Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual fidelity and perceived quality: toward comprehensive metrics

Traditional visual quality metrics measure fidelity instead of quality, even though fidelity, i.e. the accuracy of the reproduction of the original on the display, is just one of the many factors determining the overall perceived quality. In this paper, the addition of image appeal attributes is investigated in order to bridge this gap. Sharpness and colorfulness are identified among these attributes and are quantified by means of an isotropic local contrast measure and the distribution of chroma, respectively. The benefits of using these attributes are demonstrated with the help of data from subjective experiments.
Proxy Measures of Fitness Suggest Coastal Fish Farms Can Act as Population Sources and Not Ecological Traps for Wild Gadoid Fish

Background Ecological traps form when artificial structures are added to natural habitats and induce mismatches between habitat preferences and fitness consequences. Their existence in terrestrial systems has been documented, yet little evidence suggests they occur in marine environments. Coastal fish farms are widespread artificial structures in coastal ecosystems and are highly attractive to wild fish. Methodology/Principal Findings To investigate if coastal salmon farms act as ecological traps for wild Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and saithe (Pollachius virens), we compared proxy measures of fitness between farm-associated fish and control fish caught distant from farms in nine locations throughout coastal Norway, the largest coastal fish farming industry in the world. Farms modified wild fish diets in both quality and quantity, thereby providing farm-associated wild fish with a strong trophic subsidy. This translated to greater somatic (saithe: 1.06–1.12 times; cod: 1.06–1.11 times) and liver condition indices (saithe: 1.4–1.8 times; cod: 2.0–2.8 times) than control fish caught distant from farms. Parasite loads of farm-associated wild fish were modified from control fish, with increased external and decreased internal parasites, however the strong effect of the trophic subsidy overrode any effects of altered loads upon condition. Conclusions and Significance Proxy measures of fitness provided no evidence that salmon farms function as ecological traps for wild fish. We suggest fish farms may act as population sources for wild fish, provided they are protected from fishing while resident at farms to allow their increased condition to manifest as greater reproductive output.
Evaluation of an Immunocapture-Agglutination Test (Brucellacapt) for Serodiagnosis of Human Brucellosis

ABSTRACT We evaluated the validity and the usefulness of a new test for the diagnosis of human brucellosis based on an immunocapture-agglutination technique. A total of 315 sera from 82 patients with a diagnosis of brucellosis, 157 sera from patients in whom brucellosis was suspected but not confirmed, and 412 sera from people living in rural areas with endemic brucellosis were studied. The seroagglutination test (SAT), Coombs anti-Brucella test, and Brucellacapt test were evaluated. All the initial sera from the 82 patients proved to be positive in Brucellacapt and Coombs tests, while only 75 (91.4%) were positive in the SAT. If a ≥1/160 diagnostic threshold titer was defined for the Brucellacapt test, Coombs test, and SAT, the sensitivities were 95.1, 91.5, and 65.8%, respectively. Taking the same diagnostic threshold titer for the 157 sera from the unconfirmed but suspected patients, the specificities of the Brucellacapt, Coombs, and SAT were 81.5, 96.2, and 100%, respectively; for the 412 control sera, the specificities were 99.0, 99.8, and 100%. The diagnostic efficiency (area below the receiver operating characteristic curve) of Brucellacapt was 0.987852 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.95109 to 0.99286), very similar to the diagnostic efficiency of the Coombs test (0.97611; 95% CI, 0.94781 to 0.99146) and higher than that of SAT (0.91013; 95% CI, 0.86649 to 0.94317). The results of the Brucellacapt test were compared with those of the Coombs test (correlation coefficient, 0.956; P= 0.000) and SAT (correlation coefficient, 0.866; P = 0.000). The study shows very good correlation between the Brucellacapt and Coombs tests, with a high concordance between titers obtained in the two tests. Nevertheless, lower correlation and concordance were found between the Brucellacapt and Coombs tests when the results for titers of ≥1/160 were compared (0.692; P = 0.000). In acute brucellosis, the Brucellacapt and Coombs tests render positive titers of ≥1/160. When the titers are lower, they increase significantly in the following 30 days, despite the evolution of SAT titers. In contrast, Brucellacapt and Coombs titers are always high (≥1/640) in brucellosis with long evolution, whether SAT titers are higher or lower than 1/160.
Influence of Thermal and Mechanical Processing on Room Temperature Mechanical Properties of Nickel Free High Nitrogen Austenitic Stainless Steels

