach introduced by Rossi and Brinkkemper to evaluate the method complexity of CMMN. The results were compared with other popular process methods, including BPMN, Unified Modeling Language (UML) Activity diagrams, and Event-driven Process Charts (EPC), all of which have undergone similar evaluations by other researchers. The initial results indicated that CMMN 1.0 compares favorably with BPMN 1.2.