Nickel free high nitrogen austenitic stainless steels with a base composition around 18%Cr–18%Mn and varying in C and N contents and processing conditions were evaluated for their mechanical behaviour. A range of mechanical properties from high strengths to ultra high strength levels could be obtained. The steels develop ultra high strength levels in the as-hot worked condition, hot work1cold work condition and solution treated1cold worked conditions. They show high strength levels with very good ductility and impact toughness levels in the solution annealed condition. The Hall–Petch parameters and DBTT obtained in the solution annealed condition were found to be influenced by the carbon content of the steel. The work hardening behaviour of the steels have been examined at various processing conditions. Nitrogen steels with high carbon content show good mechanical properties in the solution treated and subsequently cold rolled conditions. In the as-formed condition, the high carbon steels show inferior ductility due to grain boundary lamellar nitride precipitation.
Annealing and Precipitation Behavior During Batch Annealing of HSLA Steels

To gain a fundamental understanding of the factors responsible for the kinetics of annealing behavior during batch annealing for high strength low alloy (HSLA) steels, studies have been conducted to analyze the influence of alloy composition, hot band state, cold rolling reduction (CR%), heating rate, soaking temperature and time, etc. on the annealing behavior of HSLA steels during batch annealing process. The recrystallization kinetics was mainly controlled by several key parameters such as stored energy, precipitation and/or solute drag, special grain boundaries, and texture, etc. The combination of Electron Back-Scattered Diffraction (EBSD) technique and the Sub-grain Method was used to construct and analyze stored energy distribution maps before and during the batch annealing process of cold rolled HSLA steels. Precipitation behavior was studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), and High Resolution TEM (TEM). Grain boundary characteristic and texture fibers were also analyzed using EBSD scanning data. The results show that different composition and processing parameters would cause different hot band microstructure and different amounts of dislocation density, i.e., stored energy, remained in the alloys after hot rolling deformation. Higher dislocation density in the hot band steel will cause even higher dislocation density in the sheet steel after cold rolling deformation, which will cause higher recrystallization speed at early stages. If precipitates were formed during annealing, their formation would consume part of the stored energy and decreased some driving force. The new formed fine TiC precipitates would also apply certain pinning force on the grain boundaries, which dragged the moving of those boundaries, i.e., lowered the recrystallization speed further. Certain special grain boundaries like Coincident Site Lattice (CSL) boundaries have very low boundary energy and mobility. The higher volume fraction of this kind of boundaries would also slow down the recrystallization process. Texture could not be a critical factor causing the different annealing behavior in this study, since the texture fibers distributions are very similar. Two or more factors might affect the annealing process at the same time. Some factors could be more efficient than others at certain stage or stages.
Systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized trials of central nervous system directed therapy for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Treatment of the central nervous system (CNS) is an essential therapy component for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Individual patient data from 47 trials addressing 16 CNS treatment comparisons were analyzed. Event‐free survival (EFS) was similar for radiotherapy versus intrathecal (IT), and radiotherapy plus IT versus IV methotrexate (IV MTX) plus IT. Triple intrathecal therapy (TIT) gave similar EFS but poorer survival than intrathecal methotrexate (IT MTX), but additional IV MTX improved both outcomes. One trial resulted in similar EFS and survival with IV MTX plus IT MTX versus TIT alone. Radiotherapy can generally be replaced by IT therapy. TIT should be used with effective systemic therapy such as IV MTX. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2013;60:185–195. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Hybrid watermilfoil lineages are more invasive and less sensitive to a commonly used herbicide than their exotic parent (Eurasian watermilfoil)

Hybridization may stimulate the evolution of invasiveness in human‐impacted habitats if unique hybrid genotypes have higher fitness than parental genotypes. Human efforts to control invasive taxa frequently involve the intentional alteration of habitats, but few studies have considered whether hybridization can result in decreased sensitivity to control measures. Here, we investigate whether interspecific hybrids between introduced Eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) and native northern watermilfoil (M. sibiricum) are more invasive than parental Eurasian watermilfoil, especially in regard to their relative responses to an herbicide commonly applied for their control (2,4‐dichlorophenoxyacetic acid; 2,4‐D). In two separate laboratory experiments, hybrids on average grew faster and were less sensitive to 2,4‐D compared with parental Eurasian watermilfoil. These two invasive traits appear to be common in hybrid watermilfoils, as opposed to being restricted to a few unique lineages, because they were found in a diversity of hybrid genotypes from several independent hybridization events. In addition, we found that hybrids occurred more frequently than parental species in natural lakes previously treated with 2,4‐D. Our results provide compelling empirical evidence that hybridization is associated with the evolution of increased invasiveness in watermilfoils, and have important implications for their management.
Identifying climate drivers of infectious disease dynamics: recent advances and challenges ahead

Climate change is likely to profoundly modulate the burden of infectious diseases. However, attributing health impacts to a changing climate requires being able to associate changes in infectious disease incidence with the potentially complex influences of climate. This aim is further complicated by nonlinear feedbacks inherent in the dynamics of many infections, driven by the processes of immunity and transmission. Here, we detail the mechanisms by which climate drivers can shape infectious disease incidence, from direct effects on vector life history to indirect effects on human susceptibility, and detail the scope of variation available with which to probe these mechanisms. We review approaches used to evaluate and quantify associations between climate and infectious disease incidence, discuss the array of data available to tackle this question, and detail remaining challenges in understanding the implications of climate change for infectious disease incidence. We point to areas where synthesis between approaches used in climate science and infectious disease biology provide potential for progress.
Leveraging Lexical Resources for Learning Entity Embeddings in Multi-Relational Data

Recent work in learning vector-space embeddings for multi-relational data has focused on combining relational information derived from knowledge bases with distributional information derived from large text corpora. We propose a simple approach that leverages the descriptions of entities or phrases available in lexical resources, in conjunction with distributional semantics, in order to derive a better initialization for training relational models. Applying this initialization to the TransE model results in significant new state-of-the-art performances on the WordNet dataset, decreasing the mean rank from the previous best of 212 to 51. It also results in faster convergence of the entity representations. We find that there is a trade-off between improving the mean rank and the hits@10 with this approach. This illustrates that much remains to be understood regarding performance improvements in relational models.
Discrete, tunable color-entanglement

Color, or frequency, is one of the most familiar degrees of freedom (DOFs) of light and has been routinely analyzed in spectroscopy for centuries. However, it has been used relatively little for quantum technologies. Entangled qubits are a key ingredient in many such technologies. For other optical degrees of freedom discretely entangled states have been extensively investigated, e.g. [1–5]. In contrast, discrete frequency entanglement has not yet been unambiguously demonstrated, despite potentially interesting applications such as enhanced clock synchronization beyond the classical limit [6,7] and improved quantum communication in noisy channels [8]. Moreover, quantum information encoded in discrete, tunable frequency bins of photons would be an ideal mediator between stationary qubits with different energy levels. For many of those applications it is essential, that the color-entangled stated can be directly created - in contrast to spectrally post-selecting them from broadband continuous spectral entanglement [9,10]. So far, no experiment was able to achieve this.
If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping

The concept of an individual swapping his or her body with that of another person has captured the imagination of writers and artists for decades. Although this topic has not been the subject of investigation in science, it exemplifies the fundamental question of why we have an ongoing experience of being located inside our bodies. Here we report a perceptual illusion of body-swapping that addresses directly this issue. Manipulation of the visual perspective, in combination with the receipt of correlated multisensory information from the body was sufficient to trigger the illusion that another person's body or an artificial body was one's own. This effect was so strong that people could experience being in another person's body when facing their own body and shaking hands with it. Our results are of fundamental importance because they identify the perceptual processes that produce the feeling of ownership of one's body.
Voxel-based morphometry patterns of atrophy in FTLD with mutations in MAPT or PGRN

Objective: To compare patterns of gray matter loss in subjects with mutations in the progranulin (PGRN) gene to subjects with mutations in the microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) gene. Methods: We identified all subjects seen at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, who had screened positive for mutations in PGRN or MAPT and had a head MRI. Twelve cases with mutations in the PGRN gene were matched by time from disease onset to scan to 12 subjects with mutations in the MAPT gene. Voxel-based morphometry was used to assess patterns of gray matter loss in the PGRN and MAPT groups compared to a control cohort, and compared to each other. MAPT subjects were younger than the PGRN subjects; therefore, each group was also compared to a specific age-matched control group. Results: Both PGRN and MAPT groups showed gray matter loss in frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes compared to controls, although loss was predominantly identified in posterior temporal and parietal lobes in PGRN and anteromedial temporal lobes in MAPT. The MAPT group had greater loss compared to healthy subjects of the same age than the PGRN subjects when compared to healthy subjects of the same age. The MAPT subjects showed greater gray matter loss in the medial temporal lobes, insula, and putamen than the PGRN subjects. Conclusion: These results increase understanding of the biology of these disorders and suggest that patterns of atrophy on MRI may be useful to aid in the differentiation of groups of PGRN and MAPT mutation carriers.
Excitotoxic Calcium Overload in a Subpopulation of Mitochondria Triggers Delayed Death in Hippocampal Neurons

In neurons, excitotoxic stimulation induces mitochondrial calcium overload and the release of pro-apoptotic proteins, which triggers delayed cell death. The precise mechanisms of apoptogen release, however, remain controversial. To characterize the linkage between mitochondrial calcium load and cell vulnerability, and to test the hypothesis that only a subpopulation of mitochondria damaged by calcium overload releases apoptogens, we have measured directly the concentrations of total Ca (free plus bound) in individual mitochondria and monitored in parallel structural changes and the subcellular localization of pro-apoptotic cytochrome c after NMDA overstimulation in cultured hippocampal neurons. Beyond transient elevation of cytosolic calcium and perturbation of Na+/K+ homeostasis, NMDA stimulation induced dramatic, but mainly reversible, changes in mitochondria, including strong calcium elevation, membrane potential depolarization, and variable swelling. Elevation of matrix Ca in the approximately one-third of mitochondria that were strongly swollen, as well as the absence of swelling when Ca2+ entry was abolished, indicate an essential role for Ca overload. Shortly after NMDA exposure, cytochrome c, normally localized to mitochondria, became diffusely distributed in the cytoplasm, coincident with the appearance of severely swollen mitochondria with ruptured outer membranes; under these conditions, cytochrome c was retained in intact mitochondria, implying that it was released mainly from damaged mitochondria. Consistent with the role of mitochondrial Ca overload, carbonyl cyanide p-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone decreased Ca accumulation, prevented cytochrome c release, and was neuroprotective. These results support a mechanism in which delayed excitotoxic death involves apoptogen release from a subpopulation of calcium-overloaded mitochondria, whereas other, undamaged mitochondria maintain normal function.
A Common Mechanism for Perceptual Reversals in Motion-Induced Blindness, the Troxler Effect, and Perceptual Filling-In

Several striking visual phenomena involve a physically present stimulus that alternates between being perceived and being “invisible. ” For example, motion-induced blindness, the Troxler effect, and perceptual filling-in all consist of subjective alternations where an item repeatedly changes from being seen to unseen. In the present study, we explored whether these three specific visual phenomena share any commonalities in their alternation rates and patterns to better understand the mechanisms of each. Data from 69 individuals revealed moderate to strong correlations across the three phenomena for the number of perceptual disappearances and the accumulated duration of the disappearances. Importantly, these effects were not correlated with eye movement patterns (saccades) assessed through eye tracking, differences in motion sensitivity as indexed by dot coherence and speed perception thresholds, or simple reaction time abilities. Principal component analyses revealed a single component that explained 67% of the variance for the number of perceptual reversals and 60% for the accumulated duration of the disappearances. The temporal dynamics of illusory disappearances was also compared for each phenomenon, and normalized durations of disappearances were well fit by a gamma distribution with similar shape parameters for each phenomenon, suggesting that they may be driven by a single oscillatory mechanism.
The Role of the Anterolateral Structures and the ACL in Controlling Laxity of the Intact and ACL-Deficient Knee

Background: Anterolateral rotatory instability (ALRI) may result from combined anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and lateral extra-articular lesions, but the roles of the anterolateral structures remain controversial. Purpose: To determine the contribution of each anterolateral structure and the ACL in restraining simulated clinical laxity in both the intact and ACL-deficient knee. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: A total of 16 knees were tested using a 6 degrees of freedom robot with a universal force-moment sensor. The system automatically defined the path of unloaded flexion/extension. At different flexion angles, anterior-posterior, internal-external, and internal rotational laxity in response to a simulated pivot shift were tested. Eight ACL-intact and 8 ACL-deficient knees were tested. The kinematics of the intact/deficient knee was replayed after transecting/resecting each structure of interest; therefore, the decrease in force/torque reflected the contribution of the transected/resected structure in restraining laxity. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures analyses of variance and paired t tests. Results: For anterior translation, the intact ACL was clearly the primary restraint. The iliotibial tract (ITT) resisted 31% ± 6% of the drawer force with the ACL cut at 30° of flexion; the anterolateral ligament (ALL) and anterolateral capsule resisted 4%. For internal rotation, the superficial layer of the ITT significantly restrained internal rotation at higher flexion angles: 56% ± 20% and 56% ± 16% at 90° for the ACL-intact and ACL-deficient groups, respectively. The deep layer of the ITT restrained internal rotation at lower flexion angles, with 26% ± 9% and 33% ± 12% at 30° for the ACL-intact and ACL-deficient groups, respectively. The other anterolateral structures provided no significant contribution. During the pivot-shift test, the ITT provided 72% ± 14% of the restraint at 45° for the ACL-deficient group. The ACL and other anterolateral structures made only a small contribution in restraining the pivot shift. Conclusion: The ALL and anterolateral capsule had a minor role in restraining internal rotation; the ITT was the primary restraint at 30° to 90° of flexion. Clinical Relevance: The ITT showed large contributions in restraining anterior subluxation of the lateral tibial plateau and tibial internal rotation, which constitute pathological laxity in ALRI. In cases with ALRI, an ITT injury should be suspected and kept in mind if an extra-articular procedure is performed.
Performance study of non-binary belief propagation for decoding Reed-Solomon codes

In this paper we investigate the frame-error correcting performance of two newly developed, non-binary belief propagation based, soft-in/soft-out decoding algorithms when decoding Reed-Solomon codes. We present results for the AWGN channel indicating that non-binary belief propagation can come close to the performance of the binary adaptive Belief-Propagation algorithm or even slightly better when decoding short Reed-Solomon codes.